Team-by-Team: Everything We Saw In Week 1, And How To Adjust (Episode 1022 with Evan Silva and Adam Levitan)

Adam Levitan (0:15)

Hello, and welcome to episode 1022 of the official Establish The run.com podcast. My name is Adam Levitan. I am one of the co-founders here at ETR. As always, joined by fellow co-founder Evan Silva. And week one of the NFL season is in the books.

That means everyone's favorite show, Team by Team, is indeed back.

Evan, how was your week one, buddy?

Evan Silva (0:42)

On Sunday, there were a lot of ups, and there were a lot of downs. And then on Monday night, the avalanche came through with Kenneth, the K-9 walker.

But I want to remind everybody that last year, week one, the Raiders beat the Patriots. The Patriots wound up going to the Super Bowl. The 49ers beat the Seahawks. The Seahawks wound up winning the Super Bowl. And JJ. McCarthy was the NFC offensive player of the week. So we will have a lot of good takeaways this week because this is actual data, but don't trust everything that you saw on opening day.

Adam Levitan (1:20)

Indeed, and this will be one of the longest team by teams that we do all year because we learned so much and I have so many notes on every team and the usage and everything because so many of our questions that we talked about all off season got answered.

On today's show, we are going to go team by team through all 32 NFL franchises, discussing the most important things we saw in each and what it means going forward. Usage, injuries, performance, everything.

Reminder for anyone serious about fantasy football or DFS this season. Clearly, I'm biased, but I could not imagine trying to play fantasy football or DFS seriously without our in season product. I pour over our projections for every decision that I make. I read Silva's matchups for his take on every player. I consult Thorn's rankings for things like known to play Jets, DST against the Titans 32nd ranked offensive line. Tons more. Plus, you get all our premium shows like Silva vs. Leone, Weekly Man vs. Machine, myself, Silva Wiggins on Friday nights. So head to the content schedule in the NFL tab for a full list of our in season product content. That is the in season product at establishtherun.com.

All right. We're going to start with the five biggest stories of the week here, Evan. Then we will go team by team in alphabetical order after that. Number one story of the week has to come from Monday night's game, Kansas City Chiefs. Oh boy. What a night, Evan, for us, Kenneth Walker backers. I could not have dreamed up a better start. They were facing what I thought would be one of the NFL's better rush defenses this season, and Kenneth Walker shreds the Broncos. 23 carries, 173 yards, and a touchdown rushing. Also, caught three passes for 18 yards and another touchdown. Chiefs blast the Broncos 31-10. The thesis played out exactly as we talked about for much of the offseason here. Evan, what did you think of Kenneth Walker and Chiefs from last night?

Evan Silva (3:31)

They did this with an undrafted rookie left tackle, Khalif Benson in their starting in place of Josh Simmons. I got so many messages during the game, in the second half, text, Twitter, whatever. Thank you for Kenneth Walker this year. So I'm so glad that those people were able to benefit. A lot of people wound up coming back on Monday night to win their fantasy matchups in week one. That's a great feeling, obviously, going into week two. Want to know what it looks like. I mean, Kenneth Walker was the best running back in the NFL in week one. We'll see if he's able to sustain that. But he was the best running back in the NFL in week one. He broke the 14 mistackles, led the NFL in rushing in week one.

He looked like an absolute beast out there. So I was really happy for everyone that was able to draft him. He was a steel man. He was an absolute steel. You could get him every single time at the one-two turn.

Adam Levitan (4:27)

Yeah. He handled 29 of the first 32 running back carries. This was the point. Why leave Seattle? Seattle, I think, wanted to retain him. They insulted him by playing Zach Charbonnet too much. He was like, screw this, I'm going to Kansas City. I got 29 of the first 32 running back carries before it turned into a blowout. Kenneth Walker also six targets for a 22% share really high for the running back position. The flip side of this, Evan, was the Rishi Rice stuff. And we had a bit of a fade on Rishi Rice. I did not think it would be this bad. Two targets for a 7% share.