The Dread
Sheet

Every score, and how last week's picks did against them: 5-0 for the week, 23-12 on the season. It was the surest slate yet, every pick above 64%, and it is the first time all five hit. Three of the five won by more than the pick's margin; She'sTheMann (picked by 13.8, won by 9.65) and NoseyNabers (picked by 34.4, won by 12.22) won by less.

PA doubles as schedule luck. All-play is the record against all nine teams every week. Wk 7 bench is what the best possible lineup would have added. jfinau (11.2) is the only team that benched more than it lost by, 9.65. NoseyNabers benched the most, 28.2, and won. winniehartley still has the best all-play, 46-17, and has faced the fewest points, 891.29; trevorh84 is second at 42-21 with a 4-3 record. OldeRowanRiot is 3-4 on the second-worst all-play, 17-46, ahead of only NoseyNabers' 13-50. Smallwood Retrievers' all-play, 28-35, is better than three teams' with more wins.

Top Performers

Best actual starts, and the bench decisions that'll sting longest.

For the second week running two bench quarterbacks outscored the starters: Bo Nix (26.3) over Jordan Love (18.0), and Caleb Williams (22.1) over Brock Purdy (14.0). Colston Loveland is on this list for the second straight week. Last week's start/sit and free-agent calls, scored. Right and followed: Justin Jefferson over Germie Bernard (8.4 against 5.7), the Vikings defense over the Chiefs (16.6), Jahmyr Gibbs for Bhayshul Tuten's bye (17.3), Joe Burrow over C.J. Stroud (28.9 against 16.5), Ja'Marr Chase for Romeo Doubs (17.2), Jared Goff for Jayden Daniels's bye (18.0), Amon-Ra St. Brown over Josh Downs (24.2 against 3.8), Ollie Gordon over Najee Harris (17.3), Tee Higgins over Emeka Egbuka (26.8 against 0.0), Rico Dowdle for Omarion Hampton's bye (14.6), Chase Brown for Keaton Mitchell's bye (9.8), and the Texans defense, which No. 5 took (13.8). Right and ignored: Harold Fannin over Wan'Dale Robinson (13.1 against 4.7), Rome Odunze over Davante Adams (10.9 against 0.0), Colston Loveland over Cam Skattebo (19.9 against 19.1), and Hunter Henry for Terry McLaurin's bye (Henry scored 14.1 on the bench). Wrong and followed: Sam LaPorta over Tyler Higbee (2.8 against 3.4). Wrong and ignored: Matthew Stafford over Dak Prescott (18.5 against 23.3), Courtland Sutton over AJ Barner (7.5 against 8.6), and RJ Harvey over Braelon Allen, though both sat (14.0 against 19.4). Of the players Team by Team listed Out, Quinshon Judkins (23.4) and Saquon Barkley (15.1, benched) played. Lamar Jackson, David Montgomery, Mike Evans, Breece Hall, Rashee Rice, Davante Adams and Tyler Warren scored 0.0.

Every move since the last blotter ended on Oct 18, pulled across both transaction rounds so nothing between editions slips through. Five went through waivers and sixteen were free agency, first click wins; two other waiver claims failed. Green is a player arriving, red a player leaving. Times are Eastern. Unauthorized Use of No. 5 made five of the 21 moves and scored 190.87.

The real 14-week schedule played out 50,000 times. Each team's weekly mean is a 50/50 blend of its optimal Week 8 projection and what it has actually scored, with a 27-point standard deviation; top six make it. Same method as last week, so every change below is the week, not the model.

H00dedWizard fell 81.7% to 63.0%, the biggest move on the board, after a loss and with three starters on bye this week. jfinau rose 27.5% to 34.9% despite its own loss, on the fourth-best Week 8 projection, 133.3. OldeRowanRiot rose 3.5% to 10.1% after losing, because Buffalo is back and Josh Allen projects 24.4. Its 80.5 last week was a bye-week number. trevorh84 won by 65.22 and its title odds fell, 24.7% to 18.0%: Christian McCaffrey and Chris Olave are on bye, and its projection drops from 152.0 to 132.5. Team Fawley lost by 65.22 and its title odds rose, 16.9% to 22.1%, on the best projection in the league, 147.7, though 14.8 of that is Breece Hall, listed Out. Smallwood Retrievers' chance of finishing last rose 37.7% to 45.1%, past NoseyNabers' 39.2%. winniehartley's 100.0% is a rounded 99.95-plus, not a clinch. Seven games remain.

Five predictions for Week 8, timestamped before kickoff so they can be wrong in public again. Each side's number is its best legal lineup, not what its manager will actually start — Team by Team, below, has that gap.

Smallwood Retrievers is favored for the first time since Week 1, when it lost. G4 is first against second in points, and G5 puts the 5-2 Team Fawley against the 6-1 She'sTheMann. Several numbers count players listed Out or IR: DJ Moore for Smallwood, Rashee Rice for jfinau, Tyler Warren for No. 5, Emeka Egbuka for H00dedWizard, Jeremiyah Love for trevorh84, Lamar Jackson for She'sTheMann, Breece Hall for Team Fawley. Zeroing them moves every margin but flips none: G1 to 11.6, G2 to 18.0, G3 to 7.8, G4 to 15.8, G5 to 2.6. Last week the same check said no pick would flip, and none did. The soft one is G2. Houston's and New Orleans's byes take No. 5's kicker, defense and Juwan Johnson, and Tyler Warren is Out, so its 120.9 has nothing at kicker, defense or tight end. Free agents can fill all three for about 30 points (the Bengals defense 9.8, Evan McPherson 9.2, T.J. Hockenson 11.1), enough to flip the pick. The numbers stay as Sleeper has them. Come back Tuesday and find out how this one aged.

Ranked on each team's best legal Week 8 lineup, which is why the order differs from the odds table. The bench gap is what that lineup beats the one actually set, if nothing changes before kickoff. San Francisco, Houston, New Orleans and the Giants are on bye: seventeen starters on eight teams, and four teams with a kicker or defense on bye and no backup on the roster.

Every unrostered player with a real projection, tried against every rostered player on each team, through the same optimal-lineup math as everything else on this page. One suggestion per team: whichever drop-for-add raises that team's best-lineup total the most.

Josh Jacobs is the best add for six teams, and the Bengals defense for three. Only one team gets each, and claims run through waivers before free agency opens. Last week this page said to skip Jacobs, who was listed NA for a personal absence. Sleeper now lists no status for him and projects 15.4, the best free-agent running back by 4.8. The Bengals rows are bye-week holes: Smallwood Retrievers, No. 5 and winniehartley have no defense playing this week. No. 5 also needs a kicker and a tight end, and the table only shows one move per team. Jayden Daniels, whom No. 5 dropped Monday, is the best free-agent quarterback, at 18.0. jfinau's row would drop Bo Nix, last week's 26.3 on the bench.

Every pair of rosters, run through the same optimal-lineup math: does swapping these two players raise both sides' best-lineup total? Ranked by whichever team benefits less — the point is mutual upside, not a heist.

Seven of the ten rows move a defense, because three teams have none playing this week. OldeRowanRiot has two (the Chiefs and the Seahawks) and is on six rows. jfinau has a spare too, the Browns, with the Jaguars back from bye. Two rows are softer than they look: DJ Moore, jfinau's gain in row six, is listed Out, and Saquon Barkley, in row five, is Questionable.