10 Fantasy Football Takeaways from Week 1: Josh Allen and Caleb Williams go scorched earth

Week 1 of the 2026 NFL season is in the books. These are the 10 stats-based storylines you need to know from the opening week.

1) What’s going on in Chicago?

How did the Bears score 57 points and none of their notable pass-catchers get home? The route data makes things mostly clear.

This doesn’t even include Cole Kmet and Jadhae Walker, each of whom were around 50 percent of the routes. The rotation was a nightmare for everyone except Loveland, who logged the highest tight end route rate in the league and somehow still did nothing. I would not expect that to continue, but it does look like the offense isn’t built around him. If anything, the offense is built around the ground game, which supported two 100-yard rushers and five rushing touchdowns—two of which came from Caleb Williams—in Week 1.

2) Chargers’ hilarious meltdown

I’m sorry to Chargers fans, but a Bolts implosion will never not be funny. On to the stats. Putting things in 2025 terms, the Chargers were the No. 5 offense by EPA per play with Ladd McConkey on the field in Week 1. They were the No. 32 offense by a measure that doesn’t even make mathematical sense when McConkey was off the field.

McConkey left the game with a rib injury at the end of the third quarter. The Chargers looked great on the scripted drives—which featured McConkey heavily—and then trailed off as the game progressed. They were losing steam even before he got hurt, but his absence certainly made an impact. The Chargers are done for if he misses an extended period of time.

3) Kenneth Walker goes nuclear

Walker’s 173 yards in Week 1 were the most for a Patrick Mahomes running back since he entered the NFL, comfortably surpassing Clyde Edwards-Helaire’s mark of 161 from all the way back in 2020.

Walker’s 14 missed tackles forced were also enough to set the Mahomes-era record. This is the best running back he has ever played with, and it’s not a close race. This is also the best role Walker has ever had. His 23 carries weren’t especially impressive, but six targets in a workhorse game is new. Walker has earned 5+ targets 11 times in his career. This was the first time he did so in a game where he also saw even 15 carries.

4) Expected points fallers

Just like it sounds, expected points convert a player’s touches into a fantasy projection based on the situation for each touch. Last year’s expected points leader was Christian McCaffrey by a mile. McCaffrey posted just the second 400 EP season of the last quarter-century. He also holds the only other 400 EP season. He averaged 23.6 expected points per game last year. That fell to 16 in Week 1.

The worry for McCaffrey isn’t that the workload is bad. His 16 expected points in Week 1 were the 14th-most among running backs. Kaelon Black ate into his role to the tune of 14 attempts, but CMC remained a target-dominator with eight opportunities in the passing game. The concern is that McCaffrey used to beat his fantasy expectations with ease. He cleared it by .8 points per game in 2025 and was held under expectation by 2.2 points in Week 1. McCaffrey’s season will go down as a bust if he is an average producer with a low-end RB1 workload.

5) Bad news for the Falcons

With Michael Penix still recovering from his knee injury and Tua Tagovailoa banged up, the Falcons turned to Cooper Rush as their Week 1 starter. As expected, he was the worst quarterback in the NFL.

He finished last in EPA per dropback and second-to-last in CPOE. Returning to our list of expected points fallers, Drake London and Kyle Pitts were second and third on the list among just receivers and tight ends. Atlanta dialed up a -15% pass rate over expected and Rush bombarded Bijan Robinson with a 53 percent target share. London’s 18 percent target share would have been his second-lowest mark of the 2025 season. Pitts’ eight percent target share would have been his worst.

Rivers McCown looks at four players who saw their fantasy football stock go up and four players who saw their fantasy football stock decline from Week 1’s early returns.

6) Jaxson Dart takes the next step

Dart wasn’t an awfully efficient passer as a rookie, but he masked that with elite scrambling. He still scrambled in Week 1, turning his 11 carries into 54 yards. But the passing was different. Dart posted a career-best day in completion rate (79.3 percent) and adjusted yards per attempt (10.0). He didn’t turn the ball over once, tossed three touchdowns, and finished first in both EPA per play and total EPA. This came in an easy matchup with the Dallas defense, but it was also Dart’s first game in a new offense with Malik Nabers likely not at full strength yet. One would expect the offense to look better as the season goes on, even as the defenses get tougher.

