The Official All-Fade List.

It’s not every year that I tell you not to draft David Johnson, James Conner, Todd Gurley, Le’Veon Bell and Leonard Fournette in the 3rd, 4th and 5th round. Just last year.

Yeah whatever maybe I told you guys to draft Miles Sanders. It’s like when someone says they’re good at giving relationship advice, but they’re not good in relationships. That’s basically me here. Maybe I’m not good at picking the best players because emotions get involved, but when we get to FADING players you don’t want to let me into my zone.

Hereth lie my OFFICIAL FADE LIST for the 2021 fantasy football season, position-by-position.

Burrow is no farce. Nor do I think he’ll lack greatness upon his journey as an NFL QB, but to matter of big factly draft this man with as much confidence as fantasy player have been this summer seems a bit impulsive.

Dynasty? Go for it. We’re here to hit the hardware in 2021, though.

I get the allure behind Burrow. Former number #1 overall pick, girthy college numbers, solid rookie year, draft Ja’Marr Chase in the first round, etc. etc.

But let’s not let the timeframe of his ACL tear slip from our minds. Burrow tore his knee up in Week 11 last year. Not only did he tear is ACL, but his MCL too, which leads to a lengthier rehab. The MCL needs to fully heal by allowing the swelling succumb to mother nature before they can violate the ACL, thus adding a couple of weeks onto the recovery timeline. “NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo said Joe Burrow’s multi-ligament knee injury suffered Sunday against Washington is comparable to Carson Wentz’s 2017 knee injury. Wentz tore his ACL and LCL in December 2017 and went on to miss 2018’s first two regular season games.”

Every report this offseason has been grand and chipper in regards to Burrow’s rehab, but being on the field for Week 1 and being BEING on the field for Week 1 are two different things. This is a tale as old as Animal: we want to draft players two years removed from their ACL tear not one. And if we’re going to do it one year removed, it should be from a player who tore their ACL in the first month of the season, at the latest.

Joe Burrow may very well be on the field for Week 1, but what type of Joe Burrow are we going to get? Probably not the mobile one that everyone in fantasy likes to say has “sneaky athleticism”. He’s going to be more statue than scrambler in 2021, and that’s not good when you consider that he averaged taking 4.7 hits/game last year, which was the 3rd highest rate in the NFL behind Wentz and Cousins.

One of the biggest storylines leading up to the NFL Draft was what Cincinnati would do with their 5th overall pick. Sewell or Chase. Chase or Sewell. After Burrow yelled at Cincy’s front office enough not to be welcomed on wuY, to reunite him with his former LSU alpha wideout Ja’Marr Chase, the line remains a liability. According to PFF, the Bengals were the NFL’s 6th worst pass-blocking unit in the NFL in 2020. According to an article that dropped a few weeks ago “Ranking all 32 NFL offensive line units ahead of the 2021 season“, they’ll enter the year with the 24th ranked offensive line, after the addition they made this offseason. They’re “building” around Jonah Williams, whose PFF grade last year was 45th among tackles. Yes, they signed Riley Reiff who is certainly an upgrade to what they had, but isn’t going to be the game-changer people are making this move out to be. They invested more draft capital (2nd, 4th and 6th rounders) into the offensive line which is great, but between the development of rookies and continuity being such a strong developmental part of a successful offensive line rebuild, we’re probably a year away from seeing these changes making a tangible, fantasy-usable impact on the field for Burrow.

You have a below-average line, with an immobile Burrow = bad things are going to happen.

Another thing that I think needs to be addressed is that while the Bengals slinger was great as a rookie, I think people are confusing great as an NFL rookie with being great for fantasy football. Burrow was the QB17 last year in fantasy points per game – couldn’t find a less impactful to your lineup fantasy ranking than a mid QB2.

He had two MASSIVE games against Cleveland in which he threw for 316-3 and 406-3, adding 54 yards in a score. It led to some eye-opening splits:

When he wasn’t playing against Cleveland, Burrow as throwing 0.88 touchdowns/game. Cleveland should have a wildly improved defense in 2021 (play second time in Week 18), but they still have to play BAL and PIT twice. Here’s Cincy’s schedule leading into the fantasy playoffs, starting in Week 12: PIT, LAC, SF, @DEN, BAL. Lawdamercy.

Maybe you want to draft Burrow, so do it. But after the Bengals Week 4-9 slate (JAC, GB, DET, BAL, NYJ, CLE), please sell him at your local flea market.

Burrow will likely finish as a high-mid QB2, and without a doubt be usable in superflex leagues, but getting drafted ahead of Brady, Tannehill, Stafford and Aaron Rodgers right now seems like the easiest no-no of the 2021 draft szn.

