Week 1 Fantasy Football Panic Meter

Dak Prescott: 2/10

Prescott had an underwhelming opening to the season that could have been much bigger if not for drops by CeeDee Lamb, Jake Ferguson, and others. Two one-yard touchdowns from Javonte Williams didn’t help, either, but Dak looked sharp all night long, and Dallas’ defense couldn’t stop a nosebleed before the rain delay. More shootouts are on the horizon, and better days for Dak are ahead.

AJ Brown: 4/10

AJ Brown could still be dealing with the hamstring injury, as it seems like he was in full decoy mode. Matt Harmon from Reception Perception charted Brown’s Week 1, and it wasn’t good. I don’t think his talent fell off a cliff, so let’s hope it was the injury that was limiting him. Antennas are up.

Isiah Pacheco: 5/10

Kareem Hunt and Isiah Pacheco split rushing attempts down the middle, and while Hunt is seeing the 3rd down snaps, Pacheco is getting the more valuable 2-minute snaps. We haven’t seen which RB is preferred at the goal line yet, so that will be the real tie-breaker here to determine whether Pacheco can return some RB2 value this season. Pacheco looked a lot better than Hunt, but almost every NFL RB has also looked better than Hunt over the last few seasons.

Kenneth Walker III: 7/10

Two potential situations here. One is that Zach Charbonnet is simply going to continue to be part of a 1-2 punch, or the Seahawks are easing Walker into the season. With Charbonnet playing well and being the preferred option on the goal line in Week 1, we should be concerned with Walker being a workhorse RB in this offense. Both can have their games, but this current split is way less dependable. I’m willing to start Walker as a borderline RB2 with upside in Week 2.

David Njoku: 4/10

Harold Fannin was involved and likely will be moving forward, but he’s not taking Njoku off the field – Njoku posted a perfectly healthy 85% route participation in Week 1. It’s worth noting that Njoku’s separation data was not good in Week 1, so if he’s not earning targets, that could be why. Fannin is an extra mouth to feed, so the overall volume towards Njoku could be lower than it’s been in previous seasons, but Njoku is still startable as a TE1 for now.

RJ Harvey: 2/10

Slower start than we want, but RJ Harvey was expected to be the RB2 behind JK Dobbins. Tyler Badie’s 17% snap share shouldn’t be much of a concern. Rookie RBs tend to gain work as the season goes on, especially if they make the type of plays Harvey did in Week 1. Harvey will not be in my Top-24 for Week 2, but he should be there pretty soon.

Miami Passing Game: 6/10

Tua Tagovailoa looked bad enough in the opener that it’s fair to wonder what exactly Miami was doing all offseason leading up to kickoff. We’ve seen Tua struggle for stretches throughout his career, so let’s hope he can get things straightened out – especially since the Dolphins defense played just as badly. Negative game scripts like the one Miami found itself in this past weekend will allow for plenty of passing volume and hopefully remedy what’s hurting them right now.

Ashton Jeanty: 1/10

Two yards/carry in his NFL debut certainly isn’t what we were hoping for, but 24 opportunities on an 87% snap share (t-2nd among all RBs in Week 1) and 100% of the 2-minute snaps is a great indicator that Las Vegas views Jeanty as a true bell cow. Expect this role to continue, and don’t get too down on the fact that he didn’t light up the stat sheet straight out of the gate like he did back at Boise State. Also, the Raiders offense could not be terrible based on how Geno Smith & Co. looked.

Terry McLaurin: 3/10

A slow start was in the cards, given the amount of time McLaurin spent away from the team as a result of his holdout, and that’s exactly what happened in Week 1. That being said, he was still playing a full-time role (89% route participation), so it’s just a matter of gelling with Jayden Daniels again to get him back to producing. Deebo isn’t going away, though, and that could prevent McLaurin from reaching the same kind of upside he had last season when he reeled in 13 touchdowns.

Josh Downs: 5/10

Downs running a route on only 52% of Daniel Jones’ dropbacks is not a good sign. The concern here is that he turns into Jayden Reed - a good player who is limited to 3 WR sets on a team that doesn’t want to run many of them. My antennas are high up on this one, but he also just got back from nursing a high ankle sprain, so it’s possible they were taking it slow with him. Let’s hope that’s the case - it can also be me coping.

Evan Engram: 9/10

Evan Engram left with a calf injury in the fourth quarter, so he could miss time. But before the injury, he wasn’t playing the role we thought he would. He had an extremely low route participation number (31.4% through three quarters), sharing a pass-catching role with both TEs Adam Trautman and Lucas Kroll. I’m fine with completely moving on, given he’s also injured right now for some more upside at the position or elsewhere.

Bryce Young: 6/10

We wanted Alabama Bryce to start the season hot in 2025, but instead, we got rookie-season Bryce. It’s not an encouraging start for Young, who struggled all day against a Jaguars defense that was a top-5 matchup for QBs and WRs last year. That being said, don’t jump off the train just yet – but Bryce doesn’t look startable outside of 2 QB leagues at this point. Don’t be surprised if he winds up on the hot seat again with continued performances like the egg he laid in Week 1.

Mark Andrews: 6/10

In a game where Baltimore put up 40 points and everything Lamar touched turned to gold, Mark Andrews only ran a route on 73% of Lamar’s dropbacks. With Isaiah Likely out, we expected Andrews to ball out, but he did the opposite. Keep in mind that Zay Flowers had a 50% target share, so targets will likely be way more distributed next week. Andrews was great down the stretch last year and could find his way back this upcoming week. I’ll give him another week before I raise the panic alarms.

Calvin Ridley: 2/10

Ridley’s 32% target share was right on par with what we expected given the state of Tennessee’s WR room, but Elic Ayomanor posting a 28% share of his own as a starter is notable. Being shadowed by Surtain all day (87% of routes) limited Ridley’s production, but his role suggests better days are ahead if the Titans' offense can get its feet underneath it. We’ll see how much of a thorn in the side of Ridley that Ayomanor is moving forward – he earned valuable downfield targets from Ward that Ridley wasn’t getting.

Nico Collins: 2/10

Collins had multiple opportunities to have a bigger game, but CJ Stroud either didn’t look his way or was pressured. Nothing to get panicked about from Week 1, continue to start him as a WR1.

Cooper Kupp: 8/10

He won’t have to contend with JSN racking up a 59% target share every week, but that target share could be indicative of where Cooper Kupp is in his career at this point. We were concerned about how Kupp would fare in Seattle coming in, and barring a big change, Kupp could be on the outside looking in when it comes to opportunity despite his 96% route participation.

D.J. Moore: 4/10

Moore earned downfield targets and was taking handoffs out of the backfield for Ben Johnson, but that resulted in just a 16% target share, and both Rome Odunze and Olamide Zaccheaus out-targeted him. Caleb Williams and he didn’t seem to be on the same page on a couple of throws on MNF, but it could get right. Things will likely normalize a bit as the season goes on, but Odunze constitutes real target competition and could be at the top of the pecking order all season long, as he was on Monday night.