Fubo News presents the five biggest storylines to watch for in Week 8 of the NFL season. Watch the NFL live on Fubo this weekend.
All 32 teams are in action in NFL Week 8, the first time since Week 4 this has been the case. And yet with 16 games on tap, only two match teams with winning records. Part of that is a lack of options, as only 13 teams actually have winning records through seven weeks, with four teams at .500 and 15 below the win-loss Mendoza line.
The Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles share the NFL’s best record at 6-1 while the lone winless team, the Carolina Panthers, returns from its bye to host the Houston Texans.
Here are the top five storylines to watch in NFL Week 8.
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5. Will the real Buffalo Bills please stand up?
The Buffalo Bills (4-3) continue to perplex and come off a short week to host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (3-3) on Thursday night. Buffalo lost at New England last Sunday and is a game behind the Dolphins in the AFC East.
The Bills have six turnovers in their last three games and 11 on the season as Josh Allen continues to struggle with consistency.
Tampa Bay, meanwhile, is 0-2 since its bye week and its offense doesn’t appear to have returned yet. The Bucs have scored 19 points since the bye while the defense has surrendered 781 yards while allowing only 36 points. Intercepting Atlanta’s Desmond Ridder three times last week helped, even in a losing effort.
Buffalo seems primed for a get-well game at home until one considers how much it struggled to put away the woeful New York Giants two weeks ago.
4. Instant NFL draft feedback
The Texans-Panthers game in Charlotte on Sunday pits the top two picks in this spring’s draft against each other. Carolina went with Bryce Young while Houston selected CJ Stroud.
On paper, Stroud is the runaway winner so far. The Texans have already matched last season’s win total (three) under first-year head coach DeMeco Ryans and Stroud is a big part of that. The rookie has nine touchdown passes to just one interception with veteran Robert Woods and young Nico Collins as his most-targeted receiving options.
Young, on the other hand, has missed one game with an injury and has been sacked 16 times in just five starts. He also has four interceptions against six touchdowns, three of those to veteran security blanket Adam Thielen.
Head coach Frank Reich recently turned over the play-calling duties to offensive coordinator Thomas Brown. With Carolina coming off its bye, this will be the first opportunity to see if that change makes a difference.
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3. Jacksonville takes a 4-game winning streak to Pittsburgh
In one of the two games involving teams with winning records, the 5-2 Jacksonville Jaguars ride a four-game winning streak into the erstwhile Ketchup Bottle in Pittsburgh to take on the 4-2 Steelers.
Pittsburgh returned from its bye on Sunday to eke out a 24-17 come-from-behind win at the Rams. Mike Tomlin is doing it with smoke and mirrors as the Steelers have the 30th-ranked offense and 31st-ranked defense in the NFL.
Second-year quarterback Kenny Pickett is still experiencing growing pains but the defense has produced 11 of its 12 takeaways in its four victories.
Travis Etienne leads the NFL with 117 carries for the Jags, producing 504 yards and seven touchdowns. Quarterback Trevor Lawrence is efficient and dependable even as Jacksonville’s defense is ranked 26th.
The Jaguars are a game and a half up on Houston in the AFC South and are clearly the class of the division. But Pittsburgh keeps finding ways to win and that makes it a tough out.
2. Cleveland Browns riding journeyman P.J. Walker into Seattle
The 4-2 Cleveland Browns are right where they thought they’d be after signing quarterback Deshaun Watson to a megadeal before the 2022 season, in the playoff hunt. Only it’s XFL refugee P.J. Walker getting ready to make his second start of the season on Sunday as Watson is once again sidelined with a shoulder injury.
Walker hasn’t thrown a touchdown pass, yet the Browns knocked off the previously unbeaten 49ers in his first start and he engineered a 12-play, 80-yard touchdown drive to beat the Colts in a wild 39-38 win at Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday.
The Seahawks did enough to win at Arizona last week and are 4-1 since being dominated by the Rams at home in their season opener. Kenneth Walker III has scored six touchdowns on the ground and Geno Smith is completing 68.6% of his throws for 1,391 yards and seven touchdowns to go with four interceptions.
Seattle finds itself a half-game behind staggering San Francisco in the NFC West while Cleveland is a half-game behind the Ravens in the rugged NFC North, where every team is at least .500.
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1. San Francisco 49ers face a test at home
Two weeks ago, the San Francisco 49ers were 5-0 after crushing the Dallas Cowboys. They followed that performance with consecutive road losses at Cleveland and Minnesota and returned home to host the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday.
The Bengals have won two in a row and three of four since an 0-2 start and come back from a needed bye week. Joe Burrow has nursed a calf injury since training camp and his limited mobility was a factor in the team’s slow start.
But the 49ers are banged up, too. Receiver/running back/cotton candy vendor Deebo Samuel will miss his second straight game with a shoulder injury while quarterback Brock Purdy did not practice Wednesday as he is in the concussion protocol. Christian McCaffrey played through an oblique injury in Monday night’s loss to the Vikings.
San Francisco’s defense has been scorched on the ground at Cleveland and via the air by the Vikings, giving up 786 yards the last two weeks while the offense has struggled to 540 yards in that span. Purdy has three interceptions in the last two games, including a game-sealing pick late on Monday night.
If the Bengals can stay close, it could get interesting as San Francisco has not fared well when facing resistance from an opponent. Their five wins were by an average of nearly 20 points and their lone one-possession win over the Rams was the result of a Los Angeles field goal on the final play.
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