Fantasy football Week 1 takeaways: Richardson defies reality, Caleb Williams' dud and more

Week 1 in the NFL is finally upon us and it was generally a disappointing beginning for many who were big names all summer and into the draft season.

The three rookie QBs combined for 415 passing yards.

Cam Newton had 422 in his first rookie start in 2011.

Is it 2024 or 1934? Were they throwing this ? Advertisement Everyone wants to talk about Week 1 fantasy poster player Anthony Richardson .

The dude is a world-class athlete and we know thats the key to the scoring we want.

He also has world-class arm strength.

Accuracy? No.

The 60-yarder to Alec Pierce was the highlight of the week, no doubt.

With a guy in his face, too just an unreal play.

But he flagged two easy TDs (both to rookie Adonai Mitchell ) and threw a red-zone pick.

The Colts ran an abysmal 43 plays, which would have been fourth fewest in the entire 2023 season.

But who cares about reality? Bucky Irving , not surprisingly, is probably the top RB waiver add.

He had a back-loaded 62 yards on nine carries.

He added 14 yards on two catches.

Rachaad White was great as a receiver but was, once again, so inefficient on the ground.

He seems to have an expiration date as a bell cow.

White needs massive volume.

I think Irving has a 50% chance to be the main RB by Halloween.

The Washington defense may be trash, so dont overreact yet to the Bucs passing numbers.

Baker Mayfield, though, is at least average, and probably good.

We were told Malik Nabers was going to make up for Daniel Jones with insane volume.

In Week 1, Jones was as horrible as expected (along with the Giants offensive line) and Nabers had 17% targets.

The Giants averaged 3.5 yards per pass and, for some reason, the go-to receiver was WanDale Robinson , with 3.7 yards on average on his 12 targets (29% market share).

Of course, Ill have the market share report on Tuesday.

Big Blue drafted offensive tackle Evan Neal No.

7 overall in an amazing 2022 NFL Draft and he didnt get a snap.

What if the Giants QB in 2025 was their opponent in Week 1? Sam Darnold probably will be a free agent.

He was good.

His interception came when he was hit on the throw.

The game-script hurt him or he would have had about 300 yards and another TD.

Darnold is going to make himself a lot of money with this coach and the players around him.

Remember, most player failures actually are coaching and organization failures, especially at quarterback.

Advertisement We got way carried away with the rookie QBs.

Caleb Williams had one of the worst debuts ever.

He won.

But his offense had 148 yards and 2.1 yards per pass play.

Will he need 2,000 pass attempts to hit that 4,000-yard passing prop.

Thinking a rookie QB was going to support three WRs at what they cost was lunacy.

C.J.

Stroud only supported two WRs at a time last year, not three.

The injuries masked that.

Since his great debut, Will Levis has played like a second-round pick.

Hes 2-7 with five TDs and six picks.

His sack rate is a gross 11.2%.

His NY/A (yards per pass play) is 5.2.

Levis was near the bottom of the league in on-target throws last year and many blamed the line.

On Sunday it was him.

He straight-up gave away a game where the opposing offense did nothing.

So much for Josh Allen rushing TDs not being a sustainable business model.

I dont think he can play this level of hero ball for an entire season his left wrist is awaiting tests.

The passing game made some plays, but Dalton Kincaid , putative No.

1 receiver, was shut out until the fourth quarter.

The problem is that if a mediocre defense wants to commit to taking a tight end out of the game, they can zero him out easily.

TEs cant be The Man unless youre Antonio Gates or Travis Kelce .

Maybe Gronk.

Thats it.

Upgrade James Cook , who had 60% snaps, a figure he didnt hit once all last year.

In retrospect, Marvin Harrison Jr.

s ADP was a tad optimistic.

(He had a catch for four yards whenever you need to consult AP style and spell out yards, its bad.) But it could have been better.

A pass to him here would have given Arizona the lead in the final minute.

But Kyler Murray is too short to see the field.

I see problems for Trey McBride , too.

Murray cant see over the line on quick TE passes between the hashes only seven catches for 74 yards from Murray to McBride between the hashes all last year.

Advertisement My late-preseason opinion was that Tony Pollard was going to trounce Tyjae Spears and this was not going to be near 50/50.

That seems correct after Week 1.

Pollard out-touched Spears 19 to 8.

