A FanDuel Rookie’s Journey Week 1 #BeginnersLuck

Ah, the NFL season has arrived. Visions of screaming at the TV endlessly while sipping on a cold beverage and having about 36 different tabs open in my browser tracking every footstep across the country’s gridiron instantly dance through my head.

I’ve played Fantasy Football for years and am a football junkie (well, all sports junkie really), but this is my first dabble into the online “pay-for-play” Fantasy world and not gonna lie, I’m pretty freakin’ excited. I’m playing in FanDuel’s FFFC Qualifier, where a weekly $10 entry gives you a chance at a trip to Vegas and $1 million, as well as lots of other great cash prizes. I’ll be writing a weekly summary of my picks and the genius brain waves that I used to select my weekly roster. So, here we go:

Week 1 is obviously a big time crap shoot, as offseason acquisitions, coaching changes and rust play a huge factor. That being said, I took some fliers on these picks with predictions on what I think each team will be this season (Hint: I’m up on the Chiefs and way down on the Jets). Also of note is that for each of my picks, I always look at spreads and over/unders to see what Vegas has to say about each matchup as hey, I’m a heckuva lot more likely to pick a quarterback who is playing in a game with an OU of 51.5 instead of one with an OU of 41.

I went with Eli Manning as my QB for week 1, as I expect their SNF game at Cowboy Stadium to be an absolute shootout. Also, since the road team/underdog always seems to prevail in that game, I like Eli’s chances to put up some points.

For my RBs I went with Jamaal Charles and Steven Jackson. I believe Jamaal is one of the fastest and most evasive RBs in the league and with new head coach Andy Reid will have a big year. Fantasy Football Nerd, a great resource for Fantasy stats also has Jamaal as their #2 RB in projected points for the week, and for good reason. I also like Steven Jackson actually being on a team that knows how to win (sorry St Louis), and will be a great complement to Atlanta’s excellent passing attack.

For WRs I took Victor Cruz as again I believe that game will be a shootout and it always seems that Victor makes big plays in big games. I took Miles Austin for the same shootout reasons as Dallas will put up some points as well and I also took Dwayne Bowe as the Chiefs should smother Jacksonville from all sides in that game. I took Brandon Pettigrew as my TE as my Vikings have always struggled guarding TEs and the big daddy Pettigrew could see lots of action over the middle all game long.

I took Ryan Succop as my kicker to continue the KC points barrage (obviously really counting on a Chiefs blowout win here) and Tampa Bay as my defense as they’re playing the Jets (enough said…).

So, there you have it. The only thing left to ask is via hashtag style: #isitSundayyet