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Saturday was a momentus day for NFL contract extensions. It was like a scene from The Oprah Winfrey Show. You get a new contract! You get a new contract! And you, Mr. Fournette, get a signed copy of Oprah’s new book Journey to Beloved! Free money giveaway for everyone but Leonard! It all really started last summer when Jerry Jones bent over and gave Zeke his 30 year, 10 billion dollar contract, completely resetting the fair market value for NFL running backs.

Christian McCaffrey was quick to cash in back in April, followed recently by Joe Mixon, Dalvin Cook and now Alvin Kamara. Rams’ wide receiver Cooper Kupp dipped his paw into the honey pot too, signing a three-year 48 million dollar extension on Saturday. Heck, I even decided to hold out over the weekend and Razzball agreed to meet all of my contract demands by giving me one Chipotle burrito—WITH guac. Now we have another running back who’s sure to want a new contract: Josh Jacobs took 25 carries for 93 yards, 4 catches for 46 yards and 3 touchdowns in the newly minted Vegas Raiders’ opener. By my math, that’s worth at least 800 billion dollars. The legendary Rudy Gamble Pigskinonator (only $17.99 for the entire season) projected Jacobs as the #4 fantasy running back this week, smart bot. Sign up for a 7 day free trial now! Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy football:

 

GB at MIN

Aaron Rodgers – 32/44 for 364 and 4 touchdowns. Big day for A-A-Ron. The Vikings defense looked lost for what it’s worth but Rodgers really gave them the ole discount double check.

Aaron Jones – 16 yards for 66 yards, 4 catches for 10 yards and 1 touchdown. Like Fournette, Jones also missed out on the Oprah contract giveaway. Seems like he needs a new agent. Maybe he can land Gabe from the State Farm commercials.

Davante Adams – 14 catches for 156 yards and 2 touchdowns. Rodgers found him in the end zone twice just so he could pat his butt.

Allen Lazard – 4 catches for 63 yards, 1 carry for 19 yards and 1 touchdown. Who is that with the red eyes and scaly skin? Ahhhh, it’s The Lizard King!

Marquez Valdes-Scantling – 4 catches for 96 yards and 1 touchdown. Word out of camp was that MVS looked good, but I assumed that was mostly BS. Maybe there actually is a little post-hype something here.

Dalvin Cook – 12 carries for 50 yards and 2 touchdowns. Pay dat man his money.

Adam Thielen – 6 catches for 110 yards and 2 touchdowns. No surprise, Thielen has been a first half beast each of the past two seasons. Consider selling him high in a few weeks if you’re an owner. But don’t sell him for tickets to the Minneapolis Police Department gala.

 

CLE at BAL

Odell Beckham Jr. – 3 catches for 22 yards. Not a very good catch rate on his 10 targets. I bet he catches more than 3 out of 10 turds.

Nick Chubb – 10 carries for 60 yards, 1 catch for 6 yards and a fumble lost. Got out to a hot start but was pretty much a non-factor in the 2nd half as Kareem Hunt (13 carries for 72 yards, 4 catches for 6 yards) took the reins with the Browns trailing big. Owners shouldn’t freak out after one lopsided game, but Chubb might end up being more RB2 than RB1 this year.

Lamar Jackson – 20/25 for 275 yards, 7 carries for 45 yards and 3 passing touchdowns. Soooo about that regression . . . 

J.K. Dobbins – 7 carries for 22 yards and 2 touchdowns. Sonuvabench! Really glad I started Kerryon over him.

Mark Ingram – 10 carries for 29 yards as he already lost his job to the rookie phenom Dobbins. Just kidding. Kind of.

Marquise Brown – 5 catches for 101 yards. I hear it’s a little smokey in Hollywood. And where there’s smoke there’s fire.

Mark Andrews – 5 catches for 58 yards and 2 touchdowns. I didn’t think he’d catch 10 touchdowns again. But 8 touchdowns in the next 15 games suddenly seems pretty reasonable. Mandrews Math.

 

SEA at ATL

Russell Wilson – 31/35 for 322 passing yards, 29 rushing yards and 4 touchdowns. Pete let Russ Cook this week and he baked some beautiful quiches.

D.K. Metcalf – 4 catches for 95 yards and 1 touchdown. The big boy’s gonna wolf down a lot of quiches this year.

