Bears vs Cowboys Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 8

The Worksheet, a fantasy football overview by Rich Hribar, breaking down everything you need to know for the Week 8 Chicago Bears at Dallas Cowboys Sunday afternoon game.

• The Cowboys are the only remaining team that has not allowed a first quarter touchdown.
• Just 20.5% of the drives against the Cowboys have reached the red zone or scored prior, the lowest rate in the league.
• 27.6% of the Chicago passing plays have resulted in a first down or touchdown, 29th in the league.
• 26.7% of the passing plays versus Dallas have resulted in a first down or touchdown, the second lowest rate in the league.
• Dallas is forcing 5.9 sacks plus takeaways per game, the most in the league.
• The Bears are allowing 5.4 sacks plus turnovers per game, the second-most in the league.

Quarterback

Dak Prescott: Prescott was efficient in his return, completing 19-of-25 passes for 207 yards (8.3 Y/A) with one touchdown. Unfortunately, Dallas was never pressed on the scoreboard and could lean into the run, punching in two rushing scores with their backs near the goal line. With Dallas never forced to get aggressive, they were right on their expected pass rate for the game. 

We have Prescott as a high total, home favorite to keep him floating around fringe QB1 territory, but the Bears have been surprisingly game this year against the pass. Chicago is allowing just 0.31 passing points per attempt (fifth) and a league-low 8.4 passing points per game. 

The Bears have allowed one or fewer touchdown passes in every game but one. The only QB1 scoring weeks against them this year have each come attached to rushing touchdowns. 

Justin Fields: Fields continued to get there for fantasy last week, closing the week as the QB5 on a season-high 23.4 fantasy points. That is now the third straight game that Fields has been a top-12 scorer. 

Fields has not thrown more than one touchdown pass in a game since Week 1, but Chicago has gotten slightly more aggressive with 27.0 dropbacks per game over the past four weeks. Fields is still leaning on his rushing output to anchor his fantasy floor. He is averaging 6.9 rushing points per game, with games of 88 and 82 yards on the ground the past two weeks. On Monday, Fields had a season-high 12 designed rushing attempts for 62 yards. On the season, Fields leads the league with 35 scrambles for 285 yards. 

He will need that rushing here against a Dallas defense that just is a matchup nightmare for this Chicago passing game. Fields has pressured on a league-high 50% of his dropbacks. Dallas is pressuring the opposing quarterback on a league-high 40.5% of dropbacks. 

When Dallas has pressured the opposing passer, they are 29-of-75 (38.7%) passing for 111 yards (3.9 Y/A) with zero touchdowns and three interceptions. Those passers have taken 28 sacks on those dropbacks. 

Dallas only allowed 27 yards rushing to Jalen Hurts two weeks ago, but they did allow 79 yards rushing to Daniel Jones back in Week 3.

As strong as Fields has been in establishing himself as a #Konami option moving forward, this is a week to proceed with some trepidation using him as a streamer. 

Running Back

Tony Pollard (TRUST): Pollard is set up to be the feature back in Week 8 with Ezekiel Elliott suffering a knee injury last week. Elliott did return to the game, but is expected to be sidelined for at least this week.

We only have a one game sample of Pollard playing with Elliott inactive. In that game, Pollard played 90% of the snaps and was the RB1 overall for fantasy, turning 18 touches into 132 yards and two touchdowns. That was a game without Dak Prescott as well.

With Prescott returning to the field last week, Dallas ran eight offensive plays inside of the 10-yard line and six inside of the 5-yard line. Under Cooper Rush, they had run 12 plays in total inside of the 10 and just three inside of the five.

Pollard is already a hyper-efficient players and now is set up for a high workload and high value touches. He is averaging 5.6 yards per carry and 9.5 yards per catch. 

As good as the Bears have been against the pass, they have still struggled to defend the run. They are allowing 4.58 YPC to backfields (23rd) with 16.3 rushing points per game (28th). Opposing backfields are averaging 24.4 attempts per game against Chicago, fourth most in the league. The Bears have allowed six rushing scores from backs (27th).

Bears RBs: Coming into last week, the Bears stated they were going to “ride the hot hand” in their backfield moving forward. That resulted in a much tighter split between David Montgomery and Khalil Herbert than we have seen with both healthy. 