I mean, have you simply turned on a Falcons game since 2019? Matt Ryan’s arm is dangerously close to being confused with angel hair spaghetti. He’s quickly going down the Drew Brees trajectory of once-great talents who are breaking down in front of us, in real-time.

Matt Ryan is going to be the fantasy QB that continuously injects your lineup with 15-16 fantasy points per week, and you’re going to look byke and ask yourself how you finished in 7th place, missing the playoff cut. You won’t notice him draining the upside from your roster, but it’s there.

The easiest discrepancy for me with Ryan is the difference between his volume and efficiency in 2020 and the change that’s going to happen in Atlanta’s offense in 2021.

Matt Ryan finished as the QB13 in fantasy football last year, averaging 17.7 fantasy points per game. Matt Ryan also led the NFL with 626 pass attempts.

PlayerProfiler Advanced Metric Ranks

• Adjusted YPA: 18th
• Accuracy Rating: 19th
• Fantasy Points Per Dropback: 22nd
• Catchable Pass Rate: 31st
• Redzone Completion Rate: 47th

PFF Advanced Metric Ranks

• Completion Rate on Deep Passes: 19th
• Big Time Throw Rate: 22nd
• Completion Rate Under Pressure: 20th

Ryan was thriving, and thriving is a STRETCH, he was competent last year as a fantasy QB because he literally led the league in pass attempts.

Dirk Koetter who perennially doesn’t give a fuck about his offense, he just throws the ball into the abyss, is gone. And thank god. But that also means that the team won’t remain a top-5 pass rate squad. They should be WAY more balanced of a team under new HC Arthur Smith.

Let’s also not forget that the Falcons defense for whatever fucking reason… oh yeah Dan Quinn got canned, was much, much better over the 2H of last year than at any point over the previous FIVE fucking seasons.

Losing Julio hurts. My heart. And Matt Ryan’s fantasy outlook. These are Ryan’s splits over the last 3 years with vs. without Julio:

He averages 4.5 fewer fantasy points, 0.4 more interceptions, 0.3 fewer passing TDs, 1.3 fewer YPA and 41 fewer passing yards per game without Julio in the lineup. Simple arithmetic will tell you that, yes, losing the greatest active WR in the NFL will hurt.

If you want a poor man’s version of 2018-2020 Matt Ryan, draft Matt Ryan in 2021. Give me Cousins, Wentz and Daniel Jones before Ryan, who are all getting drafted afterward.

I’ve always said that unless you’re an elite thrower of the football, one of the five most accurate quarterbacks in the league, your fantasy value is going to live and die with your rushing upside and the talent of the players around you.

Winston was set up to be a sum of his parts QB in 2021. With Michael Thomas in for another wash of a season, Winston’s top target right now looks to be an undrafted 23-year-old who’s played in 8 games and racked up a seasoned 213 career yards. That man is Marquez Callaway.

Without Michael Thomas, Winston’s fantasy upside is that of a grilled chicken finger. Meh. So many more appealing options on the menu and could be satisfying if cooked perfectly and smothered in Ken’s honey mustard. Michael Thomas was Winston’s Ken’s.

That’s all best-case scenario, assuming Winston wins the starting job. Without Michael Thomas and with an average defense, the Saints won’t be able to win games with a ground-and-pound style of play. They’ll need to be creative to move things on the offensive side of the ball. There’s been arguably nothing more creative in recent years than the way Sean Payton has used Taysom Hill. We’re going to see way too much Taysom Hill this year, if he’s not just named the starter, straight up.

Winston might be named the starter, shoot up in ADP and see 20% of the snaps inside the redzone. Best case scenario feels like Winston becoming the Peyton Barber of fantasy quarterbacks in 2021.

There aren’t a ton of early-round RBs I outright hate enough to dive into on the official fade list for 2021. There are risks with Alvin Kamara (the Saints offense downright stinks and Taysom Hill takes a ton of the GL carries + target numbers drop for AK), Jonathan Taylor (Wentz & Quenton Nelson both out indefinitely + RBBC with Nyheim Hines), Clyde-Edwards Helaire (could just be a very mediocre NFL running back when all is said and done), Najee Harris (awful offensive line), J.K. Dobbins and D’Andre Swift (both likely in timeshares with Gus Edwards and Jamaal Williams), but to be clear I think all of them are priced accordingly given their upside/risk ratio. The trio of sophomores JT (ADP hasn’t fully corrected yet), Dobbins and Swift are all going to be mid-late 3rd round picks. It’s hard to disappoint at that price, especially when all three have RB1 upside. Kamara might simply catch 100 passes because the Saints have nowhere to throw the ball. Saquon is an alien and should be treated accordingly. Clyde’s upside in this offense is too pretty to ignore. He could be a shitty running back and roll his way into 14 touchdowns behind Patrick Mahomes. A late 2nd/early 3rd round price is warranted. Najee Harris might get a 92% touch share in this backfield. He might average 3.4 yards per carry, but you can’t bet against 350 touches. Diversify. Risk, reward, risk, reward. Diversify. Say it with me and prosper.

