When I launched my fantasy football career 25 years ago, my first official prediction was that WR Isaac Bruce, who was coming off a rookie season in which he posted only 21/272/3, was going to be the next Jerry Rice. Bruce’s 1781 receiving yards that year was the second most in the history of the NFL; second, amazingly, to Rice’s 1848, which he also posted, ironically, in 1995. I actually watched Bruce play in 1994, thanks to a satellite dish that I’d move around on the roof to pick up raw feeds of NFL games (this is before the Sunday Ticket on DirecTV). But a quarter of a century later, I still don’t really know how I was so confident Bruce was going to be that good. Maybe it’ll come to me as I watch his Hall of Fame induction speech this summer.
I set the bar incredibly high for myself with that first call, and I’ve been trying to reach it again ever since. I don’t expect to, but that prediction gave me the confidence to go full-throttle on trying to make a career out of this fantasy thing. The Bruce call also gave me a taste of how great it feels when you get a bold prediction right, and to this day my quest for getting things right keeps me energized and engaged. Of course, on the flipside, it’s pretty damn painful when I’m brutally wrong, and I’ve certainly had my fair share of ugly calls. Just last year, I was lukewarm on Lamar Jackson as a player to target at QB, which was egregious.
As Vince Lombardi once said, “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase it, we can catch excellence.” One of the main ways I chase perfection is by taking serious stock in the lessons learned from the previous NFL campaign and using those lessons learned to inch me closer to that unattainable goal of perfection.
Here are the lessons I learned from the 2019 fantasy season and how I’m going to use them to make me better in 2020…
Running has taken over for QBs
It’s long been established that an ideal fantasy QB supplements his production with his legs, but things got just ridiculous in 2019, when the top-five QBs in total rushing attempts all ranked in the top seven in total fantasy points. There are variations depending on your scoring system, but every single QB in the top-12 in total scoring last year did at least something with his legs, and most did a lot. Last year’s QB1 Lamar Jackson increased his scoring by an absurd 10.8 FP/G on the ground. In his first two years, Jackson has averaged a ridiculous 80.1 rushing yards per start. This production gives Jackson the highest floor in fantasy and it’s largely why he finished as a QB1 (top-12) in 13-of-15 contests in 2019. If Lamar ran like Philip Rivers (i.e. not at all), he would have produced almost the exact same fantasy production as--well--Rivers, who was just a guy for fantasy because he ran for 29 more yards than I did last year
Josh Allen may have improved incrementally in 2019, but most of the issues he displayed on tape as a rookie were still present last year; plus, he was asked to throw the ball only 28.8 times per game. It’s safe to say that all of Allen’s fantasy appeal comes from his legs. Over the past two years, Allen leads Buffalo in carries inside of the 10-yard line and trails only Lamar (61.3) in rushing yards per game (40.8). Even though he wasn’t particularly inspiring fantasy-wise as a passer, there he was at season’s end, outproducing Hall of Famers like Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady on a FP/G basis. He also scored more fantasy points than all but eight other QBs (and Allen’s ADP was QB21).
Some people told me I was foolish to rank diminutive rookie Kyler Murray in my top-12 last year; turns out I was dumb not to rank him in my top-8. Murray added 544 yards and 4 TDs (on just 93 carries) with his legs as a rookie.
It’s gotten to the point where fantasy leagues need to adjust their scoring systems and pull back from the credit these “passers” get with their rushing production. I’d suggest simply adding the rushing yardage onto their passing totals (for a total yardage at 1 point for 25 yards). If we went back and did that for 2019, Lamar probably would have still been your QB1 (depending on how much you tax for INTs), so it’s not as drastic a step as you might think. Or, you could just start playing in 2-QB or SuperFlex leagues and call it a day.
At the very least, I think all fantasy leagues should award 6 points per TD pass to give a needed boost to the guys who don’t run but are, you know, really good at throwing forward passes. If you keep QB passing TDs at 4 points, you’re hurting some really good NFL passers like Drew Brees, and you’re helping some mediocre passers like Josh Allen, which doesn’t seem right. Kirk Cousins was brilliant last year in most statistical measures like completion rate (69.1%), YPA (8.1), TD/INT Ratio (25:6), and in deeper metrics. Per PFF, Cousins ranked top-3 among all QBs in passer rating when throwing deep (20+ yards) and on play-action. Despite his effectiveness, Cousins put up only 12 fantasy points total on the ground en route to a pedestrian QB19 finish. Even in 2018, when he threw the ball 8.2 more times a game (131 more attempts for 16 games) than 2019, Kirkie was just okay for fantasy because his rushing production fell from 34.8, 33.6, and 42 points from 2015-2017 to only 18 in 2018.
