Week 1 NFL Preview

Between "Spit-gate" and "Slap-gate", the opening games of Week 1 have been crazy.  Here's your Sunday/Monday fantasy lineup strategy.

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We're 15 minutes away from the Powerball drawing, and we are 15 hours away from our first Sunday in football. If you are not excited, there is something wrong with you. What have we had so far? We've had lightning delays. We've had slap gate. We've had spit gate. Kelsey is getting into fights. What is happening? It's week one, baby. Everyone is excited. I'm excited. I hope you are. Let's talk about what week one is going to bring for us on the Sunday preview. Now I know after the Thursday and the Friday Games, there are some folks out there who are questioning their skills as a fantasy football player. I'm sure you are. It's okay. We're going to walk through it together. There were definitely some surprises. There were some letdowns. Yeah, we'll get into Hampton. We'll get into all of it. We'll break it down, and I'll try to help you out for Sunday. Let's start off with the injuries, because I think that's always important. Let's take a look at that, obviously. CMC, is he playing? Is he not? Oh, I feel great. Isn't that what San Fran told us all last year, going into week one, and then all of a sudden, oh, CMC, he's not going to play. Look, if you've got, CMC, I know you're worried right now, don't worry. He's going to play. Your real problem is, is how many snaps is he going to play? He's going to get out there because he's got to make his money. I mean, seriously, if he doesn't get out there, there's going to be an issue. So he's going to get out there, he's going to play. He's probably not going to give you 25 touches. So you need to think about that. But you did draft him in the first round, so in a way, you kind of got to go with it. That's probably not what you wanted to hear. Other injuries. Isaiah, likely he's out, so fire up. Andrews, he's going to have a huge game. There's a couple of fake injuries that are gone. I say fake meaning they kind of let them go a little bit longer on the injury waiver wire than they should have. Guys like Hill, Coleman, Shakir, they're all good to go. They're all going to play things like that. Waller, though he's out, Miami really doesn't have a tight end, so he'll waddle a chain. Even my man Ali Gordon, who I got in the 13th round, I'm telling you right now, fire all these guys up. Kate Otten is good, so that's good. I have him in my top 15 tight end, so that would definitely fire him up. Expect with Tampa Bay in the top four. As far as total scoring is for Vegas, I'm thinking probably going to get a really solid day against Atlanta. New Orleans lost their top edge rusher against Arizona, so that minus six is looking even juicier right now. Arizona should crush New Orleans, and you should fire up everyone on Arizona. And then last but not least, Cam Hayward is a Yeah, I might play. I might not play. It's a business decision. I don't make enough money. I gotta provide for my family. I've only made $140 million in the last seven years. Yeah, we're all feeling your pain, bro. We're right there with you. Good luck on that. But what does that mean? That means if you're wondering if you should play breeze Hall, who you drafted really high, go ahead and play him. All right, remember, if there's a question mark on some of the injuries out there, 90 minutes prior to the games is when they announce it. You can check my ex feed. I love to update that for you guys make sure you're making the proper decisions. But right now, everybody's looking pretty healthy. You would have heard by now if they're out, you never know, though, they might get into a car accident on the way to the game. Just saying, it has happened before. Tyreke got arrested out of the way the game one time, we all remember that. Well, there's your injury update. Let's take a look at what Vegas is thinking this week. The biggest over unders are the Baltimore Buffalo game standard, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Green Bay and Tampa Bay, Atlanta. So if you've got players in these games, definitely going to fire them all up. So if you're having some tough decisions, you want exposure to these games. On the flip side, the lowest over unders are Pittsburgh, near jets, Tennessee versus Denver and Las Vegas, New England. Now, normally you would fade these, but depending on what players you have on which teams, you'd actually fire them up. So it really depends. Obviously, if you have Denver, I would fire all those guys up. Tennessee. Pollard's a good play. Ridley, Ken Ward, I don't know about that one. Vegas versus New England. Yes, you're gonna play me. Yes, you're gonna play Bowers, Myers, all those guys. Janty, yeah, you're gonna fire them all up. But just, you know, Vegas makes money off doing this. If they have a low over under, you might want to temper your expectations a little bit. I mean, they exist for a reason, right? The biggest spreads out there are the Denver, Tennessee game, Arizona going into New Orleans at minus six and Cincinnati, minus five against Cleveland and Washington, minus five against