With that shpeel out of the way, these are guys that I’ll preferably leave my draft with 0 shares of this summer:

You’ll notice that I left one name off of the early-round RB list above. And I know what you’re thinking, how can you possibly fade an alien playing against mere humans. Outside of Saquon’s pure physical athleticism, I’m not sure I can name a single thing working in his favor this year.

Saquon lands on this list purely for those of y’all looking to take him inside the top five-seven picks of your fantasy draft this summer. I’m so inside my fantasy football bubble that I assume everyone knows not to do that at this point, but there are a zillion drive-by fantasy players that don’t dip into the research until literal hours before draft night. This one’s for you

The case against Saquon is simple – if you’re drafting him this year, you’re doing it because of his athleticism, plain and simple.

Saquon’s a year removed from an ACL tear (one that came with more baggage than my ex) and based on all reports, he’s clearly not 100% healthy, otherwise, we wouldn’t keep hearing reports about him. We don’t know if he’ll be ready for Week 1, and if he is, there’s a really good chance he’s limited for a while.

Outside of the injury, the Giants offense is objectively an absolute shite situation to find your first-round running back in.

By nearly every measure and statistic, the Giants offensive line is going to be among the worst in the NFL this year. Saquon’s going to be a magnet in the backfield to crashing defensive lineman and if his knee can’t shapeshift him 3 yards laterally to elude these guys, he’s going to be in trouble.

The offense overall is probably going to stink again. The G-Men scored 17.5 points per game in 2020. That was 31st in the league. The only team that scored fewer points than the Giants shared a field with them. The stinky ass Jets could barely score two touchdowns a game (14.5).

Daniel Jones has proven to be miserable under pressure, and he will be under it a lot in 2021. I was hopeful that Kenny G’s contested catch ability would soften the pressure for DJ, but he’s already out with a multi-week hamstring injury and I’m worried this is simply going to cascade into another lost season for the Giants offense.

Looking at his 121-target, 2,000-yard rookie season gets me hard. But it’s not the reality of the situation for Saquon in 2021. As soon as geriatric Eli stepped away from the situation into a nursing home, the mobile Daniel Jones forced Barkley’s target numbers to dip by more than 2 per game. It makes sense that when an athletic QB is under pressure, their first instinct is to tuck, run and avoid the pressure with their feet. A non-mobile QB like Eli, to put it nicely, was paralyzed from the waist down so his first thought was Saquon, Saquon and Saquon.

His upside is capped at his athleticism.

You have a player coming off an ACL tear, running behind one of the worst offensive lines in the league in an offense that will be amongst the lowest scoring. Objectively, Saquon should be nowhere near the top five picks in fantasy drafts this year.

Oh, how the tables have turned.

Fuck yall tbh

If Sanders and that Philly o-line stayed healthy in 2020, he would’ve been an RB1. But Miles’s workhorse days are miles behind him. The upside that gave 2020 Nick wet dreams have dried up.

If I had to summarize Philly’s offseason into meme culture: Tell me you’re not going to feature one running back, without telling me you’re not going to feature one back….

But they also told us to tho.

When it comes to running back opportunities, talent tends to win out. Over the long run. But the quantity of fuckery going on in Philly’s backfield is an Empire State Building tall red flag. They re-signed Jordan Howard, brought in Kerryon Johnson and drafted pass-catching gawd Kenneth Gainwell. They still have Boston Scott who touched the ball more than 100 times last year.

Maybe all four of those guys total 125 touches in 2021. That’s the best-case scenario for Sanders. Or maybe Jordan Howard and Boston Scott vulture 10-zone work while Gainwell carves out a 3rd down, Gio Bernard type-role.

Nick Sirianni, the Eagle’s new HC is coming over from the Colts, who, even with alien athlete Jonathan Taylor in their backfield, decided to use Nyheim Hines at a rate that would make you question Sirianni’s brain size. It’s going to happen again in Philadelphia. Sanders has reportedly been straight cheeks as a receiver through camp so far, giving way to both Boston Scott and Kenny Gainwell as receivers out of the backfield. It seems all but sharpied in that we see this carry over into the regular season.

For as much love as I’ve shown Jalen Hurts and DeVonta Smith this summer, there’s a very, very real chance that this team absolutely implodes in 2021. Vegas has their win total listed at 6.5, that’s tied with Jacksonville and Cincinnati. Only Houston, New York (J) and Detroit have lower win totals.