Speaking of Nabers, even after taking his Week 1 status down to the wire, he still recorded the 10th-highest weighted opportunity rating of the week. Nabers accounted for 31 percent of the Giants’ targets and 42 percent of the air yards. He should have been going in the first round the moment he didn’t land on the PUP list.

7) Saints are a factory for fantasy points

The Saints were seventh in neutral situation pass rate in Week 1, propelling them to a PROE just over four percent.

Per usual, they were also the fastest team in the NFL. They averaged a play every 22 seconds. That’s over two seconds faster than any other team in Week 1. Their frantic comeback effort versus the Lions juiced the passing volume, but the Saints played fast last year as well, and it would make sense for them to pass more with an ascending Tyler Shough under center.

It’s not like things get any easier for them next week either. They are once again on the road, this time as 8.5-point underdogs to the Ravens. Chris Olave led the league with 239 air yards, which he converted into 182 yards on 10 grabs. He saw 68 more air yards than Week 1’s No. 2 receiver. He should be ranked as a weekly WR1.

8) Breakout running back check-in

Starting in round five of most drafts, fantasy managers began to forgo the projections and shoot for ceiling at running back. By Underdog ADP, the RB2 ranks closed with Cam Skattebo, Bucky Irving, Bhayshul Tuten, Quinshon Judkins, and Jadarian Price. All of these players had either workload or injury concerns that had to be weighed against the bet on talent. This is how their roles shook out in Week 1.

The winner is abundantly clear. Bucky Irving didn’t dominate the carries in his backfield, but he was a force to be reckoned with as a pass-catcher. He was fourth among running backs in targets per route run (.33) and second in target share (26 percent).

Judkins has the biggest cut of the pie in most of these stats, but he plays for a dreadful Browns offense and doesn’t catch passes. That could change with Dylan Sampson on IR because of a knee injury. On the other hand, third-stringer Raheim Sanders ran just as many routes as Judkins and earned one more target. It looks like the Browns want a dedicated third-down back that isn’t Judkins.

We’re in a holding pattern with the other three backs. Skattebo and Tuten need to earn more work through the air but looked good on the ground. Price is not a particularly appealing fantasy option right now, but he is the only rookie of the group.

9) Dolphins struggle in Malik Willis debut

The Dolphins put up a measly 13 points against a Raiders defense that ranked 25th in points allowed last year. Even after making some notable offseason additions, Vegas’s defense will be one of the easiest the Dolphins face. Willis performed poorly in the spreadsheets and was a stylistic match to his prior body of work. He ranked 26th in EPA and 29th in CPOE. He had the fifth-highest pressure-to-sack rate and the fourth-highest scramble rate. This resulted in the sixth-lowest dropback conversion rate: The percentage of called passing plays that turn into a target.

The good news for his pass-catchers is that he was willing to chuck it. Willis had the second-highest aDOT of Week 1 (11.4). This propelled rookie wideout Caleb Douglas to five catches for 94 yards on seven targets and 97 air yards. Malik Washington’s 135 air yards were the fifth-most for a receiver in Week 1, though he managed just 53 actual yards.

De’Von Achane drafters, on the other hand, won’t be thrilled with this showing. His 16 percent target share and .14 targets per route run weren’t bad, but they were a far cry from his 2025 numbers. Last year, Achane tallied a 20 percent target share with .23 targets per route. Achane led all running backs in slot routes (eight) and was designed a pair of screen targets, but even that wasn’t enough to replicate his 2025 receiving usage. It’s going to be a long season for him if this continues.

10) New look Bills pile on the points

Short and sweet: The Bills played fast and threw often. They had the eighth-fastest pace and were sixth in situation-neutral pass rate. Josh Allen also threw deep at the highest rate in the league. His 24.1 deep throw rate nearly doubled his rate from 2025. Dalton Kincaid took off with 150 yards on five grabs and DJ Moore posted a 5/100/1 line. Allen was the QB2 on the week. He’s going to waltz into another QB1 overall finish if the Bills keep this style of football up.