Chris Carson – 6 carries for 21 yards, 6 catches for 45 yards and 2 receiving touchdowns. It was a pass heavy game plan but Carson was a big part of that plan. The hip issue seems to be behind him.

Greg Olsen – 4 catches for 24 yards and 1 touchdown. The quiches were like contract extensions, plenty to go around! 

Tyler Lockett – 8 catches for 92 yards. Didn’t get a quiche this week but Russ served him up a nice corn chowder.

Todd Gurley – 14 carries for 56 yards and 1 touchdown. I asked the Toddfather for a favor yesterday and he obliged with a touchdown. Someday he’ll call upon me to return the favor.

Hayden Hurst – 3 catches for 38 yards. Hmmm so maybe he won’t be Austin Hooper 2.0.

Julio Jones – 9 catches for 157 yards. Nice yardage, but why does Julio hate scoring touchdowns?

Calvin Ridley – 9 catches for 130 yards and 2 touchdowns. Ridley isn’t anti-touchdown. I’ve been skeptical that he could ever post consistent WR1 numbers while Julio is still in town, but if he puts a couple 9 catch 100 yard games in a row together I’ll be flip flopping quicker than a politician during an election year.

 

NYJ at BUF

Le’Veon Bell – 6 carries for 14 yards, 2 catches for 32 yards before leaving with a hamstring injury. At least he looks good without his shirt on! Frank Gore and Josh Adams are next in line if the hammy hurts for awhile.

Jamison Crowder – 7 catches for 115 yards and 1 touchdown. Other than Crowder, no Jets players are worth mentioning after this pathetic showing. The Bills defense looked great besides the one Crowder play, so let’s wait one more week before shipping all our Jets to the scrap yard.

Josh Allen – 33/46 for 312 passing yards, 14 carries for 57 yards, 1 rushing touchdown and 2 passing touchdowns. Feeling good about ranking Allen as my QB6 this year. A lot better than my Kerryon Johnson love anyway.

Zack Moss – 9 carries for 11 yards, 3 catches for 16 yards and his 1st career touchdown. 1.1 YPC is even worse than my high school GPA, but he did see two end zone targets and caught one. I’ve said it since the NFL draft, Moss is Bills running back I want to own. 

Devin Singletary – 9 carries for 30 yards, 5 catches for 23 yards. 3.33 YPC is way better than my high school GPA, but an even workload with the rookie in week one is foreboding. 

Stefon Diggs – 8 catches for 86 yards. It’s not too late to buy Diggs, my most undervalued receiver this year.

John Brown – 6 catches for 70 yards and 1 touchdown. Smokey saw a team high 10 targets (9 for Diggs). There’s a chance he was a huge draft day bargain as the 49th receiver off the board.

Gabriel Davis – 2 catches for 16 yards. The rookie had a great camp and caught both his targets in the opener. Remember the name, he’s gonna be a good one.

 

CHI at DET

Mitchell Trubisky – 20/36 for 242 yards, 3 carries for 26 yards and 3 touchdowns as he led the Bears back from a 23-6 deficit in the 4th quarter. Drafting Mitch over Mahomes and Watson is finally paying off!

David Montgomery – 13 carries for 64 yards, 1 catch for 10 yards. That’s one tough groin! Which is the same thing my girlfriend said last night after she kicked me in the nuts.

Tarik Cohen – 7 carries for 41 yards, 2 catches for 6 yards. How this offense only finds two targets for Cohen is beyond me. Add it to the growing list.

Adrian Peterson –  14 carries for 93 yards, 3 catches for 21 yards. Just call him Kerryon Killer. I’ll be honest, A.D. looked great. 

Kerryon Johnson – 7 carries for 14 yards. No targets in the pass game. NONE! I’m about ready to cut my losses on Kerryon, Patricia is channeling his mentor Belichick with these Lions’ RBs. Be right back, need go put my head in the oven.

D’Andre Swift – 3 carries for 8 yards, 3 catches for 15 yards. The rookie dropped the game winning touchdown which was about as easy as they come, not great. But more importantly, he already seems to be the preferred receiving option out of the backfield, even after missing most of training camp.

Quintez Cephus – 3 catches for 43 yards but saw a team high 10 targets. Stafford looked Cephus’s way all day, especially in the red zone. I told you to keep an eye on Cephus in my Saturday Injury Report, something tells me he’ll still have a role when Kenny Golladay (hamstring) returns.

