Week 1 Fantasy Football Sneaky Starts & Sleepers
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All but the luckiest fantasy owners at some point need to find the proverbial diamond in the rough—a waiver wire or bench player capable of putting up some points in a pinch. This weekly feature is dedicated to that part of fantasy football. It’s not pretty, but it’s part of the game.
We're working with 2025 aFPA for the first few weeks, so I'll list the positional matchup ranking in parentheses. The higher, the better the matchup.
Quarterbacks
Jaxson Dart, Giants (vs. DAL, 32)
Jaxson Dart took over as the starter in Week 4 last season and averaged 20.1 fantasy points per game across his 12 starts, a top-six pace over the final 15 weeks. His rushing ability is why he shows up here. He averaged 40.6 rushing yards per game with nine rushing touchdowns. Dallas overhauled its defense this offseason after giving up an average of 265.9 yards and 2.53 total touchdowns to opposing quarterbacks last year. Yikes. At least they addressed the defense, but it may take a while for the unit to gel. The Cowboys surrendered 398 rushing yards to the quarterback position, the third-most in the league.
Baker Mayfield, Buccaneers (@ CIN, 27)
Baker Mayfield’s 2025 was an unwelcome correction after his career year, as he dropped to 16.2 points per game and QB18 on a per-game basis, and losing Mike Evans doesn’t help his outlook. However, he still ran for 23.0 yards per start, and Chris Godwin is healthy while Emeka Egbuka steps into a bigger role in Year 2. The matchup against the Bengals is why he’s sneaky this week. Cincinnati allowed the eighth-most passing yards (245.1) and the sixth-most passing touchdowns (1.77) per game last season.
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