the Giants. What does that mean? None of them are really huge, except for the Denver game. I would worry about the Denver game, but just a tiny bit, if they get out into a huge lead and get in the fourth quarter, you might see some of those starters pull back. Sutton might sit out half the fourth quarter. I mean, even Nicks might sit out half the fourth quarter. That's where you might see Harvey come in, if he hasn't already had, you know, a good solid 10 or 15 touches. He might finish the game. So. You know that could actually impact your decisions. And again, I only bring up the Vegas piece, not because I want you to bet on these games, but I want you to understand the kind of games that you should have exposure to and the ones that maybe you should fade. And if you're having some tough decisions, sometimes what Vegas thinks actually impacts my decisions. I mean, again, they make money doing this. Okay, we've had two games in the books. Let's get a quick analysis of those and see how it's going to impact the guys we play going into Sunday, we'll first start off with Thursday, Dallas, Philly, yes, terrible weather, weird game, but there wasn't a whole lot of surprises as far as I'm concerned. First of all, yes, I drafted Javante, yes, I started him. Yes, I can prove it. But does it surprise me that he did as well as he did? Yes, it does. And it should surprise you whether you drafted him or not, two touchdowns off of just a little bit of work. I mean, honestly, what was it? 15 carries, 55 ish yards, really not getting a great average, but what he did get was the red zone carries, and that's what I expected, which is why I had him listed as my number 27 running back overall. Folks, he is a starter. That's why you draft him. Everyone's all over blue. They were getting blue in a round earlier than him. Folks, I reached out to get him 22 spaces before he is supposed to come up in ADP. There's a reason you go after starters, whether you play him, that's based on your flex positions and how many running backs you have. I had a flex available. He's a starter. It's a Thursday night game. First one. It's a no brainer, as far as I'm concerned. On the flip side, on the Eagles, I expected AJ Brown and Devonta Smith to have bad years. I have them ranked 27th and 28th overall in wide receivers, and AJ was getting picked up in the second round. There's a reason for that. They do not throw the ball enough, and their quarterback does not have the accuracy that he should. AJ and Devonta were nursing injuries almost the entire time during the preseason. And saquon is saquon The guys at 2000 yard running back. When you take a look and you break it down and you look at Dallas' defense, they're at home. It's a little bit skittish at home. You know, the banners being raised, they didn't even come out for that. I mean, let's face it, the wide receivers and their quarterback hurts did not get enough practice time in the off season. So no one should be surprised that these guys struggled from a past perspective. Will it get better in the rest of the season? Yeah, it probably will, but they are not going to justify their ADP, which is why I had them ranked so low. Let's talk about the other receivers in the game, Pickens. Yeah, I didn't even have him in my top 40. There's a reason CD lamb is on the other side. Why is everybody thinking that Pickens is going to be the guy? CD lamb, four drops, bro, that is unexcusable. I mean, I know there are a lot of people are like, You got to be kidding me right now, he had an off game. He's going to come back strong. He was on the JUGS Machine like all weekend. Believe me, incredible talent. Don't worry. Everybody has an off game. Dak, he looked good. Yeah, if CD didn't drop some of those passes, he would have looked even better. But when Dak is healthy and he gets protection, he's good to go. And yes, we had spit gate, so that helped out a lot. Moving on to Friday's game, let's talk about the Chargers. First. They looked amazing. Herbert looks like a top five quarterback. He's got Keenan Allen back. And those of you who underestimated Keenan Allen, that was a huge mistake. They have chemistry from years ago, and it showed on that field. Yes, I know Quinton Johnson had, you know, a huge game, but that was a fluke. And I'll talk about that in here in a second. And then McConkey had a normal game. I think he missed a couple of opportunities, but in all, in all, I think the passing game looked exactly like I thought. Everyone was surprised by the oh, they're going to run Hampton, you know, 25 times. No, they're not. They're not a running team. They're now a passing team. Why? Because Herbert is a great pocket passer. Keenan Allen is a great possession receiver. So is lad McConkey and Quentin Johnson. He finally made the leap, although he still dropped a touchdown. He did catch two of the other touchdowns that went to him. So good on him. Was I surprised by that? Yes, I didn't even have him ranked in my 60, my top 60 wide receivers. So that's my bad. You're not going to hear anybody else say, my bad, but I will. That was a mistake on my part. Can you repeat it? I'm not so sure. He only had seven targets. He caught