Unless you have a loaded, depth-heavy fantasy football team, filling the FLEX position on a week-to-week basis can oftentimes be a difficult endeavor. You do research, you go over options. You overthink, you underthink. You swap out the same player 57,000 times on gameday. We've all been there.

Of course, sometimes things happen in real-life football that pays huge dividends on the FLEX spot. Take Jacksonville Jaguars running back Travis Etienne, for instance.

Etienne was drafted as an RB2/RB3 with RB1 upside, depending on league size. Most of the fantasy community expected Etienne to push James Robinson aside for the Jaguars starting role fairly easily.

[Week 8 Fantasy Rankings: QBs | RBs | WRs | TEs | FLEX | DST | Kickers]

That didn't happen. Instead, an early season Robinson surge turned Etienne from a player with so much promise to someone who was barely startable.

Things took yet another turn in the past few weeks. Etienne started showing more juice in the run and the pass game, and his snaps steadily started to rise. He became FLEX-worthy again.

And now, with Robinson being traded to the Jets, Etienne looks to have gone beyond just FLEX consideration.

Last week gave us a taste of what Etienne could do in a workhorse role, and he delivered: 114 rushing yards and a touchdown. Surprisingly enough, he caught just one pass on the day (on five targets), his lowest catch total since Week 4. Now, Etienne and the Jags will look to continue building on his new role against the Denver Broncos in Week 8. The Broncos defense is always a tough matchup, but the team as a whole is floundering, making Etienne an easy FLEX play for lineups with quality depth at the running back position.

If only this kind of stuff were so easy!

Here's the FLEX position — check out where Etienne and the rest of the FLEX options landed in our analysts' rankings for Week 8:

2022 Fantasy Football Rankings powered by FantasyProsECR ™ - Expert Consensus Rankings