Fantasy Football Podcast: Rookie WRs go off in Week 1, rookie RBs...not so much
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Before we get into all the most important talking points of the first Sunday of Week 1, Liz Loza and Matt Harmon would be remiss if they didn’t talk about the mind-boggling Antonio Brown situation (0:10). This is the stuff conspiracy theories are made for. After all the craziness of AB’s extremely short-lived tenure with the Raiders, Brown is now a member of the New England Patriots. Tom Brady will now have the luxury of throwing to Julian Edelman, Josh Gordon, and Brown.
Can’t make this stuff up, folks.
But let’s move onto a wild football Sunday, starting with the tie in Arizona (5:05). Was the come-from-behind stalemate a good sign for Kyler Murray and Kliff Kingsbury's air raid offense?
Jacksonville’s offense suffered a massive blow on Sunday, losing quarterback Nick Foles to a broken clavicle. Rookie Gardner Minshew entered and threw the football well, but the Jags couldn’t keep up with the Chiefs machine (10:00). What does this mean for the outlooks of Leonard Fournette, Dede Westbrook, D.J. Chark, and Chris Conley (who all had their moments on Sunday)?
Liz and Matt then run down some of the rookie performances on Sunday, and, well, the rookie receivers outclassed their running back counterparts (16:30). Led by Marquise “Hollywood” Brown (4 catches, 147 yards, 2 TDs), A.J. Brown (3 catches, 100 yards) and Terry McLaurin (5 catches, 125 yards, 1 TD) showed OUT early, while Devin Singletary (4 rushes, 70 yds/5 catches, 28 yds), David Montgomery (10 rushes, 18 yds/1 rec, 27 yds), and Miles Sanders (11 rushes, 25 yds/1 catch, 2 yds) had their moments, but couldn’t outshine the receivers.
We received as hard of a confirmation as we could have possibly gotten from the Minnesota Vikings’ new offensive philosophy, as running back Dalvin Cook took his 23 touches for 113 total yards and two TDs (35:40). For comparison, Kirk Cousins had just 10 passing attempts. One confirmation we didn’t receive this week was the expected high-flying Browns offense, which totally bottomed out this week.
Baker Mayfield had an ugly day, throwing three picks, and the offense just couldn’t get any consistency going against the Titans (39:00). On the flip-side, the Baltimore Ravens had EVERYTHING going on Sunday, crushing the Dolphins, 59-10. Lamar Jackson silenced his haters (at least this week) by throwing five touchdowns and completing 85 percent of his passes. Oh, and he had just three rushing attempts.
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