Each manager has played in the season-opening game of the week three times in their careers. This was the third time Brandon has played in it coming off a Sabol Bowl loss. In 2014, he lost again in Week 1 against Danny Hatcher, but he’s now won his last two openers against the team that defeated him for the title. It’s a small consolation for one of our more consistent managers.

Six players (four of them defenses) had Top 100 performances at their positions in Week 1. Two of them were part of Brandon’s 30-point victory. Brandon Aiyuk’s 30.90 points just barely got him onto the wide receiver leaderboard at #98, and the New York Jets entered the defensive leaderboard at #97 thanks to their 23.56-point performance Monday night against the Bills.

With the win, Brandon secured the 10th Peyton Manning Award of his career, and his second in a row after winning the final game of the week in 2022. He’s the seventh AFL manager to reach double digits, improving to 10-17 in his career appearances while dropping William to 14-9.

While it wouldn’t have made the difference by itself, William didn’t do himself any favors by leaving the week’s top quarterback on his bench. Tua Tagovailoa had a surprisingly low-scoring game considering how many yards he threw for, but his 29.40 points would have cut into that deficit, and it was the best week by any quarterback by a healthy margin.

To be fair, Brandon also could have extended his lead with a quarterback on his own bench. Lamar Jackson barely score more than half of Justin Fields’ total in William’s lineup. But sitting on William’s taxi squad was Anthony Richardson and his 22.78-point NFL debut, the third highest quarterback score of the week!

This was the 19th meeting between these rivals, three more than any other matchup in AFL history. They’ll face off for the 20th time in Week 5.

William was one of just two managers without a Top 5 positional scorer in Week 1. We’ll move on to our Tom Brady Award winner, just as William will hope to move on from this performance and climb back to a respectable standing just like the last two defending champions to open their next season 11th in the league’s power rankings.

We’ll start with Stephen, who, as the top scorer of Week 1, naturally sits atop this week’s power rankings. It’s the seventh time in his career he’s held the top spot, with all six other weeks coming back in the 2020 season when he won Sabol Bowl VIII.

Speaking of sevens: This was Stephen’s seventh career Tom Brady Award, tying William Battle, Danny Hatcher, and Alex Kincaid for the seventh most all-time.

This was also the seventh time in AFL history that a manager lost with a 10-1 breakdown and the first time it’s ever happened prior to Week 7. That’s right, Cory’s 121-point outing was the second highest team total of the week, and he walks away empty handed. It’s the third year in a row Cory has lost in Week 1 despite being a Top 6 scorer. He was the only unlucky loser in Week 1.

Stephen’s 14.20-point victory margin is the second highest of those seven matchups, with the only true blowout coming in Week 9 of the 2015 season when Evan and Eric where the top two scorers by Evan was 34.90 points the better.

You probably already know that to have the highest score of the week, Stephen likely had one of two players, in particular. If one of your guesses was Tyreek Hill, you’d be correct! Hill’s 40.65 points ranks 12th among wide receivers in AFL history!

If Cory had started his perfect lineup, he would have won easily considering he had the highest optimal score in the league, but he didn’t take any coaching risks so it would have been a remarkable feat to pull that off this week. For example, the WR3 for the week was on his bench, but who would have expected the 2-touchdown performance Jakobi Meyers had against the Broncos defense?

Cory can still be proud of this performance. He and Stephen each had four Top 5 positional performers this week, tied for the most in the AFL.

Stephen closed the 2022 season with a three-game triple-digit drought, so this was a significant performance for him. Cory has the second-longest active 100-point streak, which now stands at six games.

Later in the write-up, you’ll get to see how Stephen’s team would have stacked up against the top scoring players who were available on waivers through Week 1. For now, let’s move on to the manager with the third highest point total of the season opener.

Eric was very nervous going into Monday night. He held a lead of more than 48 points, but Alex’s Josh Allen-Stefon Diggs stack had him concerned. It certainly didn’t help his sanity when the two had made up half of the deficit before halftime arrived, but that was about as close as Alex would come.

Diggs only added a few more points to his tally in the second half while Allen threw two of his three interceptions after the intermission.

If things had gone differently Monday night, Eric might have been kicking himself for leaving the week’s top tight end, Hunter Henry, on his bench with 14.35 points, nine more than Darren Waller scored as his starter.

Alex, meanwhile, would have been about 12 points closer and would have eclipsed the century mark if he had started the week’s QB5, Deshaun Watson, in place of Josh Allen. Like I implied at the top, it was a strange week.

