Week 1 2019 : Football is back and losing still sucks

Kickoff!

The week after the first weekend of football is a crazy one. Maybe you spent the last couple of months waiting for football to come back. Reading articles about 2019's breakout players, listening to podcasts, doing mock drafts, and convincing your friends and family to come back for another year of Fantasy. You entered the draft confident of the players you wanted and left it knowing you had an amazing squad ready to take the league by storm.

...Or maybe I'm the only one who did all that to still end up with the lowest score of the week by a wide margin.

The important thing to remember is that we're only through one week. Will the Falcons offense continue to struggle? Maybe. Are the Dolphins an absolute dumpster fire? Possibly. But 1 week of data isn't enough to go on. If you had duds like I did, you have to believe they'll perform better as the year goes on. Right?

Power Rankings

I don't feel confident enough in what we know today to have any teams in an S tier, so it's 4 tiers this week.

• A Tier
• BurntOrangeMan: This team wants better production from QB and TE positions, but they hit on all the ones that really count. 3 RBs that are getting tons of opportunity, 2 WRs that should see a lot of action in explosive offenses. Derrick Henry especially looks like a steal from the middle rounds.
• BriasaurusRex: The Houston offense looks like they're going to score a lot this year, and that bodes very well for a team with the Watson/Hopkins stack. Add to that some great looking play from Dalvin Cook and you have a top team heading into week 2.
• LilMoonee: 3 big takeaways for this team: McCaffrey may really meet his 1000/1000 goal for rushing and receiving this year, Mark Ingram is going to dominate if the Ravens offense keeps this up, and Evan Engram looks like an insane value as the only real pass catcher on the Giants.
• B Tier
• Country Roads, Take Mahomes : The one thing keeping this team out of the top tier is the questionable start for David Montgomery. Mahomes/JuJu/Barkley has to be the best starting QB/RB/WR set in our league. We'll see if this team can put together enough depth behind it to succeed.
• zcub : How much can the Cleveland offense improve in 1 year? That's the big question for Zane's team which features Chubb and Mayfield. Even with lackluster games from both though this team still put up a fairly good score thanks to the dominance of Chris Carson (who is basically the entire Seattle offense) and Michael Thomas.
• cfisher1991: The big story here is the breakout of Josh Jacobs as a rookie RB on the Raiders, which makes up for Kerryon's weak start. Hilton and Walker both put up huge games I'm less confident they can repeat, but Jacobs seems to be the real deal.
• C Tier
• Funky Monkeys : A lot of people avoided Marlon Mack (and all the other Colts players) after Luck retired, and through 1 week that seems to have been a mistake Funky Monkeys can profit off of. I dropped this team down from the B tier because it needs a replacement TE after Henry went out this week and because I'm not sure Rogers' low week 1 score is as much of a fluke as people think. Him finishing outside the top 10 QBs this year will not surprise me, but that's probably a hot take.
• SudowoodoGang : There's no way around it, losing Tyreek Hill for 4-6 weeks is a huge blow to this team. The Cardinal's revived offense, however, is great news for David Johnson. Look for this team to move up the rankings as it gets healthier.
• D Tier
• Wampus Cats: This team has problems. Cam Newton looks like he's playing injured (I have the added knowledge of watching his Thursday night game in week 2 as I type this), Antonio Brown may or may not be playing football for the Pats, and Aaron Jones got almost no opportunities for the Packers. 
• Lucky Charms: I don't think this team is as bad as mine, but there are big questions for Devonta Freeman and Sony Michel coming out of week 1 for very different reasons. Freeman is working in a Falcons offense that apparently can't move the ball at all, only scoring in the final seconds of garbage time, while Michel did almost nothing in a game the Patriots won by 30, which should be an ideal gamescript for him. Lucky Charms needs at least 1 of these 2 to rebound quickly or he's in a lot of trouble.

Pickup of the Week

Lamar Jackson: zcub. The story all offseason was that Jackson wasn't going to be a great passer, but he would do enough with his legs to make him a good fantasy value in the later rounds. Week 1 turned that all on its head as Jackson scored 36 points with just 6 total rushing yards, tossing 5 TD passes. Has Zane found the late round super value at QB for the second year in a row?