The case for Pollard is that he was hurt last year (ankle rope tightening like Mark Andrews this year) and now has his hops back.

And Spears is the new Jay Ajayi with his knee arthritis caused by the lack of an ACL (college injury).

If Justin Fields keeps the job, its bad news for Jaylen Warren , it seems.

Fields soaked up 14 rushes, just insane volume.

He was sacked twice and didnt throw a pick.

He managed the game, ironically.

Kirk Cousins seemed to fumble 27 times every time I looked up.

The Falcons offensive line was a horror show.

You want to credit the Steelers defense? I know some metrics ranked the unit highly last year but they were 19th or worse in yards allowed per play, per rush, and per pass play.

There is no excuse for this ineptitude.

Many thought the Atlanta line would be an issue, which made the pick of a backup QB with the No.

8 overall pick a total mystery.

I have to put this more on the offensive line than Cousins, actually.

Hes a pocket passer.

So he, you know, needs a pocket.

How is this getting fixed now? Downgrade all Falcons.

Joe Mixon looked fantastic in addition to his fantastic production.

Thats actually bad news for the C.J.

Stroud for MVP brigade and the people who were thinking 5,000 yards and 40 touchdowns.

There is just not going to be big-time passing volume here.

The Texans ran 76 plays, about 25% more than expected.Yet Stroud threw 32 passes a 42% pass rate.

Zack Moss had 65% snaps, twice as many as Chase Brown.

Thats not surprising given Moss has been the starter all preseason and Brown, a former fifth-round pick, has never been good.

Learn these lessons for next time.

The Bengals were horrid, however.

They were outcoached.

Zac Taylor punted with two minutes left down by six on fourth-and-5.

You have to go for it there.

JaMarr Chase was playing every time I looked for him.

Thats no excuse.

Joe Burrow is just not the same player, averaging a terrible 6.3 yards per pass attempt his past 11 games with just 15 TD passes.

In 2021-22, he was 8.1 per pass attempt with 69 TDs in 32 games.

Rhamondre Stevenson (28 touches, 126 yards and a TD) is probably a top 10 RB because hes a legit bell cow.

If hes not there, hes close enough.

Advertisement Raheem Mostert looked 132 years old.

After the first five games of his career, DeVon Achane continues his descent into mortality with a poor rushing day (4.6 per carry now his past nine games including playoffs).

I note this because his yards per carry last year was 7.8.

He had seven targets, though.

The Dolphins are going to tinker with this running game until they find the big plays.

Its a real struggle for them to sustain drives without that.

Tank Bigsby looks like a real problem for Travis Etienne Jr.

, who fumbled the game away by coughing up the football as he was about to cross over the goal line it caused a 14-point swing with a Tyreek Hill TD bomb soon following.

Trevor Lawrence looks like a ham-and-egg QB.

There are no excuses for him to be so unproductive.

You cant play any Panthers until further notice.

They are by far the worst team in the NFL.

Yes, that includes the Giants.

You look at Derek Carr s stats and youll be amazed about how wrong you are.

Here .

Do it now.

Just the Saints stats.

Add three TDs and no picks today.

The idea this was a bottom five offense was silly.

And the belief that Carr was going to lose his job to a third-day rookie was downright absurd.

I understand Chris Olave (2-for-11) managers are not happy with the situation, but, like the Vikings , the game script was screwed up from the jump.

Ive got nothing to say about the defense-dominated game in Cleveland.

Im not changing anyones ranking based on it.

Obviously we have to downgrade David Njoku , who was injured.

Also, Jerry Jeudy ended up in the blue tent.

Dallas kicker Brandon Aubrey hit a record-breaking 66-yard field goal, but a delay of game took it off the board.

Hes awesome.

J.K.

Dobbins was the big news out of the late games with 135 yards and a TD on just 10 totes.

I said we had to see it before we believed.

Well, we saw it.

Advertisement The Broncos could not get anything going, which is not exactly shocking given a rookie QB.

But Courtland Sutton had 12 targets.

Upgrade him.

Kenneth Walker is the man, period.

Forget about him fighting for 51% of snaps.

Those days are over.

Tyler Lockett was the most involved Seattle receiver.

Lockett fell too far in drafts.

He has a 40% chance to outscore everyones favorite, Jaxson Smith-Njigba.

The market treated him like that was 0%.

(Top photo of Anthony Richardson: Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images).

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