Start or sit Damien Harris or AJ Dillon? Have them in 2 leagues

Publish date: 2024-05-03

Fantasy football injury report blog and rankings live. Now that you've drafted your team, it's time to drive yourself wild trying to set the best lineup.

Renee Miller

October 9, 2022 at 9:37 AM EDTFantasy football start, sit, injuries, rankings and lineup advice: live updates of Week 1

18 New Updates

Summary

Fantasy football injury report blog and rankings live.

Now that you've drafted your team, it's time to drive yourself wild trying to set the best lineup.

We have you covered.

Renee Miller will be here answering your Week 1 questions Sunday morning (drop them here in this post), and Jake Ciely will be updating his rankings all morning. If you're looking for more of an edge, our entire fantasy football section can be found here.

So let's get to it! Week 1! We're here! Let's get that win!

Start or sit Damien Harris or AJ Dillon? Have them in 2 leagues

This raises an interesting question of my own. Do you like to try to draft the same players in multiple leagues? Or diversify as much as possible, at least at the top of the draft? I can make a case for both approaches. As someone who plays in multiple leagues, it’s easier to cheer and keep track of how I’m doing in the thick of a Sunday afternoon when I roster the same players everywhere.

This is an issue with DFS too – whether to roster players you’ve started in season-long leagues. If you were drafting in that flow state I wrote about last week and got all hits in your draft, you’ll have a good shot to win multiple leagues. On the other hand, being perfect through the first five rounds in multiple leagues is a pretty unlikely outcome, so diversification gives you a chance to have access to more potential stars, increasing your chances to win at least one league. I’ve played it both ways, but tend to be a diversifier. In my last draft, I took Dalvin Cook third overall just because he was the only stud RB I had zero exposure to, and obviously because I believe he is a star. So, anyway, I like talking strategy. To the question asked, you can probably guess based on previous answers that Dillon is my choice here.

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Chase Edmonds, AJ Dillon, or Michael Carter?

Whew. I am really torn between Edmonds and Dillon. I don’t think Carter should be trusted (inter- and intra-team competition). I’m bullish on both, but I think I would go with Dillon this week, assuming Allen Lazard will not play, since the Packers game should be high scoring and competitive, and they need healthy, talented bodies on the field even if they are both running backs

Who else is at risk of pulling a Cam Akers?

Great question. There’s a reason I don’t roster Akers anywhere. Several, actually. I went anchor RB in every draft I did. That meant I was busy locking up WRs in the fourth round, so it was never really a decision point for me. Same with these other candidates: Jets, Jaguars, and Patriots. Akers is a perfect example of why we can’t always trust what we want to happen or think should happen.

I think Breece Hall is probably the biggest risk of pulling an Akers this week. The team is gushing over Michael Carter, and Carter was Hall last year. Also, I’ll believe that the Jets aren’t the Jets anymore when I see it for like six weeks in a row. Against the Ravens this week, I’m fully avoiding this N.Y. team. I also could see James Robinson spoiling some of the Travis Etienne Jr. love, and with the Patriots, who the heck knows if it will be Rhamondre Stevenson or Damien Harris that helps you win your week. In a league with fewer than 14-16 teams, I don’t want to use either in a matchup with the Dolphins that has amounted to a game total of 34 points or fewer in three of the last four meetings (the post-Tom Brady era).

Chris Godwin and Michael Thomas -- what to do?

It looks like Godwin and Thomas are going to play today -- but how effective can they be? I had Kadarius Toney in at flex and then replaced him with Thomas before writing this post. If he plays, he should probably be involved, and Jameis Winston can find him.

Godwin is a little more interesting. Virginia Zakas, our injury expert from Inside Injuries, put it bluntly in her column this week:

"Even if he is active I would hold off on starting him, if possible"

According to Virginia, Godwin hasn't reached the nine-month mark yet following ACL surgery, terming the point "very important" for a player to avoid re-tearing the ACL.

Virginia's full column can be found here.

Rashaad Penny is a monster...

Rashaad Penny is a monster...

...when he gets 12 or more carries.

Granted, it's only happened 7 times in 37 games, but with what looks to be a generally wide-open backfield, Penny could be a beast in Week 1... if history holds!

(Game log via Pro Football Reference)

If you realllllly want to make a trade....

A lot of fantasy players have hard and fast rules against trading before the first games are played... but we understand that bad drafts or unexpected injuries can happen and, in some instances, its a necessity. That's why we published Alex Korff's Week 1 fantasy football trade charts. It is awesome.

