Bold Fantasy Football Predictions for Week 1

The Yahoo Fantasy Football crew is ready to get bold for Week 1. Which one of these predictions will come true?

Chris Olave finishes as the overall WR1 in Week 1

I know the quarterback situation in New Orleans is going to make people nervous, but this matchup has all the ingredients for the Chris Olave show. Alvin Kamara looks questionable, first-round rookie Jordyn Tyson will not play and the Saints are facing what many expect to be the best offense in the NFL.

Detroit is going to score points. If New Orleans wants to keep up, Tyler Shough is going to have to throw the football and his easiest answer will be feeding Olave. Olave is coming off career highs with 100 catches, 1,163 yards and nine touchdowns on 155 targets. He finished as the WR7 in fantasy points per game and already showed us this exact ceiling with a 10-catch, 148-yard, two-touchdown performance last season.

I am calling for double-digit targets, more than 125 receiving yards and two touchdowns. There will be bigger names attached to better quarterbacks across the Week 1 slate, but very few receivers have a clearer path to dominating their team's passing volume. Olave takes advantage of the game environment and opens the season as the overall WR1. — Ray Garvin

Across 398 snaps where all three of Josh Downs, Tyler Warren and Alec Pierce were on the field together last year, Downs paced the trio with a 27% target share. He was the only one of the three to be targeted on over 20% of his routes. Being on the field has been the only limitation for Downs and that variable is no longer in the way, even with the arrival of Keenan Allen , who likely comes on the field as the Z receiver in 11 personnel.

Alec Pierce looks like he'll be available for Week 1 but it would be tough to imagine him getting a ton of consistent volume after missing almost all of the summer and facing the Ravens in Week 1. Jesse Minter put out some of the toughest zone coverages in the NFL the previous two seasons in Los Angeles , which will be tough for the vertical receiver to crack. I'm expecting to see a ton of targets pushed Downs' way from the slot in Week 1 and beyond. — Matt Harmon

Kyler Murray outscores fellow running QB Jayden Daniels

It hasn't always been pretty, but since 2022, Murray is the QB12 in fantasy points per game in the era where he wasn't an elite rushing QB coming off a torn ACL. This 2026 Vikings team is light years better than those Cardinals teams — from coaching, receivers, OL, ownership, down to cafeteria food.

Kevin O'Connell has turned Nick Mullens into a fantasy QB1 for a stretch and Kirk Cousins and Sam Darnold into QB1s for entire seasons. A matchup against the Packers without Micah Parsons in a new scheme is one to target, and the Vikings' No. 10 team total confirms that. Meanwhile, Washington is 28th in team total. Daniels will run maybe a little bit more, but it's not enough to overcome the environment Murray has in the opener at home in front of fans desperate for watchable QB play. — Hayden Winks

Jalen Coker outscores your opponents' FLEX

After coming back midseason in 2025, Jalen Coker ended the season with 90% of snaps played in the final two games. The last time we saw the young wideout he had 12 targets and nine receptions for 134 yards and a score, not to mention it was a playoff game versus the Rams. I believe that'll carry over to 2026 in Week 1 versus Chicago .

The Bears defense looks shaky with DBs Kyler Gordon and Coby Bryant both out of the lineup. They were last against slot WRs, where Coker and McMillan will split work this season. Since Week 13, Coker has out-targeted McMillan, and I wouldn't expect a huge target difference this week. McMillan is being ranked inside the top 15 in this nice matchup, while Coker is going unconsidered. — Joel Smyth

We've typecast the Lions' WRs: Amon-Ra St. Brown is the target hog who earns easy looks, while Jameson Williams runs downfield. One is an every-week starter. The other at least has FLEX appeal. But in his fourth season, the Lions gave Williams a chance to change his stripes. Over the final six weeks, his receiving aDOT fell by 25.8% to 11.8. With more screens and interior targets added to his diet, not only did Williams' catchable target rate soar (up to 81% from 70%), but so did his efficiency from a per-route perspective. He turned his big-play ability into down-to-down reliability.

But even better for Williams is his Week 1 matchup. New Orleans is returning their primary outside defenders from 2025. They're the same guys who tied for allowing the ninth-most yards per reception last year. This game already has high-scoring potential with the second-highest total on the week. While everybody looks to the Sun God, I'll be watching his teammate run by him with the ball into the end zone. — Chris Allen

The Brock Bowers ' injury news was a gut punch for fantasy managers this week. Fortunately, the next man up in the Raiders' tight end room has shown he can be a strong fantasy option when Bowers is sidelined. Mayer started four games last year, averaging 4.5 catches and 49 yards per contest while finishing as a top-five fantasy TE twice. His other two starts came against a Chiefs defense that was the seventh toughest matchup for his position.

This week Mayer gets the Dolphins, who were the third easiest opponent for tight ends and will be a defense to target in fantasy once again. Without a proven No. 1 receiver, Klint Kubiak's offense is projected to feature the tight end even with Bowers out, setting Mayer up for a busy afternoon. Don't hesitate to get the former second-round pick in your lineup this week and he might even stay there for a couple games until Bowers returns. — Justin Boone

Tight ends are too often overlooked as legit FLEX options. Juwan Johnson should immediately be in consideration to open the season. The TE3 in receiving yards last year finds himself as the Saints' second-best pass catcher for (at least) the opening six weeks while Jordyn Tyson is sidelined. He finished as a top 12 tight end in eight games last season, including Weeks 1 and 2. I will gladly take the 900 receiving yards again this year — the real boost needs to be in the touchdown department, to improve on the three scores in 2025. Playing 41% of his snaps in the slot on a team that will be one of the fastest paced offenses in the league will help. The Lions will also be without both starting safeties, Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph . — Josh Norris

Pollard is the exact opposite of a hipster pick, entering his age-29 season and tied to a poor Tennessee offensive line. And the entire offense might be swimming under water, given how bad Cam Ward looked all summer. But Pollard has found a way to survive before — he's been over 1,000 yards rushing four straight years, including two in Tennessee — and this week he takes aim at a New York front seven that was the biggest turnstile in the league last year . It's not often we can link to Pollard as a correlation play, but Tennessee is actually favored in the opener, so his workload should be safe. Dial him up aggressively. — Scott Pianowski