Fantasy Football Draft Season – Who should you draft?

The 2018 fantasy football draft season gets closer with every passing day. Do you know who you should draft to dominate your league this upcoming season?

I’ve been writing a daily baseball column this year and having a blast but I cannot wait for football to start as well! It may still seem far away but the season is right around the corner and fantasy football draft season is firing up in leagues in anticipation.

This article is going to focus on some players that are similar in ADP but are not similar in what they’ll bring to your fantasy squad this season. In some cases, there are players that I just don’t want to draft for various reasons. In other instances, I like both players but one should provide you better value at that particular draft slot. All data has been culled from fantasyfootballcalulator.com as of Monday, July 16th in a .5 PPR format.

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Quarterbacks aren’t on this list because if you’re playing in a normal 10 or 12 person league with one quarterback, you should be the last player to take your starting quarterback. It’s such an unbelievably deep group this year you need to feel like you’re stealing whoever you draft. You should also petition your league to move to a two QB system immediately, but one step at a time. Since this article will only cover a few players, let’s talk on Twitter with any other guys you want to hear about. I’m @bucn4life and love talking football, so let’s jump in right at the top of the draft!

Don’t Draft DeAndre Hopkins, WR – Houston Texans 1.08 ADP

So right off the bat, I would be plenty happy to have DeAndre Hopkins as my number one receiver and spend a first round pick on him. He was a monster last year with 96 receptions, 1,378 yards and a whopping 13 touchdowns. The next closest receiver was Green Bay’s Davante Adams with 10. Hopkins also saw 174 targets, which accounted for just a hair over 33 percent of the Texans target share. The issue with all of these numbers is that they might represent the ceiling of what Hopkins can do with this offense and it has nothing to do with quarterback Deshaun Watson.

The alpha in the Houston passing game has been pretty consistent through his career. If you take away the disaster season with Brock Osweiler, he’s produced at least 1,200 yards and 75 receptions to go along with at least six touchdowns in three straight seasons. Watson might be back to full health and that’s fantastic news for Hopkins and the Texans in general. Even a healthy Will Fuller opposite of Hopkins doesn’t rattle me too much. He’s the clear deep threat in the offense. He’s going to have his share of long plays, considering his 15.9 aDOT(average depth of target) but Hopkins is still going to see a lot of volume. Even last season, Hopkins saw about double the target share that Fuller did.

Here’s the issue – 2017 was the second best season we’ve seen from Hopkins behind his 2015 campaign. Banking on him to replicate that might not be the way to go. Will Hopkins be a number one receiver in fantasy football? Provided health, it’s hard to see how he wouldn’t be. The passing game for the Texans seem to be in excellent hands with Watson, Fuller and Hopkins. It is important to note that 2017 was only his second top-10 finish in half point PPR. He’s the second receiver off the board ahead of a certain wideout in New York who should be going ahead of him. This one might seem like splitting hairs but needless to say, first round picks are very important. I totally understand it seems like nitpicking but you have to be tough when deciding between two great players going so high.

Fantasy Football Draft Season – Who should you draft?

Draft Odell Beckham, WR – New York Giants 1.10 ADP

The numbers that Hopkins posted last season were fantastic. Every owner would be lucky to lean on that level of production during a fantasy season. Did you know that those numbers represent right about the carer averages of Odell Beckham? Taking out this past year when he suffered a broken ankle, the average season for Beckham stands at 96 receptions, 1,374 yards and 11.6 touchdowns. If that’s an average season, I’m going to be much happier spending a high pick on that player than Hopkins(albeit he is a great receiver).

Some readers might be worried about a couple of factors with Beckham. The first is his contract dispute. I’ll be a little concerned if he misses time in camp because they’re installing a new offense but he’s playing for $100 million deal. He’s not missing games. The second one is his injury from the past season. That one seems easy to brush away as there has been plenty of time to recover and we haven’t heard any reports about the ankle being an issue. The second might be the play of quarterback Eli Manning. When comparing Hopkins and Beckham, I can understand why people would rush to claim Watson as the better option.

