Fantasy Football recap: Week One losers

The first week of fantasy football has a lot of fans on edge. Here are some of the players you should look out for in the coming weeks ahead.

Losers:

Dez Bryant: Dez only lost because the game script really did not call for him to play the hero. Elliott was going to run the ball down the Giants’ throats for a variety of reasons (anger about potential suspension/anger about never beating the Giants). This meant Dez would get limited looks, especially on deep balls.

While I think they will take some of Brice Butler’s targets away and pass them on to Bryant he still does not appear to be necessary for Cowboy victories unless the team is facing a high powered offense.

Michael Thomas: Thomas is basically what I expected him to be, a number two/three wide receiver who is tall. His production shows exactly that, he doesn’t have elite speed or strength.

He is what would happen if you made Terrance Williams a number one wide receiver in the Saints offense. He will have productive days but will never be worth the spot he was drafted at.

Devonta Freeman: Concerning, to say the least, Freeman had a fairly forgettable performance for the starting running back of a team that went to the Super Bowl last season. They played the Chicago Bears and the Falcons stunk (or the Bears are better than expected).

They won the game but they really did not deserve to as the Bears had a pretty solid offensive performance. Tevin Coleman had a better day and that should scare owners that do not have Freeman’s immediate handcuff.

Rob Gronkowski: Taking tight ends early never works, it is science. Gronk should have gone in the 8th round of most fantasy drafts but then again we humans are pretty irrational.

The fact that Austin Hooper (a tight end who was available in most leagues) could score more than Gronkowski with a healthy Tom Brady under center is absolutely mind boggling. Gronk did not look healthy either which is pretty concerning given the value most fantasy players place on the party monster.

Le’Veon Bell: This one hurts. This was the worst game of his career, some people say it is because he missed most of the training camp holding out for a bigger contract. Others say it is because he had little room to run, WHATEVER THE CASE MAY BE, this is unacceptable.

Bell owners are looking to make sense of this crazy world but at least they are better off than most people who had the number one overall pick in their fantasy draft (cough, cough David Johnson).

AJ Green: Green had a surprisingly decent performance for how terrible the Bengals offense looked. Going into 2017 I had the Bengals offensive line ranked only 31st in the NFL, it showed this week.

Quarterback Andy Dalton could not hit the broadside of a barn and his protection issues are making things much worse. But to be fair Green owners this could be AJ’s floor as better days are always a week away.

DeMarco Murray: Once again not exactly a loser, but owners did not get a lot of inspiration from Murray.

Doug Baldwin: Baldwin is a borderline first round pick so the value you got from him in Week One just is not going to cut it. The Seahawks have a bad offensive line and while that has been the case for a couple of seasons, it seems as bad as it has ever been. Wilson also needs to be sharper and since that only happens halfway through the season, Baldwin could be a fairly big let down.

Tom Brady/Carson Palmer/Andy Dalton: Palmer was expected, Brady was probably one of the more shocking things we will see all season. The scary part for both players, it does not seem like a one-week incident. Brady’s accuracy was so bad it looked like Brock Osweiler was throwing the football.

He completed 16 out of his 36 passing attempts, scary bad. Besides his one strike to Gronk in the end zone, it was pretty much all bad news for the Patriots passing attack. Brady did not throw a pick but struggled a lot more than anyone anticipated. Palmer is likely done as a fantasy option.

Three interceptions are awful, and yes he threw a touchdown but it did not matter in the long run. Neither of them is as bad as Dalton, he threw four interceptions and looked pretty much as bad as a quarterback could look.

Their offense was muddled and Dalton floundered. It is safe to say that any sort of bad performance in Week Two could get Dalton benched permanently.

Greg Olsen/Jimmy Graham/Travis Kelce: Tight ends should not be drafted high, period. This is why, Olsen, Graham, and Kelce scored fewer points combined than one kicker. None of them had a particularly bad matchup and all of them struggled to come up with any sort of production. Jason Witten and Austin Hooper were the best tight ends of the week, and in most leagues, they are on the bench or free agents.

TY Hilton: This was expected as Andrew Luck is still out of action. Hilton had a bad game and the Colts are a bad team. There is not a lot of good out there for Indy owners, Luck is still likely weeks away from returning and Hilton should be weeks away from relevance.

Kelvin Benjamin: Benjamin could have had a better day but missed some connections with Cam Newton who actually looked pretty decent. Benjamin should get more looks in Week Two as he is one of the bigger/productive wide receivers on the Panthers roster.

Eddie Lacy: So, so much worse than we ever expected. Yuck.