T.J. Hockenson – Hockeytown has elite TE1 upside. Jake Ciely of The Athletic joined me during training camp to stan for Hock. I approve this message: 

 

MIA at NE

Ryan Fitzpatrick – 20/30 for 191 passing yards, 0 touchdowns and 3 interceptions. Didn’t have the magic in this one. Won’t take many more of these stinkers to get the virtual fans chanting for Tua.

Preston Williams – 2 catches for 41 yards. Saucy Boi wasn’t so saucy against the Patriots. I blame Fitzpatrick. Buy low or pick him up when he’s dropped.

DeVante Parker – 4 catches for 47 yards. Was shadowed by Stephon Gilmore in this one, don’t overreact. 

Jordan Howard – 8 carries for 7 yards and 1 touchdown. And I thought Kerryon’s yards per carry was bad. Salvaged the day with the touchdown plunge, hopefully there’s better days ahead for this Dolphins offense.

Myles Gaskin – 9 carries for 40 yards, 4 catches for 26 yards. Might be ahead of Matt Breida (5 carries for 22 yards) as the Dolphins RB2. Definitely ahead of Carole Baskin on my list of human beings. 

Cam Newton – 15/19 for 155 yards, 15 carries for 75 yards and 2 rushing touchdowns. Turns out the Miami Dolphins are not Superman’s kryponite.

N’Keal Harry – 5 catches for 39 yards. Most encouraging was The Big Harry’s 6 targets, second on the team to only Julian Edelman (5 catches for 57 yards) who saw 7 targets.

Sony Michel – 10 carries for 37 yards and 1 touchdown. I’m afraid Cam might end up being the only running back you want in New England this year. I’m sure James White (5 carries for 22 yards, 3 catches for 30 yards) will have his days too, but good luck guessing which days.

 

PHI at WAS 

Boston Scott – 9 carries for 35 yards, 2 catches for 19 yards. Scott Philly’d in for Miles Sanders (hamstring). Some analysts expected RB1 numbers from Boston this week, I wasn’t one of them. 

Zach Ertz – 3 catches for 18 yards and 1 touchdown. Ertz saw 7 targets, two less then Dallas Goedert (8 catches for 101 yards and 1 touchdown). Both these tight ends might end up as weekly fantasy starters.

Antonio Gibson – 9 carries for 36 yards, 2 catches for 8 yards. That’s like half the carries he saw in his entire college career! There’s huge upside here, especially in PPR leagues. See if his owner is less than enamored with Gibson’s week one workload.

Peyton Barber – 17 carries for 29 yards and 2 touchdowns. The barber cut down my Gibson hopes in week one, but he didn’t exactly dominate with those 17 carries. Look for Gibson to take more work in week 2.

Terry McLaurin – 5 catches for 61 yards. Not very scary. There’s better weeks ahead for McLaurin.

 

LV at CAR

Darren Waller – 6 catches for 45 yards. C’mon Carr, have you seen this guy without a shirt?! Get him the ball!

Henry Ruggs III – 3 catches for 55 yards. Left with a leg injury after a hot start but fortunately returned. Looked really sharp in the opener; but do the Ruggs match the drapes?

Bryan Edwards – 1 catch for 9 yards. Time to pump the brakes with all the Edwards love as he saw only one target. Feel free to cut bait in shallow leagues, but his time will come sooner or later.

Devontae Booker – 4 carries for 29 yards, 3 catches for 23 yards. We heard late in the week that the Raiders were excited about their Josh Jacobs and Devontae Booker 1-2 punch. Yeah, ohhhhhkkkayyyyyy Raiders.

Christian McCaffrey – 23 carries for 96 yards, 3 carries for 38 yards and 2 touchdowns. Worth every penny. All sextillion of them.

Robby Anderson – 6 catches for 115 yards and 1 touchdown. 75 of those yards came on the one big touchdown catch but that’s always been Mr. Anderson’s M.O. That and dodging bullets.

 

IND at JAC

Philip Rivers – 36/46 for 363 yards, 1 touchdown and 2 interceptions. Don’t blame Rivers for their loss to the Jags, the poor guy’s been preoccupied home schooling his 16 kids.