To wrap this up, Their coaches are already telling you what they plan on doing in this backfield, and it’s not featuring Miles Sanders, so if you decide to use your 3rd round pick on him, you’re not allowed to be angry, disappointed or somber when they do exactly that. Because they literally told you what they’re going to do.

So y’all are buying tickets for the Miles Sanders, D’Andre Swift, J.K. Dobbins, Cam Akers ride again this year, huh.

As much as we love Travis Etienne as a prospect, we have to be realistic about the situation he’s going into.

How do we expect him to see ANY goal-line carries when Tim Tebow is now an elite receiving, rushing and passing threat inside-the-5? What say you? That’s what I thought.

The reality of the situation is that during his rookie season, Travis Etienne is going to be used as a weapon and not a workhorse fantasy running back. The only path to the upside is injuries. And more than one of them. I’m not using a 5th round pick on that bullshit.

We do this every year. We draft the enticing talent, but far from opportunistic running backs. As previously mentioned, we’ve done this before. Like every year. D’Andre Swift, Cam Akers and J.K. Dobbins in rounds 5-8. Miles Sanders the year before that. All guys that are super athletic, that MIGHT have big roles in their offense, but almost always wind up taking like half the season, if not longer, to become fantasy relevant.

Urban Meyer compared Etienne to Percy Harvin. Meyer said he wished Kadarius Toney fell to them at 25, another weapon. Meyer loves weapons. Weapons are not good for fantasy football.

If James Robinson wasn’t there, I bet Carlos Hyde would piss us off as Etienne owners. But they’re both there. And I’m ready for y’all to get double pissed.

A quick recap for y’all from Jared Smola:

There’s something to be said for 1st round draft capital, of course. But what I’m going to say isn’t all rainbows and woodpeckers.

While first-round running backs, when thrown into one group, see a healthy number of touches (16.7/game) during their rookie season, the running backs drafted in the 17-32 range (Etienne was taken 25th overall), average closer to 12 touches/game during their inaugural NFL campaign. I don’t do projections, but if I did (I’d kill myself), I’d put borderline a zillion bucks that Etienne’s would flirt with 8-10 carries & 3-5 targets a game. It’s not terrible, but the upside isn’t there.

James Robinson and Carlos Hyde being in a Jacksonville uniform all but guarantee Etienne’s carry totals disappoint in 2020. Etienne would be lucky to see 20% of the goal-line carries with Robinson, Hyde and a wickedly mobile Trevor Lawrence in the backfield. Don’t forget, Lawrence scored 8 and 9 rushing TDs over the last two years at Clemson – this could very well be a Josh Allen-ish situation. 20% of the goal-line carries on an offense that saw a COMBINED 7 GOAL-LINE CARRIES all of last year.

Snap out of dynasty/rookie mode before you enter your season-long drafts, please. Like Miles Sanders’ situation, Urban Meyer is already telling us that they’re going to use a committee, so don’t be upset when they do.

Man, was my take spot MFing on. In Jacksonville’s first preseason game, we saw Trevor Lawrence play on 15 snaps. James Robinson saw 7 of them, along with the start while Etienne saw 5 and Hyde saw 3. Robinson monopolized the 3rd down as well as inside-the-5 snaps. This is the kind of split I’m expecting for a really big portion of the season. Etienne should finish the year playing on 35-40% of the team’s snaps. He’ll be a better real-life player than a fantasy player in 2021.

Gaskin wasn’t a guy I was sitting at the edge of my seat for when Round 5 hit to run-up to the draft board to slap his name on. And after the first week of preseason, a game where Malcolm Brown dominated first-string touches. And to make Gaskin owners even more anxious, third-down snaps.

Tua Tagovailoa played 23 snaps Saturday. Total RB snaps:

Malcolm Brown 16
Myles Gaskin 7

Third-down RB snaps:
Malcolm Brown 2
Myles Gaskin 0

Inside 5-yard line RB snaps:
Malcolm Brown 2
Myles Gaskin 0

— Adam Levitan (@adamlevitan) August 16, 2021

You might think we’re like a dude with bad neck posture and getting out ahead of ourselves, but the signs cant be more clear on what Brian Flores’ approach to his backfield is going to be this year. And that is approach is deploying a 3-way committee between Gaskin, Brown and Salvon Ahmed. You don’t have to take my word for it.

Take his:

For whatever reason, the cesspool that is the NFL head coaching pool absolutely loves Malcolm Brown and every shitty running back like him. Regardless what you think of him as a player, he’s going to matter.

Gaskin is the quintessential dead-zone running back that you look byke on a year from now and ask yourself how the fuck you thought a guy named Myles Gaskin would be a good fifth-round pick in fantasy. I’ve got the answers to the test for you already, and they say he’s not.

