Welcome to Week 1 of the 2023 fantasy football season, Bruno Boys Nation! We’re always looking to make our advice easier and something we see in our weekly chats is quick add/drops for the week. That’s right, we’re talking about streaming.
For those not familiar with the term, “streaming” in fantasy, it’s a strategy wherein players are added and dropped from a roster on a weekly basis. You’re simply playing the matchup. Then a week later, dropping them for a player better matchup.
This typically applies to mostly tight ends, kickers and team defenses. Why? Because those positions have a steep drop off after the first tier and then a bunch of players who wind up scoring the same amount of fantasy points. For example, very little separates the 11th-ranked tight end with the 20th in a standard scoring system. On rare occasions, we will spot a matchup where a marginal player could be elevated into a spot start at a key fantasy positions (QB, RB, WR).
Now, it’s not shocking to have to stream in Week 1, but injuries (Travis Kelce, Cooper Kupp, etc.) could force an owner to come up with a band-aid for one week. In no particular order, here are some of the best streaming situations for Week 1.
Washington Commanders Team Defense vs. Arizona Cardinals
Get ready for the first streaming strategy of the season: stream the defense playing the Cardinals. With Kyler Murray still not ready to play after tearing his ACL near the end of last season, the Cardinals have chosen to tank the 2023 season. They won’t actually say it, but after letting DeAndre Hopkins leave, letting Colt McCoy, trading for Joshua Dobbs and cutting ties with high draft picks like Isaiah Simmons, we don’t see Arizona being competitive.
Last season the Cardinals tied for 10-most sacks allowed in the league (46). They scored just 310 points against defenses last season (18.2 ppg) and we project they’ll score less than that this year. The only thing that could surprise us all is if backup QB Clayton Tune is the second coming.
As for the Commanders, they’ve upgraded their secondary with two young cornerbacks, Â they still have a ferocious pass rush and some key veterans. They could feast on Dobbs who joined the team just three weeks ago.
