Week 1 Fantasy Superlatives: Packers’ defense triumphs in Chicago

There weren’t too many fantasy points available in the Green Bay Packers’ first game of the season, but hopefully you made enough correct calls to keep your team afloat.

This year, instead of the standard winners and losers of the week, I want to hand out some superlatives to players each week. These superlatives will hopefully cover more ground as the fantasy season progresses.

The first superlative is essentially the MVP award— The Big Cheese. This goes to the player who might have provided the best value, the most points, or had an out-of-body statistical day.

The second superlative will be the week’s Number One Boy. Succession fans out there will recognize this from the show’s season one finale, and it runs along the same basis. It’s an award for the player we had such high hopes for and who let us down this week, but is ultimately someone we’re not going to give up on. Just like Kendall.

The third will be The Big Short. Based off the movie of the same name about the lead up to the financial crises in 2008, the Big Short will be the player whose fantasy bubble may have burst/will burst and thus have their stock sold entirely for the next week or the foreseeable future.

So without further ado, let’s dive into the awards:

The Big Cheese

This week’s Big Cheese is the Green Bay Packers defense. You read that correctly. The Packers defense was excellent against the Bears, led by new acquisition Za’Darius Smith. Smith alone forced 10 quarterback pressures and did most of his damage rushing from the interior of the line. The Packers were able to put Mitch Trubisky under duress all night and kept the Bears to three points for the game. Former Bear and current Packer Adrian Amos capped the win with an interception, putting fantasy points on the board, and showing that Amos could be the seal on the secondary that holds the defense together.

While the gameplay was excellent, the Packers defense left a few points on the board because Trubisky really wanted to throw an interception their way. That, combined with the pressures, could eventually result in a fantasy explosion for the Packers in interceptions and sacks being piled up. It’s only Week 1, but this defense is trending upwards in a way we haven’t seen in a couple years now.

Number One Boy

Our Number One Boy this week is Davante Adams. Of course, you’re not going to give up on a first-round fantasy pick, but his opening week was a disappointment considering his high level of consistency the past couple seasons. He only put together four catches for 36 yards and usually a low yardage performance by Adams is buoyed by him finding the end zone. That wasn’t the case this week, but there’s reason for optimism. 1) It’s Davante Adams; and 2) Adams had eight targets so that should translate to more fantasy output from WR1.

The Packers offense as a whole didn’t look that great against the Bears. There were plenty of mistakes along the offensive line, and there’s still going to be a learning curve for this new offense — especially since this game marked Aaron Rodgers’ first live-game action of the season. Adams let us down a tad, but he’ll bounce back.

The Big Short

The Big Short of the week is Geronimo Allison. There was optimism that Allison might be the WR2 in Green Bay, but it was pretty disheartening to see that Allison didn’t get a target despite playing 50 percent of the snaps. Allison could provide some fantasy value at some point, but I’m worried it might be only if the Packers get a chance to run up the score. This was a tough, close game and it was telling that Allison wasn’t one of the players Rodgers turned to to move the chains. Short your Geronimo Allison stock.