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2026 Fantasy Football Players To Know With A Week 8 Bye
SportsMoney 2026 Fantasy Football Players To Know With A Week 8 Bye By Steve Bradshaw ,
Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Steve Bradshaw is a fantasy football expert with a focus on data Follow Author Jul 30, 2026, 06:00am EDT --:-- / --:-- This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more . This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more . Summary Fantasy football managers must navigate Week 8 byes for the San Francisco 49ers, Houston Texans, New Orleans Saints, and New York Giants. The 49ers' Christian McCaffrey (ADP 6) is a top fantasy asset, though teammates like George Kittle and Brock Purdy are recovering from 2025 injuries. Houston relies on Nico Collins (ADP 22) as their top receiver, with David Montgomery (ADP 47) now leading the backfield. New Orleans features WR Chris Olave (ADP 28) and new lead back Travis Etienne Jr. (ADP 41), with rookie Jordyn Tyson adding target competition. For the Giants, stars Malik Nabers (ADP 38) and Cam Skattebo (ADP 43) are significant injury concerns, both recovering from serious 2025 ailments, impacting their fantasy outlook.
Up to this point, weeks five, six, and seven have all been covered regarding the key fantasy football players with a bye that week.
There are four teams with a bye in week eight , which are the San Francisco 49ers, Houston Texans, New Orleans Saints, and New York Giants.
Just as we’ve done in these previous bye week articles, we’ll be covering the key fantasy options based on the consensus ADP from Footballguys .
Christian McCaffrey: ADP 6 Mike Evans: ADP 52 Ricky Pearsall: ADP 95 George Kittle: ADP 102 Brock Purdy: 104
Outside of Christian McCaffrey, there’s not another top option for the San Francisco 49ers, but he’s clearly the best fantasy option on this team, scoring 24.5 PPG (PPR) in 2025.
At wide receiver, Mike Evans is clearly the WR1 in terms of ADP, coming over from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in free agency. Ricky Pearsall is the other key wide receiver in this room who was drafted 31st overall back in the 2024 NFL draft but only played in 11 games as a rookie and nine games in year two due to injuries .
Staying on the topic of injuries, Brock Purdy also missed time in 2025 due to injuries, only playing in nine games, but he had 19.7 PPG over that span. As for Kittle, he only played in 11 games due to injuries as well and also went down with a torn Achilles in the playoffs. There’s still no definitive date as to when he’ll be back.
Nico Collins is the best wide receiver and player on this Houston Texans team by far, coming off a 15.1 PPG season in 2025 and a 17.6 PPG season in 2024. Outside of Collins, Jayden Higgins is next up as he’s coming off scoring 7.6 PPG as a rookie, but it’s worth noting that he was drafted 34th overall.
At running backs, David Montgomery will be playing his first season in Houston, and the ADP suggests most believe he will be the featured back. Woody Marks still ranks inside the top 150 and scored a respectable 9.4 PPG as a rookie.
Neither C.J. Stroud or Dalton Schultz are being drafted very high, as Stroud had just 14.9 PPG last year. As for Schultz, he scored 10.5 PPG, but he also scored just seven PPG in 2024.
The New Orleans Saints are such an interesting team as they have six players inside the top 150.
Chris Olave is still the WR1 in this offense after scoring 16.8 PPG in 2025, but there’s some added target competition in the form of rookie Jordyn Tyson. The Saints drafted Tyson 8th overall in the 2026 NFL draft.
At running back, Travis Etienne Jr. is clearly now seen as the lead back, which makes sense as he scored 14.9 PPG with the Jacksonville Jaguars, compared to Alvin Kamara at just 9.2 as he played in 11 games because of injuries.
Tyler Shough looks to be the starting quarterback for the Saints as the sophomore looks to build on his 14.4 PPG season. Juwan Johnson had the best season of his career with 10.6 PPG, but he’ll have to compete with Olave and Tyson now for targets.
There’s a lot of talent with the New York Giants but also a number of injury concerns. Both Malik Nabers and Cam Skattebo are very talented but suffered serious injuries in 2025.
Nabers tore his ACL, and Skattebo suffered a dislocated ankle that limited him to just eight games last year. Again, the news around Skattebo has been more promising than Nabers, but this is a situation that we should be monitoring leading up to week one.
Outside of those two, Jaxson Dart heads into year two after scoring 17.7 PPG as a rookie, and Isaiah Likely heads into his first year with the Giants. After playing alongside Mark Andrews for years, Likely looks to be the starter in 2026.
Tyrone Tracy Jr. is an interesting player for fantasy football with questions around Skattebo. In both year one and two, Tracy has been fine, scoring exactly 10.7 PPG each year.
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