Fantasy Football Week 1 WAR Update And The Sunday Morning Pickup Team You Could Have Won With
Week 1 in the books. Fantasy football is back and so are these weekly little updates to rank every player according to my self-made wins above replacement model. Want the nerdy nitty gritties? I did a refresh full-length breakdown on how it works you can check out on my new Substack 'Weekly WAR'. Give that a follow if you're into a more business casual approach.
But this blog is for the stoolies. We're here to take a look at this top-ranked players list, gripe about those who wronged us, and find out what group of nobodies we should have picked up Sunday morning instead of our worthless wastes of draft picks.
Week 1 is always fun because you get random names that pop up at the top of the list that you know will fall back as we move through the season. But Josh Allen has already claimed his stake as the #1 player. I don't expect him to keep this spot - but I do expect him to be a top-12 (Round 1 worthy) player like he is every single freaking year. I told you all for a few years now to draft him higher than his ADP, 2025 being no exception. He is a cheat code. I was pegging him to be taken three spots ahead of ADP which was in the middle-to-late Round 2, and that just seems to have not even be high enough.
Derrick Henry is old and washed crowd - how we feeling? Ranked him four spots ahead of ADP at #8 overall in PPR, and even that wasn't high enough. And thank god the Christian McCaffrey thing was a nothing burger because he's still my overall #1. Please god stay in one piece because that seems to be a real issue for the 49ers.
Justin Fields isn't the most surprising - although somewhat - to be in the top of the chart, but Daniel Jones wins the Week 1 "I think I'm in the wrong room" award when looking at those around him. I really liked Caleb Williams value as well and while he looked like absolute dog shit for actual football, this could be a good fantasy player. He's spectacular on the run and very fast. So when receivers don't get open, we benefit. But the best part is he also can't read the field for shit! So we get him running then too! Don't sleep on Caleb being a factor for fake football. Real football? Sad story.
Let's move on.
Lots of running backs. Looking at the full list in order of those started the most, running backs crushed it overall. Omarion Hampton and Kenneth Walker were only ones who failed to hit double digit points out of the top-20 started. But there is certainly an overinflation when you look at the three considered replacement-running backs, so I expect a lot of these player to chill as we go about. You have Pacheco, Pollard, and Aaron Jones. Jones being the only one that really did anything.
As for Walker, certainly seems like this guy is getting usurped by Charbonnet. Lot of fantasy guys out there were hollering for Walker. I can say I was not one of them. Bad O-line and Sam Darnold sans Kevin O'Connell. I'll pass. As for Charbonnet, he's a guy you just might have to play for injury replacements and bye weeks as an absolute wild card. He could be great some weeks and nothing another. Put him in the Troll of the Year folder too.
If Dalton Kincaid is good now I'm going to be very mad. I was tempted to give him one more try this year. The recipe for solid tight end performance is there. A great quarterback with no alpha wide receivers. He just hasn't ever put it together. Now this game was just an absolute all time crazy offense fest, so perhaps I was still right to give up on him. Put him in the "Troll of the Year" watch folder for now.
Lot of defenses here just because the replacement's this week didn't do amazing, but didn't crap the bed either. I have Packers, Jets, and 49ers as the replacements for Week 1 (13th - 15th most started DST by ESPN) and they averaged 7.3 points which is pretty much what you'd guess for a baseline.
One more set.
Buy low on Omarion Hampton. Not sure anyone is giving up on him after one week, but the Chargers aren't going to air raid every week.
Justin Jefferson being a hair above replacement should not last long. Interesting since he at least caught a touchdown. I did a deep dive to make sure something wasn't up with the data, but here's what's going on. Since good running backs are hard to come by, managers are using more wide receivers as their flex. 9/12 considered flex players in the model were wide receivers which disqualified them from being used in the replacement pool. And it just so happened that made Rome Odunze, Ricky Pearsall, and Jakobi Meyers the wide receiver replacements to be averaged out.
If you're lost and don't want to be - you'll need to hit the Substack link at the top. If you don't care. Just move on. Or don't.
Let's end with the team you could have dropped all your worthless saps for to win your week.
156 PPR points
And let's also pour one out for the sorry sap team you might have started. How many of these did you start?
24.9 PPR points
Back next week (cruise ship internet permitting)
@Stathole