Nyheim Hines – 7 carries for 28 yards, 8 catches for 45 yards and 2 touchdowns. Rivers is already molding another Ekeler, isn’t he? 

Marlon Mack – 4 carries for 26 yards, 3 catches for 30 yards. Was carted off with a non-contact ankle injury and the Colts fear it’s a torn Achilles. Jonathan Taylor was inevitable like Thanos, but this should speed up the end game.

Jonathan Taylor – 9 carries for 22 yards, 6 catches for 67 yards. Are you ready for Tool Time with Taylor?

T.Y. Hilton – 4 catches for 53 yards. Rivers shot put him the ball 9 times in this one, expect Hilton to haul in more of those in the future. Parris Campbell (6 catches for 71 yards) also saw 9 shot puts and looks like the #2 ahead of rookie Michael Pittman (2 catches for 10 yards).

Gardner Minshew – 19/20 for 173 yards and 3 touchdowns. 19/20! 95% isn’t too shabby. I took Uncle Rico first round in all my fantasy leagues and it’s really paying off.

D.J. Chark – 3 catches for 25 yards and a touchdown. I said all offseason that I didn’t think the Jags were tanking. Then they traded Ngakoue and cut Fournette so I was never planning to bring it up again. As for Chark, don’t worry, he’ll see more than 3 targets most weeks.

Laviska Shenault Jr. – 3 catches for 37 yards and 1 touchdown. Played 62% of snaps for the Jags against the Colts which is a great start to a promising career. Also had a nice touchdown catch, but an even better bowling celebration. The kid knocked over the entire offensive line with just one roll!

James Robinson – 16 carries for 62 yards, 1 catch for 28 yards. Nice debut for the undrafted rookie, but I bet it’s easy when you have Uncle Rico handing you the ball.

 

LAC at CIN

Austin Ekeler – 19 carries for 84 yards, 1 catch for 3 yards. The 19 carries is encouraging, but the 1 target is very alarming. The idea that Chargers would stop utilizing one of the best pass catching backs in the league was silly to me. It’s only one week, but maybe I’m the dummy. I’m definitely a dummy but am I the dummy?

Joshua Kelley – 12 carries for 60 yards and 1 touchdown. This dummy has told you to draft Kelley for weeks now. He was my #3 sleeper in my top sleepers for 2020 fantasy football. Don’t worry about #2 there on that list.

Mike Williams – 4 catches for 69 yards. Nice. 

Keenan Allen – 4 catches for 37 yards. Not nice. There’s better games ahead for Keenan Allen, don’t panic.

Joe Burrow – 23/36 for 193 yards, 8 carries for 46 yards, 1 rushing touchdown, 0 passing touchdowns and 1 interception. There’s a lot to like long term but growing pains have to be expected in a rookie season with a cupcake training camp and no preseason.

Joe Mixon – 19 carries for 69 yards, 1 catch for 2 yards. Mixon was heard after the game saying, “no takesies backsies”.

A.J. Green – 5 catches for 51 yards. Burrow missed him for a wide open TD in the 3rd quarter and then he was inches away from a game winning touchdown with seconds left. Who knows if he can stay healthy, but Green will produce while on the field.

 

TB at NO

Tom Brady – 23/36 for 239 yards, 3 carries for 9 yards, 2 passing touchdowns, 1 rushing touchdown, 2 interceptions. Some of the throws Brady made in this one looked really ugly; like 10 feet over guys’ heads. Maybe he accidentally ate some nightshades Saturday night.

Ronald Jones – 17 carries for 66 yards, 2 catches for 16 yards. We didn’t believe Bruce Arians when he said Jones was ‘still their guy’, mainly because Arians wears a beret. It appears to be the truth for now, but will it be true in a few weeks once Leonard Fournette (5 carries for 5 yards, 1 catch for 14 yards) is fully acclimated?

Chris Godwin – 6 catches for 79 yards. Godwiener will have better blood flow in the future. This is pretty much his floor.

Mike Evans – 1 catch for 2 yards and 1 touchdown. Wasn’t 100% and he was shadowed by Marshon Lattimore, I told you to bench him for those reasons on Saturday where I also admitted to eating out of the garbage can and said Scotty Miller (5 catches for 73 yards) should be on your deep league radar. The last minute garbage time TD for Evans at least semi-salvaged his fantasy day; Miller likely won’t be consistent but he’s worth a deep league roster spot.

