Week 1 of the NFL preseason has officially kicked off, and we’re officially less than a month away from the beginning of the real thing, everyone. Time flies!

What’s in store:

• Mike Williams is ahead of schedule, but hold your horses... the Jets’ receiver says he’s not certain he’ll be on the field in Week 1 just yet.

• The Cowboys running back expected to lead the team in rushing is... Not the ballcarrier listed at the top of the depth chart. 🤷‍♂️

• No need to panic about the CMC injury. He’s out for the preseason, but there’s no need to be anxious about his availability for the regular season at the moment.

• Is Hollywood ready to become a star once again? ⭐️ Faraz sees big things coming for the former Cardinal in 2024 with his new team.

• Jets WR Mike Williams reportedly ahead of schedule in recovery from ACL tear, per HC Robert Saleh; status for Week 1 still up in the air

  • Despite the positive news, Williams himself couldn’t guarantee that he would be able to suit up for New York’s season opener against the 49ers on Monday night. He suffered the injury in Week 3 of last year in what ended up being his final game with the Chargers, and he’ll look to bounce back in 2024 in the Big Apple with the help of Aaron Rodgers. Of course, that will take Rodgers remaining healthy for all (or at least the majority) of the 2024 season, as well as Williams being able to fend off stiff target competition from third-year WR Garrett Wilson. Even with backup QBs Zach Wilson, Tim Boyle, and others taking snaps in 2023, OC Nathaniel Hackett called one of the most pass-happy offenses by volume in 2023 – Wilson ran the most routes of any WR in the league last year. A similar focus on the passing game in 2024 with a healthy Aaron Rodgers should yield much more production from the Jets pass catchers. Of course, TE Tyler Conklin and third-round rookie Malachi Corley could each vulture targets on a variable basis, making true week-to-week consistency a concern for Williams (as has been the case his entire career). At just a WR65 ADP on Underdog, though, it’s nearly a no risk proposition with some nice TD upside for the former Chargers wideout.

• The Athletic’s Jon Machota says that Cowboys RB Rico Dowdle is expected to lead the Cowboys backfield in rushing in 2024

  • Make specific note that Machota did not comment on who would lead the the Cowboys backfield in overall fantasy output this season, instead limiting his prediction to Dowdle as the team’s rushing yardage leader. On paper, his prediction makes sense: Dowdle’s 4.1 yards per carry in 2023 doesn’t jump off the stat page by any standard, but he ranks first among running backs on the Cowboys’ roster heading into 2024 (Ezekiel Elliott averaged a paltry 3.5 YPC in New England last year). After neglecting to add a running back during the draft and bringing in only veteran Royce Freeman to compete with Zeke and Dowdle, it’s the expectation that Dallas will not only be a pass first team, but also be forced to run the ball through a committee. Whether or not Dowdle leads the Dallas backfield in rush attempts also remains in the air, but it seems as though Dallas has plans to spell the aged Elliott early and often throughout the 2024 season. In his most recent campaign with the Cowboys, Zeke averaged just 3.8 yards per carry (🤢) but tacked on 12 touchdowns on the ground. Given the lack of competition around him and an offense that is expected to rank among the league’s best in production (albeit almost exclusively through the passing game), we could see similar numbers for Zeke this season even if Dowdle does end up pacing the team in rushing yards and per carry efficiency.

• 49ers RB Christian McCaffrey expected to miss entirety of 2024 preseason with calf strain

  • Was Christian McCaffrey ever going to play that many snaps, if any at all, in the first place this preseason? Probably not – however, when the consensus 1.01 suffers an injury that causes him to miss an extended period of time (especially leading up to kickoff), it’s worth taking a second to debunk. McCaffrey reportedly suffered a hamstring strain this past week during practice and, not surprisingly, was quickly ruled out of any preseason action this year. He’s officially shed the ‘injury prone’ label after starting at least 16 games in each of the past two seasons, but fantasy managers and the NFL community have far from forgotten his 2020 and 2021 seasons that saw him start a combined 10 of a possible 33 games. Consider also that McCaffrey is entering his age 28 season, and it’s hardly a wonder why the 49ers were so quick to shut down their workhorse back at the first sign of trouble. After all, McCaffrey has accounted for 34 touchdowns since 2022, a number that leads the league and has cemented him as arguably the most important driving force behind San Francisco’s offensive success. Unless we hear of any setbacks from now leading up to kickoff, fantasy managers can continue drafting CMC as the 1.01 without hesitation; a full month of rest for the league’s top running back should be more than enough to have him ready for the 49ers Week 1 showdown against the Jets in primetime.