Though nobody had a particularly egregious coaching week, Alex receives the unfortunate distinction of claiming the first Hue Jackson Award of 2023. It is the fourth of his career and his first since Week 8 of the 2020 season.

With his lone coaching risk of the week, Alex started Kadarius Toney in his FLEX instead of FleaFlicker’s suggestion, JuJu Smith-Schuster. The move only cost him 4.42 points, but that was the most points lost from coaching of the week.

With a 20-point margin, this was the third closest matchup of the week. Alex held the lead entering the mid-afternoon window of games on Sunday, but with only two players remaining to Sean’s five, he hadn’t built up nearly enough of a lead to hold on.

Sean was led by the Philadelphia Eagles defense. Darius Slay housed a deflected pass from Mac Jones, contributing to the 24.62 points their unit gave Sean, the 77th highest defensive score in league history. The six points from his touchdown was the difference between Sean extending his league-leading active streak of 100-point games or seeing it end at six.

Miami Dolphins kicker Jason Saunders was another contributor to Sean’s victory. His 13.60 points were the most among starting kickers in the AFL and earned Sean the first Scott O’Brien Award for 2023 as the kicker coach of the week. It is Sean’s 14th career O’Brien Award, the fourth most all-time.

One bench player Sean may have to consider working into his rotation is Tyler Allgeier. The second-year Falcons running back was usurped as the starter by Bijan Robinson, but he still got quite a bit of work in Week 1 and finished as the RB4 on the week, ahead of Robinson, with 24.50 points.

There aren’t many things more satisfying than a Week 1 fantasy football victory, but Anthony’s win was doubly satisfying thanks to his favorite team’s defense pretty much singlehandedly earning him the victory against Andrew.

Only Tyreek Hill scored more points in our settings than the Dallas Cowboys defense. Their 39.42 points rank second on the AFL’s all-time kicker scoring list. Only the New England Patriots’ Week 2 performance in 2019 ranks higher. They scored 41.50 points that week and that unit was just inducted into the AFL’s Hall of Fame representing none other than Anthony Battle.

The Cowboys earned Anthony his 13th career Chuck Noll Award as the defensive coach of the week. That mark ties Cory for the fourth most in league history.

They also contributed to his sixth career Chuck Knox Award as the overall coach of the week, his first since Week 11 of the 2020 season. FleaFlicker projected the New Orleans Saints to score more points than the Cowboys. Anthony wisely ignored that and earned 26.63 points. He earned another 5.11 points by benching another Saints player, electing to start Zay Flowers over Michael Thomas. In all, Anthony earned 31.74 points from two coaching risks, the most in the league and more than his margin of victory over Andrew.

Andrew could have helped himself if he had started Hayden Hurst in place of George Kittle. Hurst’s 12.75 points were the second most among all tight ends in Week 1.

To be fair, Anthony also could have extended his margin of victory if he had played Jake Elliott, whose 18.70 points was 15.70 more than Anthony’s starter, Wil Lutz.

There aren’t many things more satisfying than a Week 1 fantasy football victory, but Anthony’s win was doubly satisfying thanks to his favorite team’s defense pretty much singlehandedly earning him the victory against Andrew.

Only Tyreek Hill scored more points in our settings than the Dallas Cowboys defense. Their 39.42 points rank second on the AFL’s all-time kicker scoring list. Only the New England Patriots’ Week 2 performance in 2019 ranks higher. They scored 41.50 points that week and that unit was just inducted into the AFL’s Hall of Fame representing none other than Anthony Battle.

The Cowboys earned Anthony his 13th career Chuck Noll Award as the defensive coach of the week. That mark ties Cory for the fourth most in league history.

They also contributed to his sixth career Chuck Knox Award as the overall coach of the week, his first since Week 11 of the 2020 season. FleaFlicker projected the New Orleans Saints to score more points than the Cowboys. Anthony wisely ignored that and earned 26.63 points. He earned another 5.11 points by benching another Saints player, electing to start Zay Flowers over Michael Thomas. In all, Anthony earned 31.74 points from two coaching risks, the most in the league and more than his margin of victory over Andrew.

Andrew could have helped himself if he had started Hayden Hurst in place of George Kittle. Hurst’s 12.75 points were the second most among all tight ends in Week 1.

To be fair, Anthony also could have extended his margin of victory if he had played Jake Elliott, whose 18.70 points was 15.70 more than Anthony’s starter, Wil Lutz.