Week 1 is tough on some (most?) fantasy managers because for weeks/months our expectations about many players have gradually hardened. Some calculations are based on last season or, for guys who faced serious injuries last year, they might stem from what happened two or even three years ago. Other determinations are based on what we've seen/heard/read during the preseason. Or have you ever been lukewarm about a player, drafted him, and then (consciously or unconsciously) decided, "He's actually gonna be really good"?
We're not sizing up, for example, Week 8 in the aftermath of Week 7. The NFL season hasn't established any patterns. We're in the beginning stages of what, for many players, will become continuity or discontinuity. We just don't know which way each player will go.
Yesterday's rematch of last season's AFC Championship game featured two of the league's better offenses against (possibly) two of the league's four best defenses. That alone suggested this wasn't going to be a normal game. Add to that the mysterious Week 1 angle and all of the key offseason additions and departures, and we're left with a lot of head-scratching -- some of which will continue, and some of which will turn out to be more or less one-offs. Again, we just don't know how each narrative will play out.
For the Chiefs, Rashee Rice picked up where he left off in his rookie campaign, when he produced a 69-780-4 receiving line on 89 targets in his final 10 outings (including the playoffs). At a 17-game clip, he would have netted numbers a little better than D.J. Moore's, who was the WR6. I had thought Xavier Worthy, Travis Kelce, and (eventually) Hollywood Brown would cut into Rice's ceiling, making him a slight fade across a full season. But last night he was the offensive alpha. We'll see if it continues as Worthy develops and when Brown returns.
Speaking of Worthy, wow. Speed matters. But if it were the only thing that mattered, John Ross's prior record-breaking 4.22 40-yard time would've been enough to make him fantasy relevant, and Keenan Allen's 4.71 would've made him . . . long forgotten. Worthy's 20+ fantasy points have put him firmly on the map. And . . . he'll need consistent usage to be consistently startable. In a few weeks we'll have a better idea whether he's a must-start.
Two notable letdowns for K.C., and neither should have been shocking. Kelce will turn 35 in a month and took a noticeable step back in 2023. He's still one of the best TEs, and he's also on the downside of his career. Managers have to hope he'll be at least a top-5 guy and ideally top 3. But I ranked Patrick Mahomes as my QB7 on the assumption the Chiefs' defense would take pressure off him in a lot of fourth quarters. I probably should have done the same with Kelce.
Also, I beat the drum pretty loudly about Isiah Pacheco. Way, way too early to say, "See? See?!" And that's not my style regardless. But 342 touches last year was too many for a dynastic team's bell cow, and his diminished efficiency in the postseason hinted at a slightly modified approach entering 2024. Adding Samaje Perine, in my opinion, bolstered that thinking. And while Pacheco collected a solid 17 touches -- and while the Ravens' D might stymie a lot of starting RBs this year -- and while fantasy managers have to be thrilled with his production, he's now averaged 3.7 YPC in his last five games. And he's on pace to match or exceed last year's touch total. That's not an ideal combination.
For the Ravens, Lamar Jackson surely gave some managers heartburn in the first half. Then he got going and did enough to warrant the fantasy start. But collectively, every other Baltimore playmaker generated chaos.
Derrick Henry is his new team's version of Kelce: a unique legend in the twilight of an historic career. I've written about Henry's noticeable decline in 2023 and wondered whether it would carry over in a much better offense. Again, they faced the Chiefs, so who knows what to make of last night. However, Henry's 13-46-1 line probably won't be an outlier, especially when Keaton Mitchell returns. The Ravens committed to getting Justice Hill involved, and Hill's impressive performance won't help Henry's cause.
Speaking of which, in my Premier Fantasy Football League draft Wednesday night, I picked at the 14-15 turn. Near the end I snagged Hill and Mitchell, in the belief that Henry's usage and age made him just enough of a risk to warrant stashing a couple of partial lottery tickets. As with everything else, we'll see if Henry's still the same unquestioned fantasy starter, or if this is the year he settles into a reduced 1A role. The latter scenario seems likely given how frequently this franchise has been burned by significant RB injuries in recent years.
Speaking of "likely," that was last night's biggest fantasy earthquake. In fairness, it won't always be this way. Mark Andrews won't shift to the periphery. He just turned 29 (today, in fact). Defenses might focus a bit more on Isaiah Likely. Some game scripts will favor Andrews. This is just one game. And yet, it can't be unseen. Likely dominated, and had he scored at the end, he would've had 34.1 fantasy points . . . plus whatever he could net in overtime.
If you were smart enough to draft Likely, I would do what seems unthinkable: trade him to the opponent who has Andrews. Don't be greedy about it. But this is the time to move him. His numbers came at the expense of Andrews', Zay Flowers', and perhaps even the chronically undervalued Rashod Bateman. Plus, Jackson threw the ball 41 times. He's thrown more than 38 in only five of his other 77 regular season starts.
There's almost no conceivable way Likely will be a top-6 TE unless Andrews gets knocked out for the season. Let his ups and downs be someone else's problem.
I know some of you are thinking, "That's crazy. Likely rocks." So does Andrews. And Flowers. And this is a run- and defense-focused team that just faced one of the league's toughest opponents, if not *the* toughest. This game is more likely to be an outlier for Likely than anything remotely resembling a new norm.
Oh, and who won the closest-score contest? I picked the Chiefs 23-17, but guessing a dozen or more of you got closer.
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