As we head into Fantasy Football Draft Weekend, many of our readers will be stuffing their homemade rosters with the best the NFL has to offer. Most players have an idea who they prefer, and where they should go, but here are some players I see major red flags with. I wouldn’t avoid them all together, but I would definitely downgrade them. Once again, let’s do one from each position.
QB: Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens
Ummm… why? Lamar Jackson is a ticking time bomb to me. I love his game, he has a ton of skill players surrounding him. But there are a few red flags that make me want to downgrade him a little closer to the second tier, and I definitely don’t view him as an equivalent to Mahomes. First, he is a much greater injury risk than Mahomes. It is tough for players to get a square hit on him, but he gets hit a lot more than Mahomes. Jackson has taken 264 hits so far in his NFL career. That is more than 10 a game. The more hits you take, the more you are opened up to injury. The running piece of his game is nice, but it comes at a cost. Beyond that, the NFL has had a chance to absorb a full year of his playbook and style. The team dramatically changed his use after his first season, and the results showed. However, look at the playoffs. With two weeks to prepare, the Titans devised a plan that slowed him down significantly. I see this happening more this year than last.
Prediction: He misses at least 1 game, and his final numbers are closer to Watson or Murray, than Mahomes.
RB Nick Chubb, Cleveland Browns
Ummm… why? Chubb has been consistently going in the top two rounds, and I am mystified as to why. He is clearly in a time share with Kareem Hunt, as reflected by their equal usage while Hunt was active. There is no reason to think this arrangement will stop, as it was very consistent. In PPR formats, Hunt is actually the better pick, because he gets way more targets in the passing game. Yet Hunt goes 4-5 rounds later. This makes no sense. Either you think that Chubb will still be so effective that he will rack up enough points anyway to justify the role (in which case you have to move Hunt up to where he is, since they get equal volume) or you think that the time share will limit Hunt’s value, in which case you need to move Chubb down where he is. This doesn’t make any sense to me, and I wouldn’t value either beyond the late third round.
Prediction: Neither Chubb nor Hunt is a top 15 RB in per game averages this year.
WR: Mike Evans, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Ummm… why? The decline in Tom Brady’s game has been very noticeable in the last few years, but for the most part his place in the rankings reflects that. This is not the case for Mike Evans, whose ranking is essentially unchanged from having Jameis Winston. Jameis’ problems of poor decision making had almost no effect of Evans, because his actual throws that got to Evans were very good and there were a lot. Evans put up huge numbers with Jameis because Jameis LOVED throwing the ball down the field and taking risk. Tom Brady doesn’t. Year after year his average target downfield gets closer and closer to the line of scrimmage. Despite the storyline of him being inaccurate on deep throws being completely untrue, he has been very avoidant of deep throws. He has also lost a lot of accuracy on shorter throws. He also LOVES throwing to the slot, RBs and TEs. Throughout his career, the vast majority of his targets have gone here. Part of that is a lack of explosive players, but a lot of it is his risk averse nature. He is going to continue not throwing interceptions, and that means avoiding high risk throws down field. Even to someone as good as Evans. There are a ton of other options on this team too. Chris Godwin, OJ Howard, Rob Gronkowski, Leonard Fournette and Ronald Jones. I expect them to throw a lot, but I also expect that his conservative nature is going to impact Evans target share and quality of targets. Also, instead of losing a lot and having to catch up, I expect they will be winning a lot, and holding a lead. Not good for risky deep throws.
Prediction: Evans falls off at least 3 PPG this year from last.
TE: Tyler Higbee, Los Angeles Rams
Ummm… Why? Higbee is inexplicably going above the following tight ends who are vastly more talented, Rob Gronkowski, Austin Hooper, Mike Gesicki, Noah Fant, Hayden Hurst, Chris Herendon, Jonnu Smith and Blake Jarwin. All of these would make a better option. Why is Higbee so high? Because he had a hot run of several games at the end of last season. If we look deeper into why, however, the mirage starts to fade. First, injuries affected the WR corp, and took some of the primary options away. Second, Todd Gurley is not that useful in pass catching situations (he’s gone). Third, the team had major offensive line issues, that forced them to move to 2 tight ends sets that eliminated one of their best options, Cooper Cupp, from the slot. That won’t last. I also don’t think Higbee is special. Nothing in his pedigree or physical skills really stands out from the pack. He feels like a product of a situation where the league hadn’t scouted him or the new two tight end sets. He also took advantage of the worst tight end coverage teams in the league with Arizona and Seattle. Those teams both addressed their issues with this in the draft and free agency respectively. I think he will go right back to a mediocre tight end option. There is no reason to take him before any of the other people on the list above. I also don’t think Jared Goff is good.
Prediction: He finishes TE 14 or worse
FLEX: Le’Veon Bell, NY Jets
Ummm… Why? For years Bell was a massive producer for a talented Steelers team with a great offense and line. Things went sideways when he held out for a bigger contract. Eventually he got a large contract, but that contract took him to NFL purgatory. Since his decision to hold out, he has not been a good fantasy football pick. He burned owners who gambled on his holdout, then burned owners who thought he would play hard once he got one. Last year was a disaster, as he was one of the worst running backs by efficiency in the league. This was despite a ton of touches. Things didn’t improve much by the end of the season either, in case you might have been thinking it was rust. I see three problems here. One is that he has a lot of tread on his tires. He has been around a long time for a running back, and it is very safe to say he is on the decline, not the upswing. Second, his patient plodding style worked great on an offensive line that consistently opened holes to reward that. On a mediocre at best Jets line, he is just waiting to get tackled. Finally, he has an attitude problem. He has already caused drama over losing reps to his backups, and I am sure that will not endear him to his coach, his is notorious for not listening to his players. I see him devolving into a time share, where his poor efficiency will not result in success.
Prediction: He finishes outside the top 25 RBs.