I can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and I can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and I can do you all three concurrent or consecutive, but I can’t do you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory—they’re all blood, you see.
– Tom Stoppard, Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead
This is the quote that always jumps out to me for Week 1. Arguably the most fun part of Week 1 comes in the aftermath, in the breakdown, in the skirmishes. The battle in the trenches does not just refer to NFL line play, but the fierce debates about what you should and should not ignore, what you should and should not react to.
With fantasy football, everything is rhetoric, everything is love, and everything is blood, and just like the players, we can do all three concurrent or consecutive, but we can’t do any of it without the blood. Blood is compulsory.
The Early-Week Content Plan
First, a bit of housekeeping. Kevin Szafraniec is the headliner on Monday. He’s breaking down the week that was in fantasy, and using the Monday Review tool to help keep you abreast of the key statistical developments.
On Sunday nights, I’ll be doing a live Stealing Bananas with Ben Gretch followed by Monday mornings where I record RotoViz Overtime with Colm Kelly. My main article will be the Zero RB Universe, a midweek piece focusing on how to think about the RB position and how to proactively build out your rosters for the long haul.
Over the next couple of days, I’ll be sharing my reflections from watching the Week 1 games, distilling some of my thoughts from the three-hour discussion with Ben, and taking you beyond the box score.
2 Players You Can (and should) Acquire from Sunday’s Thriller
Don’t miss Blair Andrews’ taking a historical perspective on the question: How worried should we be about Marvin Harrison?
