It's fantasy football draft season, so it's the perfect time to assess the validity of emerging conventional wisdom. Matt Okada examines six fantasy takes, separating fact from fiction.
1) FACT: Rushing QBs rule
Over the last two decades, we have seen a meteoric rise in the prevalence of rushing quarterbacks at the top of the fantasy charts. For a while, QBs who topped 400 yards and four TDs on the ground in a season (minimum of 200 pass attempts) were an anomaly, with maybe one player hitting those marks each year. No longer. We've seen at least three quarterbacks reach that benchmark in seven straight seasons -- and five in both 2022 and 2023. Of the 18 such finishes over the last five seasons, 16 coincided with QB1 seasons -- including four of five in 2022 and all three in 2021.
The very top of the position has also been ruled by rushers in recent years. In 2023, Josh Allen (QB1), Jalen Hurts (QB2) and Lamar Jackson (QB4) averaged 650 yards and 12 scores on the ground between them. And of course, we've seen QB1 finishes from rushing QBs with downright terrible passing stats: Justin Fields (2022), Daniel Jones (2022) and Hurts (2021) each finished in the top 12 with fewer than 3,300 passing yards and fewer than 20 passing touchdowns.
In 2024, we're looking at more of the same. Of the top six quarterbacks in our NFL.com rankings, at least five (Allen, Hurts, Jackson, Anthony Richardson and Kyler Murray) have elite rushing ability, with the sixth (Patrick Mahomes) bringing sneaky value with his legs, as well. You can also see the rushing bump when it comes to rookies, as Washington's Jayden Daniels is ranked (and typically drafted) higher than Caleb Williams, despite being a less-hyped prospect in real life and having a far less impressive supporting cast in Washington than Williams does in Chicago.
Rushing QBs are incredibly strong and growing stronger. If you are a stationary quarterback, good luck sneaking past the dual-threat stars to break the elite tier, unless you plan to lead the league in passing stats.
2) FICTION: Justin Jefferson is still a no-doubt top-tier fantasy WR
The season-ending injury suffered by No. 10 overall pick J.J. McCarthy seemingly locks Sam Darnold in as the Vikings' starting quarterback in 2024. This reality is less than ideal for Justin Jefferson, who is arguably the league's best receiver. Nearly 90 percent of Jefferson's career targets have come from Kirk Cousins, a four-time Pro Bowler carrying an above-average touchdown rate, completion percentage and yards-per-attempt mark for his career. But Cousins is now in Atlanta. Darnold, meanwhile, has never made a Pro Bowl and has sub-par marks (at best) in each of those statistical categories, plus many others. The best single fantasy season any player has produced with Darnold at QB was Jamison Crowder's WR26 finish with the Jets in 2019.
Of course, Jefferson is not Jamison Crowder. He's a transcendent stud who averaged 22.1 fantasy points per game in four contests with Nick Mullens at QB last season (though it's worth noting that even Mullens has better efficiency numbers than Darnold). Moreover, with Jordan Addison dealing with an ankle injury (and an off-the-field incident), T.J. Hockenson starting the season on the sideline and very little else on the depth chart, Jefferson is a strong contender to lead the league in targets.
The optimistic case for Jefferson is that Darnold improves with Kevin O'Connell as his head coach and Jefferson as his WR1, leading him to post a career year in Minnesota. In that reality, Jefferson could be the WR1 overall. The pessimistic case for Jefferson, though, is that he'll go through something similar to what we saw Davante Adams deal with last season in Las Vegas. Adams' production suffered thanks to subpar play from the Raiders' QB carousel, as the veteran receiver had 175 targets but just 265 fantasy points (WR10 overall). In other words, the situation under center and the offense in Las Vegas capped the overall upside of an elite player with an elite target volume. And I feel the latter potential scenario is rather plausible. I don't think Jefferson's year will be an outright disaster, but I don't think he'll coast to the front of the pack. In terms of my draft-season prediction, I have Jefferson right in the middle, at WR5 (eighth overall), behind Amon-Ra St. Brown.
3) FACT: The TE position is better than it's ever been in fantasy
There is a caveat to consider here that splashes a bit of cold water on the above statement. But before we get to that, let's remember that last year, six tight ends reached 200 fantasy points, the most since 2013 and tied for the most in a single season all time. And that top six didn't include Mark Andrews (who missed time with injury) or heavily hyped youngsters Trey McBride, Dalton Kincaid and Kyle Pitts -- all of whom are being drafted in the top six in many leagues this year.
Now for the caveat: While the position appears deep, it may also be a little less magnificent than usual at the very top. Last season, no tight end broke the 250 fantasy-points plane, the first time that's happened since 2017 -- in 2018, we saw three guys reached that mark. As a result, many leagues could go two full rounds without drafting a tight end this August, a scenario most haven't encountered since Rob Gronkowski and Jimmy Graham hit the scene more than a decade ago.
Ultimately, the reason the position is in such good shape this draft season is how slowly our confidence fades as we drop down the draft board. Travis Kelce, Sam LaPorta, McBride and Andrews are all studs worth taking in the first four rounds, but if you end up with Kincaid, Pitts and George Kittle in the fifth, you're still feeling great about the position. Even if you dip down to Evan Engram or Jake Ferguson in the sixth or seventh, you'll feel better taking the TE8 or TE9 than you would have in years past. (And I, for one, love Pat Freiermuth in the 10th.) We may not see a TE light up fantasy like Gronk or prime-Kelce, but from a broad view, the position has arguably never been stronger.
