Week 1 fantasy football sleepers: Bryce Young, Drake Maye poised for hot starts

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Remember, if you can, a simpler time. A quieter time.

Your fantasy football season was over. Maybe you had the joy of winning your league’s title. Maybe you fell short in the playoffs. Maybe you didn’t make the playoffs at all — in which case you’ve been blocking out the noise since Thanksgiving.

Either way, it was time to put the NFL Fantasy app into hibernation and turn off any alerts for things like “Dontayvion Wicks” or “Indianapolis Colts name starter.” After all, who needs that in midst of summer?

Alas, big wheels keep on turnin’, and we keep rollin’ on the river of time. Suddenly, it’s September. The kids are going back to school, and Spirit Halloween stores are again invading your local abandoned big-box storefront. More importantly, you’re getting notifications to set your lineup again.

All is right with the world. Until you actually look at said lineup. Those roster decisions that seemed like no-brainers over a long season just got realer in the context of Week 1. Why did I take two QBs back-to-back? What do I do now? Wait … is that MY RB2 on the injury report? How is his happening already?

Stop. Breathe. Remember your pressure points. You got this. And I’m here for you. The Sleepers column returns to help calm (or maybe feed?) your weekly lineup neuroses. Here we are heading into Week 1, where we will be reminded that we don’t know what we think we know. But we know what we think. And we’ll use that to set the best lineups we possibly can.

So here we go. For the first time this season … here are some names.

VS.

You’ve heard the    Drake Maye    hype all offseason. He’s been the late-round quarterback that all your favorite (and not-so-favorite) fantasy analysts love. Maye flashed at times during his rookie campaign. The problem was that the Patriots had, in terms of combined receiving yards, the worst WR room in the league. They took pains to change that this year. We’re not sure how much 31-year-old    Stefon Diggs    has left in the tank after tearing his ACL in 2024, but he’s better on paper than anyone New England trotted out last year. The Pats also added a new (old?) offensive coordinator, reuniting with Josh McDaniels yet again.

The Raiders feel like a good opening test for Maye and the Pats. Las Vegas had a middling pass defense last season, finishing 15th in passing yards allowed. But they did give up a lot of aerial touchdowns (29, tied for fifth-most in the NFL) and did not notch a ton of interceptions (10, tied for 22nd) or sacks (38, tied for 21st). Pete Carroll will aim to improve those defensive numbers, but it might not happen right away. Here’s a chance for the second-year pro to get off to a hot start while also showing there might be more in the New England receiver corps than we anticipated.

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