A wildly bizarre season opener where managers were, by and large, either thrilled or disappointed. Rhamondre Stevenson and the Seahawks DST occupied the middle ground. Jaxon Smith-Njigba did his usual JSN things. Everyone else either got hurt or was unstartable or both.
I think the drive that best captured what happened was when the Patriots marched downfield for their only touchdown: DeMario Douglas had more catches and receiving yards than A.J. Brown and Romeo Doubs combined, recently acquired backup RB Corey Kiner had four carries, deeper backup RB Len Larison touched the ball for the first time in his career, and rookie TE Eli Raridon caught the TD pass -- the first touch of his career.
For however long Sam Darnold's sidelined, maybe Jaxon Smith-Njigba can remain elite with Drew Lock under center. Yet it's hard to see how Rasheed Shaheed can break through with Cooper Kupp still engaged. I want to believe that a Darnold-Shaheed chemistry can develop. But apparently that's now on hold.
Rookie Jadarian Price was both highly impressive and fantasy irrelevant. The good news for those who drafted him is that he caught two passes (he had only 15 receptions in 41 college games). He was the subject of my second FF4W podcast episode this summer. I picked him because he seemed poised to become a pressure-point player: high expectations and a questionable fantasy ceiling. His 12 touches came close to his college career high of 15. He's not well-positioned to be a workhorse and remains simply a hopeful streamer.
Fantasy-wise, A.J. Brown's ankle injury was unquestionably the biggest news of the night. On August 23rd, I dropped a podcast episode on Brown and why I believed he was vastly overvalued. He entered the season with a WR7 ADP. I had him at WR19. His fluke ankle injury has nothing to do with it. Instead, the issue was how the Patriots would handle him if he *did* get hurt. They reached the Super Bowl last year and needed more firepower through the air. So they paid big for Brown and Doubs.
In particular, they would need a healthy Brown for the playoffs. Without him, this would be a bottom-third-or-worse receiving corps. He's 29 years old and presumably isn't getting better or more durable. So it's reasonable to think New England might play things more cautiously with him than they would with other receivers.
That was my concern this summer, and soon we'll see if that concern was justified.
On a lighter note, congratulations to Nick Kishbaugh for correctly predicting the final score. I should have listened to him, but instead was too busy doing something less important, like working and eating. Never again. In my house, it's now Team-Nick-or-bust.
Tonight's game probably will go differently. The high-powered Rams offense will try to run it back with largely the same core offensive personnel. They led the league last year with 30.5 points per game. Much hinges on 38-year-old Matthew Stafford, who's now #5 all-time with 8,763 regular-season pass attempts. Peyton Manning (#4 on the list) began his rapid decline at about the 9,000-pass mark. Who knows how this will shake out, of course. But Stafford's health and abilities will help shape the fantasy fortunes of at least Puka Nacua and Davante Adams.
For the Niners, it's been an eventful and injury-plagued summer. Christian McCaffrey is one of the greatest RBs of this era. The same can be said of Mike Evans and George Kittle at WR and TE, respectively. They're also all 30-something. I'd put their combined over/under for 2026 missed games at 13.5., and that might be generous. You know my views on CMC. Today's podcast offers some new numbers that are hard to ignore.
Regardless, these are two high-powered offenses when healthy, and we'll probably see at least seven 15+ point scorers tonight. Final score prediction (Nick, help me out): Rams 26-16. Leave your prediction below.
---