five of them for two touchdowns. Monster game, obviously. But do you really think that's going to repeat itself? No, it's not Keenan Allen and his workload, all those targets and a touchdown, that's going to repeat itself. We hope to see a little bit more from lad McConkey, especially since I ranked him number 13, he was going in the third round. I thought that was a good move, although, you know, they picked up Keenan Allen late after I ranked him, it's still, I think he should get more targets. Kansas City is a legit defense, and they were playing outside of the country, so I'll give him some slack there, and we'll see what happens. The biggest thing that came from that game was Hampton boy. That hype train derailed fast. I will tell you I had Hampton in number 35 on my running back list. Is there's a reason for that. First off, he is a rookie, a rookie everybody who was going in the third round ahead of starters who were putting up top 20 performances last year. There is no way he has 1000 yard running back as a teammate. Yes, I know naj air should never play with fireworks, but it's 1000 yard running back who consistently gets 1000 yards. You really think that Hampton is going to come in here and light it up? No, he's not. Especially now, with all the weapons that the Chargers have, you're in trouble. If you have Hampton. I would not start him again. I would not have drafted him. But right now, if you can find somebody who will trade you for him a starting running back, I would go get him. That kid is not going to get any better. Averaging 3.2 a carry, that is not going to get it done. If you want to win your league. On the flip side, you have Kansas City. They had trouble moving the ball worthy. Getting hurt was obviously a big, huge piece of that. Pacheco is not an RB one. I don't care what anyone says. He was getting drafted in the fifth round. He's never finished a full season. He's inconsistent. They're not a run first team, and mahomes has to get his I even predicted that mahomes would run a touchdown in and why? Because he needs to get his touchdowns. There's too much in it. He's the $500 million man Pacheco is not. And Pacheco is not a strong runner, and they gave hunt an equal amount of carries and catches. If you are a Pacheco owner, you need to get rid of Pacheco now see if you can trade him for somebody, somebody. Now that we're done with the recap, let's talk about what you should do for this weekend. My big advice to you is keep it simple. Go with your gut and play your guys. There is no magical formula, no metric that all these people are pushing out there that's going to give you the best matchup. It just doesn't exist. There is no hey, if the quarterback winks at the wide receiver and the running back taps his left butt cheek, it's going to be an awesome day for the tight end. No, it's not. There is no special, magical thing. I mean, I am not some super prognosticator that gets it right all the time, but I am definitely the guy who will tell you when I am wrong. Now, what do I do? I take almost three decades of playing fantasy football, I use logic, common sense and a little bit of luck, and I put all that together, and I make my predictions. Not all of them are going to come true, and not all of them are going to work out. And I'll tell you at least when that happens. For sure, we value transparency on this show, but for week one, listening to all the pundits out there, they're gonna tell you, Oh, CMC will be fine. I don't think he is. But again, you have to go with your gut. They're gonna tell you that, oh, this matchup is the best. Vegas will tell you this is gonna be the highest scoring game. And yeah, they make money doing it, but they're not always right. Week one is an unknown. If your guy is healthy and you drafted him in the first seven rounds, these are your starters. Start them when it comes to the flex position, go with your gut, if you like the Vegas way, where it's going to be a high scoring game, or you want to get exposure to a high powered offense, then go ahead and do that. But unless that guy is on the injury report, remember, 90 minutes prior, check my x feed, that'll help you out. But if he's not on the injury report and you drafted him, then play him. Don't listen to all these guys well, well, you know, this super metric tells me that he's going to have a better, you know, chance of scoring a touchdown here, whatever man it's week one. Let's see what happens. None of those metrics predicted worthy popping his shoulder open on the first play of the game. None of them, it's the NFL. Crazy stuff happens. I mean, look at what we've had already, honestly. So play your starters, keep it simple. Enjoy the weekend, and I hope that you win your contest. As always, let's give a shout out to the men and women in uniform who protect the freedoms that we hold dear. Thank you for your service and sacrifice, and thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, follow us on X YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, to stay up to date on our latest content, and until then, remember, establish dominance isn't just A catchphrase, it's a commitment, and you are ready. You you.