Finding The Top Week 8 Fantasy Football Pickups With Predictive Analytics: Darrell Henderson, Dalton Kincaid, Emari Demercado
Let's take a look at fantasy football's most popular waiver wire options heading into Week 8! We can use the Predictive Analytics tool in the FantasySP Fantasy Assistant to help identify the top candidates. This tool predicts the Expected Waiver Interest (EWI) for every player, plus predicts their new rostership level following this week's waiver moves. Here are its current predictions for this week:
Top Predicted Week 8 Fantasy Football Adds
RB Darrell Henderson, Los Angeles Rams
Unsurprisingly coming off a 20-touch, 13-point outing, Henderson ranks atop our list of adds for this week. His 51% EWI projects to land him at 90% ownership, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that number was closer to 99% by the end of the waiver period. With both Kyren Williams and Ronnie Rivers on IR, Henderson figures to be the lead back in the Rams’ offense for at least the next three weeks.
It is worth noting that Royce Freeman also saw 12 carries and finished with more rushing yards than Henderson. However, Henderson was still the clear lead back despite mentioning in the week leading up to the game that he was struggling with fitness. If anything, I expect his role to expand going forward, as we all know how much Sean McVay loves to feature one back. Henderson should be an RB2 until Williams and/or Rivers return, and he deserves to be your top priority on waivers this week.
Want to make sure you don't waste your FAAB budget? Sync your fantasy teams with our Fantasy Assistant to access our Predictive Analytics, which predict the average winning FAAB bids for each week's hottest pickups BEFORE waivers are run!
TE Dalton Kincaid, Buffalo Bills
This one is kind of a no-brainer. I have been down on Kincaid for much of the season, as he has played too small of a role to be a reliable fantasy option. His 59% route participation rate ranks just 27th at the position, and he hasn’t played more than 61% of snaps since Week 1. But that all changes with the announcement that fellow Bills TE Dawson Knox is going to have wrist surgery, and it’s unsurprising that Kincaid ranks second among position players with a solid 35% EWI.
Assuming the absence of Knox increases his snap share, Kincaid already has plenty of other things going for him to be an elite TE. It’s a cliche, but so far in his rookie season, the first-rounder has operated more like a slot receiver than a true tight end. He has only been asked to pass block once and runs routes from either out wide or in the slot at the sixth-highest rate among tight ends. On the other hand, while running routes out wide normally increases a tight end’s ADOT, Kincaid actually has the fifth-lowest ADOT of qualified tight ends at just 4.3 — he has mostly served as a checkdown option for Josh Allen. His 3.9 YAC/REC is also not exactly what many were hoping for out of an athletic receiving-first tight end.
Keeping all that in mind, I’m not quite as excited about Kincaid, even without Knox, as many will be. On the other hand, he is coming off an eight-catch, 75-yard performance in a part-time role. If he plays a higher snap percentage, even if it comes with blocking and lining up in-line a bit more often, he could push for TE1 numbers, and that certainly makes him worth an add.
RB Emari Demercado, Arizona Cardinals
Demercado already featured on this list once, when he led in EWI with an insane 81% following James Conner’s Week 5 injury. In that article, I mentioned that I might prefer Keaontay Ingram to Demercado, and I was proven right in Week 6, as Ingram saw 10 carries to Demercado’s two. This led to many fantasy managers returning Demercado right back to waivers … and then he exploded in Week 7 with an insane 95% RB opportunity share on 80% of snaps, touching the ball 17 times for 75 yards. Ingram, meanwhile, didn’t play a single snap, so maybe I wasn’t so right after all.
Following this week’s usage, Demercado ranks third in EWI, but only has 33%, projecting to leave him rostered in just 54% of leagues. This number should be much higher. Yes, I was down on Demercado before, and yes this backfield is clearly in a state of flux. But anyone with an RB opportunity share of even 70%+ is a must-roster. An RB with a 95% opportunity share, even on a bad offense, is a must-start player. Add in that the Cardinals’ offense could soon take a leap with the impending return of Kyler Murray, and things look even better for Demercado. James Conner will also eventually return and likely reclaim a workhorse role, and this could all look stupid next week when Ingram (or Damien Williams) leads the Cardinals’ backfield, but for now, Demercado is a must-add anywhere he is available.
