I can't believe I may have lost my QB on his fourth snap of the season. The rest of my Week One wasn't pretty either - it was partially Purty, or at least Purty adjacent - but a win is a win, I guess? Despite thuds in four of my seven main spots, it was all just barely enough to start 2023 in the win column.
I sat two of my four top draft picks, and probably should have sat a third. Baltimore's
Mark Andrews was a not terribly surprising gametime scratch which left me screwed at TE. My backup option is Buc
Cade Otten, who caught only two short passes for 2.90 points. Jet superstar-to-be
Breece Hall was looking like he was probably going to play Monday night, but during the week I feared he may be on a pitch count...so I got clever. With Jonathan Taylor definitely out and Zack Moss likely out too, young
Deon Jackson was the Colts' defacto lead RB. He was projected at over ten points so I scooped him up and started him in favor of Breece! The Indianapolis back rushed for 14 yards, caught FIVE passes but for only another 14 yards, he did not score, oh, yeah, and he lost
two fumbles. 1.30 fantasy points. What a genius I am. Of course Breece
did wind up playing, and even with the shocking early loss of Rodgers and splitting carries with veteran Dalvin Cook he racked up 147 total yards including an explosive 83-yard dash! Those 15.20 points were
slightly better than Deon Jackson and his fumbleitis (coming soon to a waiver wire near you).
The other splat was
Terry McLaurin. He is the one I
should have sat on Sunday. On the injury report for the last two weeks with turf toe, he played, but I knew he wasn't at 100%. He had just a pair of catches for 31 yards (4.10 points), definitely not his fully fleet-footed self.
Those three low scores alone would have sunk me, most weeks, even before taking a zero from my QB. My other Commander, second-year back
Brian Robinson, had a decent day with 59 yards on the ground and one catch, which was a 7-yard TD (13.10 points). Much better was my number one pick, the first player taken in the draft. The mighty
Justin Jefferson proved his worth by scoring 19.50 points in an embarrassing Vikings loss where he did not score. He still managed nine receptions on twelve targets for 150 yards! When he starts adding TDs in there...woah. If nineteen points are his floor I can hardly wait to see his ceilings!
But my week was truly saved by my FLEX spot and my DEF. The Green Bay Packers didn't have much trouble with Justin Fields, and a late pick-six gave me 15.00 points from their defense. But my true MVP of the week is San Fran's
Brandon Aiyuk. He went off in Pittsburgh catching all eight of his targets (129 yards) with two of them in the end zone (28.90 points).
I did believe going in that I had depth at wide receiver, and that turned out to be true. Through one week, anyway. On my bench was the Colt I should have played,
Michael Pittman, who had eight catches for 97 yards and a TD (19.70 points) and New Orleans Saint
Rashid Shaheed who had 100 combined yards and a TD, though he did lose a fumble (16.50 points).
Mathematically I had already won before the
Aaron Rodgers disaster on Monday Night Football, thank goodness. I did not need a single point from him and turns out a single point was unachievable this night. It certainly helped that Yoda's stars faltered even worse than mine, en masse, but I will take it. Who in the fart knows what will become of Rodgers this season, if he is out for a couple weeks or two months or the whole fu*kin' thing (looking like the whole thing)? But if and when Mark Andrews, Breece Hall, and Terry McLaurin are all healthy and in my lineup I could potentially still be OK. Or OK-ish?
Oy.