Rob Gronkowski – 2 catches for 11 yards. I was told the old Gronk was back. Where’s the old Gronk!

Michael Thomas – 3 catches for 17 yards. Made a mirroring pact with Mike Thomas (2 catches for 17 yards) of the Bengals today. One of the two will probably be fine—Bengals’ Mike.

Emmanuel Sanders – 3 catches for 15 yards and 1 touchdown. I just traded Michael Thomas for Manny. Fortunately I still have Mike Thomas.

Alvin Kamara – 12 carries for 16 yards, 5 catches for 51 yards and 2 touchdowns. Not the prettiest rushing line but that’s the nice thing about AK, most of the time the rushing is just gravy. Mmmmm gravy.

 

ARI at SF

Kyler Murray – 26/40 for 230 yards, 13 carries for 91 yards, 1 passing touchdown, 1 rushing touchdown and 1 interception. If you’ve read my stuff before then you know I’m all-in on Kyler this year. I ended up owning him on A LOT of teams: 

 

DeAndre Hopkins – 14 catches for 151 yards. So who all was worried about Hopkins on a new team?

Christian Kirk – 1 catch for 0 yards. Not very Christian of him.

Kenyan Drake – 16 carries for 60 yards, 2 catches for 5 yards and 1 touchdown. To quote Jerry Seinfeld, “How can you not like The Drake?”

George Kittle – 4 catches for 44 yards, 1 carry for 9 yards. George of the Jungle scared us with a leg injury in the first half after crashing into a tree, but returned like the wild man he is in the second half. Monitor the injury report this week.

Raheem Mostert – 15 carries for 56 yards, 4 catches for 95 yards and 1 touchdown. Without his 76 yard touchdown catch in the first quarter it would have been a blah night. But that’s like saying without his big dong Ron Jeremy would have been a blah actor. Mostert did have the big dong.

Jerick McKinnon – 3 carries for 24 yards, 3 catches for 20 yards and 1 touchdown. Appears to have passed Tevin Coleman (4 carries for 18 yards, 1 catch for 6 yards) for #2 duties (hehe), but Coleman may also have been limited due to the poor air quality in San Fran this week. 

 

DAL at LAR

Ezekiel Elliott – 22 carries for 96 yards, 3 catches for 31 yards and 2 touchdowns. Totally worth the 20 year, billion dollar contract. But seriously, he might be the #2 fantasy player. The Cowboys will feed him til he bursts and then feed him more.

Amari Cooper – 10 catches for 81 yards. Also saw 14 targets, more than double the next closest on the team. Impressive showing for a guy who was supposed to be less than 100%.

Michael Gallup – 3 catches for 50 yards. Almost reeled in a game changing bomb with under a minute left but was flagged for offensive pass interference—which Al Michaels disagreed with because he obviously bet on the Cowboys. It was definitely pass interference but good effort by Gallup against stud Jalen Ramsey.

CeeDee Lamb – 5 catches for 59 yards. Nice debut for the 1st rounder, many more of these to come. Hey, has anyone made the ‘Jerry had a little Lamb’ pun yet? 

Blake Jarwin – 1 catch for 12 yards. Sounds like he tore his ACL; very sad news for a guy who was primed for a breakout. Dalton Schultz (1 catch for 11 yards) is the next man up for you deep leaguers. I’m talking really deep leaguers.

Malcolm Brown – 18 carries for 79 yards and 2 touchdowns. I wasn’t surprised that Brown was the goal line back, but I never expected him to actually look like the best back in the Rams’ rotation. 

Cam Akers – 14 carries for 39 yards, 1 catch for 4 yards. Not exactly what the Akers fan club wanted to see in his debut, but it’s a long season. Well, maybe not that long if there’s a second wave. I’m an optimist though.

Robert Woods – 6 catches for 105 yards. Ended up with a team high 8 targets in a run heavy contest, meanwhile Cooper Kupp (4 catches for 40 yards) is a nice buy-low if his owner is panicky. Speaking of panicky, does anyone want to buy one of my 40 Kerryon Johnson shares off me?

Tyler Higbee – 3 catches for 40 yards. More like Tyler Higbust! Sorry, my one week confirmation bias is showing.