Week 8 of NFL action is now behind us, which means it’s time to look ahead to Week 9.

Last week I wrote about how excited I was about the possibility of a battle between Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels, but at the time I wasn’t optimistic that it would actually happen. Daniels was injured and it looked like the Commanders would turn to Marcus Mariota at center.

But surprise! Daniels played and we had a classic. Maybe not the way people expected, as the two rookie quarterbacks combined to throw a single touchdown pass, but the end of the game won’t be forgotten as Daniels threw a game-winning 52-yard Hail Mary to Noah Brown to snatch it. the victory just 25 seconds after the Bears took the lead thanks to a rushing score from Roschon Johnson and a two-point conversion from Williams to Cole Kmet.

Future matchups between Williams and Daniels will likely feature more consistent scorelines, but will a future matchup ever have this kind of memorable ending?

Either way, let’s take a look at one player at each skill position who should have a strong performance in Week 9 of 2024 fantasy football.

After losing two games in a row, the Vikings have a great chance to bounce back in Week 9 when the team takes on the Indianapolis Colts.

Indy’s defense is allowing 227.8 passing yards per game, which is ninth-most in the NFL, and that comes with the team playing Will Levis and the combo of Tyler Huntley and Tim Boyle lately, which which brought this figure down a little.

And even though the Vikings have lost these last two games, Darnold’s numbers have been solid. In last week’s 30-20 loss to the Rams, he was 18 of 25 for 240 yards and two touchdowns. He has thrown for over 200 yards in three of the last four games.

I feel like I’m constantly at odds with Darnold. His career has had a few of those false starts, where he looked like he had things figured out, and then it fizzled out as the year went on. But through seven games, Darnold is tied for fifth in the league in touchdown passes and fourth in yards per attempt. I think this 2024 performance is the real one,

While New Orleans allows the eighth-most fantasy points per game to running backs, that didn’t translate into big numbers for Chuba Hubbard in the first meeting. He finished as the RB66 in this game, his worst performance of the season. Hubbard had only six carries and was not targeted.

But things have changed since then. In that Week 1 game, Hubbard played 54 percent of Carolina’s snaps, his lowest mark of the season. The Panthers have abandoned the whole “split the backfield between Hubbard and Miles Sanders” idea, with Sanders totaling just nine carries over the last four games.

Meanwhile, Hubbard has finished as a top-10 fantasy running back three times this season and has at least 15 carries in six straight contests. He hasn’t finished with fewer than 50 rushing yards in a game since that first meeting in New Orleans.

I’m ready to try again. Over the last four games, the Saints have allowed over 200 rushing yards twice, with both the Buccaneers and Broncos running all over this defense.

The Broncos offense has really picked things up as of late, and rookie quarterback Bo Nix has been a major part of that. Against the Panthers last week, Nix threw for 284 yards and three touchdowns.

None of those touchdowns went to Courtland Sutton, but 100 of the yards did, as Sutton reached the century mark on eight catches. He was targeted 11 times, while Lil’Jordan Humphrey was second on the team with six targets.

Sutton has a real problem against the Saints where he wasn’t targeted once, but this game aside, Sutton has been really solid for the Broncos. He has totaled 50 yards or more in four of the last six games.

This week, he gets a juicy matchup with a Ravens pass defense that continues to struggle. Baltimore allows 291.4 passing yards per game, which is A LOT. The Jags are second in the league with 271.1. Only four teams even allow more than 250 per contest.

With Nix on the rise right now, Denver has a chance to do some damage through the air this weekend. Sutton will be a big part of that and should be considered a WR2 with potential.

With Chris Godwin and Mike Evans sidelined, the Buccaneers found a new No. 1 receiver in an unlikely place: a third-year tight end who averaged 27.2 receiving yards per game over the first six matches of the season.

But Otton now has 20 targets in the last two games. Against the Falcons on Sunday, he caught nine of 10 targets for 81 yards and two touchdowns. In particular, he led the team on first reading target rates at 30 percent. Baker Mayfield made a deliberate effort to get the ball to Otton and it paid off for Tampa.

Now the Bucs are set for a Monday night meeting with the Chiefs. KC allows 13.3 fantasy points per game at the tight end position, second in NFK behind the Panthers. The team deserves credit for keeping Brock Bowers in check last week, but that doesn’t change the fact that tight end defense has been a big weakness for this defense.

Turn on Otton this week. In fact, turn it on every week at this point. He is a top 10 tight end going forward.