What We Saw: Preseason Week 1 2018

Ravens vs. Rams

I’m going to start with the Rams in this game because, to be honest, there isn’t a whole lot to talk about here. The Rams elected to bench all of their starters for this game, and as a result, we didn’t get to see any fantasy-relevant players.

The passing game looked rough, though a lot of that was thanks to bad offensive line play (though again, these are the bench guys). There weren’t any receivers that stood out as no receiver caught more than one ball.

However, there was one interesting thing: running back John Kelly, a sixth-round pick out of the University of Tennessee, came in at the end of the game and looked pretty darn good, finishing the night with 13 carries for 77 yards. He had good speed, solid burst, and made some good moves, all of which helped him with his best play of the night (and the best play for the whole Rams offense):

[gfycat data_id=”InfiniteSlimDoe”]

He’s not expected to be the backup, that’ll more than likely go to Malcolm Brown, but just keep an eye on him in the future. He looks like he has some skills.

Now, onto the Ravens where we got to see some more fantasy-relevant players. The Ravens had their starters out for the first two series, though they subbed out Joe Flacco after the first series and let Lamar Jackson run most of the game after that.

I’ll get to Lamar in a second, but first I want to mention Alex Collins, whom I’ve been in love with ever since the Ravens brought him up from the practice squad last year. He looked excellent, I’m so excited to see him this season. He only had two runs, but on both of them he showed good burst, like this one:

[gfycat data_id=”AcceptablePalatableGalah”]

He’s a big guy who’s hard to take down, and he’s got good speed too. I’m a big fan of his this year.

Now onto Jackson. He’s not likely to have much fantasy relevance this year, but he will in the years to come (likely starting next season). He looked pretty solid, finishing the night completing 39% of his passes for 119 yards. If there was one major weakness, it was his accuracy, but we knew that coming into the game. He threw over a few guys, under a few, but that’s something he’s going to be working on.

He was still exciting to watch though, the guy is an incredible athlete, he’s dynamic out there on the field, and you need to look no further than this play to see that:

[gfycat data_id=”PerfumedSmallCaecilian”]

There are two other notes I want to mention: first, the Ravens backfield (while the starters were in) looks like it’s shaking out just how I expected, with Collins as the main starter and Javorius Allen in on passing downs. However, Gus Edwards, an undrafted free agent the team signed out of Rutgers, looked pretty impressive. He had the most carries of the came, ending the night with 12 carries for 55 yards and I have to say, I was impressed. He was quick and was able to find holes in the line pretty well. Between injuries and dumb mistakes, it kind of seems like Kenneth Dixon has fallen out of favor with the Ravens some (he didn’t play in this game after leaving Tuesday’s practice with an undisclosed injury and already missed a week of training camp with a hamstring injury), so keep an eye on Edwards. I wouldn’t be shocked if he ends up as the handcuff to Collins sooner rather than later.

-Ben Palmer