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Six wide receivers were taken in the first seven picks of Round 2, with Zach Wilson being taken at the 2.03 to break that run up. I don’t love reaching on Wilson here because he is currently parked at No. 25 overall in our rookie rankings. However, I love Jaylen Waddle at the 2.01 and Terrace Marshall at the 2.05. These two receivers are jumping into roles with high target potential in 2021.

There were seven running backs that were taken off the board in Round 5, including Chris Evans, Kylin Hill, and Khalil Herbert. I love all three, and think they can see playing time in 2021. My favorite pick of the last round has to be Ihmir Smith-Marsette. The Vikings do not have a clear WR3 and I predict that ISM will see lots of targets as long as defenses are focused on Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen.

Tevin Coleman (Underdog ADP: 176.7) is being drafted of Ty Johnson (ADP: 213.2) in best ball. Coleman, who averaged 1.9 yards per carry last year, is being billed as a possible ‘starter,’ but has almost zero chance to emerge as a league-winner at this stage of his career. If you draft under the assumption of a winning lineup, how will Coleman’s eight-point ‘usable week’ help your team? Take a flier on the higher-ceiling Johnson instead.

You are in Round 10 of your best ball draft and see Joe Burrow available well past ADP, so you snatch him despite having no Bengals players. Burrow has a top five season, helping vault you to the Best Ball Mania II final. However, if Burrow performs well, your score increases, but so do all the other entries rostering Burrow that week. The odds he hits his ceiling in a given week without a top performance from at least one of Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, or Tyler Boyd are low.

The Vikings start the season on the road in what should be high-scoring affairs against the Bengals and Cardinals. Then they’re home for the Seahawks, whose defense that gave up the fourth-most fantasy points to quarterbacks on the road last season. Kirk Cousins can easily be a top five QB after three weeks, and you can really ride with him through the team’s Week 7 bye. Minnesota plays Detroit and Carolina before the bye, and Dallas directly after, but you’ll want to move him after that.

The 49ers open up the season on the road against the Lions and Eagles, before returning home to host the Packers and Seahawks. Detroit gave up the second-most fantasy points to opposing QBs last season, the Seahawks gave up the sixth-most (fourth-most on the road), and the Eagles defense is stronger up front than they are in the secondary. With an incredible trio of skill players in George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, and their stable of dynamic running backs, the blueprint is there for Jimmy Garoppolo to put up big numbers over the first four weeks.

Notable players sitting atop the Adjusted Yards Per Attempt leaderboard include Ryan Tannehill, Kirk Cousins, and Derek Carr. Although Tannehill regressed a tiny bit in 2020, he averaged 8.3 (No. 4 among qualified quarterbacks) Adjusted Yards Per Attempt, down from 9.2 (No. 1) AY/A in 2019.

In 2021, Drew Lock averaged 5.6 (No. 30) Adjusted Yards Per Attempt and looked inconsistent. In four games where he finished inside the top-12, he averaged 24.7 Fantasy Points Per Game, primarily boosted by 11 of his 16 (No. 20) passing touchdowns on the season. During games where he finished outside of the top-12, he averaged 10.6 fantasy points.

In 2020, Ezekiel Elliott averaged 14.8 (No. 14 among qualified running backs) Fantasy Points Per Game, 65.3 (No. 15) rush yards per game, and 3.5 (No. 8) receptions per game. Additionally what made me excited, because this is a best ball league, was his 97.6 (No. 10) Best Ball Points Added. If low-end RB1 production is what we will get in a bad year, I am optimistic about what we can get in a year with a healthy Dak Prescott and a healthy offensive line.

Aside from Davante Adams, the biggest question marks on this team are the wide receivers, though there are some high-ceiling plays. Bryan Edwards has one of the lowest Breakout Ages in the entire PlayerProfiler database, Olamide Zaccheaus is Best Comparable to Jamison Crowder, and Jalen Reagor is a post-hype player who people were in on last year that walks into a better offensive situation this year.

An early lesson learned back in my minion days as a lurker on the PlayerProfiler website was not to overvalue a player’s Best Comparable Players. One look at Travis Etienne’s comps, however, shows why he is the No. 1 running back in the 2021 rookie class. All five of his Best Comparable Players have had at least one season with 200 carries. Taking carries from James Robinson is the hurdle for Etienne to secure a mid-RB2 floor with top five upside.

Measuring at 6-1 and 232-pounds, Najee Harris has the adequate size to be a bell-cow running back in the NFL. On the other hand, his glaring lack of Pro Day workout metrics was concerning for dynasty managers in rookie drafts. If Joe Mixon and Leonard Fournette’s backend-RB1 seasons are Harris’ ceiling, then James Conner’s backend RB2 seasons in 2019 and 2020 represent his floor.

As far as fourth round running backs, it can be argued that Josh Jacobs, who often falls into the fifth round, provides the best value compared to similarly drafted players in Mike Davis, Travis Etienne, and Myles Gaskin. His locked-in goal line usage can lead to explosive, week-winning games. And his guaranteed 13-17 carries per game will buoy his floor, meaning he is a safe RB2 with top-15 upside.

Jacobs has historically thrived despite a crowded backfield and a weak line because of the insane number of opportunities he receives. While Kenyan Drake’s addition will likely take some touches away, in a 17-game schedule and with the league increasingly adopting a committee approach, this dampening effect will be minimal. Jacobs will continue to be a talented, volume-driven runner behind a line which is sneakily better than the unit rolled onto the field last year. 

For any and all of you who aren’t Best Ball purists yet, the hardest decisions in fantasy football are made week to week. At quarterback specifically, if you don’t have a Patrick Mahomes or Russell Wilson-type player that you lock and load each week, often you are making weekly decisions between two uninspiring quarterback options. These are tough and often impactful choices that determine the final outcome of the week.

Projections try to capture the expected value in a player’s performance, rather than try to predict the inherently unpredictable outlier games that players put up. When do quarterbacks put up big numbers? When are they more likely to have outlier performances? Quarterbacks perform best when the opposing quarterback is having a big fantasy day.

In consecutive seasons, the Cardinals have averaged 37.8 Team Pass Plays per Game. Kyler Murray’s carries per game jumped from 5.8 in 2019 to 8.3 last season, his per-game rushing yards jumped from 34 to 51.2, and his touchdowns jumped from 4 to 11. While the team averaged 29.9 (No. 6) Team Run Plays Per Game last season, because of the number of plays per game, he’s a rare dual-threat Konami code QB that will rival 600 pass attempts.

James Conner is the poster boy for Zero RB drafters this season. From Weeks 1-11, he was RB16 (minimum seven games played) on a points-per-game basis, averaging 13.4 Fantasy Points Per Game before catching COVID. Now reunited with his former RBs coach, who guided him to his best season in 2018, Conner steps into Kenyan Drake’s role that included a league-leading 35 Green Zone carries, even with Kyler Murray being a dual-threat.

Will Clyde Edwards-Helaire finish as a top five fantasy RB this year? No clue. Does it make sense given his pedigree and situation that he’s being drafted well behind the likes of Joe Mixon, Antonio Gibson, and Najee Harris based on Underdog ADP? No. His ceiling case is much easier to envision than one where he falls outside the top 15 RBs this year.

We’ve got no evidence that the Cowboys can’t get back to a similar level of offensive output this season with Dak Prescott, his wickedly talented trio of receivers, and Ezekiel Elliott all returning to beat up on a division that saw a 7-9 team make the playoffs last season. If Prescott is healthy, there’s an obvious ceiling case for Elliott, especially at the slight discount he can be had at in Underdog drafts right now.