I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to watch RedZone on Sunday. There’s not many things in this world I enjoy more than watching RedZone and a DraftKings live scoring page 17 times a year. I’m beyond ready for 1-of-17.

Below you’ll find player rankings at each position followed by some commentary. Before we break it down, a general word of advice is to not over-extend yourself early in the season. There are a lot of things we don’t know, and you should risk less money when there are unknown variables. The big thing is matchup as we’re largely operating on last year’s data, which we know will turn out to be incorrect to some degree. A smaller thing is the roles players have in their offenses. That’s a constantly shifting thing, but we have even less to go on in Week 1. I plan on playing about 2/3 or 3/4 of what I would normally play on a slate.

Quarterbacks

1. Matt Ryan – $7,500 – Atlanta Falcons
2. Carson Palmer – $6,500 – Arizona Cardinals
3. Tyrod Taylor – $5,000 – Buffalo Bills
4. Tony Romo – $7,300 – Dallas Cowboys
5. Aaron Rodgers – $8,600 – Green Bay Packers

Let’s start at the bottom of that list with Aaron Rodgers. With a lack of reliable matchup information, I’m more drawn to players I’m more positive are underpriced. Rodgers will face the Bears who were 29th in pass DVOA last year, and the odds are pretty good that they’ll be bad against the pass again. But ultimately I’m just not sure enough about Rodgers to pay the highest price tag of the week at the position. And I surely wouldn’t pay up for the second most expensive option, which is Andrew Luck against the Bills. Buffalo was tops in pass defense DVOA last year and have added Rex Ryan to the mix. No thanks.

But once you start to move down the salary list, you’ll start seeing guys with a better chance of living up to their price tags. Matt Ryan will start off against the Eagles on Monday night in Atlanta. Only two teams allowed more fantasy points to quarterbacks last year than the Eagles, though their defense did finish 10th in weighted DVOA, which gives more weight to what happened towards the end of 2014, and they added Byron Maxwell. They could easily be better on the back end this year. But I also like Ryan a hell of a lot more at home where he averages 0.65 more yards per attempt than he does on the road for his career. That split was even more pronounced last year.

Tony Romo is also an option in that price range against the Giants on Sunday night. The Giants allowed the seventh most fantasy points to quarterbacks last year and finished 21st in pass defense DVOA. The G-men have also suffered several injuries in the secondary already, and it’s much harder to make a case for that unit improving than it is for Philadelphia. If you need an extra $200 badly enough, I’m fine going down from Ryan to Romo, but I’d rather not.

If you want to get a little cute at QB, Carson Palmer and Tyrod Taylor are options. Palmer is obviously significantly less risky, but he is 35 and playing his first game since early November. The matchup is presumably good against a Saints team that finished 27th in pass defense DVOA and allowed the fourth most fantasy points to quarterbacks last year. Palmer is only the 20th most expensive QB of the week, and I have him ranked 13th at the position.

As for Tyrod, he’s got plenty of value potential at the minimum price. He ran for 659 yards in his senior season at Virginia Tech, and being able to do something with the legs helps raise a QB’s floor. The matchup is average against an Indianapolis team that finished 2014 16th in defensive DVOA and 19th in pass defense DVOA. But really, Tyrod is all about the minimum price.

Running Backs

1. Eddie Lacy – $7,500 – Green Bay Packers
2. Lamar Miller – $5,500 – Miami Dolphins
3. Chris Ivory – $4,100 – New York Jets
4. Justin Forsett – $6,200 – Baltimore Ravens
5. Alfred Blue – $3,600 – Houston Texans

If you roster a QB like Ryan or Romo and stack them with their top wideout, fitting Eddie Lacy into your lineup as well could be a bit of a challenge. But if you can make it work, Lacy is my top ranked RB this week but only has the sixth highest price tag at the position. He’ll face the Bears whose run defense ranked 21st in DVOA last year and allowed the 12th most fantasy points to running backs.

Lamar Miller will face the Redskins who ranked dead last in pass defense DVOA last year and ninth in run defense DVOA, so this matchup obviously isn’t ideal for Miller. But as mentioned at the top, I’m more concerned with guys I think are safely underpriced than I am with matchup. If the price is right and they also have a good matchup, great. But price rules for now. Miller has basically no competition for touches at the moment, and he can get in on that good passing matchup himself as he caught 38 passes last year. I have him as the 10th ranked RB this week, and he’s only the 19th most expensive, so value potential is there.

If you’re looking for salary relief, Chris Ivory seems like the most obvious and safest choice. The Jets backfield isn’t as crowded as we thought it might be (for the moment), and Ivory should get a healthy chunk of the backfield work this week.  The matchup is presumably good against a Cleveland team that ranked 31st in run defense DVOA last year. Alfred Blue is even more salary relief if you need it, but I’d much prefer to find a way to spend the extra $500 on Ivory.