If your league is savvy enough to adjust to the running QBs as suggested, the running dudes are still going to be the first QBs off the board in 2020 because the runners are a cheat code for fantasy even if you minimize their impact on the ground via your scoring system. Most likely, Lamar Jackson, Deshaun Watson, Dak Prescott, Russell Wilson, Kyler Murray, and Josh Allen will all be drafted as top-10 QBs--probably even top-7--and they’ll likely go off the board within the top-100 picks overall. Those QBs do very little for me at their pricey ADPs, though, so I’m going to do one of two things this year:
- Draft Patrick Mahomes
- Pass on all QBs until I’m at least 100 picks into a draft.
If I don’t get Mahomes, I’ll look for a poor man’s Mahomes in a guy who I believe in as a passer but who can also contribute with his legs. Rushing production from these types may not be a guarantee, but at least these guys will be very affordable, and at least these guys can sling it. Aaron Rodgers, Carson Wentz, and Daniel Jones fit the bill; and maybe even rookie Joe Burrow. Baker Mayfield and his three rushing TDs last year is also in this conversation. Others like Kirk Cousins, Jared Goff, Drew Brees (who actually had negative rushing yards last year), and Tom Brady are too TD-dependent to count on.
Bottom line: if you’re a QB and you’re not running (at least a little), I’m not buying unless you’re cost-effective (100+ picks into a draft), or unless your name is “Patrick.”
I might draft Mahomes often this year
It’s been at least a half a decade since I advocated taking a QB as early as the third round, but I’m looking for an edge, and I actually think one can be gained this year if you pay up for Mahomes. In 2018, Mahomes scored the most fantasy points by any QB in any season ever. In 2019, if you include the postseason but exclude the two games in which he got hurt, he averaged 24.3 fantasy points per game. Or, what would be the 10th-most by any quarterback in any season ever - and that was what looks to be a “down” year for this former NFL MVP.
I didn’t list Mahomes as one of the running QBs above, since his rushing averages the last two seasons (245/2 per season), while definitely helpful, haven’t been impactful. Mahomes has been in the second or third tier of running QBs the last two seasons, but he started running more late in the season, a sign he’s more confident to take what defenses are giving him, and a reason I’m into him this year and willing to take a QB early. That’s significant because since Mahomes can make any throw anywhere on the field, defenses tend to give him a lot.
Mahomes scored a rushing TD in three of his last five games last year, but more impressively he averaged 8/45/.66 rushing in the playoffs (he also lost 15 yards on kneel downs in the SB). Extrapolated over 16 games, that’s 128/720/10.5, which is Lamar territory. After ranking 8th in rushing yards on scrambles (264) behind Jameis Winston in the regular season, Mahomes added a ridiculous 155 yards on 15 scrambles in the Chiefs Super Bowl run. Now, Mahomes won’t run eight times a game like Lamar does, but since his running was so effective down the stretch, and since he has the frame to withstand some punishment, I could see him adding a robust 60-65 fantasy points to his totals. And in case you forgot, the guy tossed 50 TD passes in his first year as a starter way back in 2018.
As we learned from Lamar Jackson last year and Mahomes the year before--and even Carson Wentz in 2017--it’s all about high-impact players and getting as many of them as you can. It’s a lot easier to acquire them cheaply at QB, as we’ve seen the last three seasons with these examples. I’d guess their combined ADPs the last three seasons is about 70-80 overall. I don’t see any great breakout candidates in 2020 other than the obvious choice in Kyler Murray. But Murray is quite pricey with a current Best Ball ADP around 35-40. Mahomes is more expensive with an ADP of 25, but he also has a much better chance to go nuclear.
I will say, though, that Mahomes’ ADP has risen just in April just in the time it took me to write this article, so it might be unrealistic to expect him to be available in the 3rd round this summer. For now, I’ll still keep Mahomes in the 3rd as a possibility and will move on to Plan B (taking my first QB 100+ picks into a draft) if Mahomes is gone by my third pick.
For some QBs, there’s a fine line between high-impact and mediocrity
This is my final point about the running QBs, and it’s a point I alluded to in the first lesson in this article with Philip Rivers. Rivers threw for at least one score and 300 yards eight times, and he really had only 3-4 bad statistical games (not factoring in INTs), but he was almost completely off the fantasy radar and finished as only the QB25 in FPG. Of the other 24 QBs who ranked above Rivers, only Drew Brees ran for fewer yards. Granted, the INTs really hurt Rivers, but those points lost for picks could have been made up for with some rushing production, yet Rivers was hopeless in that regard. Ultimately, Lamar Jackson exceeded 25 fantasy points in 10 of 15 games, while Rivers fell short of that mark in all 16 games.
