Stars piled on the points in Week 8 fantasy football explosion

First, A.J. Brown caught a touchdown pass. then he caught another one. Then he scored again. Meanwhile, Alvin Kamara was scoring, then again, and again. And Tony Pollard and D’Onta Foreman, and Christian McCaffrey later pulling off a rare TD trifecta.

And you had two-score games by Jamaal Williams, Derrick Henry, Jaylen Waddle and even Tyler Conklin; plus 150-yard days from DeAndre Hopkins, Tyreek Hill, D.J. Moore, Travis Etienne Jr. and (almost) Aaron Jones …

It was an avalanche of fantasy points. It is never a bad thing when you get to swim in a deluge of fantasy points. Unless, of course, your opponents’ pool is even deeper than yours.

For example, there were nine non-quarterback players who topped 30 in PPR formats in Week 8, heading into Monday’s game — the highest number since 11 in Week 4 of 2018. Two of those nine topped 40 in PPR. The only other 40-point outings this season came in Week 2 (with three — Stefon Diggs, Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle).

Such a swell in scoring isn’t normal, but it might not be as rare as you think, according to NBC NFL analyst and fantasy pioneer Matthew Berry.

“I don’t think it was that rare,” Berry said. “I think it seemed more rare because it was a bunch of star guys. … This week was more stars being stars versus sort of like, a ‘Where did that guy come from.’ ” … Though … “Interestingly, this week happened with two of the best offenses on a bye — the Chiefs and the Chargers.”

Unlike Week 2, Sunday’s explosion was driven more by the ground game — five of the top seven Flex scores were running backs, just two wide receivers. In Week 2, of the top 17 Flex scorers, 14 were receivers, two were RBs and one tight end.

“I would say it is more of a regression week,” Berry said. “What a bad year it is for running backs. We’ve been asking: ‘Where is the production?’ …. Whether due to injury or lack of touchdowns, just wasn’t happening. What you saw this week was just some positive regression. You knew the touchdowns would come. The weird thing is it all happened this week.”

Sunday’s spike was reflected in DFS results. FanDuel said it was the second-highest average score ever (the highest coming in 2019) on its platform. Though, the overall winning score (239.88) was just the second-highest this season, behind the aforementioned Week 2 (245.16).

“It was kind of the perfect storm: Derrick Henry getting Houston on the schedule, McCaffrey landing in San Francisco — [Chuba] Hubbard is out, now Foreman is going to get a massive workload. These were unique circumstances that just sort of culminated.”

Though the stars drove much of the scoring spike, the Panthers did provide some surprises.

“Think of it like a dinner party,” Berry said, “and there’s one guest that’s just so obnoxious, and when that one guy leaves, everyone lets out a sigh of relief. I wonder if that is what it was like in Carolina when Matt Rhule was fired.”

Certainly, weeks like this don’t happen often. But it can be fun when they do.