The hype has surpassed the reality of the situation here in Denver for rookie running back Javonte Williams.

*Insert paragraph from Travis Etienne*

We do this every year. We draft the enticing talent, but far from opportunistic running backs. As previously mentioned, we’ve done this before. Like every year. D’Andre Swift, Cam Akers and J.K. Dobbins in rounds 5-8. Miles Sanders the year before that. All guys that are super athletic, that MIGHT have big roles in their offense, but almost always wind up taking like half the season, if not longer, to become fantasy relevant.

Melvin Gordon gets a lot of shit for a guy that finished last year as the RB12 in fantasy. 257 touches, 1,144 total yards and 10 total touchdowns.

Is Javonte Williams better than Melvin Gordon at the moment? Probably. Will Javonte Williams eventually unseat Melvin Gordon from the top of the depth chart? Probably. But does that make Javonte Williams in the 5th/6th round a good fantasy pick? Absolutely not. Y’all are trying way too hard to squeeze fantasy points out of talent instead of opportunity.

I trust Benjamin Allbright’s reports on the Broncos more than any other beat reporter. It doesn’t hurt that Ben’s thoughts lined up with what I projected, regardless, but Williams is going to be a committee back in Denver for 2021. If you love him as a prospect, get some dynasty shares of him. But don’t waste a 6th round pick on the rookie who’s going to average 11 touches/game with little passing-down or GL work.

I want to be very clear, while most of the players on this list are hard fades at pretty much any point in fantasy drafts, Edmonds has dropped far enough in ADP that he might come off of this list.

When I first started yelling about drafts on Underdog Fantasy months ago, Chase Edmonds was an early 5th round pick. His ADP has since leveled out, falling to the mid-back of the 6th round. So, we’ll label him as high-risk, maybe not necessarily a “must-fade”.

At the end of the day, Kliff Kingsbury has shown us exactly what he thinks of Chase Edmonds. And he doesn’t think Edmonds is running back. Kliff views Edmonds as a pass-catching weapon out of the backfield. And I have close to 0 confidence that his POV on Chase shifts in 2021.

Edmonds literally took 97 carries last year. He had 25 carries in a single game. That is 26% of Edmonds’ season-total of carries on one Sunday. The other 72 carries were sprinkled throughout 15 weeks (4.8 carries/game). Kenyan Drake, who was playing on a high-ankle sprain for half the season, was the only player Chase was competing with for carries on this Arizona roster and still couldn’t earn any.

Vegas currently has Edmonds’ rushing total for 2021 marked at 650.5 with the juice (-130) on the under. It’s a 17-game season. Quick math tells us that Vegas expects Edmonds to average about 38 rushing yards per game this year. WORKHORSE SHIT RIGHT THERE!!!

The most fucked up stat in regards to Chase Edmonds and all of this?

As the kids and out-of-touch boomers like to say….. ooooooof

That single goal-line carry came last year. Kenyan Drake saw 21 (!!!) goal-line carries in 2020. Kyler Murray took 7 for himself.

Kenyan Drake is gone, but Arizona signed James Conner to replace him. And if you think Kliff won’t use Conner exactly like he used Drake, you need to turn your brain on. At this point in both of their careers, Conner is probably 95% of what Kenyan Drake is. I see very little difference in the two, and I’d project a wildly similar role for Conner in 2021 as Drake had in 2020. Conner is going to see those GL carries. And if he doesn’t, Kyler will. And if Kyler doesn’t, that probably just means they’re not on the goal-line.

Will Chase have value in full PPR leagues, of course. He had the 6th most targets among NFL RBs last year, but if you’re buying Chase at a 5th round price in standard or half PPR leagues, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. I don’t have super high hopes for Rondale Moore in his rookie season, statistically, but Moore might eat more into Edmonds’ role than people realize. Moore’s level of explosiveness with the ball in his hands is elite and we shouldn’t be surprised when Arizona’s short dump-offs or screens are slowly designed and funneled to more and more to Moore this year.

Raheem Mostert is one of, if not the most explosive back in the NFL. I’d love him to occupy a roster spot on my favorite NFL team. No one is yelling otherwise.

You guys, making up fake narratives, all the time:

But this guy has more red flags than the Soviet Union.

• He’s 29 years old
• Has never topped 137 carries in a season
• Has never topped 16 catches in a season
• Has appeared in more than 9 games once in 6 NFL seasons.
• Over the last three years, he’s dealt with a shoulder strain, arm fracture, knee sprain and high ankle sprain. He’s already dealing with a knee injury & wearing a brace at training camp
• He weighs 186lbs

In 2020, Mostert turned 6 goal-line carries into 0 scores and -2 rushing yards (Jeff Wilson converted 4-of-8 GL carries into tugs). In 2019, both Tevin Coleman and Jeff Wilson out-carried him on the goal-line (8-6-5).

