Steelers vs. Packers Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 8

The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 8 matchup between the Steelers and Packers on Sunday Night Football.

Find a breakdown of every Week 8 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.

Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

Jordan Love: Love has played great football this season, but the offensive climate that he plays in has not overlapped with fantasy football.

Love has completed 69.3% of his passes (7th) for 8.2 yards per pass attempt (5th), 11.8 yards per completion (6th), and a 5.7% touchdown rate (10th).

If you just knew that information, you would assume that the quarterback is crushing for fantasy teams.

However, Love has only two QB1 scoring weeks through six games and has had a top-10 scoring week.

Going back to last season, Love has five 20-point fantasy outings over his past 21 starts.

Love is 23rd in dropbacks per game (33.2), and the Packers utilize Josh Jacobs heavily in the red zone, which has made Love best used as a floor-based QB2.

When we are chasing spike weeks with Love, we are looking for shootout game environments where the game is tight.

This matchup is more similar to last week's, where the game can end up tight but feature relatively modest scoring.

The Steelers do offer some shootout appeal, so that is a potential outcome within the range of possibilities.

Pittsburgh has struggled when they fail to get to the quarterback.

Without pressure, Pittsburgh has allowed a 74.8% completion rate (21st), 8.1 yards per pass attempt (26th), and a 5.5% touchdown rate (19th).

With pressure, they have allowed a 45.9% completion rate (10th), 5.1 Y/A (7th), and a 1.4% touchdown rate (6th).

That completely overlaps with Love’s efficiency.

When pressured, Love is last in the NFL with a 34.5% completion rate, last in yards per pass attempt (3.6 Y/A), and has not thrown a touchdown.

When kept clean, Love has completed a league-high 85.1% of his passes for 10.3 Y/A (2nd) and an 8.3% touchdown rate (5th).

Aaron Rodgers: Rodgers has been playing well.

He is eighth in completion rate (68.6%), 11th in yards per pass attempt (7.4 Y/A), and second in touchdown rate (8.1%).

He has only been sacked on 5% of his dropbacks (10th).

For fantasy purposes, he is sixth in passing points per attempt (0.563).

He does not offer much via the ground, which makes him dependent on sustaining a high touchdown rate to push for QB1 production and streaming upside.

This game environment can be better than implied, but the median outcome makes Rodgers best used in the same area of Love as a floor-based QB2.

The Packers have been softer in recent weeks as a pass defense.

Coming out of their bye, the Packers have allowed Joe Flacco (18.8 points) and Jacoby Brissett (19.8 points) to post solid fantasy lines.

Heading into their bye, they had allowed a spike week to Dak Prescott (31 points).

Running Back

Josh Jacobs: Gamers had a scare last weekend as Jacobs was a true game-time call, working through a calf injury and getting over an illness.

He ended up suiting up on Sunday and scored a pair of touchdowns.

Jacobs did have a lighter workload, handling a season-low 14 touches and playing a season-low 55.4% of the offensive snaps.

Jacobs has scored multiple touchdowns in three straight games

Going back to last season, Jacobs has now scored at least 1 touchdown in 16 of his past 18 games, with 24 total touchdowns over that span.

He's as reliable as a fantasy RB1 as you can find.

With a whole week to get back on track, Jacobs should be back to his usual workload.

Before last week, he was surging as a pass catcher, grabbing 5, 4, and 5 receptions over his previous three outings.

The Steelers have been exploitable on the ground, allowing 4.5 yards per carry to running backs (21st) with a 58.5% success rate against those runs (21st).

They have allowed over 100 yards on the ground to Breece Hall, Kenneth Walker, and Chase Brown, quite an array of volatile backs this season.

Man concept runs have given Pittsburgh the most trouble.

They have allowed 5.4 YPC to running backs on those runs (29th) with a 48.1% success rate.

25.2% of Jacobs’ runs this season have been man runs, 13th among running backs.

On those runs, Jacobs has rushed for 5.0 YPC with a run of 10 or more yards on 14.3% of those attempts.

Jaylen Warren: Warren had his best rushing game of the season on Thursday night against the Bengals, turning 16 attempts into 127 yards.

That was only 2 yards short of his career high and the third 100-yard rushing game of his career.

Warren also caught 4 of 5 targets for 31 yards.

After handling 41.9% of the backfield touches in Week 6, Warren handled 80% last week.

He had a season-high 84.2% of the backfield runs.

