In our Week 1 fantasy football start ’em and sit ’em, we let the data give another perspective that likely varies from the expert consensus.
Welcome back to a fourth season of Yays and Nays on Opta Analyst!
As always, our rankings and projections can be found on the website each week. They will be updated every week throughout the season and should always be your starting point for deciding between who to pick up off waivers or who to start each week.
If you’re new to Yays and Nays, each week in this piece we highlight the players our fantasy football model point to as being ranked too high or low compared to industry consensus.
Here is a refresher of how our model works. Otherwise, with Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs taking on Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens in the opening matchup of the NFL season, let’s get right to it.
The Yays: Week 1 Fantasy Plays Projected Higher Than Expert Consensus
Note: We’re comparing our rankings to the expert consensus rankings (ECR) from Fantasy Pros. These rankings update throughout the week (we pulled these numbers from Wednesday). Once again, we are using PPR unless noted otherwise.
Kirk Cousins, QB (ATL) vs PIT (ECR: 21, Our Rank: QB11, Projected Points: 16.51)
Two things can be true. One, Cousins tore his Achilles last season and his first game action since that injury will be coming with a new team against TJ Watt and the Steelers. Two, he was possibly playing the best football of his career before the injury and was unquestionably a top-10 quarterback when he went down.
The Achilles injury and Cousins’ ability to recover is certainly a concern for fantasy managers, but for a player that pretty much only operated from the pocket, Cousins has never quite relied on mobility to put up big stats. In eight games last season, Cousins had 25 total rushing yards. He also had 18 touchdown passes – Dak Prescott led the NFL last season with 36 – and only five interceptions.
With that level of play and new, exciting weapons all around him, Cousins has a chance in his debut with the Falcons to put up borderline top-10 numbers, especially against a team that finished in the bottom third in yards per play and 29th in 20+ yard catches allowed last season. In fact, Cousins has the highest passing yards projection for Week 1. He’s a borderline QB1.
Chuba Hubbard, RB (CAR) vs NO (ECR: 30, Our Rank: RB17, PP: 15.40)
It’s always interesting looking at the Week 1 projections from the model and finding the gems, the players it thinks are highly overlooked for one reason or another. Hubbard falls squarely into that category. It’s hard to imagine that many fantasy managers are jazzed about playing any Carolina Panthers in Week 1, let alone someone who is projected to be the backup once highly talented rookie Jonathan Brooks is healthy enough to play.
But a deeper dive into the data presents a compelling case. New head coach Dave Canales helped steer a Tampa Bay Buccaneers offense last year that saw Rachaad White finish as the RB4 on the season. Last year, White, from Week 13 to the season’s end ran the ball 116 times – second most in the NFL. Would you believe us if we said Hubbard was first, with 120 carries?
Expanding the sample size even more, Hubbard took over as the starting running back for the Panthers in 2023 in Week 6. During that stretch, he was the RB19 and only had three games with fewer than 10.5 PPR points. Now, with a hopefully improved Bryce Young at quarterback and even more of a stranglehold on the running back position, only five running backs are projected for more carries than Hubbard this week.
It may not feel great starting him, but our model suspects Hubbard will solidly provide RB2 value against the New Orleans Saints in Week 1.
Drake London, WR (ATL) vs PIT (ECR: 16, Our Rank: WR7, PP: 15.64)
We mentioned earlier that Cousins has the highest projected passing yards among all Week 1 quarterbacks. So, it makes sense why the model is simultaneously quite high on London.
There were 42 players last season with at least 100 targets. Not one of them scored fewer than London’s two touchdowns. There were 41 players with at least 800 receiving yards last season. Not one of them scored fewer than two touchdowns. London totaled 779 receiving yards from Week 5 onwards (1,100-yard pace) and scored zero touchdowns.
In games with at least seven targets last season, London averaged 14.76 PPR points per game. Over a full season, that would have finished as the WR13 last year. Did we mention that London’s main quarterback last season was Desmond Ridder? Our model is optimistic that with the upgrade at quarterback, London will have a huge season, and it starts Week 1.
Joshua Palmer, WR (LAC) vs LV (ECR: 46, Our Rank: WR37, PP: 11.00)
Let’s play a game. Can you name every current Los Angeles Chargers player that has caught at least two touchdown passes from Justin Herbert?
