Welcome back to yet another week of figuring out how to roll with the fantasy football punches. If you've been riding the high of a massive waiver wire hit or crying into your morning coffee because your star running back got vultured at the one-yard line, congratulations! You are officially living the fantasy football experience. Every single week brings its own roller coaster of euphoric highs and soul-crushing lows, and we wouldn't have it any other way. We're not even angry anymore; we're just impressed by the creativity of our lineups' weekly collapses. Let's dive right into the madness with our comprehensive breakdown of fantasy football hot takes for Week 9 and a look ahead to Week 10.
Biggest Fantasy Football Overreactions from Week 9
Amon-Ra St. Brown Hasn't Caught a TD Since Week 4
Amon-Ra St. Brown just logged his fifth consecutive game without a receiving touchdown. Five-straight weeks. Five. Your first-round pick. Five-straight games without a touchdown. Did you get that? Five. Just want to make sure.
Only five wide receivers have commanded more red zone targets than St. Brown (8) over this span; those players have combined for 16 receiving touchdowns. St. Brown has led the Lions in targets every week over this span, and has hit at least a 30-percent target share in four straight. Pretty amazing that he’s still averaging 16.4 FPG since Week 4 without any touchdowns.
I can hear my producer whisper in my ear. “He’s due.” And he is. The touchdowns will regress positively eventually, but watching him get tackled at the one-yard line week after week is enough to make a grown manager tear their hair out.
Are the Cowboys Playing Scared?
Let’s start with a quick definition. A neutral-situation pass rate is the percentage of passing plays a team calls when the score is close, and game context is balanced, excluding blowouts, final minutes of halves, kneels, and spikes. A declining neutral-situation pass rate indicates a strategic shift toward a more conservative, run-heavy, or risk-averse offensive philosophy.
Here are the Cowboys’ neutral-situation pass rates:
- Weeks 1-6: 68.3%, with no game below 61%
- Week 7: 50.0%
- Week 8: 51.0%
- Week 9: 53.7%
They’ve gone from ranking 1st to 27th over the last three weeks (51.7%). Sounds like they know their defense is bad, so they're playing it as safe as possible on offense to secure a win whenever they get a lead. They're doing more grinding and running to keep their defense off the field, and that is affecting passing numbers for us in fantasy. It’s gross, it’s cowardly, and it’s completely wrecking our use of Dak Prescott.
But hey, at least Mike McCarthy gets to feel safe running into a brick wall on first down. If you're analyzing fantasy football hot takes for Week 9, this offensive regression in Dallas is right at the top of the list for massive panic triggers. P.S> Shout it out to my man Ryan Heath, who pointed out the data to me. He knows what I go through with Jim Bowden as my Cowboys-loving co-host.
Bold Fantasy Football Predictions for Week 10
The Jordan Love MVP Talk Ends Here
It never fails. Start hyping a guy for MVP and the following week he takes a dive. Not intentionally, but it's a dive. And it will be even more center stage this week because it comes against Brian Flores and the Minnesota Vikings defense.
Just look back to history: remember when everyone handed Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen mid-season crowns only for them to completely wet the bed against disguised exotic blitzes? It happens every single year. Love has been phenomenal, stringing together brilliant efficiency metrics and carving up secondaries, but walking into a buzzsaw against Flores' scheme with the media spotlight burning a hole in his helmet is a recipe for disaster.
The Vikings may or may not come away with the win, but Love doesn't give us his best game. For DFS players wondering what to do here, you can pivot away from the Packers' passing stacks and lock directly into the Vikings defense, which is going to be criminally low-owned given the staggering amount of public Love hype still floating around.
Jonathan Taylor Will Be the Highest Owned Running Back in Week 10 DFS
Jonathan Taylor’s workload over the past three weeks, with trade rumors taking center stage, was a 58% backfield carry share that yielded just 12.4 FPG. He finishes up around RB22. Over the six weeks prior to the rumors blowing up, it was an 85% backfield carry share that produced 20.1 FPG. He was RB3 back in those days. Whether he stays with the Colts or is on another team, there, thankfully, won't be any reason to hold him back.
Taylor will return to his 85% carry share if he stays, and there is no way a team gives up as much as we expect them to give for him without giving him heavy volume for his first game. DFS armies are going to swarm this price tag like seagulls on a French fry, making him the chalk anchor of the main slate. If you're tracking fantasy football hot takes for Week 9 moving into Week 10 main slates, fading this kind of projected volume is usually a great way to lose all your money.