Mobility is such a massive advantage for QBs when rushing yards are worth 2.5 times as much as passing yards, and rushing TDs are worth 1.5 times as much as passing touchdowns. This is why I think fantasy scoring systems should be adjusted to reduce the value of rushing production for QBs. At this point, without reducing the fantasy point values for rushing, if a QB doesn’t run, he’s going to have to either throw it a ton or he’s going to have to be very efficient. Volume doesn’t guarantee anything though, as we saw with Jared Goff in 2019. Goff tied Jameis Winston for the most attempts last year (626), yet he was 28th in TD percentage, and correspondingly only 22nd in FPG. Goff’s attempts were only the 10th most the year before, but he was also a solid 10th in TD percentage in 2018, so his efficiency in 2018 was 38.5% better than it was in 2019. His completion rate was also two percentage points better in 2018 compared to 2019, which also helped. Goff actually has 2 rushing TDs in each of the last two seasons, so even though he ran for 68 more yards in 2018 than 2019, the difference was almost all about his efficiency.
These days, I find it difficult to handicap a guy like Goff, who is certainly capable of getting hot and posting big numbers. In 2018, he was a major fantasy difference-maker in all but four games. He did have three unusually poor games, but he offset that with six monster games and was otherwise solid. It seemed like almost everything lined up perfectly for him. The team posted a 13-3 record and averaged a whopping 32.9 points a game (2nd most). Todd Gurley was excellent, and the league had not caught up to HC Sean McVay’s offense the way they did in McVay’s third season in 2019.
My point is simply this: if your QB doesn’t supplement his production on the ground, then his margin for error increases significantly. And if he doesn’t offset this element with high volume and/or efficiency, he might be “just a guy” for fantasy. Another way to look at this is to use Winston as an example. Jameis was tied with Goff for the most attempts last year (626), so he got the volume. Jameis was also relatively efficient with a 5.3 TD percentage, tied for 9th-best. He additionally helped his cause with his legs, putting up 250/1 rushing. So Jameis pretty much had it all, which is why he was still a top-5 fantasy QB despite tossing a grotesque 30 INTs, which was tied for the 7th most in NFL history.
As I look at the 2020 landscape at QB, I see most of the running QBs high up the ADP board, which is not ideal. And I see a lot of TD/efficiency-dependent guys getting some love, like Brees, Tom Brady, and Matthew Stafford, which is a little scary. So if I don’t pay up for Mahomes in the third-round, I’ll be looking for anyone who comes at a discount and presents some value, especially if they run a little and/or look poised to get major volume. I’ll also be looking for anyone who could fit Goff’s profile in 2017 and 2018 and enjoy the planetary alignment needed for them to consistently excel for fantasy. My early targets who fit one or all of these profiles include: Matt Ryan (134 ADP), Aaron Rodgers (135), Carson Wentz (164), Daniel Jones (171), Baker Mayfield (174), Jared Goff (180), Ben Roethlisberger (182), Jimmy Garappolo (191), and maybe even rookie Joe Burrow (189).
Note: These are Best Ball ADPs and the data came from drafts conducted the first half of April. For a typical season-long draft conducted in the summer, I’d estimate the ADP numbers will be 30-40 spots higher.
Regression is real
Not that we didn’t already know that, but we saw it play out yet again in 2019. In many cases, when something dramatic happens to a player of note--good or bad--I’m usually programmed to expect either positive or negative regression, and it’s usually the case. I did believe last year that Mahomes was regression-proof, and I subsequently lost an on-air bet for an expensive steak dinner because of it. Mahomes has won an NFL and Super Bowl MVP award before he was even 25 but I still lost betting on him to keep up his torrid 2019 pace. I actually blame the loss on a small sample size, since I convinced myself that Mahomes was the most physically-gifted QB of all time after only one full season, prompting me to think he was above regression. For what it’s worth, I still think he’s the most physically gifted QB to ever play and I fully expect positive regression this year (I also offered to make the exact same bet again this year that he will reach 40 TDs total).
At least when it comes to QBs and their passing TD percentages, and especially when there’s a larger body of work of 4-5 years or more, when a guy posts an unusually high TD percentage, it’s close to a lock that he will regress, likely by at least 20%. On average, QBs (since 1970) who averaged a TD% of 7.5% or more in one season saw that number fall to 5.3% (on average) in the following season. If Lamar (9.0 TD% in 2019) regressed by a similar amount, we could expect almost 1.0 fewer passing TDs per game in 2020.
Here’s a look at the current QB leaders in TD percentage from 1980 through 2018 and their drop-offs the next season:
- Peyton Manning (2004, 9.9 TD%) - 6.2% in 2005, 43.8% drop-off
- Aaron Rodgers (2011, 9.0 TD%) - 7.1% in 2012, 21.1% drop-off
- Tom Brady (2007, 8.7 TD%) - 5.0% in 2009, 42.5% drop-off (missed 2008 season)
- Patrick Mahomes (2018, 8.6 TD%) - 5.4% in 2019, 37.2% drop-off
- Nick Foles (2013, 8.5 TD%) - 4.2% in 2014, 50.5% drop-off (10 starts in ‘13, 8 starts in ‘14)
The players who had the best five passing TD percentage seasons since 1980 saw their percentage drop an average of 39%. I don’t know about you, but this stat alone, along with his QB1 ADP and costly price point, means that Lamar Jackson is off my board. Lamar, of course, posted the second-highest TD percentage last year since 1980. Lamar’s 9.0% touchdown rate tied Aaron Rodgers 2011 season and ranked only Manning’s 2004 number of 9.9%.