Alex (known as u/peakedinhighskool on reddit) has developed a colorful chart that allows a fantasy player to quickly scan values and come up with value ideas. In his words:

"The left-most column is the player’s trade value. All players in that particular row have the same trade value. This is the best way to look for even one-for-one positional swap trades (i.e. running back for wide receiver). When you are looking at larger trades like a two-for-one, make sure to sum the trade values on each side to look for fairness. Typically, the side selling the most players needs to overpay for the right to consolidate and open up a roster spot. Not all trades need to be perfectly even, but they should be relatively close. The goal is to look for win-win trades and to keep the league happy and healthy!"

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Not sure if anyone here plays fantasy hockey but...

Not sure if anyone here plays fantasy hockey but...

If you're a fantasy hockey head, we have the world's greatest cheat sheet. Put together by Dom Luszczyszyn and Shayna Goldman, the Excel/Numbers file allows you to go in and tweak projections and settings to fit your league. It'll then spit out a set of rankings that are fully customized to your rules and scoring quirks.

The sheet has been Dom's baby for years, but the 2022 version is bolstered with help from the Fantasy Sports Writers Association "Fantasy Hockey Writer of the Year," Shayna Goldman.

It's a fantastic tool that inspired Jake Ciely's customizable cheat sheet (which Dom helped build). And we suppose even if you don't play fantasy hockey, this sheet might be all that you need to draft like an expert (and then you just pair that with Shayna's in-season WW column and you're set!)

Geno Smith may be better than you think

Geno Smith may be better than you think

Last year, I wrote a very long piece praising Geno Smith and telling people that he is probably better than he's ever been given credit for. His run as Russell Wilson's replacement was just OK, but I still believe in the argument and I'm excited to watch this game, in particular, in Week 1. Some of the reasoning included:

  • His 27.7 pass attempts per game his rookie year were the third-worst in the NFL among starting QBs (only Colin Kaepernick and Russell Wilson had fewer attempts per game). He was sacked 43 times, fifth-most in the NFL. And his top receivers, in terms of targets, were:
  • 2. Geno Smith started one game for the Giants after signing with the team to backup Eli Manning. It was Week 13, 2017, against the Raiders. Smith went 21-for-34 for 212 yards and a TD. His leading receivers that day? Tavarres King (9 targets), Evan Engram (8), Sterling Shepard (6) , Shane Vereen (3) and Roger Lewis (3). It was an otherwise unremarkable game — except for the fact that Smith was replacing Manning, ending his 13-year, 210-game streak as the Giants’ starter. The next day, Giants coach Ben McAdoo was fired and replacement Steve Spagnuolo reinstalled Manning as the starter.

    There's a lot more. If you have time for a thorough Geno Smith breakdown before kickoff... it's worth it!

    Analyzing Michael Thomas' injury status

    In her weekly mailbag, Virginia Zakas digs in on the potential statuses of George Kittle, Michael Thomas and more.

    On Thomas, Virginia says that there's "significant" injury risk and expects him to play — but cautions that it might not be at the level we were accustomed to when we last saw him healthy.

    "He was cleared at the start of training camp this year and the ankle seemed to be steadily improving each week," Virginia writes "Now he has been sidelined with a hamstring strain. These soft tissue injuries to the lower body are common when coming back from such a serious surgery and lengthy layoff, but it does increase his overall Injury Risk, which was already High. Thomas now comes with a 24% Injury Risk."

    You can read Virginia's full column here.

    A couple highlights from Jake Ciely's rankings

    Jake Ciely's rankings are the gold standard, and he has a few players who are significantly higher or lower than the rest of the fantasy football expert world.

    QB is pretty much chalk.

    RB — Jake is slightly higher on Rashaad Penny, Khalil Herbert, and Damien Harris.

    WR — Jake is higher than the consensus on DK Metcalf and Christian Kirk. He's slightly down on Darnell Mooney and Jerry Jeudy.

    If you're really befuddled at tight end, Jake has Irv Smith and Austin Hooper about five spots higher than the expert consensus.

    NOTE: Jake's rankings are released Wednesday and he famously tries to answer every single comment in the section (he has many stories of 1000-plus comments), so if you haven't had the Jake Ciely Experience yet, mark it on your calendars for next week.

    Week 1 watch list

    John Laghezza, one of our new writers for the 2022 season (although if you're a fantasy baseball player, you know him), put together a player to watch from each team ahead of Week 1 games. In other words, if you want to get ahead of next week's waiver run... or just find an obscure player with a lot of upside, you have a lot of options here.

    One of the more interesting bits involved the Seattle backfield:

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