Ben Roethlisberger's expected return highlights Week 8 Fantasy Power Rankings

Let’s put a fantasy spin on the this week’s action by ranking the games in expected order of point-producing relevance using the over/under totals from Las Vegas, specifically as listed at VegasInsider.com.

Note: Dollar values in parentheses denote a player's current week price in the Yahoo Daily Fantasy game. It is displayed for point of reference.

[Yahoo Daily Fantasy Football: First place wins $100K in our $600K contest for Week 8]

The Fab Four

1. Chargers at Ravens, Sunday, 1:00 p.m., O/U 50.5: Ladarius Green ($14) is a solid play with Antonio Gates out indefinitely. Justin Forsett ($31) gets a bottom-shelf run defense, the worst in the Massey-Peabody rankings, but Forsett has stepped back into journeyman land, averaging 90 total yards per game and scoring just twice. Give him about a 10 percent bump as the quants advise when the defensive opponent ranks so poorly, but that’s not going to get you very far. Melvin Gordon ($17) is a lesson for me with rookie runners in today’s game. The ones drafted very high were once safely slotted as RB1s. But the transition to the NFL seems slower now. That’s thinking outside. Thinking inside, just looking at Gordon, I’ll assume that his ability to break big runs makes him a break-out candidate in the short-term but the odds will be much higher with what will likely be another coaching staff and offseason reset in 2016.

2. Giants at Saints, Sunday, 1:00 p.m. O/U 49: Brandin Cooks ($20) is bettable this week and Willie Snead ($18) should not be discarded off the bad game, which is something we have to live with at the position. But when it happens to an “out-of-no-where” wideout, we bench him or cut him rather than just live with it. Snead’s point probability this week is no different than it was last week. I like Orleans Darkwa ($14) for the Giants but have no idea if he’ll be used after he was pretty much shuttered after dominating on his one drive last week. That’s just an unknown we’ll have to live with. But he’s clearly looking like the best Giants runner. 

3. Bengals at Steelers, Sunday, 1:00 p.m., O/U 48.5: Play Ben Roethlisberger ($42) with confidence. Restore Antonio Brown ($31) to his former, fantasy game-changer status. I have no idea what to make of Martavis Bryant ($28), who is the Darth Vader ($55) of fantasy football: We barely see him but what we see is unforgettable. (Note that Darth Vader is in Star Wars for just 12 minutes.) The Steelers give up a ton of yards but not nearly as many points-per-yards as is expected. Generally, this is a luck indicator. Expect big days from all Bengals.

4. Buccaneers at Falcons, Sunday, 1:00 p.m., O/U 48.5: Devonta Freeman ($40) is a Black Swan, an event so improbable that it’s impossible to predict. I get on his owners maybe too much for being lucky since drafting Freeman in the middle rounds was a admittedly a Black Swan pick, meaning say a 10 percent chance of hitting. But if it hits, it hits big. Black Swan drafting is a way to play, a type of player-picking strategy that here was rewarded. Value drafters were not going to pick Freeman. Mike Evans ($24) is one of the handful of best receivers to own going forward. His market share now is about 33 percent of passes (last four games). The average team throws 525 passes a year so that’s a 175-target pace. Evans will do a lot of big things with that many looks. 

[Week 8 rankings: Quarterback | Running Back | Receiver | Flex | Tight End | All Positions]

Other Games

5. Colts at Panthers, Monday, 8:30 p.m. O/U 46.5: The Panthers are not the opponent Andrew Luck ($41) needs right now. Look, I thought Luck would be third best QB. But this is the trouble with rankings. I look wrong now too. But I, like all late-round-QB guys, put a lower probability on elite QB performance and a higher probability on middle-round QBs performing at an elite level. That, not where he happened to be ranked by me, is why I would never draft Luck or any quarterback in the first 50 picks. 

6. Cardinals at Browns, Sunday, 1:00 p.m., O/U 46: Gary Barnidge ($22) is a Black Swan, too. No one possibly could have seen this coming. But some of us believed it more quickly, knowing intuitively what Harvard’s fine research confirmed that tight end performance stabilizes quickly. This is another good matchup for Chris Johnson ($27), who is standing in the way of two superior runners but Bruce Arians does not care.

7. Packers at Broncos, Sunday, 8:30 p.m., O/U 45.5: If Peyton Manning ($34) is available in your league, as is reasonable, this is a really short window to seeing if he has anything left. This year, prior to the Chiefs game, I thought there was a 33 percent chance he was done and the market was way higher, nearly certain. After that game, I thought it was 25 percent. But I’ve been adjusting this forecast since and the mounting evidence has me at about 67 percent that Manning is not even worthy of starting going forward. But off the bye, maybe he is a little healthier and maybe he and the Broncos have made some adjustments.

8. Lions at Chiefs, Sunday, 9:30 a.m., O/U 45: I can’t see the coordinator changes amounting to much. Only Calvin Johnson ($32) is a safe play now. But the Lions according to Massey-Peabody are by far the worst pass defense in this game and so Jeremy Maclin ($25), who looks healthy off the recent concussion, is the value play here.

9. Jets at Raiders, Sunday, 4:05 p.m., O/U 44.5: Monitor the status of Chris Ivory ($30). The Raiders have a good pass defense but Ryan Fitzpatrick has two-plus TDs in every game and should have had three last week (Brandon Marshall, $34, dropped one). Big downgrades for all Raiders here against an elite Jets defense.

[Play Yahoo Daily Fantasy and get a 100% deposit bonus with your first deposit]

Defensive battles

10. Titans at Texans, Sunday, 1:00 p.m., O/U 43.5: Revenge game for Nate Washington ($17)! I’d say play all Titans against a terrible Texans defense, but all Titans are terrible too. 

11. Vikings at Bears, Sunday, 1:00 p.m., O/U 42.5: Alshon Jeffery ($28) seems set for a big run. The Vikings defense doesn’t scare me. Adrian Peterson ($34) is not done but he’s done being Adrian Peterson.

12. Seahawks at Cowboys, 4:25 p.m. O/U 41: The Seahawks’ offense is a mess. It’s too bad Darren McFadden ($13) gets such a tough opponent off the heels of his breakout but the volume should be there. You want the Dallas RB weeks 11-16 and McFadden, shockingly, now has the inside track. The trouble is he’s probably 35 percent likely to get hurt inside his next 80 carries. 

13. 49ers at Rams, Sunday, 1:00 p.m., O/U 39.5: Everyone is worthless in this matchup except Todd Gurley ($34), who should be played with confidence irrespective of opponent.