Welcome to Week 1 of The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar.
What is The Worksheet from Rich Hribar?
The Worksheet is a comprehensive weekly fantasy football preview for each NFL game. Rich Hribar analyzes the matchups for every notable fantasy player for every game every week of the NFL season.
Welcome back!
Months and months of fantasy preparation over the summer is about to be put to the test as Week 1 of the NFL football season is finally upon us.
This is as excited as I have been for an NFL fantasy season in a long time.
Last season, we saw offenses starting to figure out a counterpunch to the current defensive landscape.
The new kickoff rules helped accelerate field position and have been tweaked a bit this season to bring out touchbacks to the 35-yard line.
Most importantly, this is the deepest pool of front-end talent we have had in fantasy drafts in recent seasons.
The NFL is inherently a fluid game, with things in constant motion.
What was yesterday is not always tomorrow and will be different in the middle of the season.
There is always a lot of ambiguity in the first week of a new NFL season.
With a fresh start to a new season, taking an evidence-based approach is easier said than done.
While the crux of this article thrives on diagnosing players that will outproduce their expectations, the opening few weeks will be about establishing the groundwork for accurately doing so as the season progresses.
You will see some peppered “Trusts” in for players that I feel strongly about early, but they will be far lighter early on, since those are more due to feel than mountains of objective data this early in the season.
This article will be updated throughout the week to reflect major news or injury implications.
I encourage you to use the game-by-game tables and data points here in conjunction with the player rankings that will be available every Wednesday. Enjoy the games!
Click the matchups below for the individual game previews.
Week 1 Fantasy Football Matchups
| Matchup | Time |
|---|---|
| Cowboys @ Eagles -- FREE | NFL Kickoff Game |
| Chiefs vs. Chargers -- FREE | Friday Night Football |
| Bucs @ Falcons | Sunday -- 1 p.m. ET |
| Bengals @ Browns | Sunday -- 1 p.m. ET |
| Dolphins @ Colts | Sunday -- 1 p.m. ET |
| Raiders @ Patriots | Sunday -- 1 p.m. ET |
| Cardinals @ Saints | Sunday -- 1 p.m. ET |
| Steelers @ Jets | Sunday -- 1 p.m. ET |
| Giants @ Commanders | Sunday -- 1 p.m. ET |
| Panthers @ Jaguars | Sunday -- 1 p.m. ET |
| Titans @ Broncos | Sunday -- 4:05 p.m. ET |
| 49ers @ Seahawks | Sunday -- 4:05 p.m. ET |
| Lions @ Packers | Sunday -- 4:25 p.m. ET |
| Texans @ Rams | Sunday -- 4:25 p.m. ET |
| Ravens @ Bills -- FREE | Sunday Night Football |
| Vikings @ Bears -- FREE | Monday Night Football |