The fact that Matt Forte caught 102 passes in Marc Trestman’s system last year has been noted a thousand times over, but it seems worth mentioning again here since DraftKings is a PPR site. Justin Forsett caught 44 passes last season and could easily approach 60+ this season with Trestman in charge. He’ll face a solid Denver defense this week, but they were slightly below average in DVOA against running backs as receivers last year. I’d like him a bit better if he was a little cheaper, but he’s still maybe a shade underpriced.

Wide Receivers

1. Antonio Brown – $8,900 – Pittsburgh Steelers
2. Julian Edelman – $6,600 – New England Patriots
3. Julio Jones – $9,300 – Atlanta Falcons
4. Jarvis Landry – $5,600 – Miami Dolphins
5. Allen Robinson – $5,400 – Jacksonville Jaguars
6. John Brown – $4,500 – Arizona Cardinals
7. Davante Adams – $4,400 – Green Bay Packers
8. Eddie Royal – $3,900 – Chicago Bears

Some DFS analysts suggest you play the contests each week that include the Thursday night games and then fade the players in those games. The idea is that some people enter contests including the Thursday night game simply to load up on players in that game. People love to get action, and I’ve seen plenty a lineup in a Thursday-included contest where lineups are filled almost exclusively with players from the Thursday games. So playing those contests and fading TNF is a legitimate practice.

However, were I to play in a contest including this week’s Thursday night game between New England and Pittsburgh, I’d have a real hard time fading the game completely. Antonio Brown is my top ranked receiver for the week in PPR leagues, and I have Edelman ranked 12th at the position but he’s only the 24th most expensive receiver. I like the value potential at receiver on TNF if you’re playing it.

If not, I’d make sure to stack Julio Jones with my favorite quarterback play of the day. You might have some concern that Byron Maxwell will cover Julio a lot, but according to the always handy WR-CB matchup chart over at PFF, last year Maxwell played primarily on the side of the field that we can expect to see Roddy White on the majority of the time. It’s entirely possible that Philadelphia utilizes Maxwell differently and moves him around the field, but it would be a leap to think he’s going to mirror Julio all night.

Other stack possibilities with QBs mentioned earlier are John Brown with Carson Palmer and Davante Adams with Aaron Rodgers should you choose to go that route. Brown is $1,300 and $1,000 cheaper than Michael Floyd and Larry Fitzgerald, respectively, and I’m not sure there’s a good justification for his price tag being so much different from that of his teammates. Larry Fitzgerald did have the most success of the three in Weeks 5-9 last year when Palmer was healthy, but, Brown averages 12 points per game in that stretch.

In the mid-price range at receiver I like Jarvis Landry and Allen Robinson. Miami may well end up being too crowded with weapons to trust any one receiver there week-to-week, but Jarvis derives his fantasy value from volume as opposed to big plays or touchdowns, which makes him less boom-or-bust. It also means he has less upside than some other options, so it all depends on what you’re after. As for Robinson, he posted at least 7.5 fantasy points in Weeks 2-10 last year before a stress fracture in his foot ended his season. He topped out at 19.2 fantasy points in that stretch, so he too may have limited upside thanks to a bad offense around him. But there’s high floor to be had in this price range.

Tight Ends

1. Delanie Walker – $3,400 – Tennessee Titans
2. Martellus Bennett – $4,300 – Chicago Bears

It’s all about how little you can spend at tight end unless you want to play Gronk. I realize you can go cheaper at tight end than Walker, and Chris Garosi detailed some of those options earlier this week. But, if you’ve noticed, I’m not exactly splurging at the other skill positions. I’ve listed some expensive names to be sure, but I’ve peppered in more than enough value options to make bargain shopping at tight end unnecessary.

I have Martellus second at tight end this week and five TEs are more expensive. Delanie ranks sixth for me at the position, and 14 TEs are more expensive. Bennett has a better projection if you have the cap space for him, but Walker is a better value if you need the extra money to spend elsewhere.

Defense/Special Teams

1. Miami Dolphins – $3,000
2. Tampa Bay Buccaneers – $2,800
3. Carolina Panthers – $3,100

I like to spend as little as possible on a defense, so I could certainly get on board with going Tampa over Miami to save $200. Tampa will get Marcus Mariota in his first career start, and picking on rookie QBs is never a bad idea. Tampa finished eighth in defensive DVOA last year, though they faded down the stretch finishing 15th in weighted DVOA. Still, that’s at least an average defense last year with a slightly-lower-than-average price tag going against a rookie QB.

But it’s tough to argue against Miami facing the Redskins who allowed the second most fantasy points to opposing defenses last year. Kirk Cousins owns a 4.4 percent career interception rate, which is safely worse than the league average from last year of 2.5 percent.