Fantasy Football

Hands down, Zach Wilson has the most electric and dynamic list of Best Comparable Players at the quarterback position. He also has the widest range of outcomes in this rookie quarterback class. Ultimately, Wilson reaching his ceiling comes down to if his rushing ability translates to the NFL level. His ceiling is low-end QB1, and his floor is that the New York Jets’ triennial search for a franchise quarterback continues.

In 30 college games, Mac Jones finished with 42 rushing yards on 54 attempts, curbing his fantasy football upside. When compared to the only two first-round quarterbacks in his Best Comparable Players list, Jones isn’t close to their level on the ground. His ceiling is mid-QB2 in fantasy leagues, and his floor is he’s given a Chicago overcoat and sinks to the bottom of waiver wires in non-Superflex leagues.

There were only four players with more than Bryan Edwards’ 15 targets who bested his 2.43 Target Separation mark. His ability to create space led him to a 2.42 Fantasy Points Per Target average, only 0.03 points south of Tyreek Hill. With Derek Carr’s efficiency and Edwards’ playmaking, the duo can produce big numbers. Regardless of what happens in 2021, Edwards should be a hot name in the 2022 trade market.

Looking forward to 2022, the Browns can cut ties with Odell Beckham and Jarvis Landry while saving $30-million. Although they can rework the contracts to make them more affordable, the Browns wouldn’t feel pressured if Donovan Peoples-Jones can step up in a big way. He did just that in 2020. Expect Peoples-Jones to have a couple more big performances in 2021. And while everyone is currently looking at the rookies, make a play for DPJ before he blows up.

Looking back to 2020, both running back and wide receiver proved to return subpar value in the deep rounds. Running backs drafted after the 12th round finished as an RB1 only 4.95-percent of the time. Wide receivers drafted in the same range were only a WR1 3.39-percent of the time. The fall off is drastic compared to quarterback (17.09-percent) and tight end (12.66-percent). This suggests that QB and TE are actually deep and that WR/RB are the shallow positions in drafts.

On Underdog Fantasy, there are about 15 tight ends currently being drafted in the top 12 rounds. It is reasonable to expect about half of them to bust in 2021. A conservative projection would suggest that there are at least five available after Round 12 that can score at least 100 points. With the overall poor quality of the tight end position, it is reasonable to push off chasing TE depth until the later rounds in Best Ball.

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.

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. 

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.