Fantasy Football 2024: 1 player to avoid drafting at ADP for each position

The 2024 NFL season is right around the corner. You’re probably getting ready for your final fantasy drafts right now, trying to sort through all the muck and names in order to figure out what you’re going to do.

There’s this idea that you win your fantasy drafts in the late rounds by building up your depth, but you lose it in the early rounds by making bad picks. If your second round pick busts, you’re going to face a really uphill battle to win your league.

Now, I don’t think the following players are busts, but I do think there are enough warning signs for me to avoid them at their current ADP. Here is one player per position that I’m not drafting unless they fall lower than anticipated in drafts. (Or, well…at the four positions that matter. I’m not taking a kicker of D/ST early enough to worry about ADP and my advice is always that you shouldn’t either!)

Quarterback: Josh Allen

ADP: 22

Josh Allen is currently being drafted as the No. 1 overall quarterback in fantasy leagues. He’s the only quarterback who is consistently being taken in the first two rounds of drafts.

I don’t object to Allen being the top QB drafted, but I don’t see the value at his current ADP considering he enters 2024 with significant question marks regarding who he’ll be throwing the football to. With Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis both gone, the Bills will roll out some combination of Keon Coleman, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Khalil Shakir, Curtis Sanuel and Mack Hollins at receiver. There’s a good argument that if Coleman isn’t able to make an instant impact as a rookie, then this is the NFL’s worst receiving unit.

Kansas City won a Super Bowl with a poor receiving group last year, so I can understand why the Bills think they can replicate that with Josh Allen. It could definitely happen. But if we’re solely focused on fantasy football, this isn’t good news for Allen.

In 2023, Mahomes finished as the QB8, his worst fantasy finish as a full-time starter. He threw for 5,250 yards in 2022 with 41 touchdowns, but that dropped to 4,183 yards and 27 touchdowns last season. Drops were a huge issue, which left a lot of yards on the board.

Now, Allen faces that same concern. I wouldn’t be shocked at all to see Allen’s passing numbers take a similar step back. One thing he does have going for him is that he’s a bigger rushing threat than Mahomes, especially in the red zone. Allen had 15 rushing touchdowns last year. Even if he regresses back to his usual mark, which is right around eight rushing scores, his rushing floor and ceiling should allow him to finish as a top-five fantasy QB.

Still, to draft a QB in the second round, I need there to be zero question marks. I’d much rather pass on Allen and find a QB two or three rounds later. 

Running Back: Kyren Williams

ADP: 16

Kyren Williams is going early in the second round right now. Kyren Williams was also announced as the punt returner for the Rams, something that suggests his workload won’t be as heavy at running back to justify his steep cost.

Another thing that suggests that? The Rams spent a third-round pick on former Michigan running back Blake Corum, who rushed for 27 touchdowns last year for the Wolverines. Corum doesn’t bring much upside as a receiver, but he’ll command goal-line touches, lowering Williams’s upside. 

2023 was a great campaign for the former fifth-round pick as he led the NFL in rushing yards per game, but all signs point to that being … well, not a fluke per se, but definitely a high point for Williams as far as per-game efficiency goes. I’d be much more comfortable with him at a third-round cost than a second-round cost.

Wide Receiver: Puka Nacua

ADP: 14

Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Puka Nacua was nearly unstoppable as a rookie, but that doesn’t make me confident drafting him as early as he’s going right now in 2024 fantasy drafts, for two main reasons.

The first is that Cooper Kupp missed five games last year and he was far from his usual self when he was on the field. In 2022, Kupp averaged 90.2 receiving yards per game, but in 2023 that dropped way down to 61.4, his lowest mark since his rookie year. If Kupp is actually healthy in 2024 — which is definitely not a guarantee after he played just 21 games over the past two seasons — then Nacua is going to lose some targets to him.

The other concern with Nacua comes via injury. While the Rams continue to say he’ll be ready to go in Week 1, the former BYU star spent the preseason dealing with a knee issue suffered in the joint practice with the Chargers and just recently returned to practice.

Nacua will likely have another strong season, but I can’t get myself to take him at the Round 1/Round 2 turn. I was hoping the injury would depress his value a bit, but that never wound up happening.

Tight End: David Njoku

ADP: 86

Most of the tight end rankings seem pretty on point heading into the season, but I worry about Browns tight end David Njoku as a top-100 pick,

On one hand, Njoku is coming off of his best NFL season, catching 81 passes for 882 yards and six touchdowns last season. All three numbers were career highs, as were his 123 targets. It was a strong 2023 campaign for the long-time Brown.

On the other hand, it took until his seventh year in the league for Njoku to put up that kind of numbers, and it happened on a Browns team where there was a clear gap in receiving options beyond Njoku, Amari Cooper and Elijah Moore.

For 2024, the Browns attempted to fix that issue. The team traded for Jerry Jeudy, who disappointed in Denver but is still young enough to turn things around. Njoku is now the third or fourth option in Cleveland. I don’t know if I can view him as a top fantasy tight end right now.