With stable rushing usage (something always in question with Arthur Smith), Warren is an upside RB2, as he already provides value as a pass catcher.

Warren has been targeted on 27.5% of his routes, third among running backs.

He will need that outlet in this matchup.

Week 7 was the first time that Warren rushed for more than 52 yards, which came against a run defense we have targeted weekly.

The Packers have been softer as a pass defense, but they have allowed 3.6 YPC to running backs (4th) with only 0.81 yards before contact per rush (4th).

Warren has faced all three defenses ahead of them (the Browns, Patriots, and Jets), rushing for 52, 47, and 37 yards in those games.

Through the air, the Packers are 14th in receiving points allowed per game to backfields (8.4).

Wide Receiver

DK Metcalf: Metcalf caught 3 of 5 targets for 50 yards in Week 7.

Metcalf has been turning in explosive plays, averaging a career-high 18.5 yards per catch and 10.9 yards after the catch per reception.

His 2.29 yards per route are on pace to be the highest of his career.

But he is living the life as a WR1 in an Arthur Smith offense, forcing efficiency over volume.

Metcalf has a 21.7% target share (WR24) but is running 29.5 routes per game (WR48).

He has shown upside when the explosive plays hit, but the top-end volume has made him a WR2/WR3.

Metcalf has two weeks as a WR2 or better in weekly scoring, but has also not had a week lower than WR42.

The Packers have played a string of big-bodied wideouts in George Pickens (8-134-2), Tee Higgins (5-62-0), and Marvin Harrison Jr. (2-58-0).

Romeo Doubs: Doubs is on a solid run, finishing as a WR3 or better in four of his past five games.

He leads the Green Bay wide receivers in route participation (84.4% of the dropbacks) and target rate per route (21.4%).

Over his past three games, Doubs has 22.2%, 34.6%, and 28.6% of the team’s targets with at least 5 receptions in all three.

That spike in usage and receptions has made Doubs less touchdown-dependent and given him a better floor as a WR3.

He still leads Green Bay with 6 targets in the end zone (46.2% of the end zone targets) when they get close.

There is some matchup appeal for Doubs.

He has been targeted on 26.7% of his routes against man coverage compared to a 19.3% rate against zone coverage.

The Steelers lead the NFL in rate of man coverage (37.9% of snaps) over the past four weeks.

Matthew Golden: Golden pulled in all 4 of his targets for 37 yards on Sunday.

Since the injury to Jayden Reed, Golden has operated as the clear WR2 in the offense.

He has been on the field for 76.1% of the dropbacks over that span.

But in a low-volume passing game, he has been behind Doubs and Tucker Kraft, which makes him a WR4/FLEX needing a splash play to carry him over volume.

Golden has not had more than 6 targets in any game, seeing a target on 17.6% of his routes.

Tight End

Tucker Kraft: Kraft received a season-high 10 targets on Sunday, catching 5 passes for 58 yards and a touchdown.

Kraft has shown touchdown upside and remains among the best YAC producers at his position, so any increase in volume would be appreciated if it remains stable.

Kraft is averaging 9.0 yards after the catch.

No tight end with as many receptions this year has a better rate.

He has seen 30.8% of the Green Bay targets in the red zone, TE3 on the season.

Kraft is an upside TE1 who can sometimes be susceptible to the low passing volume, but this is an excellent matchup for him to remain efficient.

Pittsburgh has allowed 8.1 yards per target (24th) and an 8% touchdown rate (24th) to tight ends.

Steelers TEs: Jonnu Smith (3-28-1), Pat Freiermuth (5-111-2), and Darnell Washington (3-2-1) all caught touchdown passes last week.

Team Pittsburgh TE would be a fantasy superstar.

Rodgers leads all quarterbacks with a 36% target rate to tight ends.

The tricky part with this group has been that they are a sum of parts rather than having consistent, standalone value outside of catching a touchdown pass.

Smith has not had more than 28 yards in a game this season.

Freiermuth had 76 yards on the season before Thursday night, a total he nearly matched on his 68-yard touchdown.

Washington has at least 3 catches in three straight games, but also has not been higher than TE19 in a given week.

This group has collectively combined for two TE1 scoring weeks, both of which came in games with touchdowns.

This is a solid top-down matchup for this group to remain a focal point of the passing game.

Tight ends have scored 28.6% of the fantasy points allowed by Green Bay, the highest share in the league.

Teams have targeted their tight ends 28.4% of the time versus the Packers, fourth in the league.

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