The good, the bad and the ugly from week one of the 2024 NFL season

Throughout the 2024 NFL season, I’ll be providing a weekly round-up of what went well, and not so well, in the previous round of games and what it might mean for fantasy football moving forward.

Before I start, any Panthers or Giants fans can probably skip ahead to the next section… How incredible is it to have football back?! There’s a time during the off-season when football starts to feel like an idea that exists only in your mind. Daily, it will cross your mind and make you happy, then sad, but it almost doesn’t feel like a real thing any more as you become ever more accustomed to it’s absence.

Well we can finally put all that behind us now until February and with week one in the bag, I present my first in-season article, I hope it helps!

Side note: Some of these articles may be longer, some shorter, but I’ll never just fill them out for the sake of content. If it makes the article, it’s because I genuinely believe in it.

THE GOOD

Photo Credit: Carmen Mandato/Getty Images

Week one of any season brings with it bags of question marks surrounding players and teams. Some get answered, some don’t.

Two players who stepped up and provided answers this week were Jacksonville’s rookie wide-receiver Brian Thomas Jr. and Detroit’s Jameson Williams.

BTJ (are we calling him that, yet?) was drafted as a deep threat receiver out of LSU, having led the nation in college with seventeen receiving touchdowns in 2023. The Jaguars however, also signed fellow deep threat Gabe Davis in free agency, and there were doubts about Thomas’ ability to play with as much physicality as his enormous frame would appear to allow.

Thomas finished week one having caught all four of his targets for forty-seven yards and his first NFL touchdown.

Williams, on the other hand, was entering his third season in the league, having largely failed to live up to the hype that surrounded him in college. With veteran receiver Josh Reynolds moving to Denver and no obvious replacement signed or drafted, the opportunity was there for him to finally step up in Detroit and prove his doubters wrong.

Williams was targeted nine times in week one, catching five of those targets for a hundred and twenty-one yards and a touchdown.

Elsewhere, after months of uncertainty, a new running-back hierarchy appeared to form in Tennessee.

With Derrick Henry gone, new addition Tony Pollard made his debut and dominated the rushing work, taking sixteen carries and turning them into eighty-two yards and a touchdown, whilst sharing the receiving work 50-50 with Tyjae Spears.

THE BAD

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If the good was all about the new, the bad should have come as no surprise to anyone.

With some underwhelming, yet positive additions to the roster and a shiny new rookie head coach, even the Carolina Panthers could have been forgiven for feeling slightly more positive going into the new season.

What they got on Sunday was an absolute thumping at the hands of division rivals, New Orleans. The Saints walked through the Carolina defense as their own defense swatted away almost everything that came their way. Outside of the NFC South, it’s hard not to feel sorry for Panthers fans.

Further north, it was more of the same too for the New York Giants, as they were blown away by the Sam Darnold-led Minnesota Vikings at home. Boos filled the stadium as Daniel Jones’ comeback game fell apart at the seams, leaving both his, and HC Brian Daboll’s futures looking, at best, murky.

The biggest surprise of the weekend came in Cincinnati however, as the Bengals fell feebly to a loss at the hands of Jerod Mayo’s New England Patriots. The Bengals were the only team across Sunday’s early games to go into half-time having not scored a point, as Joe Burrow finished with the fourth-lowest passing yards total of his career (when playing 100% of snaps).

THE UGLY

Photo Credit: Stephen Lew/Imagn Images

Sunday marked exactly eight months and one day since Bryce Young‘s final snap of what was an awful rookie season, fittingly, fumbling the ball into Tampa Bay hands, ensuring the Panthers finished their final two games without scoring a single point.

Carolina spent the off-season adding pass-catching talent as well as trying to improve their offensive line. They even brought in “quarterback whisperer” Dave Canales for his first ever head-coaching job, to create the perfect environment for their young investment to grow.

Imagine their disappointment then, when said investment immediately sailed his first throw of the season straight into the arms of a Saints defender. The aforementioned “whisperer” might need to speak up.

Young completed less that half of his passes on Sunday, with no touchdowns and two interceptions. His fantasy week was helped a little by a rushing touchdown, but that won’t matter much soon if he finds himself benched.

Also weighing in with two interceptions on Sunday was, man of the people, Prince Charming himself, Deshaun Watson. Jokes aside, Watson actually finished as the QB17 in week one, propped up by a passing touchdown and thirty-nine rushing yards.

Despite attempting the second-most passes in the league though, Watson’s 53.3% completion percentage was twenty-seventh and landed him twentieth overall in passing yards. His relentless, at times jaw-dropping inaccuracy will hopefully improve moving forward. If not, another quarterback carousel can’t be ruled out in Cleveland.

WEEK 2 FANTASY ADDS

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NFL Redzone is honestly where the best buy-low decisions can come from, especially if the current owner of the player you want, only checks the box-score. Last season, Odell Beckham Jr. finished with zero points in week 8, but drew two pass interference penalties on plays that would have combined for over fifty yards and a touchdown.

I got him for next to nothing in a trade and he finished the following week as the WR12 overall. As the season progresses, I hope to uncover plenty of mid-season values for both re-draft and dynasty, starting with these two.

Adonai Mitchell (Indianapolis)

The rookie receiver out of Texas certainly divided opinion leading up to the 2024 draft and heading into the season, but I was always high on the potential.

Mitchell can juke a corner-back out of his shoes when running a route and he got wide open a number of times in week one. The rookie fell victim to inaccurate throws multiple times, including two would-be walk-in touchdowns for a over one hundred yards, combined.

I have made offers for Mitchell in every one of my leagues since Sunday.

Russell Wilson (Pittsburgh)

Slightly less obvious perhaps, this one has potential to pay dividends in re-draft, but is a no-brainer in dynasty.

When Russell Wilson was declared not healthy enough to start in week one, all of the attention turned to Justin Fields. Understandable really, as Fields has been a favorite of fantasy managers since he entered the league, due to his massive rushing upside.

Whilst no longer hitting the dizzying heights of yesteryear, Wilson is still a consistent QB2 in fantasy when on the field, and will almost certainly be a starting quarterback somewhere in 2025, regardless of how this season plays out. And whilst Fields may have people excited, Pittsburgh relied solely on kicker Chris Boswell for their points total on Sunday.

Wilson could quickly find himself re-instated upon his return to fitness if Fields can’t get the Steelers passing attack going soon, if not, he’ll be a solid second quarterback next year and is certainly now cheaper than he’s ever been in dynasty.

Thursday Night Football – Betting

Photo Credit: William Purnell/Icon Sportswire

I’ll endeavor to provide a betting article for week two before the weekend, but with Thursday Night Football serving up such a great looking game this week, it felt wrong to leave it out.

You can get odds of 21/4 with Bet365’s bet builder if you back Buffalo’s James Cook to produce the following against Miami this week.

Anytime Touchdown Scorer

50+ Rushing Yards

25+ Receiving Yards

Cook managed both the rushing and receiving yards in week one against Arizona and whilst he didn’t manage a touchdown, he was given the teams only carry from inside the five yard line.

That concludes my first weekly round-up article, I hope it helps. Please like/share etc. if you’re enjoying this blog, and feel free to comment with your own buy-low’s and betting predictions.