Best Week 8 Moves From Our Experts: Trade For Carnell Tate Before It's Too Late
Best Week 8 Moves
Whether you're playing redraft or dynasty, knowing what moves to make is crucial to success.
That's why we're having each of our fantasy football experts give you one move to take advantage of this week.
Buy Carnell Tate Next Week
I’m typically against trying to “time the market” on trades, but Tate is an exception.
The rookie draws a sneaky-tough Week 8 matchup against Cincinnati. The Bengals rank 14th in adjusted fantasy points allowed to WRs. But, led by elite CB DJ Turner, they’ve allowed the second-fewest fantasy points per game to outside WRs. That’s where Tate has run 73% of his routes.
Tate could disappoint this weekend before a Week 9 bye. There’s a good chance he’ll be cheaper to acquire next week than he is right now.
Following that Week 9 bye, Tate gets the league’s second-easiest WR schedule. That includes three games against bottom-4 WR defenses, plus meetings with the Cowboys and Commanders.
QB play is an obvious concern in Tennessee. But Tate has the talent, role (26% target share), and schedule to deliver top-25 WR production over the second half of the season.
Start Here Before You Send Your Next Trade Offer
I’m asked dozens of trade questions each week.
Often, the initial ask goes something like this:
“I’m hurting at RB but deep at WR … can you help me construct a couple of offers to improve my team?”
It’s a fair question, but there’s a quick way to figure out the next step toward completing a trade: finding the right partner.
Open the Trade Analyzer and look for the adjacent Trade Partner Finder tab.
From there, select the position you need and the one you're willing to trade. Click Analyze, and the tool will identify your most compatible trade partners based on positional strengths and weaknesses.
Now you have a targeted list of managers who might actually want what you're offering.
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Trade for T.J. Hockenson to Start Prepping for the Playoffs
Hockenson isn’t a sexy TE for your fantasy squad, but this is the week to make a move, even if he’s just your bench TE. He sits at TE9 in PPR points per game so far, and that could improve this week.
Hockenson gets the Lions, this year’s weakest TE defense by fantasy points allowed. As Ian pointed out this past week, “The Lions defense has allowed more TE1 finishes than games they’ve played.”
That means you could start Hockenson right away.
But the real appeal is Hockenson’s fantasy-playoff schedule. He has the easiest TE schedule from weeks 15 to 17, according to our strength of schedule tool. That slate includes a Week 16 rematch against the Lions and a game against the Commanders, who are the second-worst defense against TEs and have given up six TE1 finishes in six games.
He does have a slightly negative matchup against the Jets in Week 17, but if he helps take you to the championship, it's worth the cheap cost.
Throw out a bench RB or WR with upside to the Hockenson manager and see if you can sneak him onto your team.
Use Makai Lemon’s Career-High Against the Cowboys to Offload
Makai Lemon has accounted for at least a 75% route share every week, but his latest performance marks his first surpassing 10 PPR points. He finished with a career-high 19.7 PPR points after hauling in seven of a team-high 8 targets for 67 yards and a TD.
It took the Eagles being down both WRs DeVonta Smith and Dontayvion Wicks in a matchup against a Cowboys defense allowing the sixth-most points to WRs entering Week 7 for Lemon to finally eclipse 50 receiving yards.
It was an encouraging performance, but there are still reasons for skepticism. He has yet to achieve a 100-yard game, which all other first-round rookie WRs have to this point, outside of WR Jordyn Tyson, who still has yet to play with a hamstring injury.
He’s also still producing less than 1.00 yard per route run. For reference, only seven first-round rookie WRs have finished a season with less than 1.00 yard per route run, and all failed to achieve a WR2 season in their careers.
Despite that, his value is at the highest it’s been since the season started, allowing for straight-across pivots to WRs such as KC Concepcion, Jalen Coker, Omar Cooper Jr, or even getting an asset added along with A.J. Brown.
In dynasty fantasy football, avoiding falling assets is just as important as acquiring rising ones.
