10 Fantasy Football Sleepers for Week 1

Carson Palmer, QB, Arizona Cardinals

Last year, Carson Palmer was on basically a career-best pace but couldn't stay healthy enough to finish it out.

But in Week 1, Palmer gets to face the New Orleans Saints, who last year ranked 29th in our schedule-adjusted Defensive Passing Net Expected Points (NEP) metric, which quantifies a team's performance in terms of how many points they allowed above or below expectation-level. They also ranked 29th in fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks.

Basically, the Saints were an easy target last season for streaming quarterbacks, and their offseason moves shouldn't change too much. They saw 579 pass plays against last year, and that was just 24th-most, so even if they do try to grind the clock by adopting a run-heavy approach, their per-play inefficiency makes them a target.

Palmer ranked sixth in Passing NEP per drop back among 37 quarterbacks with at least 200 drop backs last year, and the matchup -- home against a weak pass defense -- is right.