Tonight's matchup features 11 fantasy-relevant skill players who in Week 1 combined for 201 points. There's a lot at stake.
D.J. Moore entered this season as a bit of a wild card. The 29-year-old peaked as the WR9 in points per game year years ago, his first season in Chicago. The following year, he was only the WR29 in points per game. Then last season he plummeted to WR46. The Bills hadn't had a true #1 WR since Stefon Diggs' final campaign in 2023. In Week 1, Moore broke a drought of 23 straight games without 100 receiving yards. Tonight will either solidify his standing as the alpha, or show managers that Buffalo can't feed everyone.
Khalik Shakir and Joshua Palmer both posted top-40 WR numbers on Sunday. Shakir is an entrenched must-roster wideout. Palmer had only two targets on 18 snaps; his game-winning touchdown late in the fourth quarter slightly overshadows the fact that Keon Coleman earned 29 snaps, while Shakir had 31.
I bring this up because the Bills don't yet have a clearly defined wideout hierarchy. Yes, Moore *should* be viewed as the #1. But Shakir has always been on the fringes of streamability, and now he's expected to play more of a secondary role. The better Palmer and/or Coleman play, the harder it will be for Shakir to maintain weekly relevance.
Meanwhile, Dalton Kincaid had more yards in Week 1 (130 yard) than in his previous four games combined. In early September I walked through how each preseason top-8 TE could flop, incorporating historical data showing the likelihood that several of them will. For Brock Bowers, it was injury risks and poor QB play. For Colston Loveland, it was how his rookie breakout games mostly came when the Bears were short-handed. Harold Fannin faced increased target competition and bottom-of-the-barrel quarterbacking. Pitts usually struggles when his #1 WR is healthy. And so on . . .
If Kincaid had been on that list, I would have talked about his injury history. But his ADP was TE13. The market mostly ignored him. He was my TE11: better, but I wasn't confident enough to push him as a must-starter. What I failed to understand is that Kincaid has excelled when he's enjoyed high snap counts. In 10 games when he's played on 70% of Buffalo's offensive snaps, he's averaged 4.8 catches for 52 yards while scoring twice. Entering Week 1, he hadn't cleared 55% of snaps in 16 straight games.
While snaps aren't everything, they matter. He averaged only 4.1 targets per game last season. His usefulness was due almost entirely to his five TD receptions. The difference between a must-start TE and a "stream-and-hope" TE is that the former doesn't need to score to deliver for fantasy managers. Kincaid might be on the cusp of must-start status.
As for Josh Allen and James Cook, not much to say. My only thought on Cook is the same thought I shared repeatedly this summer, and which explained why the overall-9 / RB5 ADP running back was my overall-26 / RB11: lightly used college running backs almost always have shorter-than-expected NFL careers, especially if they become a team's bellcow. Cook's 385 touches last year smashed his previous season high and was 30% more than his total college output. That's a fantasy danger zone.
For the Lions, Jahmyr Gibbs and Amon-Ra St. Brown are no-brainers for all the obvious reasons. One note: Gibbs had 34 touches on Sunday. On today's podcast, I walk through the historical context of 30+ touch Sunday-to-Thursday RBs and how they perform in the second leg of those back-to-backs.
Jameson Williams is a terrific buy-low WR. His 14 drops on his previous 111 targets are concerning, but they're not (yet) deal-breakers. Two years ago, Jared Goff's pass rating when targeting Williams was 112.9. Last year it was 119.6. Williams' floor remains dreadful. His ceiling is comfortably 20+. Don't give up on him, even if he falls short tonight.
Finally, both Jared Goff and Sam LaPorta are fringe starters in this one. Gibbs helps elevate his QB through the air. If Gibbs has 20 or fewer touches (pretty good chance), Goff's upside will take a hit. The Bills led the league in offensive time of possession in 2025. Detroit reportedly led the league with 14 offensive drives in Week 1. It's an interesting combination that suggests at least some risk of the Lions engineering fewer drives, potentially resulting in fewer big-time performances. I don't believe Goff will crack 17 points.
Final score prediction: Bills win 26-14. Leave your prediction below.