Also, if you’ve been following me over the years, you may recall that I was a Ryan Tannehill truther around 2013-2015. I never had delusions that he was a superstar, but I felt strongly that with a good arm, athleticism, competitiveness, and toughness, Tannehill could put up strong fantasy numbers if he was in the right system with support. I basically gave up a couple of years ago (thanks, Adam Gase), but it all came together in 2019, and what we saw was exactly what I envisioned he could do if everything fell right. That said, I’ll probably pass on him and his 2019 7.7% TD rates because his career sits at 4.5%. He could be something of an exception to the rule because he plays with a major bell-cow RB, which is ideal for Tannehill to keep up his efficiency. But ultimately, I’m skeptical of a QB who threw it only 26 times a game last year. Simply put, most of his key stats (7.7% TD rate, 70.3% completion rate, 9.6 YPA) seem bound for regression. I certainly won’t rule out drafting him, but that’s more about his low cost than my confidence that he will keep up his incredible 2019 pace.
I think it’s safe to assume that the next easiest TD regression position to predict is receiver, since WRs and TEs are obviously tied closely with QBs. So I took at a look at the top-5 again, and the results were also disheartening:
- Randy Moss (2007, 23 TDs) - 11 TDs in 2008 (did lose his QB Tom Brady)
- Jerry Rice (1987, 22 TDs - 12 games!) - 9 TDs in 1988 *(16 games!)
- Mark Clayton (1984, 18 TDs) - 4 TDs in 1985
- Sterling Sharpe (1994, 18 TDs) - Retired in 1995
- Cris Carter (1995, 17 TDs) - 10 TDs in 1996
For what it’s worth, Sharpe is one of my favorite players of all time, maybe even top-5. I actually got to work with him on TV for a full NFL season back in 2003 at NFL Films and on NFL Network, which was a career highlight for me. Sterling, playing with a budding star in Brett Favre, may have beaten regression, but alas we’ll never know. Sharpe, though, should be in the HOF.
Anyway, excluding Sharpe, the top-5 single season NFL TD reception leaders saw a gross 57.4% regression rate their next seasons, and we’re talking mostly Hall of Fame players. It should come as no surprise, then, that Eric Ebron, whose 13 receiving TDs in 2018 ranks as tied for the second-most for a TE since 1980, suffered insane levels of regression (76.9%). Everyone knew it was coming, too; and despite putting 14 total TDs on the board in 2018, no one really cared about Ebron in drafts, and we were all correct. Ebron only scored 3 times in 2019.
Beyond Ebron, touchdown regression finds everyone. Looking back at 2018, nine players scored double-digit TDs: Antonio Brown, Davante Adams, Ebron, Tyreek Hill, DeAndre Hopkins, Travis Kelce, Calvin Ridley, Tyler Lockett, and Mike Williams. All of these players failed to increase their TD total in 2019, with Adams (13 TDs to 5) and Williams (10 TDs to 2) having the most dramatic drop-offs.
Even at RB, a position where you think regression may be less of an issue due to the number of touches top backs get, it’s a big problem. Excluding Priest Holmes in 2004 because he missed eight games (yet still scored 14 TDs after punching in 27 scores in 2003), the rest of the top-5 single-season RB TD leaders suffered a 53.2% decrease in TDs on average.
There are a ton of variables involved for all these positions and each of them individually, like injuries, poor coaching, scheme changes, poor personnel, etc. But the bottom line is if you’re paying a hefty price due to a high TD total or percentage, like people are doing in 2020 for Lamar, then you’re bound to be disappointed.
Conversely, if you’re looking for value picks for the upcoming seasons, one of the first places to look is the TD totals or percentages for proven performers. It goes both ways, so if we can usually expect negative regression, we can also expect positive regression. For the QBs, the guys to look at for positive TD regression are:
Patrick Mahomes - 5.4% in 2019, 8.6% in 2018
Aaron Rodgers - 4.2% in 2018 and 4.6 in 2019. 6.7% and 6.5% previous two seasons
Carson Wentz - 4.4% in 2019, but 7.5% in 2017
Matt Ryan - 4.3% in 2019, 5.8% in 2018
Jared Goff - 3.5% in 2019, 5.7% in 2018
Baker Mayfield - 4.1% in 2019, 5.6% in 2018
Kyler Murray - Very low 3.7% as a rookie
If it seems too good to be true, it probably is
I’ve been saying this as it relates to fantasy football for about a decade and a half, yet I still sometimes fall into the trap of overrating players whose situations look great on paper. I guess I just can’t quit looking for a knockout blow with my fantasy picks and advice. At least with Baker Mayfield, while I did rank him very high (#3 QB), I didn’t advise actually drafting him, since I was all about waiting on QB. But while I knew they had OL issues and didn’t know they’d get diddly-poo out of TE David Njoku, I should have realized the Browns were too good to be true. For one, they’re the Browns and the hype was pretty strong around the league. More importantly, there wasn’t much continuity or stability at the top, with a new (and completely unproven) head coach and a new OC whose impact was negligible. Not to mention a new #1 WR who passed on attending “voluntary” OTAs. Some things did work as expected, like Nick Chubb and Jarvis Landry and Kareem Hunt once he joined the team, but ultimately the trigger man lost his way amongst the hype and chaos and The Browns were too good to be true.