We need to talk about Hollywood Brown and whether he can have a breakout season in his first year in Kansas City. Looking back at his career, he had one 1000-yard season (barely) with Baltimore all the way back in 2021. He might be three years removed from that kind of production thanks to two lackluster seasons in Arizona, but I think there’s a decent chance he gets back to that threshold this year with the Chiefs.

He’s had QB issues both years in Arizona – Kyler Murray was banged up for most of his two-year stint there – and he was stuck on an extremely slow, low volume passing offense in Baltimore (thanks Greg Roman). Now, Brown will be in an uptempo, pass-first offense with the best QB in the NFL in Patrick Mahomes under center. Yes, he has target competition – but I think his talent and his ability matches what the Chiefs want to do on offense, and he’s going to be part of the reason Mahomes will start to sling it much further down the field (something he couldn’t do much of over the last two seasons). Mahomes hasn’t had that deep threat at his disposal since Tyreek Hill left for South Beach, but Brown fits the bill to revive that role in the Chiefs’ passing game.

With Marquise Brown in the fold along with first round rookie WR Xavier Worthy, embattled WR Rashee Rice, and TE Travis Kelce, Kansas City has several threats in the middle of the field and a couple of threats downfield. That’s great news, because teams are going to have to pick their poison each week trying to defend those weapons. I think Hollywood benefits in a huge way because of that, and I also believe that Rashee Rice will have a big year as well when he’s on the field.

The difference between Brown and Rice is availability. Because Hollywood has a chance to be there for every game, he could end up being an every-week WR2 - maybe with some volatility, of course, given their multitude of weapons, but I don’t see them taking Hollywood off the field a whole lot this year. Outside of his rookie year, he was a pretty solid target earner - 22% or higher every year since. Even 20% would amount to 120 targets in the Chiefs offense, which I would happily take all day long seeing as those opportunities are being delivered via the right hand of Patrick Mahomes.

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Davante Adams’ second year with the Raiders provided further evidence (not that it was necessary) that he is officially a QB-proof fantasy wide receiver, even at the ripe age of 31. After finishing as the overall WR3 in PPR formats moving from Aaron Rodgers to Derek Carr at QB in 2022, Adams followed that up with an overall WR10 finish in 2023 while moving from his old college teammate in Carr to the platoon of a washed up Jimmy Garoppolo and rookie Aidan O’Connell.

Even with WR Jakobi Meyers providing quality target competition (20% target share), Adams exerted total domination of the team’s opportunity share: his target share (30.5%), air yards share (44.1%), and targets per route run (0.31) all ranked top-3 among receivers to run at least 100 routes. He logged seven games last season with 12 or more targets, including two monster 20+ target, 13-reception performances with two different quarterbacks – finishing as a top-2 WR in both instances. Heading into 2024, the Raiders brought in veteran QB Gardner Minshew to provide some competition at quarterback after missing out on drafting one in April’s draft.

As uninspiring as the Raiders QB situation may seem from a real life perspective, it’s not the worst situation for Adams; he’ll be catching passes either from O’Connell, a quarterback with whom he demonstrated a solid connection (16.3 PPR points per game in his nine starts with an elite 35% target share, WR11 on a brutal 67% catchable target rate), or Gardner Minshew, who supported Michael Pittman at a WR1 level in his time under center last season (Pittman averaged 16.6 PPR points per game in 12 games with Minshew under center, WR9 on a decent 79% catchable target rate). Adams’ per route efficiency has dropped in each of the past two seasons, with his 2.11 YPRR in 2023 ranking 27th among 145 receivers to run 100 routes –however, that can be attributed more to him playing in increasingly ineffective offenses with a descending quality of QB play than to any type of falloff due to age.

The addition of Brock Bowers to the offense could usurp some volume from the perennial fantasy WR1, but even a drop into the 130-140 target range for Adams shouldn’t keep him out of the WR1 conversation – especially if the Raiders offense can take a step forward in 2024 after ranking 25th in total touchdowns scored in 2023. It’s worth noting that new Raiders OC and former Bears OC Luke Getsy allowed D.J. Moore to be a target funnel last year in Chicago – Moore’s 29% target share ranked 7th among all WRs on an offense quarterbacked by the erratic Justin Fields.