Trey Sermon, the 49ers 3rd round pick this year, is the most talented, bigger back the Niners have had on their roster since Carlos Hyde in 2017. Every report has Sermon contributing to this offense immediately and in a big way. Sermon outweighs Moster by nearly 30lbs. Figuring out who the GL back in SF will be this year doesn’t take a fuckin rocket scientist. I truly believe that Sermon has workhorse upside. Maybe it doesn’t come to fruition during his rookie campaign, but I think he’s good enough to limit Mostert to a 10-touch per game role immediately. Can Mostert turn 10 carries into a 10-92-2 line? Sure, but I’m not here to throw my chips on the green square of the roulette table every time I gamble.

Mostert’s current contract expires after this year, so it’s blast-off for the Ohio State product in 2022.

I understand that Mostert is fun to watch and has had some terrifyingly good fantasy days over the last few seasons, but taking him in the 7th round of fantasy drafts is asking for more disappointment than sending a DM to Zendaya. In the same vein that we like to blindly throw the term “upside” at receivers because they’re fast, we do the same with guys like Mostert. Objectively, Mostert is an injury-riddled 186lb running back that is neither the team’s primary pass-catching or goal-line back. Dogs….

I am text block. Click edit button to change this text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

I debate putting guys like this on my list because I’ve been doing fantasy research for 4-5 months straight leading up to the release of this draft guide and everything about Devin Singletary is an obvious fade for 2021.

I’ll make this quick because most of y’all are in fact smart enough not to waste a pick on Singlefantasypointstary. He and Zack Moss are virtually the same player, if Singletary put on 20 el bees.

Moss was well on his way to robbing the starting running back job in Buffalo before fuckin his toe up and missing weeks 4, 5 and 6. And beat reports out of camp echo that it’s the most likely scenario this year:

In the 13 games Moss played in 2020, he out-carried Singletary inside-the-5 11-3. Josh Allen had 7.

What’s likely going to be underrated entering 2021, and a reason we could find Moss gracing the turf more on 3rd downs was his pass-blocking. Among 40 RBs last year with more than 35 pass-blocking snaps, Moss had the 2nd highest pass-blocking grade (per PFF). I also don’t think it’s a huge reach pushing Moss into more of a pass-catching role, considering he did it in college, two seasons of 28+ catches. The difference between Moss and Singletary in receiving situations it’s completely negligible. The sooner the Bills staff figures that out, the better.

I’m not actually here to say that when we look back at the 2021 season, either running back will have been a good fantasy draft pick, but the only one with true upside here is Zack Moss. The fantasy community has figured that out by now and is drafting accordingly, but I’d suggest none of y’all waste a pick, idc how late, on a Devin Singletary. The only place for Moss’s rushing volume to go is up, and the only place for Singletary’s receiving volume to go is down.

This doesn’t actually mean anything, just thought it was funny

You might see the name Philip Lindsay and get warm, fuzzy feelings inside. I do. It’s completely natural. It’s impossible to root against this guy. Can’t take anything he’s accomplished in the NFL away from him. But the Texans are going to absolutely ruin this guy’s legacy.

And let me be clear, I was in on David Johnson for about 30 seconds this summer, but after the first preseason game, it’s clearly Lindsay’s early-down work to lose. David Johnson played on 3rd downs while Lindsay’s body was used as a meat grinder on 2-yard plunges inside the 40’s.

The 2021 Texans are going to be the worst NFL team in recent, maybe not even recent, memory.

For the same reasons I liked David Johnson, I hate Lindsay. People see Lindsay’s stature and assume he’s a natural pass-catching back. He’s about as organic as gushers are. I was out here eating colored glue for the majority of my childhood. No wonder I’m so fucking stupid.

Don’t be stupid like me. Philip Lindsay needs a team that’s winning games and opening up holes for him. This Houston team is going to do neither. Lindsay is an upright runner, and elusiveness eludes him (ranked 45-of-50 in elusiveness rating per PFF last year, and annually). This team is going to get routed, weekly in the first half, so guys like David Johnson and newly signed Rex Burkhead are going to occupy the turf way too much for Lindsay to hit fantasy lineups this year. He’s an easy fade, but worth yelling about because he’s such a lovable lil story.

Either of these guys could be a featured back, seeing 80% of the opportunities in Houston and I’m still not sure I’d REALLY want them. The fact that this is a committee, gtfo.

Just absolutely fucking not.

