Week 1 is well underway. After months of speculating how teams might use their players, we finally have the answers to how they are being used, which will greatly change how we view some of these players going forward.
The fantasy recap is also well underway. Like in recent years, the article is published shortly after the early window closes, and is updated throughout the afternoon games, as well as immediately after Sunday Night Football. It has everything you need to know about how each player was used, and what that means for fantasy football going forward. This is information that you can’t find anywhere else.
Two of the biggest stories from the early window were the Saints and Panthers backfields.
Start with the Saints. New Orleans signed Travis Etienne to be their lead back this offseason, and today was about as favorable a situation as he's going to see all season. Kamara was inactive, Estime landed on IR the day before, and Neal and Chandler were already out before the year started. Etienne had every reason to play a full workload. He played 59% of early-down snaps anyway.
Kendre Miller rotated in heavily, finished with nine carries to match Etienne's nine and scored the team's only rushing touchdown. Etienne saw more passing-down work than he did in Jacksonville, but fewer overall touches. Once Kamara gets back, this situation gets harder to trust, not easier. He looked like a solid RB2 on draft boards. After today, I have real questions about whether he belongs in starting lineups on a weekly basis.
In Carolina, Chuba Hubbard made a case that the Panthers' depth chart is more settled than people expected. He played 78.7% of non-garbage-time snaps compared to 21.3% for Jonathon Brooks. Brooks is worth holding as a buy-low given this was his first regular season game in nearly 22 months and the Panthers are one of the teams most willing to shift how they distribute carries over the course of a season. But Hubbard is clearly the starter for now.
Check out the full 1pm slate recap for more on both backfields and everything else from Sunday afternoon.
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