ChiCitySports Fantasy Review: Week 2 Fantasy Football Rankings

No need to panic after one week…unless you are a David Johnson owner.

A brutal week for teams that held the coveted first overall pick in their drafts as the Arizona Cardinals running back is expected to miss 2-3 months with a wrist injury. Johnson’s injury wasn’t the only one that disrupted teams through the first week of play as Allen Robinson and Kevin White both hit the IR with season ending injuries, while oft-injured Danny Woodhead found himself on the trainer’s table early during Sunday’s game versus the Bengals (is anyone really surprised by that last one?).

Heading into Week 2 there are plenty of shakers and movers making their way up the weekly rankings after big debuts specifically by rookie running backs during kickoff weekend. We’ll let the rankings speak for themselves so let’s dive right into it!

Quarterback

Week 1 provided an interesting slate of games, followed up by an interesting group of box scores as names we are all used to hearing atop the rankings didn’t perform as expected. All of that should change come this week as Brady has a juicy matchup with a New Orleans secondary that just got butchered by Sam Bradford.

No further explanation needed.

Past the top tier, don’t bet against Big Ben at home where he is significantly better than on the road despite facing a tough Minnesota defense. Eyes will be on Stafford, Smith and Wentz to see if they can duplicate success they found last week — Wentz facing the hardest test of the three.

We said Jared Goff could be a sneaky play last week (and we were right), so now it’s time to see if Sean McVay’s new offense really is benefiting the second year Ram.

Running Back

As we mentioned earlier, the loss of David Johnson for 2-3 months is huge. Time will tell how the Cardinals’ backfield pans out in the weeks ahead, but Kerwynn Williams enters Week 2 in the middle of the pack.

The elites face some difficult matchups this week as all but three of the top ten face a defense in the top half of the league in stopping the run. The biggest leap in all of football comes from Kareem Hunt after he broke on to the scene following a historic debut against New England last Thursday. He was a sleeper prior to Spencer Ware’s season ending injury and with the spotlight shining, Hunt could easily be a top 5 back this year.

Tarik Cohen also makes a leap in Week 2 and gets an additional push thanks to Kevin White’s injury. Duke Johnson is also an intriguing name this week as he played 76% of snaps last week against Pittsburgh, yet only finished with two catches. Don’t expect the same output from the Cleveland Brown this week.

Wide Receiver

Unlike the running backs, this week’s matchups at wide receiver for the top names provide intrigue for big weeks. Antonio Brown is going to sit at #1 for me until someone puts an end to his output. I don’t see it ending soon.

Despite the favorable matchups, a couple questions remain for Week 2 including whether Julio will see a healthy amount of targets unlike Week 1, is Odell Beckham Jr.’s ankle healthy and is Tyreek Hill finally proving his worth as a top option?

Eyes will be on Deshaun Watson Thursday night to see if he can reverse DeAndre Hopkins’ deteriorating fantasy value. Looking for deep plays? Marvin Jones, Corey Davis, and Cooper Kupp should be solid DFL plays.

Tight End

If there’s one group of elites that underperformed, it was the tight ends in Week 1. Ugly performances from each of the top 5 at the position should not rear their ugly heads again led by Gronk facing the previously mentioned bad Saints defense.

The back-end of the TE1 group heading into the TE2 tier feels somewhat “meh” this week. That being said, if Jacoby Brissett starts for Indy on Sunday, Doyle is a sneaky play. It looks like the corpse of Antonio Gates is still haunting any young tight end that inhabits the Chargers’ roster so I’m playing keep-away on Hunter Henry until further notice.

Defense/Special Teams

Chuck Pagano playing anyone not named Scott Tolzien at quarterback for his Colts is probably an immediate upgrade at the position, but until we see such a move happen, they will continue to set their opponent up for a fantastic defensive week.

Baltimore opened a lot of eyes against what many thought was an improved Cincinnati offensive attack, and they’ll find themselves with another favorable matchup in Week 2. After throwing a dump truck full of money at defensive free agents this off-season, it may be time to take Jacksonville serious, but we’ll see what they do against Mariota and the Titans.

(Rankings based off .5 PPR projections)

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