In Odell Beckham Jr.,’s worst 16-game stretch with the Giants (2015-2016), he averaged 18.2 fantasy points per game. In 16 games with the Browns last year, he averaged just 12.6 fantasy points per game.
Although he won the Super Bowl MVP award, I would argue that Patrick Mahomes was too good to be true in 2019. For a while there in the off-season, it looks like Mahomes would be without Tyreek Hill for a period of time, so they drafted speedster Mecole Hardman. And then Tyreek was good to go. It was an embarrassment of riches at receiver, which is a big reason why I made that on-air bet that Mahomes would total 40 or more TDs.
In Chicago, for much of the off-season, the Bears actually seemed too good to be true. Mitchell Trubisky had some huge fantasy games the year before. They added the playmaking Cordarrelle Patterson, a solid rookie WR in Riley Ridley, and, of course, a new lead back in David Montgomery. It was easy to expect them to continue to ascend, but there was a catch: the QB wasn’t good. Once the OTAs kicked off in the summer and I got word about Trubisky’s lack of improvement, I bailed and didn’t even have them making the playoffs after a 12-4 2018 season.
In Philly, I knew all they needed was a deep threat to really open up the offense and pile up the fantasy stats, which is why I jokingly referred to DeSean Jackson as their “2019 MVP” all summer. Jackson went nuts in Week 1, and so did Carson Wentz (28-of-39 for 313/3), but relying on D-Jax was obviously fool’s gold. Jackson’s season-opener was epic, but a nagging groin injury kept him on the sidelines for the rest of the year. The Eagles will draft a top WR this year and whatever they get from Jackson will be considered a bonus.
The good thing about when things prove too good to be true in a given season, is that there’s usually a post-hype buying opportunity the next year, and I think that applies to Mahomes, Baker Mayfield and the Browns, and Wentz and the Eagles - and maybe even Nicholas Foles will have some fantasy juice this year.
If the talent is there, never say never
Back in 2015, I interviewed WR DeVante Parker at the combine, and it was one of the worst interactions I’ve ever had with a player. Parker was mumbling his answers while looking down at the ground and he put out a terrible vibe. I told the story on the radio to alert people that Parker, despite his obvious raw talent, may not have what it takes to compete at the highest level. And for a number of years, that was a good tip. But he also teased with flashes of brilliance his first couple of seasons which actually made him more annoying, especially in 2017 when he was blowing up in the preseason and seemed like a player to invest meaningful draft capital on. He seemed like he was on the verge of a breakout season, but he had only a decent three-game run to open the season and a respectable three-game run to close out the season…and he scored only 1 TD. So when he let us down again in 2018, I pretty much wrote him off. I’ve been at this fantasy football game for a while, and I’ve never been inclined to write about the magical “5th year breakout” for WRs. That’s not really a thing, as the majority of WRs in the league who post strong numbers do so no later than their fourth season.
I had previously been proactive projecting Parker for a breakout, only to get burned badly, so in 2019 I stayed conservative and capped my projection at only 149 PPR points, a projection Parker beat by 97 points, or a whopping 6 PPR FPG. You can’t underestimate the impact of “Fitzmagic” and Preston Williams’ mid-season injury, but Parker finally learned how to manage the aches and pains of a full season, and his high-end talent finally showed. Parker was a league-winner in the fantasy playoffs, finishing as a WR1 (top-12) in five of his final 7 games.
We saw something very similar with Breshad Perriman, who I’ve always paired with Parker due to the fact that they were both first round picks of the 2015 draft and very talented, yet they were busts. But these guys were so talented that, pre-draft, we compared Parker to AJ Green and Perriman to Julio Jones, which was lofty praise. To be clear, we never made majestic comparisons like that for Nelson Agholor or Phillip Dorsett, who were also first round picks that year. Drops and mental concentration hurt Perriman early in his career but he turned it around in 2019, dropping just one pass on 69 targets.