Montgomery played 40 snaps (56.3%), handling 15 touches for 62 yards and a rushing touchdown. Montgomery had the most touches, but his 48.4% share of backfield touches was his lowest rate in a game with Herbert this season. 

Herbert played 29 snaps (40.8%), turning his 13 touches into 87 yards, including the first receiving touchdown of his career. Herbert was once again more efficient than Montgomery. He did not force the “hot hand” narrative in full, but he has created a timeshare. 

While that typically is the worst outcome for us for fantasy, the Bears at least have a good running game. Chicago running backs are sitting fourth in the NFL in carries (168) and fifth in yardage (823). Chicago running backs also have 30 red zone carries, which is third in the league. The downside is that they are also 30th in the NFL in targets (22) on the season. 

This backfield split makes both backs touchdown-dependent FLEX plays. 

Dallas is allowing 4.34 YPC (14th) and 11.1 rushing points per game (10th) to backs.

Wide Receiver

CeeDee Lamb: Even with Prescott returning to the field, we received similar output from Lamb since the Cowboys were not asked to do much lifting through the air. Lamb caught 4-of-6 targets for 70 yards. He did receive another 24.0% of the team targets, but Dallas had just 25 team targets to dish out in the game. 

Lamb’s rate stats are great. He still sits second in the NFL in target share (32.2%) and third in targets per route (30.0%). We just need the passing volume to come along here and turn those rate metrics in front-end target counting target totals. 

The implied game environment here does not suggest that will be the case this week, which keeps Lamb a rung down from the elite-producing wideouts in Week 8. 

Chicago is allowing just 11.1 points per game to opposing WR1 options (third), but their resume is not overly flattering in terms of limiting higher-end WR1 options. They faced Justin Jefferson and allowed a 12-154-0 game that week. 

Darnell Mooney: Mooney has worked his way out of the basement that he started the year in all the way up to volatile WR4/FLEX. Mooney has traded off weeks as the WR77, WR24, WR58, WR26, and WR50 over the past five weeks. He does have at least 50 yards receiving in four straight games. 

He has seen 32.7% of the team targets over that period, which ranks second among all wide receivers. But since the Bears have been such a limited passing game, he is just 28th among wideouts in actual targets (34) over that span. Mooney has had more than six targets in a game just once while we are still chasing his first touchdown of the year. 

Dallas is eighth in points allowed per game to opposing WR1 options (12.5).

Michael Gallup: Gallup was held without a catch on two targets Sunday, giving him an 8-86-1 line on 17 targets since returning to the lineup in Week 4.

Over that timeframe, Gallup has received 16.3% of the team targets, which trails Noah Brown (17.3%). Brown has 10-126-0 on 18 targets with Gallup in the lineup, but also has not been a top-40 scorer in any of those games. 

We are still waiting for Gallup to get going, leaving him as an option only for deep leagues.

Tight End

Dalton Schultz: Schultz caught all five of his targets for 49 yards on Sunday. He tweaked the knee injury he has been dealing with all season but stated that he is “fine” after the game. Still, that limited Schultz to running a route on just 57.1% of the dropbacks.

It was not Schultz who drew the end zone target and score from Prescott Sunday, but Schultz did see 20% of Prescott’s targets, his largest target share in a game since Week 1 when Prescott was under center. He was targeted on 31.3% of his routes, his highest rate this season. 

The lingering knee injury and limited snaps still leave Schultz a floor-based fantasy option better in full-PPR leagues. 

Chicago has been strong against tight ends, allowing 6.3 yards per target (10th) and a 2.9% touchdown rate (13th) to the position. 

Cole Kmet: Seven weeks into the season, Kmet has 12 catches for 148 yards and no touchdowns. He has not had more than four targets in any game this season and is not a fantasy option at this point.

Dallas is allowing 5.5 yards per target (third) to tight ends and have not allowed a tight end to catch a touchdown yet.

More Week 8 Fantasy breakdowns from The Worksheet:

BAL at TB | DEN at JAX | CAR at ATL | CHI at DAL | ARI at MIN | MIA at DET | NE at NYJ | PIT at PHI | LVR at NO | TEN at HOU | NYG at SEA | SF at LAR | WAS at IND | GB at BUF | CIN at CLE