We’re currently in arguably the greatest era of offensive players the NFL has ever seen, which in turn could make it difficult to decide which players will have the biggest fantasy impact.
To help fantasy football general managers do just that ahead of their drafts, here are five players to target who will likely outperform their Average Draft Position (ADP), plus five likely to underperform who you might want to avoid.
Note: All ADP information courtesy of Yahoo.
The Outperformers
Gardner Minshew, Jacksonville Jaguars – QB16 (ADP – 118.5)
One of the best stories of 2019, Minshew comes into this season following a rookie year where he registered 3,271 passing yards, 21 touchdowns, six interceptions, 344 rushing yards and seven lost fumbles in 14 games (12 starts).
The Jaguars have made plenty of changes in the off-season, including the release of running back Leonard Fournette. This team is going to be bad, which is why Minshew will outperform his ADP.
He will be throwing more, running for his life more and could easily put up a Blake Bortles-type garbage time season (Bortles finished as QB4 overall in 2015).
Long live the Minshew Moustache!
Zack Moss, Buffalo Bills – RB44 (ADP – 119.4)
The 86th selection in the 2020 draft comes to Buffalo following a very successful senior year at Utah where he averaged six yards per carry for 1,416 rushing yards and 15 rushing touchdowns. He also had 28 catches for 388 yards and two receiving touchdowns. But what about Devin Singletary? He’s had his fumbling issues in camp and looks like he’s going to be the change-of-pace back.
The expectation is that Moss takes over the Frank Gore role from last year, which resulted in 166 rushing attempts and 13 catches. Gore’s role in the red zone is the most important part of this conversation. He had 25 carries in the red zone, including 11 carries inside the five-yard line that resulted in two touchdowns.
Moss is the better player at this point in their respective careers, should be more productive in the red zone and will be used in the passing game. There is RB2 upside for this talented back and he should absolutely be in the RB2 conversation at the end of this season.
Preston Williams, Miami Dolphins – WR57 (ADP – 129.7)
Williams got off to a great start in his rookie year in 2019, when he put up respectable numbers (32 catches on 60 targets for 428 receiving yards and three touchdowns) through eight games before an ACL injury derailed his season. That injury opened the door for DeVante Parker’s breakout season, but leading up to that injury, Williams had more targets, more receptions and more receiving yards than Parker in the games they played together.
The Colorado State product was an undrafted free agent and outperformed Parker who needed his fifth season to breakout – need I say more?
All reports out of training camp are Williams looks even better than he did last year, making him the perfect later-round target who could vault himself into the WR3 conversation, at minimum, by season’s end.
T.J. Hockenson, Detroit Lions – TE20 (ADP – 126.7)
Hockenson’s NFL career started off with a bang as he went off for 131 yards and a touchdown on six catches against the Arizona Cardinals in his debut last season. It would end up being the only game during his rookie campaign in which he would eclipse the 60-yard mark, and his season ended with an ankle injury after he played just 12 games.
So, there’s room for improvement.
Hockenson was incredible during his time at Iowa, showing great blocking prowess to go along with a superb catching ability that made him worthy of the eighth-overall selection at the 2019 draft. His blocking ability will keep him on the field and his athletic ability will make him a mismatch for defenders.
Detroit offensive co-ordinator Darrell Bevell has had success with athletic tight ends in the past (see: Jimmy Graham’s Seattle numbers from 2015-17) and Hockenson should be able to blossom in that system. A top-10 finish among tight ends is not out of the question.
Michael Gallup, Dallas Cowboys – WR28 (ADP – 78.4)
Gallup finished as WR20 in standard scoring and WR22 in PPR scoring last season and is now being drafted as WR28. The addition of 17th-overall pick CeeDee Lamb has put a damper on some of the Gallup hype, but Dallas has the second-most vacated targets (190) behind only the Atlanta Falcons and we know Lamb isn’t going to get all of that work.
Last season, Gallup finished with more yards per catch and more yards per game than Amari Cooper, who is being drafted as WR13. Not to mention, he finished with only 82 less yards than Cooper despite playing two fewer games.