This is why I’ll do whatever it takes to get a firm handle on a player’s talent, which gives me the ability to truly understand his upside potential, when it’s time to pack it in, and when it comes to expect a breakout. I did bail on Parker too soon, but he was an exception. I’ve also bailed on a ton of dudes very early and have been correct. I gave up on Laquon Treadwell, the 23rd pick of the 2016 draft, mid-way through his rookie season, because I had zero confidence in his talent going up against NFL defenders. Another example is Corey Coleman, the 15th pick of the 2015 draft--I simply didn’t see anything special.
We will lean on our guy Greg Cosell’s meticulous film study to wrap our heads around a player’s talent, and we can also get a lot of insight on talent through various statistics, plus I still greatly trust my own eyeball test. And ultimately, as we learned from Parker and Perriman, the more talent you have, the longer we should be willing to wait for you to finally arrive.
To spin this lesson to the upcoming season, I’ll be keeping an eye on the following yet-to-break-out wideouts, whose raw talent I believe in: Christian Kirk, Andy Isabella, Marquise Brown, Diontae Johnson, Paris Campbell, and Anthony Miller.
Focus on RBs whose best years are ahead of them
It’s been an interesting half decade for the RBs. Just 4-5 years ago, many fantasy hipsters were implementing the “Zero RB” practice by loading up on WRs. I said at the time, around 2014, that I was not signing off on that approach for a variety of reasons. For one, I’ve witnessed the cyclical nature of fantasy football for a very long time, so I wasn’t convinced the RBs would continue to be as volatile and as risky an investment. They’ve been back in a big way the last 3-4 years. In 2020, 75% of the first round picks in Best Ball are RBs (using ADP data from only April 2020). I have no problem with that, but let’s not lose sight of why Zero RB was a thing to begin with: the RBs can crush you if you’re not careful.
It’s impossible to completely mitigate the risk of drafting RBs early, but in retrospect, it wasn’t difficult to predict which of the top-20 RBs would let us down in 2019 because most of them had some discernible issues. Additionally, most of them ended up playing for bad teams, which can be a real problem more often than not. There were a high number of RBs who did well, which was nice, but I focused too much on volume/role with guys like Le’Veon Bell, David Johnson, and Devonta Freeman. Bell did what he could but still finished as an RB3 or worse (outside of the top-25 RBs) in 40% of his games. Johnson hung in there nicely the first six weeks of the season due to the aforementioned volume…and then he fell off a cliff. Freeman’s work in the passing game bailed him out at times, but all three were older backs with issues, and those issues quickly came to the surface.
There are always going to be RBs who disappoint us, but one of the reasons the position is back to prominence for fantasy is because the position overall has been less volatile, and going RB-heavy in drafts recently has generally been a good move. But as we saw in 2019, if you have concerns about a RB, it’s wise to ask yourself if his best football is still in front of him or behind him. Dalvin Cook’s first two seasons were marred by injuries, so he was hardly flawless, but at least it was obvious in the preseason that he was a well-calculated risk because his massive role and good health were obvious. Aaron Jones’ summer didn’t scream “draft me,” but we all know how talented he is and a breakout season wasn’t that hard to predict. And guys like Leonard Fournette, Derrick Henry, and Josh Jacobs were young, versatile, and locked into large roles, so they unsurprisingly came through.
It’s been a nice 3-4 year run for the RBs, and they are currently getting the appropriate love because of that. But when you’re drafting these guys early, you’d be wise to stay proactive and focus on those backs whose best football is in front of them. On average, running backs hit their peak in Year 3, scoring 119% of their baseline career average, and then decline in each subsequent season from there. Even at the #1 overall pick this year, I would argue that Saquon Barkley (entering Year 3) will be a better pick than Christian McCaffrey (entering Year 4) simply because McCaffrey may never duplicate his monster 2019, whereas we haven’t yet seen the best from Saquon (although that’s coming very soon). Fournette is still only 25 with fewer than 1000 touches on his resume (800), but I’ll take Miles Sanders over him 10 times out of 10. And I know I’ll take my chances with Devin Singletary over Todd Gurley, who seems to be hanging on by a thread.
Get your RBs early
One of the reasons fantasy players have been more inclined to draft RBs early as of late, and why “Zero RB” is dead, is because the backs have been healthier the last 2-3 years. Subsequently, the in-season options on the WW, where the Zero RB people usually look to for reinforcements, have dried up. Obviously, when there’s a serious injury to a back, it usually opens up a clear path to fantasy relevance for the next man up, and your best WW RB pickups usually fit this profile. But the runners in the NFL have been surprisingly durable the last two seasons, so it’s been slim pickings at RB on the wire lately.
In 2018, we had Phillip Lindsay, who was a great pickup after Week 1. After that? Not much was happening. In 2019, things were very similar. Unless you’re in a microscopically small league, the only strong WW pickup at RB to actually hold value for more than 1-2 weeks seemed to be Raheem Mostert in SF, and he wasn’t even viable until December (Week 12). In fact, Kenyan Drake and James White were the only RBs that finished inside of the top-24 fantasy scorers last season that were selected after the sixth-round in drafts. Of the top-12 running backs by fantasy points per game in 2019, 10 were drafted in the first three rounds. Only Mark Ingram (Round 4) and Austin Ekeler (Round 5) went later.