Week 9 Fantasy Football Sleeper Takeaways
Ja'Kobi Lane Is About to Level-Up with Jacoby Brissett
Throw away everything you saw from Week 9 with Joe Fagnano under center and think more about when Lane was activated from IR, fell right into a 60-percent snaps share, and averaged five targets per game when it was Tyler Huntley at QB. Brissett plays a similar game, and he loves taking his big shots downfield. We expect a heavy lean on Zay Flowers, but Lane should end up the second-most targeted pass-catcher. If you're digging through the wreckage for fantasy football Week 9 takeaways that can actually save your injury-ravaged roster, Lane is a priority waiver wire stash before the market catches up.
Caleb Douglas is the New No. 1 WR in Miami
Rookie Caleb Douglas just out-targeted Malik Washington for the first time all season. In fact, this was the first time any Dolphins receiver has hit a 30-percent target share all year. Douglas is averaging 11.8 yards per target (leading 72 qualifying WRs) to Washington’s 7.3 (~WR54). Entering the week, Douglas was averaging 2.28 yards per route-run to Washington’s 1.80. And all of this has resulted in a 12.1 fantasy points per game average, which is crazy for a rookie, let alone a rookie on the Dolphins. That’s actually more than Christian Watson, Emeka Egbuka, Devonta Smith, Drake London, or George Pickens averaged as rookies. Douglas is incredibly explosive, and he's earning targets at an elite rate. That, in turn, has completely flipped the hierarchy in Miami.
Fantasy Football Bust Candidates After Week 9
We're Never Getting the Chase Brown We Drafted Back in August
I see you rolling your eyes at me already. Believe me. I’m in just as deep with this guy, and it’s like a nightmare that keeps getting worse and worse. Let’s start with some numbers you’re going to hate. The Bengals have scored 10 touchdowns on 24 drop-backs inside the 10-yard line this season (41.7%). Their RBs have scored just two touchdowns on 12 rush attempts inside the 10 (16.7%). Brown and 26 other running backs have received at least 8 carries inside the 10 this season, and he is one of three backs from that group who haven’t scored multiple rushing touchdowns from there. Ashton Jeanty and Mike Washington are the other two, and we know how that's turning out for fantasy owners. It's an absolute touchdown graveyard for fantasy managers who expected high-value red zone touches to translate into actual points. Until Zac Taylor decides to stop throwing every time they cross the five-yard line, or bringing in the thorn in our side that is Samaje Perine, Brown's ceiling is bolted to the floor.
Jalen Coker Needs a Reset
Jalen Coker’s target shares have been at 9.7, 9.8, and 12.8-percent over his last three games. Over his first three full games, he was at 23.7, 25.0, and 28.2-percent. A fair amount of it went to Chuba Hubbard (5.9% target share over the first six weeks vs. 16.2% over the last three), but we also saw a massive uptick in tight end usage and targets as well. Should that continue, Coker's value continues to take a hit, turning what looked like a breakout rookie-adjacent gem into a frustrating roster clogger. We’re hoping that it was just a schedule glitch, facing three extremely strong defenses in the Bucs, Packers, and Broncos, but Bryce Young needs to do a better job of leaning on his receivers.
Hot Takes That Could Shape Your Week 10 Lineup
If Garrett Wilson is Traded or Remains Concussed, Omar Cooper Jr. is a Must-Play
Omar Cooper commanded a 34.4-percent target share on Sunday with Garrett Wilson out. That’s the second-highest target share in any game by a rookie wide receiver this season; only Carnell Tate’s Week 4 (38.7%) beats it out. When Adonai Mitchell was out earlier, Cooper flashed with multiple 100-yard efforts, and now his expanded role is screaming off the data charts. If Wilson misses time or gets shipped out of town, Cooper instantly vaults into every-week WR2 territory on sheer volume alone.
Expect More Jordyn Tyson
Tyson ran a preliminary 16 routes, which was enough for him to finish second on the team in targets in a part-time role. They were low-aDOT, underneath targets, but enough to see where the Saints are viewing Tyson in their upcoming plans. The team definitely seems to want to get him involved. Most casuals will focus entirely on his fumble following his first reception, but five targets on just a 24-percent snap share is where you should actually focus your attention. The Saints host the Panthers next week in a pristine spot to expand his usage, making him an incredible deep-league stash before anyone else notices.