Cardinals vs. Chargers Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 1

The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 1 matchup between the Chargers and Cardinals.

Find a breakdown of every Week 1 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.

Trust = spike production for that player

Cardinals vs. Chargers Fantasy Quarterback Preview

Justin Herbert (TRUST)

Herbert went through the wringer in 2025.

Rashawn Slater missed the entire season.

Joe Alt only appeared in six games.

Herbert closed out the year with a broken left hand, finishing with a career-high 54 sacks.

That was the third-most sacks taken in the league behind Cam Ward (55) and Geno Smith (55).

Herbert was hit on a league-high 129 dropbacks, while he was ninth in total dropbacks (615)

The Chargers' most-used offensive line combination last year was on the field for only 16.5% of offensive snaps, the lowest rate in the NFL.

With Alt off the field (431 dropbacks), Herbert completed 65.9% of his passes (15th) with 7.3 air yards per pass attempt (25th), 6.9 yards per pass attempt (22nd), a 4.2% touchdown rate (26th), a 2.8% interception rate (28th), and a 10.1% sack rate (31st).

With Alt on the field (184 dropbacks), Herbert completed 67.5% of his passes (10th) with 9.1 air yards per attempt (2nd), 8.3 yards per pass (4th), and a 7.1% touchdown rate (2nd)

Herbert averaged 0.56 fantasy points per dropback with Alt on the field compared to 0.43 without him.

That is the difference between ranking QB7 and QB21.

The return of Slater and Alt on both ends is significant, while the interior of the line does take some squinting.

The Chargers have already lost Tyler Biadasz for the season to injury.

Second-round rookie Jake Slaughter will start at center.

Cole Strange comes over with McDaniel to play right guard.

Kayode Awosika will play left guard.

Herbert will get to work with new offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel.

Herbert has already been a good passer over multiple seasons, but I expect his involvement under McDaniel will help him win on the margins in the red zone and avoid third downs.

Herbert completed only 50.6% of his passes in the red zone last year, which ranked 28th in the league and was the lowest among all playoff passers.

He had a league-high 5.2% interception rate in the red zone while taking a sack on 8.3% of his dropbacks (25th).

The Chargers were 29th in red-zone touchdown rate (47.4%) and 19th in goal-to-go touchdown rate (70.8%).

Over four years with McDaniel in Miami, Tua Tagovailoa completed 64.9% of his red-zone passes (3rd) and posted a 28% touchdown rate (4th).

Over his tenure in Miami, McDaniel's offenses scored on 59.8% of their red-zone possessions (7th) and 76.3% of their goal-to-go possessions (7th).

I don't expect McDaniel to try to make Herbert a version of Tagovailoa in this offense, but he should get the ball out sooner.

With all of the injuries up front, Herbert averaged a career-high time to throw (2.81 seconds).

Running for his life, Herbert ended up scrambling on a career-high 8.5% of his dropbacks.

His previous career-high scrambling rate was 6.2%.

Herbert rushed for a career-high 498 yards, with 439 of those yards on scrambles.

His previous high in scrambling yardage was 311 yards.

While McDaniel will surely use Herbert's athleticism, I expect his rushing production to decline somewhat.

This is a great spot to iron out some things in transition for the new offense.

The Chargers have a high team total and are double-digit point favorites against an Arizona defense that struggled to pressure the quarterback in 2025.

Last year, the Cardinals were 27th in pressure rate (31.8%) and 28th in sack rate (5%).

They allowed 15.2 passing points per game, which was 24th in the league.

The bar for improvement is low for the Arizona defense, but the Cardinals are largely rolling things back on defense this season after spending this offseason focusing on the offense.

They used only two draft picks on defense, selecting defensive tackle Kaleb Proctor in the fourth round and sixth-round linebacker Karson Sharar.

Proctor was placed on season-ending IR with a knee injury.

In free agency, they added Roy Lopez and Andrew Wingard.

Mike LaFleur retained Defensive coordinator Nick Rallis, who has been with the team since 2023.

Jacoby Brissett

Brissett made 12 starts for the Cardinals a year ago, with the team going 1-11 in those games.

To be fair to Brissett, he did play well in his first three starts last year when taking over the job.

Arizona was competitive in losses to the Colts and Packers, then defeated the Cowboys on the road.

Brissett completed 65.8% of his passes for 7.7 yards per attempt with a 5.4% touchdown rate and a 0.9% interception rate during those games.

Then the team sustained so many mounting injuries on both sides of the ball that things completely unraveled for the organization, leading to offseason changes.

Over the final nine games of the 2025 season, the Cardinals led for just 47 offensive snaps, ahead of only the Raiders (36) and Jets (30).

Brissett then completed 64.9% of his passes for 6.7 Y/A, a 4.6% touchdown rate, and a 1.9% interception rate.

He was sacked 30 times over that span, the second-most in the league.

Brissett was the QB5 in overall scoring after taking over as the starter in Week 6 last year, but a perfect storm of injuries and off-the-rails scripts made him a volume-based producer and covered up the fact that he was QB17 in points per dropback.

I believe Arizona wants to run a more balanced offense in 2026, but Week 1 conditions may force them to operate similarly to how they did a year ago.

Jeremiyah Love may not be 100% yet, and they are double-digit underdogs on the road.

Brissett is in play to be a volume-based QB2.

I thought the first-team Arizona offense played well in the preseason; the question is whether they can roll that over in real games.

The Chargers were a stingy defense in 2025, allowing a league-low 9.7 passing points per game.

Only the Eagles allowed fewer passing points per attempt than the Chargers, as they allowed a 60.7% completion rate (5th), 6.6 yards per pass attempt (8th), and a 3.3% touchdown rate (3rd).

They did lose two key defensive components from a year ago.

The first is defensive coordinator Jesse Minter.

Replacing Minter will be Chris O'Leary.

O'Leary worked under Minter in Los Angeles in 2024 before serving as defensive coordinator at Western Michigan last season.

The Chargers also lost Odafe Oweh in free agency, who was second on the team with 11 sacks and 31 pressures.

Cardinals vs. Chargers Fantasy Running Back Preview

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