It is very easy for a fantasy football manager to overreact to Week 1. After all we did wait all this time to see if our players were any good, and when they fail to perform, it can be frustrating. However it is important to keep a cool head in these tough times. Fantasy football is a marathon, not a sprint. Of course we are trying to win each and every week, but it’s about the record at the end of the year. One bad game from your first round pick shouldn’t topple your entire season, nor is it a reason to drop that player to the curb.
There are a handful of players out there that missed their projections by quite a large margin. But these are the guys I wanted to reiterate to you all out there that this is no time to worry. These are the studs I’m not worried about heading into the second week of NFL action.
Every Offensive Weapon on the Bengals
Well it looks like the annual “Bengals look awful game ” came early this year. Joe Burrow and company looked tragically bad in a game that had a lot of people invested. Between rough weather conditions and a strong defense, the Bengals were completely outmatched. Nothing went right, nothing looked right and ultimately fantasy managers were pulling their hair out as they watch their team totals barely rise.
Fun bad beats from this game include:
- Burrow getting benched in the 4th quarter
- Tee Higgins receiving 8 targets and catching 0
- Me losing 10 bucks on Ja’mar Chase anytime TD bet
Despite this putrid opening, there’s absolutely no worry here with the bengals. Fluke games happen. Looking at the history of the recent high-powered bengals offense, we can rest easy knowing that this poor performance was an outlier and not the new norm. For whatever reason Joe Burrow historically struggles against the Browns defense. Combine that with him missing the entire preseason nursing an injury, maybe we as a community should have seen this coming.
The weapons around Burrow struggled as a result of the quarterback’s inability to move the ball. Frankly there is just too much talent on this team for the offense to continue stumbling. Chase, Higgins and Mixon should still stick around in your lineup for week 2. Hell I’m not even worried about Irv Smith – a player that we haven’t really talked about this year.
[Related: Fantasy Football Week 2 Quarterback Rankings]
Darren Waller and Saquon Barkley
What an awful game to start of the year for the New York Giants. After one solid looking drive the Giants just foundered around for 55 minutes against an absolutely elite defense from the cowboys. (Did anyone else forget that they scooped up Stephon Gilmore? I know I did). Daniel Jones was running for his life every other play, and when he did have time to let the ball loose, it was close to the line of scrimmage.
Darren Waller was the recipient of a lot of pre-season hype around his overall usage and importance to this team. And in his first game with the Big Blue Waller was tied for first in the team in targets (5) receptions (3) and leas the team in receiving yards. He is their top option outside of Saquon, and should continue to dominate the targets among the rest of the pass catchers. Luckily not every team has the defensive talent of the Dallas cowboys and there are better days ahead.
Speaking of Saquon – certainly don’t move away from him. It’s just one week out of 17, he is still one of the best runners in the NFL. This Cowboys game got truly out of hand and it seemed like the defense could simply send 8 guys every down to disrupt any run play. Even the screen game looked bad. Hang tight, and ride out this rough early storm for the Giants.
Jalen Hurts and Lamar Jackson
What a let down it was to see the scores on Hurts and Jackson coming out of Week 1. These are two quarterbacks that came into the season with true NFL MVP potential as well as fantasy football MVP aspirations. They both contain the elite combination of passing talent and rushing upside that can single-handedly win fantasy matchups. Managers spent up to grab these guys, and they absolutely dropped the ball to start the season. In their defense it wasn’t all their fault.
Yes Lamar threw a pick very early in the game which obviously hurt his overall score. The big issue came from missing any touchdown scoring. He still averaged just above 6 yards per carry, he just didn’t get the goal line work as a rusher. Without Mark Andrews, it also looked like the Ravens wanted to just power the ball through with their various running backs. It was a case where he didn’t need to do much as the Ravens easily controlled the pace of the game. Not every game will be against the Texans and Lamar Jackson should find the endzone soon.
Jalen Hurts has a similar story, but at least he threw a touchdown. The eagles were up by 16 before the end of the first quarter, in a rainy game, against a very good New England defense. Hurts didn’t need to everything in order to get the win for the Eagles. For the offense it was about killing the clock and trying to slowly increase the lead. While they did snag the victory, the offense dragged a bit scoring just a lone touchdown in the first half and settling for field goals the rest of the way through. Hurts fumbled as well, which never helps the fantasy cause.
This is all to say, he should return to form and torch the Vikings inside the dome on Thursday night. In better conditions against a much more porous defense, the Eagles will definitely be aiming to remind the league why they are Super Bowl contenders.
Stay Connected
You can like The Game Haus on Facebook! And make sure to follow us on X (Twitter) for more sports and esports articles from other TGH writers.
Follow Bryan on Twitter @esportsbrock for more content like this and fantasy football topics throughout the season.