This, but replace JayGlazer with NickErcolano and the Saints with your fantasy team.

Injury optimism is the number one killer in fantasy drafts. Don’t find injuries in fantasy, because they’re going to find you.

Thomas’s return timetable is massive and could be anywhere in the season, Week 4, 6, 9, it’s like the fucking Get Low remix at this point. Always side with pessimism in these cases. Don’t expect Thomas byke until at least halfway through the season and then, because Michael Thomas is such a shiny name, you’re going to feel obligated to start him when he’s active, but he’s going to play 40% of the team’s snaps, then 60 then 78 and you wasted 80% of your fantasy season thinking Michael Thomas was going to matte this year.

News flash.. he won’t. Let someone else in your league draft MT and suffer for a second consecutive year.

It’s hard to find a less inspiring pick than D.J. Moore in the 4th & 5th rounds of 2021 fantasy football season-long drafts.

There was no reason for Moore not to give us more in 2020. Christian McCaffrey, who annually sucks up ~125 targets in Carolina missed the majority of the season, Moore ran a route on 100% of the pass plays that Carolina ran last year (not hyperbole), finished top-5 among NFL wideouts in air yards (1575), 2nd in air-yard share (41.5%), Teddy Bridgewater had the single highest “Accuracy Rating” among quarterbacks and Moore still finished as the WR22 in fantasy after being taken as the WR12 in drafts last summer.

We should be calling him DJ floor Moore, because that’s what he’ll give you, but you don’t want that when you’re drafting your WR2.

What I saw in Carolina last year was a brutally slow-paced offense

who added a quarterback in Sam Darnold that’s never shown the accuracy of Teddy Bridgewater, nor has he run a fast-paced offense.

McCaffrey’s return will mean fewer targets for all the weapons in Carolina: Moore, Robby Anderson and rookie Terrace Marshall who is primed to take Curtis Samuel’s role in the slot. Robby Anderson led the team in target both targets and receptions, and now he reunites with his former Jets quarterback. Quick preseason update: Marshall looks like a BEAST.

Moore will still see a nice target share this year, but this is going to be a slow offense that runs through McCaffrey, they won’t throw a ton, and there’s a very real chance that Sam Darnold is just bad. His draft capital (1.03 – 2018) will continue to keep him in NFL discussions, but the reality of what we’ve seen from the 24-year-old up to this point is that he was a turnover-prone, erratic college quarterback that left USC too early. Moore’s 20-23% target share with an extra medium aDOT comprised what’s likely to be inaccurate targets spits out a boring fantasy WR with very little overall upside.

Even with the departure of Curtis Samuel, it’s hard to project a bit uptick in targets for any of the skill players because C-Mac is gonna get his 120.

Moore is a player that will help your team “not lose” but he won’t help you “win” enough to warrant his draft price.

You can bet on DJ Moore just being so talented he overcomes all of this, or you can be a good fantasy football player, and simply not do that.

I was all in on Thielen last year at his 4th round price tag. It just made too much sense. We were getting an injury discount from the year prior and before we knew the gawd that Justin Jefferson would become, Thielen was on a trajectory to flirt with 30%+ of the targets in Minnesota. Thielen still wound up being a great pick in fantasy (WR9) last year, on the heels of a 24.4% target share.

As a universal portfolio managing hedge fund, BDGE is strongly opposed to Thielen investments in 2021. As a Thielen owner last year, following Justin Jefferson’s flawless assimilation into the Vikings offense (~October), you were more or less praying for a big play or tuddy to get a usable fantasy day out of Thielen.

Thielen finished the year as the WR9 overall in fantasy (half PPR) last year. (Another caveat, why taking WRs early stinks — the difference between Thielen and WR35, Cole Beasley, was 3.5 half ppr FPPG, just sayin). His WR9 finish came strictly as a result of 14 receiving touchdowns. That was the third-highest total in the NFL (and would have led the league in most years). BUT, his 108 targets ranked 27th among WRs, his 74 catches were 24th, and his 925 yards 24th. If there was ever a more obvious outlier in which not to predict for next year, please comment down below as to what that might be. Maybe LeGarrette Blount’s 40 TD season in Foxborough.

Thielen had 5 volume games last year in which he had 8 catches or more. They came against HOU, SEA, DAL, JAC and NO. All shit pass defenses, especially at the time of the year he played them.

Listen to this. In the other 10 games he played, he had 4 catches or fewer in 9 of them. The 10th came in Week 1 when Justin Jefferson was a part-time player. Thielen had three (3) catches or fewer in 7 of those 10. He had 60 or fewer receiving yards in 9-of-15 games. He was pretty much Tyler Lockett, but pour some touchdowns into that cocktail.

