Fantasy Football Player Notes

Life without DeAndre Hopkins begins for Watson. We don't know what that looks like, as it's never happened. Watson's QB Rating when targeting Hopkins last year? 107.8. When targeting Will Fuller? 96.7. Both are good, but let's not pretend Hopkins didn't draw some coverage away from Fuller and the rest of the receivers. The Chiefs were surprisingly one of the best pass defenses in the league last year, allowing the 12th-fewest fantasy points per game to quarterbacks, which included just a 3.61 percent touchdown rate, 6.62 yards per attempt, and 60.4 percent completion rate. That's the bad news. What might seem like more bad news is Watson's 280-yard, one-touchdown, two-interception performance against them last year, but there's more to it than the stats. I'm not kidding when I say that Fuller dropped three touchdowns. Watson also played well against them in their playoff loss, totaling 388 yards and two touchdowns, though it did take him 52 attempts to get there. It's hard to gameplan against the Texans right now, as you're unsure what their primary choice of attack will be, though if there's one thing I'll bet on, it's that Watson will run more this year, which raises his weekly floor. In the two games against the Chiefs last year, he rushed for 68 yards and three touchdowns. Start him as your QB1 in what should be a high-scoring game. He's a good tournament option in DFS but play it safe in cash lineups until we see more on how losing Hopkins affects his game.

With no preseason games, this was clearly Taylor's team for Week 1. Going against the Bengals should only help him carry that crown into Week 2. Despite facing the second-fewest pass attempts in the league last year, the Bengals allowed the sixth-most fantasy points to the quarterback position. What benefits Taylor more than anything is that they allowed a league-high 489 yards and five touchdowns on the ground to quarterbacks alone. By comparison, the Bucs allowed just 907 yards and eight rushing touchdowns to running backs last year. There were five different occasions where they allowed 46 or more rushing yards, which is another passing touchdown, and then some. There were also eight quarterbacks who threw multiple touchdowns against them. Now, to be fair, the Bengals did make a big acquisition with defensive tackle D.J. Reader, though he's going to be more of a force against running backs going up the middle rather than quarterbacks scrambling. Not only that, but they also added both Trae Waynes and Mackensie Alexander to their cornerback unit, which should be an upgrade over Dre Kirkpatrick, B.W. Webb, and Darqueze Dennard. This isn't as good of a matchup as it was last year, but Taylor's floor is solid enough to consider him a high-floor QB2 streamer this week who might sneak into the top-12.