I would remind folks about the insanely small sample size for Watson and the fact that the Giants offense was tortured with injuries last year. By the end of the season, Manning was throwing to receivers Tavares King and Roger Lewis. They had a dead duck coach in Ben McAdoo and we’re casting through a nightmare season. Manning can still play well enough to take advantage of the offense around him. Some might worry about rookie Saquon Barkley but a player of that caliber is going to help Beckham more than hurt. Barkley is going to be a three in every facet of the offense, making life harder on opposing defenses. That’s going to help Beckham in the long run, even though he will still be double covered on almost every play. Even if Barkley hits his lofty ceiling, Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown co-exist for fantasy nirvana. Barkley and Beckham can do the same thing.

New York brought over Pat Shurmur from the Minnesota Vikings to coordinate the offense for the Giants. Since 2013, his offenses have finished outside the top 12 in passing yards just once. The touchdowns haven’t always shown up in the Shurmur offense, but are you really worried about the Manning to Beckham connection for touchdowns? Yup, I’m not either. Take Beckham over Hopkins this year and reap the rewards.

Fantasy Football Draft Season – Who should you draft?

Don’t draft Josh Gordon, WR – Cleveland Browns, ADP 3.05

There’s a couple of things that I see a lot of folks in the fantasy community leaning on when discussing Gordon this upcoming season. The detractors seem to always pull the suspension possibility out of their pocket. While it is very true that Gordon is done in the NFL if he slips up off the field again, there is absolutely no way any analyst(including me) can predict if that’s going to happen. Nobody is in the young man’s head. It’s a risk, but every single player runs a risk of suffering a serious injury every time they put pads on. To me, it’s a little bit of a cop-out to just talk about the suspension and not drafting him. There’s other reasons we’ll get to in a minute.

The folks who are in Gordon’s corner and are happy to take him in the third round point to the last time he dominated in the NFL…which was 2013. That’s five years ago! Since you all know math, let’s put some context on what’s happened in fantasy since then, shall we?

• Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill finished in the top eight(2014)
• Joique Bell finished as a top 15 running back for the Detroit Lions(Also 2014)
• New York Jets running back Chris Ivory finished in the top 10(2015)
• New York Jets wide receiver Brandon Marshall finished as a top three WR(2015)
• Cleveland Browns tight end Gary Barnidge finished as a top three TE(2015)

The point here is 2013 is longer than you remember. Gordon truthers will also point to his 18.6 yards per catch in his five games last year. That’s pretty impressive considering his ghastly assemblage of quarterbacks. What that doesn’t consider is the Browns lost their left tackle to retirement, acquired different quarterbacks and they added weapons to the offense. Cleveland signed running back Carlos Hyde, drafted running back Nick Chubb and traded for wide receiver Jarvis Landry. That doesn’t account for running back Duke Johnson, tight end David Njoku and whatever wide receiver Corey Coleman can give them.

The Cleveland offense has a lot of exciting pieces but that is a major difference between 2013 and today. 2013 saw Gordon dominate an offense that was made up of players like running back Willis McGahee who was on his last legs and receivers like Davone Bess and Greg Little. The second most targeted player was tight end Jordan Cameron.. This offense is so much better from a talent perspective that it would be very unwise to think that Gordon is a shoe-in for 150+ targets.

Even with trading for a larger improvement in Tyrod Taylor to quarterback the offense until number one pick Baker Mayfield is ready to take over, fantasy football is about opportunity. If Gordon doesn’t see over 120 targets, it might be difficult to live up to his lofty draft capital. I don’t doubt that talent, I just can’t possibly begin to tell you how the target share is going to shake out. New offensive coordinator Todd Haley is coming over from Pittsburgh and he know how to make an offense run. It’s yet to be seen if he’ll treat Gordon like Antonio Brown and feed him targets at a super high clip. That’s why you skip Gordon and the Browns uncertainty to take the sure thing of a future Hall of Famer.

Fantasy Football Draft Season – Who should you draft?

Draft Larry Fitzgerald, WR – Arizona Cardinals, ADP 3.09

Old man Larry Fitzgerald has one more season of fantasy glory in him, right? Sure, he’ll be 35 years old when the season kicks off. He’s not the prototypical alpha receiver who’s going downfield and stretching the defense anymore. However, Fitzgerald found his niche as an older player in the slot as he ran a little over half his routes from the slot last year. What he lacks in his air yards, he makes up for in yards after the catch. The one thing you know you’re getting when you take Fitzgerald is targets and opportunity. Since his career started in 2001, the fewest amount of targets Fitzgerald has ever seen was 2006. He played 13 games and was targeted 111 times. That is the rock bottom number in 14 seasons and he has nine years have been at least 150 targets.