Don’t be blinded by Cooper’s big off-season contract extension – Gallup is the WR1 on the Cowboys.
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The Underperformers
A.J. Brown, Tennessee Titans – WR15 (ADP – 40)
Brown is a very good receiver, don’t get me wrong, but his numbers last season just aren’t sustainable: 1,051 yards happened on only 52 catches and 84 targets for an incredible 20.2 yards per reception.
While those numbers are nice, Brown isn’t surprising anyone this year. His targets will go up but he’s going to draw top coverages every single week, making things just a tad bit more difficult.
There is also the quarterback issue. Are we really ready to trust Ryan Tannehill over the course of a full season? I’m not.
While this might seem like a takedown of Brown, it’s not, but if you are drafting him as WR15 and expecting potential top-12 numbers, you will be disappointed. Tennessee threw the least amount of passes per game in the NFL last season and you can expect that Derrick Henry will also eat into the 103 vacated targets, as he has reportedly shown improved pass-catching ability in camp this year.
Rob Gronkowski, Tampa Buccaneers – TE9 (ADP – 78.8)
He’s been off for a year, doesn’t have the same body type that made him such a dominant tight end before retirement and we have no idea what his snap share will be.
Need I say more? Well, I will.
The Bucs passing attack is one that was dominated by Chris Godwin and Mike Evans last year and played a lot from behind because of a lack of defensive ability, in concert with the plethora of turnovers from Jameis Winston. This Bucs team will be different. They do have 108 vacated targets, but the emergence of Scotty Miller and the reported re-emergence of O.J. Howard has to make you wonder: is there enough volume to go around to make Gronk worthy of a top-10 tight end pick?
There are plenty of other tight ends who will put up better numbers and can be had at a much bigger discount later in drafts.
Nick Chubb, Cleveland Browns – RB9 (ADP – 13.8)
Chubb is not a bad running back by any stretch of the imagination, but the problem is that neither is Kareem Hunt. Taking Chubb as high as his ADP indicates opens you up for the potential for serious disappointment.
In PPR scoring from Week 1 to Week 9 last season, before Hunt returned from suspension, Chubb was RB6 and averaged 22.3 touches per game. From Week 10 to Week 17, when Hunt was in the lineup, Chubb was RB15 (Hunt was RB17) and averaged 19.3 touches per game.
Let’s not forget that Hunt was the NFL’s leading rusher in his rookie year and has averaged 4.7 yards per carry and 3.3 receptions per game.
There is a legitimate chance that Chubb and Hunt end up in a 50-50 split in terms of touches this season because, as we know, NFL teams care about winning and not about our fantasy rosters!
Mark Ingram, Baltimore Ravens – RB20 (ADP – 43.2)
The Ravens invested a second-round pick in J.K. Dobbins, who happens to be Ohio State’s second-leading rusher of all-time. Ingram is on the wrong side of 30 and didn’t have quite the workload last season as many might think he did despite his RB8 finish in standard and RB11 finish in PPR scoring.
Ingram handled 52 per cent of the team’s carries and only had 26 catches, and the expectation is Dobbins will take a lot of Gus Edwards’ role and might very well eat into Ingram’s workload.
The days of Ingram finishing as a top-12 running back look to be numbered. Don’t be surprised if he finishes in the RB3 category with the emergence of Dobbins.
Jimmy Graham, Chicago Bears – TE15 (ADP – 121.6)
Fresh off signing a shocking two-year, $16-million contract this off-season, the soon-to-be 34-year-old tight end begins his time in Chicago after his worst season since his rookie year in 2010 and joins an offence with plenty of question marks.
Not only does Allen Robinson dominate the target share in Chicago, but the team also drafted Notre Dame product Cole Kmet with a second-round selection and has about a million tight ends on the roster (maybe an exaggeration).
Graham is the guy you draft when you’ve forgotten to draft a tight end. There are plenty of players who are being taken behind him and I would much rather have, including Hockenson, Blake Jarwin, Jonnu Smith, Dallas Goedert, Irv Smith and Jack Doyle.
This isn’t 2016 – stay away from Jimmy Graham!
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