Shawn Siegele looks at the key RB performances of Week 1, profiles the risers and fallers, and gives his rest-of-season rankings for the RB1 tier.
It’s only one week. This is the mantra we hear after Week 1 every season, and it’s good to remember. For Packers fans, it helps to think back to the 38-3 drubbing they suffered at the hands of New Orleans to start 2021, and remember that they rallied to finish 13-4 and secure the No. 1 seed. All young Patriots fans are drenched in the lore of Belichick and know that they lost 31-0 to open the 2003 season and went on to pick up their second of six Super Bowls under the NFL’s best coach.
When readers are concerned about their Week 1 fantasy performance, I’ll often mention a team I had in 2007 that scored 49 points in Week 1 and yet eventually ran away with the title.
Don’t underreact. Don’t overreact. And definitely, don’t panic.
It’s only one week.
But it’s also an important week, especially within this special 2022 context with so many new head coaches, new quarterbacks, and the raft of superstars changing teams. A.J. Brown, Davante Adams, and Tyreek Hill all impressed in their new locations, and all appear to have been under-drafted. That’s not anyone’s definition of an overreaction; it’s just a very straightforward conclusion from the performances. The stars were acquired by their new teams specifically because those teams intended to make them focal points.
Since Week 1 is so important for recalibrating our expectations, it’s important to react. After the Thursday night game, I wrote a piece breaking down the Bills/Rams contest and projecting the new ADPs for those players in contests that draft on Friday and Saturday. I participated in a lot of those drafts and was tracking the reactions in our ADP tools. In both my own drafts and overall, there was a shocking underreaction to the initial game . . . with the exception of the drafter in each league who took the Buffalo D early. (The cost for those picks may prove to be too high, but if you were in a flat range on your personal board, there are worse selections than banking a big DST score and pushing to get to 1-0.)
We also have to fight our own psychology a bit. It’s easy to feel like all of our Week 1 hits were good calls, whereas our Week 1 misses fit into the “be patient” category. This is just human nature. I had Ja’Marr Chase as a priority pick and Austin Ekeler as only draftable when he falls. I see their respective first games as illustrative of the thesis behind those recommendations, but it could also be a trap.
I had Saquon Barkley as a priority pick and D’Andre Swift as a draft target – and my own leagues reflect that; we’re drafting in high stakes off of the same boards we publish – with Najee Harris as a full fade, so it’s tempting to see the Week 1 results as validation.
My draft board prioritized Davante Adams above Stefon Diggs, Dalvin Cook, and Derrick Henry. It was difficult to have Adams over a personal favorite in Diggs, and even more so after an impressive Thursday night where he beat the Rams defense in every way imaginable. The Adams/Diggs battle should be ongoing throughout the season – I could still easily be wrong about that even after Adams led all receivers with 17 targets – but both WRs appear to have separated from their RB peers.
By contrast, my thoughts on Week 1 duds from Kyle Pitts and CeeDee Lamb split into the starkly contrasting “weeks like this happen” and “the sky is falling” camps. I still love Pitts, especially after opening weekend again demonstrated how difficult it is to get TE production. The situation in Atlanta looks primed for an eruption. Marcus Mariota and Drake London impressed and this should be a high-powered offense if Arthur Smith removes the shackles. Lamb is a different story. Although he was one of 14 WRs with double-digit targets, his inability to consistently separate or make difficult catches added to a five-game skid that closed last season. He looks like more of a fifth-round pick in the aftermath of Dak Prescott’s injury.
We also have to keep in mind that some of our picks that look sparkling on the surface may conceal a danger lurking underneath. Gerald Everett is my highest-rostered player across all formats. It’s a shockingly, ridiculously high exposure. His 3-54-1 line produced the third-best TE score of Week 1, but it was heavily predicated on that TD. Being excited about Everett right now isn’t that different from being ecstatic about playing O.J. Howard. At this point, it’s still more lucky than good.
Want the OT gang’s instant fantasy takes and visceral reactions after 12 hours of watching football on Sunday? Shawn and Colm have you covered.