It’s not just the opportunity for Fitzgerald either. He makes things work with it as well. For three straight seasons, Fitzgerald has eclipsed 100 receptions and 1,000 yards while adding in at least six touchdowns. He’s been a WR1 for fantasy every single one of those three seasons. The elephant in the room with those three years compared to projecting towards this year are the coaching and quarterback changes we saw happen in the off-season.

Bruce Arians retired this past year and Arizona hired Steve Wilks, former defensive coordinator for Carolina Panthers. Losing an offensive mind like Arians certainly doesn’t help the cause for Fitzgerald. I also think that new offensive coordinator Mike McCoy is just as important as Wilks being the head coach. McCoy has been an OC nine seasons at the NFL level. Only twice has that offense finished worse than 13th in the league in passing yards. That’s where Fitzgerald makes his money and the coaching change shouldn’t be a massive shift for him.

The quarterback situation is a little harder to predict. If he’s healthy, presumed starter Sam Bradford should mesh extremely well with Fitzgerald. Bradford might be the punchline of jokes due to his injury history but when he’s on the field, he’s hyper accurate. He actually had the completion percentage single season record until New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees beat him last season, 72 percent to 71.6 percent. If you have any doubts about Bradford’s ability, throw on the game tape of him versus the Saints to start last season. He sliced up what turned out to be a pretty good defense for 346 yards and 3 TDs. Now, if(potentially when) he gets hurt, rookie Josh Rosen would likely take over. We don’t know how he’ll far in the NFL but it’s hard to see him not funneling targets to his number one read in the progression. That’s one of the best receivers to play game in Fitzgerald. I’d take the main cog in an offense that I know will see a massive target share and can rely on to be a fringe WR1.

Fantasy Football Draft Season – Who should you draft?

Don’t Draft Chris Thompson, RB – Washington Redskins, ADP 7.07

This one pains me to say because Thompson is very fun to watch and he’s a model of perseverance and heart. He’s returned from a broken back, a torn ACL and is in the process of returning from a gruesome leg injury last season. He’ll turn 28 this upcoming season and at some point, those injuries are going to catch up to his 5-8, 191 pound body and I’m a little concerned it could be this year.

Thompson really burst onto the fantasy scene last year as he became known for his splash plays out of the backfield. In nine full games last year, he amassed about 500 yards receiving and found the end zone three times. That would be great for an RB2 or a Flex option on your team but he was solely dependent on the big play. Nine receptions accounted for 293 of his 510 receiving yards in 2017. I usually don’t like to play the game of “if you take these plays away” because it tends to cherry pick stats. However, 57 percent of a season’s total yardage coming off that small an amount of pass plays for a running back is just totally unsustainable. That’s in line with his career yards per reception, which is 8.7 yards. That’s driven up by his massive 13.1 yards per reception in 2017.

The biggest issue I have with Thompson is his value has been totally reliant on his receiving ability. The Redskins have wisely not tried to make him any type of workhorse back due to his size and injury history. His career high in touches is 130. That train of thought isn’t likely to change this year  as Washington drafted rookie running back Derrius Guice from LSU in the third round. He’s going to be the early down hammer with Thompson handling passing duties and third down work. Satellite backs can be major fantasy assets. I’d just prefer to take one that doesn’t have this type of injury history and isn’t coming off a highly unsustainable yards per catch. Instead, I’d take the next player on the list.

Fantasy Football Draft Season – Who should you draft?

Draft C.J. Anderson, RB – Carolina Panthers, ADP 8.08

I think a lot of fantasy players haven’t realized what type of role C.J. Anderson has walked into when he signed in Carolina. Incumbent running back Christian McCaffrey is not going to be the workhorse style back in the offense. As much as some want it to happen, it’s just not going to. That doesn’t mean Anderson can’t be a mid-range RB2 this upcoming season. He was the ninth leading rusher last season in Denver and should see another 200 carries this upcoming season in a better offense than he was in. He is currently the RB39 off the board and there’s a very solid chance he finishes in the top 24 this year.

Last year, the washed up Jonathan Stewart received 198 carries in this offense, even though he didn’t do much to deserve it. His yards per carry has dropped each year in the past three seasons until it hit rock bottom at 3.4 yards per carry last year. Anderson is younger and just a flat out better running back at this point in their respective careers. There’s not reason to think that Anderson isn’t in line for 200 carries himself in 2018. When a running back is talented and in an offense with perennial running threat Cam Newton, he’s got a major chance at success. Newton helps open up running lanes because the opposing defense has to account for Newton taking off with his legs and running different types of play fakes.

