Week 1 fantasy rundown: Don't forget Drew Brees

Let’s preview Week 1 of the NFL season by first focusing on the games that are expected to produce the most real and fantasy points before I go around the league to highlight the key players we should be watching and the answers we should seek.

Three games are expected by Vegas to produce 51 points each. We’ll take them in order. I’ll note the price of players in Yahoo Daily Fantasy this week, though the analysis works just the same for annual formats.

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Raiders at Saints (O/U 51): Drew Brees ($36) is like the straight-A student who has long ago stopped being noticed for his excellence. Every year, he is a top six QB and almost always top three. But he hardly ever seems to be listed as a top three QB in preseason rankings. There is talk about Brees being bad on the road. And it’s true that he generates just 85 percent of his home-average fantasy points in road games (average is 94 percent). But he’s still sixth best per-game in road scoring among active QBs.

At home this week, he averages 20.3 points in his career. Expect him to beat that number. Pairing Brees with two receivers makes sense, and that would be Brandin Cooks ($26) and Coby Fleener ($19). My friend and DFS expert Davis Mattek of FantasyInsiders says that pairing a QB with two receivers and flexing a second TE maximizes tournament win probability.

The Saints were terrible last year and of course you want to roster Raiders if possible. Michael Crabtree ($21) seems a bargain. He had 16 more targets than Amari Cooper ($23) last year. Will this market share hold? Or will the Raiders wise up? The only other receiver to have more targets than his Pro Bowl teammate was Jeremy Maclin (115) at 19 more than DeSean Jackson (96) for the 2010 Eagles.

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Patriots at Cardinals (O/U 51): We have no idea whether Jimmy Garoppolo ($28) is any good. I’d bet that he is going to be fine. People are afraid of this Arizona defense for some reason but I remember them last getting torched by Aaron Rodgers and then Cam Newton in the playoffs.

Carson Palmer ($32) is getting little respect because of a bad preseason but preseason performance for veteran QBs is meaningless. In fact, the worst preseason by a starting QB recorded since 2000 was Tom Brady’s last year. Big whoop. You have to pay up for David Johnson ($32) in all formats. He’s worth it. I like Julian Edelman ($24) in this two-TE offense, as I’ve noted previously. I’d play LeGarrette Blount for $14 given he easily could score two TDs.

Steelers at Redskins (O/U 51): A nice little Monday gift in the first game of the double-header. I think the Steelers defense is going to be bad but I know they have the reputation of being good. I love Kirk Cousins ($35, sky high) this year and will predict he’ll finish a top five QB. Here’s my math: 650 attempts on a team with one of the worst group of backs ever, 7.5 yards per attempt (his career average is 7.6) — that’s 4,875 yards. The corresponding TD rate with a YPA like that is about 5% — 32.5 TDs. And you know he’ll sneak at least a couple in. Championship.

You could do the two-receiver strategy here, too, by going DeSean Jackson ($19) and Jordan Reed ($25). I’d avoid Antonio Brown ($36) given he’ll be shadowed by Josh Norman and take a cheap flyer on Marcus Wheaton ($14), if he’s active; Wheaton is questionable but everyone hurt at all is at least that with the new rules.

NOTES
-Carlos Hyde ($18) is the back to watch in the late Monday Night game. How will he take to the Chip Kelly offense and will he be involved at all as a receiver?

-How bad is the Colts offensive line? And will Andrew Luck ($36) continue to run off the lacerated kidney or are those days mostly over?

-The Colts defense isn’t exactly the acid test but was the late explosion of Matthew Stafford ($33) the result of a soft schedule considering how he hiccupped even then against the better defenses (Rams and Packers)? And does he have a go-to receiver now or are Marvin Jones ($17) and Golden Tate ($19) as similar as their prices?

-Will Rashad Jennings ($19) be zeroRB gold now that he’s apparently also the goal-line back and for how long given he’s never reached 200 carries?

-Will the Cowboys use the read option at all with Dak Prescott ($20) in order to really boost the efficiency of Ezekiel Elliott ($24, a steal); note that read option QBs historically boost the yards per carry of their running backs by 0.5 to 1.0. And will Prescott lock onto Dez Bryant ($28) given his inexperience, significantly boosting the receiver’s market share?

-No one respects Aaron Rodgers ($34) more than me. But is his supporting cast pedestrian still? Last year, the Packers were last in the NFC in yards per pass play, which is just flabbergasting. Is Green Bay’s offensive line still a joke?

-We need to get a sense for the carry allocation of two teams: the Titans and the Falcons. How will Derrick Henry ($12), who I think was absurdly overrated late in the draft season, and Tevin Coleman ($12) be worked into their respective offenses — and how much will it hurt starting backs DeMarco Murray ($21) and Devonta Freeman ($31)? I predict that Murray will end up being a huge fantasy value at his fifth-to-sixth-round ADP.