Fantasy Football Must Starts Week 1

By James Collier

We are so back! It’s been a long old offseason but it’s great to be back bringing you our “Must Starts” again for the 2024 season. 

Each week myself and some of our favourite members of the fantasy community will be presenting you with one of our favourite starts of the week. This will be fairly open to interpretation and so it could be a chalky player that we feel you simply must find space for in your DFS lineups, no matter the cost. Or it could be an under the radar sleeper that is set to have a breakout week. 

Effectively we are trying to find you DFS bargains or players that consensus is ranking too low on each week with the aim of winning you a matchup or some money in the process! 

Keenan Allen vs Tennessee Titans

My pick this week is Keenan Allen, the fantasy WR3 on a points per game basis last season. He had three scores of 30+ in his 12 healthy games and was the WR1 on the week in each of those games. Yes he finds himself on a new team with a rookie Quarterback at the helm, but FantasyPros consensus rankings have him as the WR35, seriously?! 

There are obviously legitimate barriers to Keenan reproducing the fantasy output we saw from him last season: he’s 32 now, is currently dealing with a heel injury and there’s a lot more competition for targets in Chicago. But he’s the perfect Wide Receiver for a rookie Quarterback starting his first NFL game, just ask Justin Herbert. It’s also an ideal matchup against a Titans secondary that he torched for 111 yards and two touchdowns in Week 2 last year. I’d find it hard to leave him on the bench despite the Questionable tag. 

DraftKings Value: $6,900

Fantasy Pros ECR Rank (PPR): WR35

Gabriel Davis @ Miami Dolphins (Kev White)

Our second pick comes from Kev White (@TheDynastyMind) of the @FantasyWildcard and DLF. Kev’s Must Start this week comes from the Jaguars @ Dolphins game which looks to be one of the highlights of the early games on Sunday, 

“Davis has a notorious boom-bust profile, exemplified by five starts generating over 20 fantasy points last season, the same number of games he hit zero points. In week one Davis is an ancillary piece in the main slate’s highest projected points total, as a player with excellent upside. Players will gravitate towards star tight end Evan Engram, slot machine Christian Kirk and exciting rookie Brian Thomas Jr as a solo, stack or bring back option. The Davis selection is a must-start in large fields where you are truly playing for ceiling, Thomas Jr will be popular as the shiny new toy at just $200 extra (on DraftKings), however take a chance on Davis and his projected low ownership, who has previous explosive games against the Dolphins from his days in Buffalo.”

DraftKings Value: $4,500

Fantasy Pros ECR Rank (PPR): WR56

Caleb Williams vs Tennessee Titans (Lewis Wood)

Next up we have Lewis Wood dipping back into the Bears vs Titans matchup. Lewis (@ff_pancake) has just launched his own YouTube channel so be sure to check it out and subscribe. 

“The Titans defense was terrible against the pass last season. They added L’Jarius Sneed but that could easily not be enough to upgrade them from the third worst team in allowing fantasy points to the WR position in 2023.

But it’s not a WR that I’m targeting in their matchup against the Bears. Caleb Williams looked exceptional in the pre-season and was worth the first overall draft pick.

Caleb is great at both passing and scrambling and goes into maybe the best situation we’ve ever seen for a rookie QB. The Bears have made improvements at OL and brought in two elite WRs to add to DJ Moore in the receiving core. But Caleb is currently the QB14 by Expert Consensus Ranks.

If you drafted him at the 1.01 in dynasty, you should feel confident starting him week one. I’m making the bet for Caleb to smash immediately and show everyone why he was the first overall pick and why he’s on course to be the best QB the Bears have ever had – not that it takes that much.”

DraftKings Value: $5,900

Fantasy Pros ECR Rank: QB14

Deebo Samuel vs New York Jets (Tom Strachan)

And rounding us off this week is the Fantasy Sanctuary’s Tom Strachan (@NFL_TStrack) with one of his longstanding favourites, Deebo Samuel. 

“When Deebo Samuel had his own contract stand-off in 2022, he later remarked that holding out of training and the mental side of things left him underprepared for that season. Fast forward to the present and it’s Brandon Aiyuk whose situation looks remarkably similar, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone if Aiyuk starts the season rusty and the team need to lean into Samuel heavily. In 2023 Samuel had eight top-20 finishes, had only eight games below 80 yards, and scored touchdowns in 57% of his games. The Jets are a formidable defense with an excellent secondary, but their strength is more man coverage based than zone, and Deebo is going to line up all over and is excellent at finding soft spots so whatever way we look at this, Samuel should be a safe and reliable option in Week 1.”

DraftKings Value: $7,000 (SNF/MNF Primetime Slate), $9,600 (Showdown)

Fantasy Pros ECR Rank (PPR): WR20

Feature image credit: AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast

JAMES COLLIER

Lead Fantasy Football Analyst

A Washington fan since the early 2010’s, James had no choice but to turn to fantasy football in search of happiness – and it wasn’t long until it became an obsession. You can follow him on Twitter @jamesc294.

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