Kyle Shanahan is a brilliant play caller and play designer, but he like everyone else isn’t perfect as a head coach. His game management skills are weak, and his personnel decisions are open to debate as well.

That’s where Trey Lance comes in. Shanahan and the 49ers gave up the farm to trade up to draft him with three first round picks. Lance is a physical specimen, but he’s from a small college program and didn’t have a ton of reps in college.

Now we’ll see how this experiment works out. In the season opener against the Bears, Lance made some nice throws, but he was very inconsistent. Also, if you watch all of Lance’s snaps from the game, several troubling trends emerge.

First, the 49ers are basically running a college-style offense for Lance with a heavy dose of designed runs. Also, when Lance drops back and has to move off his first read, he quickly panics and tries to run the ball. This isn’t too bad for fantasy football, but in real football this leads to big problems.

Which leads to the other concern. Lance is a big guy, but he’s taking a beating. His risk of injury is very high with this playing style, and the 49ers don’t seem to care. That tells you they’ve already downgraded Lance’s value within the organization.

With Jimmy Garappolo on the roster as the backup QB, Shanahan has had to lobby team veterans to give Lance a chance to succeed. Let’s see how much patience those veterans have before we hear calls for Jimmy G.

The NFT craze is gaining steam in the sports world, and all the major players are getting in on the act. The latest development has DraftKings partnering with the NFLPA for NFTs related to fantasy sports.

The deal will grant licensing for players’ name, image and likeness rights to DraftKings for use on its NFT Marketplace beginning at the start of the NFL’s 2022-23 season.

DraftKings says it will use the licensing rights for a fantasy-style game where users can go head-to-head against each other using the non-fungible tokens they purchase for specific players, according to a press release.

NFT projects are flooding the market so it will be interesting to see which ones take off and which ones have staying power after the initial hype.

The line for this game was bet up to double digits, but we were concerned that the Cowboys could make this a game so we avoided this one. Tampa Bay is the hot pick to get back to the Super Bowl, and Tom Brady seems to be getting better. But Dallas showed up with a pass-heavy game plan and the Buccaneers gave away turnovers. The result was a very close game that the Cowboys could have won.

It’s easy to overreact to the first week of NFL games, and of course we’ll all be tempted to do that here. But here are some impressions after watching this first game:

First, Dak Prescott looked very good last night. He may have lost some zip on some passes as a result of the shoulder injury, but he played like a top-tier quarterback last night. Dallas is dangerous when he’s throwing the ball.

Ezekiel Elliott was mostly a decoy and a pass blocker last night, and of course many are overreacting to this. There’s plenty to criticize with Mike McCarthy, but using a pass-heavy game plan against a very stout run defense makes total sense. And it worked! As the year goes on we’ll see Elliott carrying the ball more. So you might pick him up cheap in a fantasy trade if you have amateurs in your league.

Still, McCarthy does have a reputation of throwing too much, so for the sake of winning games he’ll need to make sure he uses the running game, but Zeke should get enough carries to be a solid RB1 in fantasy.

The bigger issue with McCarthy is game management. He’s in love with field goals, and going for a long field goal late in the game, giving Brady plenty of time to answer, is typical McCarthy.

Naturally, Brady easily marched the Bucs downfield for the winning field goal. He makes it look so easy, and keeps proving that he’s the best to ever play the QB position. Also, Antonio looked like he was in all pro form with a big night. Those of us who scooped him up in late rounds in our fantasy drafts feel pretty good this morning.

Overall, Tampa still looks like a contender, and Dallas showed they have a shot at the playoffs in a week division, even with McCarthy’s flaws. The defense still has real problems, but let’s see if they can do better against weaker competition.

Who anointed Bill O’Brien as a quarterback guru? Sure, he coached Tom Brady in his prime, but wouldn’t Brady make any quarterback coach and offensive coordinator look good?

O’Brien’s track record in Houston with his quarterbacks is an embarrassment, and things took a turn for the worse on opening day as he benched his starter for the second time in three years on opening day. What a joke . . .

And now they’re throwing Deshaun Watson into the fire on Thursday night against the Bengals behind their miserable offensive line. Watson may be better than Tom Savage, but he’s a rookie with a weak arm and was probably overdrafted due to his incredible college career.

This looks like an impending disaster, and Browns fans can rejoice as they have the first two Texans draft picks in 2018!

Things have certainly changed over the past year. After the huge growth of fantasy sports sites, things have come crashing down as many states started challenging whether the companies violated state laws. Now we have DraftKings and FanDuel seeking a merger, while many smaller sites have folded. Here’s a handy update on the industry.