Fantasy Football Week 1 Wide Receiver Rankings: Chris Godwin hard to trust even if he plays

Putting together rankings for Week 1 of the Fantasy Football season always requires some amount of assuming, but it feels like nearly the whole wide receiver position requires you to go out on a limb this season. Between high-end options switching teams this offseason -- Davante Adams, Tyreek Hill, A.J. Brown, Marquise Brown, Amari Cooper, among others -- and high-end options playing with new quarterbacks -- D.J. Moore, Michael Pittman, Diontae Johnson, DK Metcalf, Courtland Sutton/Jerry Jeudy, again, among others -- there are just a ton of question marks about the position.

But there's one player I don't have any question about for Week 1: I'm not starting Chris Godwin even if he plays. Godwin is one of the best receivers in the league, typically a must-start Fantasy option, but not for me this week. Even if he does make his return from a torn ACL in Week 1 against the Buccaneers Sunday night, we won't know until after lineups lock for most other games, and he'll be doing so despite not having been cleared for contact in practice prior to the game. Godwin remains a long-term high-upside play, but one I just can't bring myself to trust this week. Hopefully he looks good enough that you can lock him in for Week 2, but he's too risky tonight.

There's still a ton of other talent at wide receiver, but the range of expectations for many of the higher-end options is just a lot wider than we're used to seeing. Adams, for instance, is dealing with a QB downgrade from Aaron Rodgers to Derek Carr. However, the Raiders offense should also pass more than the Packers did last season, and Adams has that whole college teammate connection with Carr, so it could be a smoother transition than you think. Or, he could be totally held back by a QB who has never been nearly as comfortable taking high-risk, high-reward chances as Rodgers.

And then you've got Hill, who is dealing with an even more stark contrast, moving on from the massive-armed Patrick Mahomes to the ... uh, slightly-less-massive-armed Tua Tagovailoa. Hill is also in an offense coached by first-timer Mike McDaniels, and while I'm optimistic about what that combination could mean -- McDaniels comes from the Kyle Shanahan school of coaching -- it's certainly a pretty massive unknown for a guy who has been one of the most reliable big-play receivers we've ever seen.

Week 1 will provide us some answers to those and more questions, and it's possible I'm going back into my projections spreadsheet for Week 2 with some wildly different assumptions than the ones I have now. For now, this is the best I can do, given the situations we're dealing with.