The Worksheet: Week 10 NFL Fantasy Football Game Previews

Welcome to Week 10 of The Worksheet, Rich Hribar's comprehensive fantasy football preview.

What is The Worksheet?

The Worksheet is a comprehensive weekly fantasy football preview for each NFL game. Rich Hribar analyzes matchups for every notable fantasy player in every game, every week of the NFL season.

We are officially on the “back nine” of the NFL season.

Half of the regular season is behind us as we push forward toward the fantasy postseason.

Now that we're halfway through, let's compare this season to this point in recent seasons.

The 22.5 offensive points per game through nine weeks match last year's total.

Points per drive (2.06) are slightly down from a year ago (2.16), but still the best to this point in a season since 2021.

Explosive plays are down.

19.0% of offensive plays have gained 10 or more yards, the third time in the past four seasons that this has been below 20% at this stage of the season.

5.5% of offensive plays have gained 20 or more yards, the lowest rate through nine weeks since 2008.

Wide receivers still have the highest share of league-wide targets (58.0%), but that rate is the lowest at this point of the season since 2018.

Wideouts have the fewest total targets and receptions through nine weeks since 2017.

Wide receivers have the fewest fantasy points from receiving through nine weeks of a season since 2011.

Tight ends have accounted for 24.1% of targets, their highest rate through nine weeks in the 2000s.

At this time last year, they set a new high at 22.9% of the league's targets, so that is still a significant spike.

Tight ends have 128 touchdown receptions, just one short of last year's total through nine weeks.

They have set another new high as a position in fantasy points through nine weeks.

Rushing touchdowns from running backs are also up.

Backs have 199 rushing touchdowns this year.

That is 19 more than at this point a year ago and the second-most through nine weeks since 2008.

Running backs have scored the seventh-most fantasy points through nine weeks of a season in the 2000s and the third-most since 2010.

All in all, it looks like another rough season for wide receiver production.

Fantasy gamers felt that sting through a lot of injuries this year, and Week 9 didn't help as Puka Nacua and Michael Wilson suffered major injuries.

Wilson will miss the rest of 2026, while Nacua will miss at least the next four weeks.

Luther Burden and Jaylen Waddle left last week with concussions.

We also had injuries to Josh Jacobs and Rhamondre Stevenson, so running backs were impacted as well.

We are also in backup-quarterback season, which is affecting things.

The past two weeks have seen the season's highest interception and sack rates by a wide margin.

We also still have to address the penalties, which aren't going down.

We have seen the most penalties called through nine weeks of a season in the 2000s.

Those are coming from the offensive side, which has the most calls (972) through nine weeks in the 2000s.

Procedural penalties are way up.

The 125 delay-of-game penalties are by far the most at this point in a season.

Last year, there were 91 delay penalties at this stage.

The 378 false starts are the most through nine weeks since 2005.

There have been 424 offensive penalties accepted, the most since 2019 through nine weeks of a season.

The previous three seasons had 360, 366, and 310 offensive holding penalties through nine weeks.

On the defensive side, defensive pass interference and yards through those penalties are up.

The 159 DPI calls and 2,495 yards on those calls are the most at this point in the season since 2021.

Turning to the back half of the season, the NFL Trade Deadline was Tuesday, and those moves will be reflected in this week's game write-ups.

Four teams have a bye (the Bears, Broncos, Buccaneers, and Eagles), so some pieces will be missing from lineups this week.

We also have another international kickoff, with the Lions and Patriots playing in Germany on Sunday.

That game kicks off at 9:30 ET, so make sure you have players set in lineups or on benches.

This article will be updated throughout the week to reflect major news or injury implications.

I encourage you to use the game-by-game tables and data points here, along with the player rankings available every Wednesday.

Enjoy the games!

Click the matchups below for the individual game previews.

Week 10 Fantasy Football Matchups