Texans vs. Colts 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 Texans and Colts.

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

Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

C.J. Stroud: Stroud is coming off completing 10-of-21 passes for 86 yards (4.1 Y/A) against Green Bay.

Houston had their hands full all afternoon as Stroud was pressured on 51.7% of his dropbacks, the second-highest career rate.

Stroud was 3-of-10 for 14 yards under pressure.

Stroud now has only two QB1 scoring weeks on the season, but the good news is that he gets a familiar opponent at home.

Where the Packers threw a ton of exotic looks and pressures at Stroud and this offensive line, Gus Bradley has been one of the more static defensive play callers.

Stroud has been a QB1 scorer in all three games of his early career against Bradley’s teams including Week 1 of this season (18.7 points).

The Colts have played Cover 3 on 52.8% of the plays in those games.

Against Cover 3, Stroud has hit 44-of-58 (69.0%) of his throws for 7.8 yards per attempt.

Paired with a high team total, Stroud’s past success should have him on the trust tree this weekend.

I would still start Stroud where I have him in 1QB leagues (for sure 2QB leagues) based on his success in this matchup and not being scared of the Colts.

However, a few notes are that the Texans have undershot their team total in all of their home games, while the crux of the damage done in these previous matchups was done by throwing the ball to Nico Collins.

Collins has been the Texans' Cover 3 killer with lines of 7-146-1, 9-195-1, and 6-117-0 in those three games against the Colts.

Stroud has thrown for 6.2 and 4.1 yards per pass attempt in two games without Collins this year.

On 537 dropbacks with Collins on the field, Stroud averaged 8.1 yards per attempt with a 67.5% completion rate.

On 281 dropbacks without Collins to open his career, Stroud has completed 59.2% of his passes for 7.5 Y/A.

Maybe none of that matters because of the Colts, but this spot is not as clean as it would have been with Collins active.

Anthony Richardson: Richardson’s limited fantasy output continued on Sunday.

Completing 10-of-24 passes (41.7%) for 129 yards (5.4 Y/A), Richardson ended last week as QB22 (8.8 points).

He ran a lot more (14 times for 56 yards) than he has in a game this season, but it was not enough to boost his fantasy line.

After scoring 20 or more fantasy points in his first three full NFL games, Richardson has scored single-digit fantasy points over his past three complete games.

Richardson only completed 9 of 19 passes when these teams played in Week 1 but connected on splash plays (passing touchdowns of 60 and 54 yards) while adding 11.6 rushing points.

Those have dried up.

When these teams played in Week 1, Richardson had 3 touchdowns (2 passing and 1 rushing).

Since then, he has one passing touchdown and zero rushing touchdowns.

We cannot play Richardson as more than a boom-or-bust QB2, but if we are looking for that touchdown drought to end, the Texans have allowed a league-high 7.0% touchdown rate to passers this season.

The wild part is that it comes attached to allowing a league-low 56.3% completion rate.

So they allow the lowest rate of completed passes but the most touchdowns per pass attempt.

They have not been squeaky-clean outings, but the Texans have allowed QB1 scoring weeks to Drake Maye (19.5 points) and Jordan Love (16.8 points) in the past two weeks.

Running Back

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