Keenan Allen? Mike Williams? Austin Ekeler? Gerald Everett? All off the roster. Particularly in the wide receiver room, Allen and Williams were replaced by DJ Chark and a rookie in Ladd McConkey. Meanwhile, in seven career games against the Las Vegas Raiders, Herbert has averaged 289.4 passing yards per game with a very tidy 15:2 touchdown-to-interception ratio.
Essentially, what we have is an elite quarterback with exactly one receiver that he has any sort of trust and repetition with. And his industry-wide Week 1 ranking is nearly in the 50s. The answer to that question at the beginning, by the way, is Palmer. In deeper leagues, the model projects that Palmer will provide excellent flex value with maybe even the upside for more.
The Nays: Week 1 Fantasy Plays Projected Lower Than Expert Consensus
Tua Tagovailoa, QB (MIA) vs JAX (ECR: 12, Our Rank: QB20, PP: 15.93)
Before we get into the reasons why Tagovailoa falls onto our Nay list, let him serve a quick reminder about the perils and challenges with projections. Cousins, our QB11, is only projected to score 0.58 points more than Tua, our QB20 in Week 1. There are currently 10 quarterbacks we’re projecting to score between 16.00 and 16.88 points. The difference on Fantasy Pros between QB11 and QB20 is only 1.2 fantasy points.
When things are this tight, trust your gut. And if you think in your heart of hearts that Tua over Cousins is the right play, you should do it. However, that’s not to say that there aren’t some concerns with Tagovailoa this week. For starters, he had only two games last season with more than eight rushing yards. And with zero rushing upside, his fantasy numbers rely solely on the passing game.
Well… get this. Miami only played a grand total of two (!!) home games last season against teams that finished with a winning record. In those two games, Tua averaged 233 passing yards and had two touchdowns and two interceptions. In fantasy numbers, that’s a two-week average of 12.7 fantasy points per game. This week, against a Jacksonville Jaguars team that the model thinks will strongly challenge for a playoff spot, Tagovailoa is a risky QB2.
Rhamondre Stevenson, RB (NE) vs CIN (ECR: 20, Our Rank: RB32, PP: 10.75)
New head coach Jarod Mayo announced a week or so ago that new rookie franchise quarterback Drake Maye was outperforming Jacoby Brissett – the veteran the New England Patriots brought in to mentor Maye and act as a bridge quarterback.
Well, the Patriots offensive line is so porous that a few days later, Mayo still announced Brissett as the Week 1 starting quarterback. And while that might be a good decision for the franchise, you know who can’t quite feel good? How about the running back that is going to be running behind this offensive line.
And boy is that reflected in the model’s Week 1 outputs. The good news for Stevenson’s fantasy owners? His 16 projected carries are 13th among running backs. However, the model barely has him averaging 3.0 yards per carry and as such, his overall projection of rushing yards is 31st.
Couple that with a decline in his passing baseline because of the addition of Antonio Gibson into the backfield, and you have a bad combination for a running back, even one as talented as Stevenson.
Michael Pittman Jr., WR (IND) vs. HOU (ECR: 11, Our Rank: WR20, PP: 13.98)
Was there a more electrifying fantasy performance last season than Indianapolis Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson’s Week 2 against the Houston Texans? To recap, he finished with 17.7 fantasy points. He played a grand total of two snaps after the first quarter. Richardson scored 17.6 fantasy points in a single quarter.
That is good news, great news even. His total fantasy points from passing in that game? 2.5. That is not such great news for Pittman Jr. With Richardson back at quarterback in a Shane Steichen-led offense that produced some gaudy rushing numbers for Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, the question becomes is their room for anyone beyond Richardson and star running back Jonathan Taylor to produce elite fantasy numbers?
For the model, it’s hard to get there in this Week 1 AFC South showdown. Only Jayden Daniels is projected for fewer completions than Richardson in Week 1, and with such a low volume (projected 5.4 receptions) Pittman falls squarely into WR2 range as opposed to a borderline WR1.
Looking for more players like Christian McCaffrey and Ja’Marr Chase? Don’t forget to check out our complete fantasy football rankings. Happy exploring. And follow along on Instagram and X.