4) FICTION: The Chargers are a lock to single-mindedly pound the rock
In each of the four seasons since drafting Justin Herbert, the Chargers have ranked in the top five in pass attempts. But 2024 ushers in a new era. New head coach Jim Harbaugh and offensive coordinator Greg Roman worked together in San Francisco from 2011 through 2014 and ranked third in the league in rush attempts over that span. From 2019 through 2022, Roman's Ravens led the NFL in rush attempts by ... a lot.
But before we label the Chargers the "Ravens of the West," it's worth considering the quarterback histories of these coaches. Roman has worked with Lamar Jackson and Tyrod Taylor over the last decade, and both guys had Colin Kaepernick in San Francisco. Herbert, mobile though he may be, is not those guys; he is a pocket passer with scrambling ability. I doubt this coaching staff will abandon its best player's best quality -- his arm -- out of stubborn devotion to a ground-and-pound philosophy.
The front office has seemingly prepared for a run-heavy approach, bringing in former Ravens RBs Gus Edwards and J.K. Dobbins, allowing pass-catching specialist Austin Ekeler and top wideouts Keenan Allen and Mike Williams to depart in free agency and spending the Chargers' first pick on an offensive lineman (tackle Joe Alt) instead of a star receiver. But the Bolts also traded up at the top of the second round to get (presumably) a new WR1 in Ladd McConkey.
Ultimately, I agree Los Angeles will take a much more balanced approach than it's had in recent years, but I believe it will be just that: balanced. As a result, several of the Chargers players that can be had at an apparent discount right now might end up as fantasy values. For example, I'd happily draft McConkey, Edwards, Herbert, Dobbins and/or Joshua Palmer at their current prices.
5) FICTION: The loaded Bears offense is GUARANTEED to be great in fantasy
First overall pick Caleb Williams enters a dream situation in Chicago, with a supporting cast that includes 2023 stud DJ Moore, six-time Pro Bowler Keenan Allen and ninth overall pick Rome Odunze at wide receiver. But rookie quarterbacks aren't typically explosive in fantasy. So the question is, will these talented wideouts elevate Williams, or might the former Trojan slow them down as he acclimates to the pros?
In NFL history, 52 teams have had three wide receivers top 150 fantasy points (essentially the threshold to be a WR4 or better) in the same season. The average passing totals for those squads were 4,458 yards and 30 touchdowns (both marks would be in the top two by a rookie all time), and 83 percent of those teams topped 4,000 yards ... something no Bears QB has ever done. Of the 52 teams, just two were led primarily by rookie quarterbacks (Andrew Luck's Colts and Gardner Minshew's Jaguars). Add in the fact that Chicago's new OC, Shane Waldron, ran the slowest offense in the NFL over the past three years in Seattle (ranking last in plays per game), and we've got real concern.
The good news is that all this bad news is baked into the draft prices. Average draft position has Williams as the QB12 (fair), Moore at WR22 (a great discount, compared to his 2023 finish), Allen at WR35 (he would probably require about 100 targets to pay that off) and Odunze at WR38 (reasonable with his explosiveness, though perhaps more valid in best-ball formats). The real problem will be consistency. All three of these receivers might finish at or ahead of their ADPs, but how reliable will each be on a weekly basis, with the others clamoring for targets? In the end, I'm personally drafting Moore (whose value feels the best for the upside) and leaving Williams and the other receivers for someone else in my league.
6) (MOSTLY) FACT: Drafting RBs on bad offenses is a hopeless endeavor
Let's define "bad offenses" as those that rank in the bottom eight in scoring or total offense (or both) and "good running backs" as those who score 15-plus fantasy points per game, typically enough to break into the RB1 range. Got it? Good.
Over the last five seasons, there have been 62 "good" running back seasons. Of those, just seven (11.3%) came from RBs playing for a bottom-eight scoring offense, while six (9.7%) were from RBs playing for a bottom-eight total offense. On the flip side, 19 (30.6%) were from RBs on top-eight scoring offenses, and 18 (29.0%) were from RBs on top-eight total offenses. In other words, playing in an offense in the top quarter of the league makes you about three times more likely to crack RB1 territory than playing in a bottom-quarter offense.
Case closed? Not necessarily. Saquon Barkley and Breece Hall in 2023, Derrick Henry in 2022 and James Robinson in 2020 all hit 15-plus PPG while playing for offenses ranked in the bottom eight in both offensive categories. How? Three of those four averaged 20-plus touches per game, while Hall came up a bit short (17.6) but averaged 4.5 receptions per game. In our five-year sample, 26 of 30 running backs to hit 20-plus touches per game also hit the 15 PPG threshold.
Targeting backs in top offenses is undoubtedly best. But if you can land the high-volume anchors of the poor offenses -- especially if they're pass-catching studs -- you can find RB1 upside. Guys like Zamir White, Rhamondre Stevenson, Javonte Williams and Devin Singletary could be the 2024 versions of these value running backs and are available in the sixth round or later.
