Week one of the NFL season is (mostly) in the books, and it was a doozy. There were busts all over the place. Only eight QBs threw for more than 250 yards this week, and sixteen quarterbacks threw for less than 200 yards. I am extremely ready to take most of what happened today and throw it directly in the trash (The Deshaun Watson Zone). But, we still have some extreme overreactions going around the X, The Everything App Sphere (aka the Twittersphere). Let’s dive into four things floating out there in the fantasy zeitgeist to determine if we are overreacting or underreacting to some week one developments!
Are the Atlanta Falcons in Trouble?
There’s some bad juju around the Falcons, and that’s saying a lot since Smith-Schuster went back to Kansas City! Folks! The Falcons lost to Arthur Smith and the Steelers in his return to the place that let him do a lot of stupid stuff for way too long, aka, the Revenge Game. T.J. Watt and the Steelers’ defensive pass rush made life hell for Kirk Cousins all game long, but a lot of that had to do with the suddenly statuesque Kirk Cousins, who is 36 and coming off of an Achilles tear. He was medically cleared to play, but based on his usage, it’s clear that the Falcons aren’t quite sure if he’s ready to actually perform.
There are two Tweets posts on X, the Everything App! that make me fear that things aren’t getting better for Atlanta anytime soon and that they are game planning for Statue Kirko.
First, from Hayden Winks:
Second, from Field Yates:
These two do not paint a pretty picture of a Falcons team that feels comfortable with Kirk Cousins’ mobility coming off of his Achilles injury. They also show that the offense will be insanely predictable as long as they don’t change up the game plan significantly. It makes sense why Watt lived in Cousins’ lap all afternoon, and why the pass catchers completely fell apart in this one. Ray-Ray McCloud (7 targets) was their leading target-getter, followed by Bijan Robinson (5 targets), and then Drake London, Kyle Pitts, and Darnell Mooney tied with three.
This speaks volumes about the plan: get the ball out as fast as humanly possible, before the pass rush gets there. This meant a lot of options for Kirko, and a lot of spreading the ball around. Cousins finished with just 23 targeted passes for 155 yards in this one. While the Steelers boast a strong defense, so do their next two opponents: the Eagles and the Chiefs. Things are going to get bleak for the Falcons, and soon.
Strangely enough, they drafted a contingency plan, which means we might be seeing Michael Penix sooner than we thought.
Should We Bail on the Carolina Panthers?
Short answer: Yes. Next question.
(note: this does not apply to Jonathon Brooks)
Long Answer:
Good lord, yes. Bryce Young is not a starting-caliber NFL quarterback at this point in his career, and Dave Canales thus far has done nothing to fix him. He was skittish all game, completing just 13-of-30 passes for 161 yards, zero touchdowns, and two picks. Advanced stats tell the same story, but in fancier terms: he completed passes at a 16.1% lower clip than expected, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. He was terrible the entire game, and he was terrible last season. So far, there’s nothing to indicate that the Bryce Young trade didn’t set the Panthers back a half-decade.
As for everyone else? The Panthers have decided that their entire roster of RB2s, WR2s and WR3s will constantly rotate. While they switched to the backups when the game was well in hand, they still rotated Chuba Hubbard and Miles Sanders by series, gave four different receivers between 23 and 30 routes to run, and just generally mushed everything together in a disgusting mess.
The only one worth keeping around might be Adam Thielen, as the Panthers kept him in the slot for the majority of the time with the starters while rotating Diontae Johnson, Xavier Leggette, Jonathan Mingo, and David Moore around on the outside.
In other words, Dave Canales:
Is Tank Dell the WR3 in Houston?
The Houston wide receiver room was one of, if not the, biggest knots we tried to unravel this offseason. After one week, Stefon Diggs had two touchdowns, Nico Collins had 117 yards, and Tank Dell… was also there (3 catches for 40 yards, 2 carries for 19 yards). But, never fear, he is not the #3 receiver in Houston… probably because they don’t have one. The week one usage was so close that not even a patented NFL first down 3”x5” card could fit between them:
| Receiver | Tgt | Tch | Yd | TD | Snaps* | Routes* |
| Nico Collins | 8 | 6 | 117 | 0 | 64 | 33 |
| Tank Dell | 7 | 5 | 59 | 0 | 51 | 34 |
| Stefon Diggs | 6 | 6 | 33 | 2 | 62 | 35 |
So, you can see how the Texans worked hard to make sure that all three receivers were equally involved. Nico had the 55-yard catch (which, according to NFL Next Gen Stats, was the least likely completion of C.J. Stroud’s career, at 16.6% chance of being a chance), so he had the big yardage lines. Diggs had the touchdowns, so he had all the fantasy points. But, the Texans had all three receivers widely involved in this game, which makes none of them the WR3 in this room.
Should We Drop Dalton Kincaid?
There are a lot of reactions about Kincaid’s performance this week. He finished his first 2024 tilt with two targets, one catch, and eleven yards. That’s a rough outing for a player that many had pegged as a breakout tight end this season. He wasn’t the top tight end in this game, and he wasn’t even the top tight end on his team! But, should we make a move from Kincaid to a different tight end?
At this point, absolutely not. You’re somewhat pot-committed to Dalton Kincaid, and making a move from Kincaid to Isaiah Likely, or Colby Parkinson, are lateral moves at best. Likely is in the exact same situation as Kincaid (while being a better player), and Parkinson is the third target if everything goes to plan with the Rams. Kincaid’s playing time is not a concern, it was just a weird game. He was on the field for 88% of the Bills’ snaps and ran routes on 83% of Josh Allen’s dropbacks. Better things are in the future, and moving on from him is an overly brash move at this point.
The simple fact of the matter is that Kincaid was always a blobby tight end, and those ranks thinned this week with potential multi-week injuries to David Njoku and Jake Ferguson. Kincaid and the Bills get the Dolphins on Thursday Night Football this week, as well as the Jaguars in week three. These are likely to be shootouts, which means production for Kincaid. If he struggles in those games, we’ll revisit this discussion before his week four tilt against the Ravens.