Anderson is coming off his first career season of rushing for 1,000 yards in an offense that had a bottom 10 passing game in terms of yards. His quarterback play was putrid last year. The key for Anderson was he finally played a full schedule. That’s never happened before and the fact that he’s splitting work with McCaffrey could help keep him fresh and healthy this year. Stewart finished as the RB36 last year. Anderson is going behind that and it’s hard to believe that Anderson is any worse that the 3.4 YPC that Stewart posted last year. Anderson was a top 20 back last year with only three touchdowns. His arrow should be firmly pointed up and he’s a massive bargain this year. Especially if you lean towards receivers early in the draft, Anderson is the perfect RB2 to target all the way in Round 8.

Fantasy Football Draft Season – Who should you draft?

Don’t Draft Jordan Reed, TE – Washington Redskins, ADP 8.04

Can someone out there please help me figure out why in the world Reed is getting drafted as a top 90 player? Last I checked, it’s no longer 2016. Reed was a total fantasy wasteland last season, finishing as the TE37. That was directly behind such positional luminaries such as Rhett Ellison and Luke Willson. I don’t even mind taking a shot at Reed. He’s insanely talented when he’s healthy but he’s also only suited up for 18 of the past 32 games. That’s not the type of track record I want from a pick that’s in the top 100.

There’s almost no reason to take Reed as a top 10 tight end this season. He has the opportunity to succeed with new quarterback Alex Smith and continuing in Jay Gruden’s offense. In his five seasons, Reed has finished as a top 10 tight end twice and one of those seasons he finished ninth. Players are still chasing that magical 2015 season when he scored 11 touchdowns to go with 952 receiving yards. Those 11 touchdowns represent exactly half of his career scores. You’re paying for one of the better case scenarios for Reed if you take him this high.

Tight end is an interesting position this year. After the big three of Rob Gronkowski, Travis Kelce and Zach Ertz, there’s a lot of players that could rise up. There are other upside options that you can feel comfortable to take a chance with. It’s unfortunate that Reed has seen his career be plagued by injuries. He feels like the type of player that is one hit away from being injured again, especially with his history of concussions. The reward isn’t worth risking an eighth round pick on a player that could vanish from your lineup any given week. That holds true with any player, but the history shows Reed will get hurt at some point. If you’re totally committed to taking Reed, at least make sure you grab Vernon Davis. When Reed gets hurt, you can plug-in Davis who should roll right into the starting lineup without much issue. I will happily wait a few picks and take my chance on a young tight end who is scratching the surface of what he’s capable of.

Fantasy Football Draft Season – Who should you draft?

Draft George Kittle, TE – San Francisco 49ers, ADP 10.02

I find myself eschewing the top three tight ends because I know that I’m willing to take Kittle a round earlier than he typically goes because I’m all in on this kid. It’s fairly well-known that most tight ends tend to struggle in their first year in the NFL. There’s a lot to learn with running routes and blocking schemes so it doesn’t always click right off the bat. Kittle was a fifth round pick in the NFL draft and actually set records for receptions and yards for a tight end that has been taken so late. He finished as the TE20 which is fairly impressive for a rookie who had multiple quarterbacks last year.

Kittle and quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo seemed to get on the same page a little bit in their last three games together. Kittle exceeded 40 yards in all three games and it’s super important to remember that Jimmy G didn’t get to the 49ers until the middle of the season. Building chemistry on the fly is never easy. If you need a reminder, look how quarterback Matt Ryan did in his first season with Kyle Shanahan. He had one of the least productive seasons of his career. This will be the first offseason in the offense and Kittle is quite the athlete.

There aren’t many players that play tight end that are almost 250 pounds, 6’4″ and can run a 4.5 40 yard dash. Kittle is an elite athlete by a lot of measures and seemed to be developing rapport with Garoppolo towards the end of the season. He saw 16 red-zone targets last year which is a great sign for how he’ll be used this year. No other receiver for the 49ers is over 6′ tall and weighs over 215 pounds. Kittle should dominate the red zone with his athleticism and size and will be a top 10 tight end for fantasy this season.

Next: Who should you take ar #1 in your Fantasy Football Draft?

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