Week 1 Didn't Go As Planned — Full Recap, Every Game

Dave Kluge (0:11)

Every year, Week 1 is full of hot takes, and most of them will not hold up today. We, and by we, I mean Joey Wright, Jeff Bell, and I are cutting through the noise, telling you what's real and what's fake, and what it means for your fantasy teams as we head into Week 1 Let's start with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Cincinnati Bengals, where the Bengals beat the Bucs 33 to 27 But the biggest storyline here wasn't the win, it was Jamar Chase doing almost nothing in Week 1 So Jeff Bell, let me throw this question to you first. Is it time to panic about Jamar Chase's performance?

Jeff Bell (0:42)

You guys know me. I'm usually the calm, measured type on things here, and the voice of reason, and trying to take a break. And let's relax, let's look at what's happening here. Last year, my Week 1 article on the Monday Roundup led with that theme, talking about players that exploded in Week 1 in 2024 and did not do anything the rest of the year or vice versa.

This year, you know what, let's entertain the idea. Let's talk about it a little bit, because I was looking back at last year and looking at Week 1 In Week 1, we had Daniel Jones was the quarterback 3 overall, Week 1

Finished as the quarterback 17, was quarterback 7 before getting injured, ADP quarterback 31 Joe Burrows, quarterback 27, obviously injuries but finished as quarterback 29 Jovante Williams was the running back 2, ADP of running back 36, finishes running back 11 Travis Etienne, running back 10 overall, running back 5 Week 1, ADP running back 32 These were opportunities to react to the market and move in that direction. I think the other thing that's interesting with Chase is going off the board as the consensus wide receiver 1 Over the last 10 years, we've had 10 different wide receiver 1s in fantasy. And I think that really wrapping it with Chase 2 weeks ago, that injury popped up, the hyper extended knee, and he was out of practice. And we all just kind of wrote it off a little bit because the Bengals were like, nothing to see here, no worry about it. But watching that game yesterday, it looked like he was a straight up decoy. It looked like nothing was intentionally created for Chase. And the usage for Mike Gasicki in particular was interesting to me because it was schemed up for Mike Gasicki. And that's what we have seen when one of Jamar Chase or T Higgins has been out of the lineup. We've seen Gasicki step up as that second receiver option there. And so I think adding things together, and there are historical reasons why you can easily write this game off. Gamescript for sure, they did not need Chase the way they jumped out to an early lead from the Buccaneers turnovers.

But that injury kind of lingers and the intentional usage for Gasicki, lingers in my mind here.

Dave Kluge (2:51)

Yeah, and I think the Gasicki stuff is a little bit weird, too, like if you look beyond just the box score numbers, because he only ran 17 routes. Like he was only on the field for about a third of the game, but he was heavily involved and targeted at a very high rate when he was on the field. So we've talked about that before. Gasicki is kind of like the Kate Otton in Cincinnati, where like on a normal week, you can't rely on him at all. But if the guys ahead of him are injured, then he ends up stepping into this much larger role. So Joey, how are you kind of looking at this? Are you looking at a similar kind of cooler heads will prevail type of scenario with Jamar Chase or are you starting to panic a little bit?

Joey Wright (3:23)

Yeah, I mean, in a vacuum, if you look at Jamar Chase the last three seasons, his first three, week one in the last three seasons, 3.6 fantasy points, 9.2, that won't kill you. And then 6.6, he meets Jamar Chase, we drafted him number one overall wide receiver for a reason.

So I'm not really worried because we've seen this historic start. But Jeff brings up some good points. He did look kind of like a decoy yesterday. And with Gasicki, you compare him to Kate Otton, you know, I've called Pedialyte. Is Gasicki now just the orange Pedialyte? Is that what the situation is here?

Dave Kluge (3:53)

Which is the best flavor, if we're being honest. Yeah, well, I mean... It is delicious. But let's also stick with this game. And I want to talk a little bit about the other side of the ball here, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.