I am going to be cautious with the shakier RBs as outlined in a previous lesson, but I’m also going to be extremely aggressive drafting the position when I like the player’s prospects for the upcoming season and feel his arrow is pointing up. Because if you don’t draft a strong stable of RBs, you may be hosed unless you can make some trades, since there’s been a recent dearth of quality options on the wire. Luckily, this year’s rookie class should give us 10+ viable options, which should help.
My thing has always been about balance, so I like starting my drafts RB-WR or WR-RB. I like getting at least one stud WR to hang my hat on. But if I grab Julio Jones in the second round these days, I may not feel the need to take more than one other WR the first 5-6 rounds. That’s because the number of playable WRs these days is truly absurd. I’ve been whining about this for a decade now, and it’s only gotten worse.
Which leads us to the next lesson learned from 2019….
The late rounds are the new Waiver Wire
I did a 14-team startup keeper draft last summer with a bunch of listeners to my SXM Radio show along with Staff Writer Paul Kelly, and I could not believe the quality options I landed at WR very late, namely Terry McClaurin and Marquise Brown. This caused me to ask myself why the heck I took Odell Beckham with my first pick? It was later in the first round, and I did so because I thought he was the best player on the board. But if I could have the pick back, I would have taken a RB because not only is the depth at WR ridiculous, you could have fielded a competitive WR corps composed only of wideouts drafted 100+ picks in last year.
The following players had ADPs of over 100, and most of them were available 150+ picks into drafts: Michael Gallup, Courtland Sutton, D.K. Metcalf, John Brown, Jamison Crowder, DeVante Parker, Deebo Samuel, Marquise Brown, A.J. Brown, Terry McLaurin, D.J. Chark, and Breshad Perriman.These guys weren’t great every week, but neither was Odell or JuJu Smith-Schuster, and both had a top-15 ADPs.
Hindsight is certainly 20/20, but when I studied all the WRs going off the board later in drafts, especially 150+ picks into a draft, one thing was clear: there’s every reason to focus on upside that late and deep into a draft because for every one good option drafted in rounds 13-16, there were 4-5 bad picks and another 2-3 mediocre picks. So you might as well focus entirely on ceiling and forget about floor. What you’re doing is basically trying to pick up the early-season WW guys before they even hit the wire; if you nail 1-2 of them and make good picks otherwise at the position, you’re probably set. Remember, upside wins championships. ESPN, 40.9% of all Lamar Jackson teams advanced to the championship round
In my #1 league, a 14-team PPR with all radio listeners, all those guys above got drafted. Metcalf was drafted after RB Mike Davis. Deebo was drafted after Keke Coutee. John Brown was drafted after Damien Harris, to give just a few disgusting examples. So again, you might as well draft only for upside late.
I’ve also been a fan of drafting two TEs and focusing at least one of the picks on a late-round upside guy. A lot of people don’t like that approach, but if you took Evan Engram or OJ Howard in the 5th last year, you may have been hosed unless you grabbed a guy like Mark Andrews (153 ADP), Austin Hooper (150 ADP), or Darren Waller (165 ADP) later as your TE2. Andrews was the No. 1 passing option in an up-and-coming offense and Waller had a direct path to lead the Raiders after the AB fiasco. Again, all you’re really doing is trying to target players who could be the hot WW pickup after Week 1 or 2.
Fantasy players are savvier than ever, which is one of the reasons I think the WW has been weak lately. You just can’t assume the Waiver Wire will bail you out right now if you make a lot of crappy picks because the smart owners in the late rounds are drafting what used to be most of the top WW guys. Therefore, you need to seek those types out as a proactive attempt to replace your earlier picks who flame out.
And by the way, with the 2020 WR draft class looking like the one of the 2-3 best we’ve seen the last 20 or so years, you can be sure there will be several incredible WR values on the board 150+ picks into a draft.
I’m still not drafting a TE early.
Mining late-round gems at this position has been a hobby of mine starting in 1996, when I loved Wesley Walls for fantasy (100+ ADP, 10 TDs), so I’ve never been into paying a premium at TE, even for Rob Gronkowski when he was unworldly.
One could argue the consensus top-3 guys last year--Travis Kelce, George Kittle, and Zach Ertz--all finished as top-5 producers, so acquiring one of those studs wasn’t a bad idea. Kelce was very good yet again with only two games with fewer than 10 PPR points, but with only 5 TDs, he was not a brilliant pick at his high ADP (15-17 overall). In fact, Kelce out-scored the TE7 in PP/G (Evan Engram) by just +2.2 fantasy points per game. Compare that to the WR1 vs. the WR7 (+6.5), the QB1 vs. the QB7 (+7.3), or the RB1 vs. the RB7 (+10.7). Kittle was cheaper with an ADP of 30, and he really had only two bad fantasy games, so he was a way better pick (he was only .1 points behind Kelce in PP/G). As for Ertz, my preseason projection was only 5 points off his 2019 total, so he was reliable. But he had too many mediocre games for such a high pick (35-40 ADP).
