Top starts, sits and sleepers in fantasy football for Week 1

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  • Baker Mayfield has a fantastic Week 1 matchup: The Atlanta Falcons allowed the fourth most fantasy points to quarterbacks last season, while Mayfield threw three touchdowns and scored at least 22 points in both matchups against them.

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Are you struggling to set your Week 1 fantasy lineups? Maybe I can help… Below you can find my top fire (boom) and ice (bust) players at each position for Week 1. I also include my sleeper of the week at each position in case you are in a deeper league or in need of a replacement for an ice player. 

Don’t miss my Fire & Ice chart at the bottom of this page. There, I have listed out all of my fire, good, sleeper and ice plays for Week 1 of the 2025 fantasy football season.

Quarterbacks

Fire QB Start of the Week: Baker Mayfield (at ATL)

Baker Mayfield has a fantastic Week 1 matchup to build upon his elite 2024 season. The Atlanta Falcons allowed the fourth most fantasy points to quarterbacks last season, while Mayfield threw three touchdowns and scored at least 22 points in both matchups against them. The Falcons offense should be able to put up plenty of points against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers‘ weaker defense, making it necessary for Mayfield to continue to throw the ball all game long. 

Sleeper QB of the Week: Bryce Young (at JAX)

Over the last six weeks of the 2024 season, Bryce Young averaged 21.4 fantasy points per game. He threw multiple touchdown passes in each of his last three games and had a career-high 36 fantasy points in Week 18 at the Falcons. I expect Young to take another step forward in his second season under Dave Canales, and he gets a great matchup in Week 1 — the Jaguars allowed the third most fantasy points to quarterbacks in 2024.  

Ice QB Start of the Week: Patrick Mahomes (at LAC)

It has been a while since we have seen Patrick Mahomes be a great fantasy producer. Over the last two seasons, Mahomes has scored 15 or fewer points in nearly 50% of games (15 of 32 games) and 17 or fewer points in 66% of games (21 of 32 games). The Los Angeles Chargers have a tough defense that allowed just 15.9 fantasy points per game to quarterbacks in 2024. In his two matchups against the Chargers last season, Mahomes scored just 14.1 and 13.0 points. 

Running Backs 

Fire RB Start of the Week: Christian McCaffrey (at SEA)

Over his six career matchups against the Seattle Seahawks, Christian McCaffrey has averaged 158.0 scrimmage yards per game, while adding seven touchdowns to the box sheet. That is the most scrimmage yards per game by any player against the Seahawks all-time and the fourth-most by any player versus any opponent all-time (min. five games). McCaffrey has hit 25-plus points in four of the six games versus the Seahawks and at least 15 fantasy points in all six matchups. 

Sleeper RB of the Week: Travis Etienne (vs. CAR)

We are just one year removed from Etienne finishing as the fantasy RB3 on the season, yet he is being left for dead in fantasy rankings. The Jacksonville Jaguars are expected to have a split backfield with Etienne and Tank Bigsby, but I think Etienne’s breakaway ability gives him more upside to have a huge fantasy performance in any given week. 

The Panthers allowed the most fantasy points to running backs by far last year, allowing a running back to hit 20-plus points in 10 games last season. Etienne last faced the Panthers in Week 17, 2023 and put up 25.8 fantasy points against them.

Ice RB Start of the Week: Kaleb Johnson (at NYJ)

Mike Tomlin and the Pittsburgh Steelers’ culture favors and is loyal to their veterans. Kaleb Johnson will have to slowly earn playing time and touches while Jaylen Warren gets the majority of work in the backfield to start the season. I don’t expect Johnson to be on the field for many passing downs in Week 1, and he will have to fight with Warren and Kenneth Gainwell for rushing attempts against a defense that allowed just 4.1 yards per carry to running backs last season. Johnson may get lucky and get a goal-line carry, but I need to see what his role is in this offense before plugging him into my starting lineups. 

Wide Receivers

Fire WR Start of the Week: Drake London (vs. TB) 

Drake London had nearly a 40% target share over the three weeks Michael Penix Jr. started as a rookie (Weeks 16-18) while recording at least 100 receiving yards in two of the three games. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers secondary has struggled greatly against London when facing him in Atlanta. London has five career games with 120-plus receiving yards, and three of them came against the Buccaneers at home. In his last two home games against the Buccaneers, London has scored 29.2 and 33.4 points. With Darnell Mooney questionable at best to play in Week 1, London should easily see double-digit targets this Sunday.

Sleeper WR Start of the Week: Emeka Egbuka (at ATL)

With Chris Godwin, Jalen McMillan and possibly even Cade Otton on the sidelines with injuries, I expect rookie Emeka Egbuka to be utilized heavily in his NFL debut. 

Last year, rookie Jalen McMillan stepped in as a starter with Godwin injured and finished as a top-20 fantasy wide receiver in each of the last five weeks of the season. This is a great matchup for both Egbuka and Mike Evans, as the Atlanta Falcons allowed the most receiving touchdowns and second-most fantasy points to wide receivers in 2024. 

Ice WR Starts of the Week: Garrett Wilson (vs. PIT)

Garrett Wilson and Justin Fields couldn’t connect on a single catch during the preseason, and it is not going to get any easier for them in a tough matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers’ revamped secondary in Week 1. The Steelers added Pro Bowlers Jalen Ramsey and Darius Slay to their cornerback room this offseason, while the Jets have little to nothing outside of Garrett Wilson for that group to focus on shutting down. Wilson was held to just 61 receiving yards and no touchdowns against the Steelers last year … with a better passing QB in Aaron Rodgers, with Davante Adams on the opposite side distracting defenders, and without Ramsey and Slay covering him.

Tight Ends 

Fire TE Start of the Week: David Njoku (vs. CIN)

The Cincinnati Bengals were the most favorable matchup for fantasy tight ends last season. In his matchups against the Bengals last year, David Njoku scored 23.6 and 14.6 fantasy points. With limited weapons on the Cleveland Browns offense, Njoku should be heavily utilized in the team’s game plan this Sunday. In the eight games that Njoku saw more than five targets in 2024, he averaged 16.7 fantasy points per game.

Sleeper TE of the Week: Kyle Pitts (vs. TB)

I typically never advise anyone to start Kyle Pitts, but the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are apparently the one team he succeeds against. Both of Pitts’ top two receiving yard games of the 2024 season came vs the Buccaneers — he put up 179 yds, two touchdowns and 41 fantasy points over the two matchups. 

Ice TE Start of the Week: Dalton Kincaid (vs. BAL)

There was a ton of hype surrounding Dalton Kincaid after getting drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the first round a couple of years ago, but the fantasy production has just been nonexistent. Kincaid has scored fewer than 10 points in 19 of 29 career games and has had fewer than 60 yards in 24 of 29 games. For whatever reason, he is not utilized as a red zone weapon either — he only has four career receiving touchdowns over his first two seasons. Kincaid faced the Baltimore Ravens twice last season, including the playoffs, and he put up just 9.7 and 2.1 points in those games. 

Fire and Ice Fantasy Football Plays

Here, I categorize every relevant fantasy player into five different buckets: (1) fire starts (best starts of the week); (2) thumbs up (good starts); (3) risky players with upside (sleepers); (4) ice starts (predicting bad performance from good player); (5) stop (must sits).

Note: If a player/defense is not listed, I am not considering starting them in Week 1. I did not include Cowboys/Eagles players as they will have already played by the time this article is published. 

Fire 🔥

Thumbs Up 👍

Upside 📈

Ice 🥶

Stop 🚫


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