Week 1 has come and gone and it’s quite possible you had a rough week. You could have had Devonta Freeman or Aaron Jones who massively underperformed or gotten hit by the injury bug. Tyreek Hill, Tevin Coleman, Joe Mixon and Hunter Henry all got hurt and were probably bigger parts of your team that already went down. But you shouldn’t overreact.

My Dynasty team has Hill, Coleman, Mixon and AJ Green on it while I’m waiting for Kareem Hunt and Chris Herndon to come back from suspension. Already, for a team that starts ten players with a kicker and defense I’m down four big players. On my Keeper team I have Hill, Green and Antonio Brown. Despite that I was able to squeak out a win in each league.

In Keeper I drafted well enough that I think I can weather the storm, but you can’t overreact to week one. Despite all the research and prepping you do we all have to wait and see what it looks like when they get on the field. There are players that blew up that won’t sustain that success, and some that struggled that will still be studs by season’s end.

That being said I generally operate on the aggressive side of waiver pickups because the big boosts to your team are likely to come in the early weeks, the stones that no one turned over, before it all settles down and the pickings become slim. It’s definitely possible to drop someone you regret later, but I usually try to protect myself by dropping players that I took as lottery tickets.
The big waiver claims this week were John Ross, Hollywood Brown, John Brown, TJ Hockenson, Darren Waller and Mecole Hardman. I already owned Hockenson and the rest were claimed, I got John Brown and I dropped Kalen Ballage who’s in a time share for a terrible Dolphin team.

In Dynasty it was a much smaller choice with a 12 team league and rosters of 20. I added Gardner Minshew and Cody Latimer with still an open roster spot. It can be frustrating to not be able to find any help, but again don’t overreact. If you did your research and draft well then you can ride it out. There may be some rough weeks but it’s a marathon and not a sprint.

In our rookie draft I ended up with Deebo Samuel, Miles Boykin, Jace Sternberger, Irv Smith and Hakeem Butler despite not having a first round pick and three fourth round picks. I drafted five of the top 27 rookies with limited draft capital. Those are the moves that will allow me to weather the storm, even if I’m waiting on my rookies. It’s not the first and second round picks, though someone took Tony Pollard in the first round of a rookie draft, but the mid rounds where teams will separate themselves.

Maybe you come to realize a bit more of your team and a rough week makes you think a little more honestly about your team and think about potentially getting ahead of the sellers market, but week one isn’t the end all be all. I may be in for a few rough weeks with the injuries I suffered but I trust the research and drafting I did and that should get me through the season as a whole.