I was not targeting any of those top guys last year, but I was willing to grab one of the second tier options, yet they were a lot less reliable than the studs. Hunter Henry, OJ Howard, Evan Engram, and Jared Cook were the guys I considered last year in rounds 5-7, but their overall results were poor. Of the consensus top-12 TEs last year, all 12 ADPs were in the range of 15-100 overall. But in terms of the actual finishes in 2019, only five of the top-12 producers had an ADP of less than 100, so 58% of the top-12 producers were available 100+ picks in. I looked back at the previous 3-4 seasons, and each year 4-6 of the top-12 producers were typically available 100+ picks into a draft.
I usually like getting the best of both worlds at this position in that I want a high-end guy I feel good about. But I don’t want to pay top dollar, which is why I was very into guys like Henry, Engram, and Cook last year (I did have Howard as a target, but I didn’t push him hard). But since that approach didn’t work out very well, and since I want at least 1-2 high-end WRs and as many strong RB options as possible, I’m going to take this 2019 lesson to heart in 2020 and fade all the TEs with top-100 ADPs (at least that’s my plan now, in April, looking at Best Ball ADPs). I actually did that last year in my #1 league (the ACI from SXM radio show) when I grabbed my preseason pick for breakout TE of the year, Mark Andrews, as my TE1 with the 138th pick of the draft.
It’s certainly not easy to nail down a great value at TE in every draft, but you seriously increase your chances if you draft two or more strong breakout candidates; and if they both flop, you can always resort to streaming TEs during the season, which is a viable option. Luckily, there are a plethora of candidates this year, which for me cements my 2020 TE strategy (for now, we’ll see about August).
Here are my favorite TE targets for 2020 and their Best Ball ADPs as of early April:
Mike Gesicki, Mia - 115 ADP
T.J. Hockenson, Det - 118 ADP
Blake Jarwin, Dal - 134 ADP
Hayden Hurst, Bal - 140 ADP
Eric Ebron, Pit - 146 ADP
Chris Herndon, NYJ - 176 ADP
Dawson Knox, Buf - 183 ADP
Jace Sternberger, GB - 192 ADP
Here are some other quickies on the lessons I learned in 2019…
I’ll take targets over TDs for RBs: Despite scoring only 3 TDs, Leonard Fournette was considerably better than Marlon Mack, who scored 8 times. Mack had only 17 targets, which was 64th in the league. Fournette was 4th in targets with 100. Those targets came every week for Leonard, which is how he scored fewer than 11.4 PPR points only once in 14 games. Mack, on the other hand, put up fewer than 10 PPR points seven times in 14 games, or half his games.
We still need to pay attention to shifting offensive philosophies from year-to-year: Even though offensive coach Kevin Stefanski was with the club along with HC Mike Zimmer the year before, Stefanski’s offense in 2019, with contributions from veteran coach Gary Kubiak, was way more committed to the run, which was great news for Dalvin Cook and not so great for Stefon Diggs. I expected more big plays, and Diggs went from 10.0 YPR to 17.9 in 2019, but his target number was way down (37%). Our guy Adam Caplan was all over this last summer and he will address similar situations going forward in his NFL Insider column here on the site.
Adam Gase hates you: And we also dislike him. And so does Ryan Tannehill, DeVante Parker, Kenyan Drake, Le’Veon Bell, and more. Almost everyone who is around this guy doesn’t like him. And from now on, we don’t like drafting players on a team he’s coaching. Without Peyton Manning, Gase’s offenses have ranked 21st, 24th, 25th, 31st, and 32nd in yards per game (in that exact order) from 2015-19.
Kyle Shanahan can get production from anyone in his backfield: And he’ll try as many different options until he’s satisfied. He’ll sign your mom and she’ll go for 4.0 YPC, so be careful drafting. It’s incredible that the 49ers backfield trailed only the Chargers, Patriots, and Panthers in total fantasy points scored but we could rarely trust any of the 49ers backs in lineups. You just can’t lock in Shanahan’s depth chart because you may need a handcuff for your handcuff’s handcuff.
Fantasy Twitter can be way off sometimes - The masses usually have a good handle on things, but last summer, for some reasons, almost everyone assumed rookie Darrell Henderson was worth an 8th round pick. This was an example of how you can’t just rely on data. Sometimes, you just need good information, and once again our guy Caplan was on this all summer when he unequivocally stated that Malcolm Brown was Todd Gurley’s handcuff and not the rookie.
John Hansen is the majority owner of Fantasy Points and can be heard every weekday morning from 7-9 AM ET on SiriusXM’s Fantasy Sports Radio.
