Before we dive into the Week 8 picks, let’s keep the weekly accountability checks going:

This is legitimately one of the grossest main slates I’ve ever seen.

We have the Broncos, Lions, Jaguars, and Niners on bye, the Bills and Bengals play on SNF, and we shipped the best game of the week (Dolphins vs. Chiefs) off to Germany.

But ultimately, that doesn’t matter.

We aren’t trying to score the most points, we are simply trying to score more points than our opponents who are all competing with us on the same, QB-desolate playing field. 

While there aren’t as many gold star, “scroll the eff down” plays as there were last week, there are still a handful of contrarian spots to target in DFS contests this week. 

As always, the goal of this piece isn’t to select an entire team full of Hidden Gems–that’s a way to light your entry on fire–but rather give you ideas and levers to pull to ensure that your lineup is unique and has a chance to finish first in large-field contests.

Below, I’ve identified an entire passing offense, a one-off WR, and a couple of RBs who could deliver a tournament-winning performance with very little popularity.

As always, special thanks to Chad Maschke’s Battle Royale data for giving us drafted percentage numbers.

Week 9 Hidden Gems Stack: Patriots

  • QB Mac Jones (ADP: 36)
  • WR Demario Douglas (ADP: 35.8)
  • TE Hunter Henry or Mike Gesicki (ADP 35.9)

Wait, wait, wait. Before you click away, let me explain. 

After Jalen Hurts and Lamar Jackson come off the board, it’s a miasma of lukewarm QB plays who all project similarly. As always, this means we should largely be fading QBs 3-6 (Dak Prescott, Derek Carr, and Sam Howell) who get drafted in nearly 100% of contests and instead scroll down to QBs with similar projections who are drafted far less frequently.