The Vikes design a ton of redzone & endzone plays for Adam, but I think we’ll start to see some of those go to Jefferson in 2021. Don’t just take my word for it, tho. Starting in Week 4 through the end of the season, Jefferson had more redzone targets than Thielen did, but 70% of Thielen’s turned into TDs. Shit ain’t happening again.

Thielen’s not on this list because I think he’s going to suddenly fall off as a 30-year-old (which is real). He’ll be a good NFL receiver again. But he offers very little upside in fantasy. The volume he saw last year tells the case on its own.

Thielen will probably finish around where all those ranks were for him last year: in the low-end WR2/high-end WR3 range. He’s the WR2 on a run-heavy offense with elite options at the WR1 slot and from the backfield. When Thielen’s touchdown totals normalize down to 6-8, he’s going to be a boring low-end WR2/WR3 . Guys going around the same range as Thielen, (w/i 5 picks) I’d rather have = both Rams WRs, Mike Davis, Id take both Lamar and Kyler in QB leagues, and most of the sophomore WRs – Tee Higgins, probably Golladay, Diontae Johnson.

No questions asked, Courtland Sutton is a BALLER. But I can no longer pull trig on him at his current 6/7th round price tag.

There are two major concerns that I have with Sutton right now.

The ACL tear that he suffered in Week 1 of 2021 is still causing him hesitancy in training camp. That’s a MONSTER red flag and all but assures he’s getting off to a slow start in 2021. Again, we like drafting fantasy players two years removed from an ACL tear, not one. It takes 9-12 months to rehab physically from the tear but can be anywhere from 9-18 months to mentally recover and clearly Sutton is on the longer side of that.

We also don’t know who the QB’s going to be in Denver, but if you look at the roster of the Broncos, Teddy makes the most sense. Don’t tell Animal I said this, but the mile-high club, which I hope to join one day when I’m no longer a virgin, has very few holes in it. No pun intended. They have a really solid defense, good offensive, a strong running back group and playmakers at every position on offense. They can win games because they’ll be a sum of their parts. They simply need a QB that won’t LOSE them games. If you look Teddy B up in the dictionary, that’s what you’ll see. An extra-medium QB that simply won’t lose you games. The most logical outcome for the QB battle in Denver is Teddy winning upright or Drew Lock starting and ultimately losing the job in Week 5 after byke-to-byke games versus Baltimore and Pittsburgh.

Regardless, I don’t see an outcome where Bridgewater doesn’t start for the majority of games in 2021. Sutton is a downfield thrasher. That is the complete opposite of Teddy’s style of play.

It’s become more and more apparent that you want to be drafting Jeudy over Sutton this year. And no, not both of them.

What are y’all still doing drafting OBJ at pick 57 (5.09) on Underdog lmao, that’s incredibly tremendous.

He hasn’t been good at fantasy football since 2016.

“IF HE PLAYS A FULL 16 HE’S BYKE!!!!”

Dawg, he just played a full 16 in 2019. He barely topped 1000 yards (74-1035-4). In that same year, Jarvis Landry also played the full 16-game slate. Jarvis saw more targets (138), caught more passes (83), and racked up more yards (1174) and touchdowns (6).

In 2020, he played 7 games, his 16 game pace? 98 targets. Not 98 catches, 98 targets. 53 catches, 729 rec. yards and 6 touchdowns.

Yall are OBSESSED with this hypothetical upside that is just so clearly not there. Y’all are OBSESSED with OBJ’s fast-twitch muscle fibers from four years ago.

Idk who needs to hear this but Odell Beckham is about to turn 29 and has an injury history longer than a CVS receipt.

These injuries start to add up big dogs. When you’re 29 years old, you don’t recover as quickly or come byke quite as strong with each significant injury. Odell’s fast-twitch muscle fibers turning into mediocre twitch muscle fibers real quick. Major injuries are much easier to come back from when you’re 23 or 24, not 29.

We like drafting players two years removed from an ACL tear, not one (Odell tore his ACL in Week 7 of 2020). Especially not older players whomst’ve torn one of em. Not only is the physical timetable to return 9-12 months, but there’s an underrated mental aspect to return from. And with a guy like OBJ who’s had to come byke from these big-time injuries time-and-time again, you have to begin to wonder when we start to question his body.

The other problem is that we already know exactly what this offense is going to do. Run the ball. And run it again. And again. And again. This is a wildly run-heavy offense (only Baltimore, New England and Tennessee ran the ball at a higher rate than Cleveland in 2020), that has loudly and clearly yelled to us that they do NOT have plans to feature Odell Beckham Jr. in it.

Will he have big games in 2021? Sure. Actually, I’m barely confident in that, but I don’t predict a kilo ounce of consistency from the greatest WR that never was.

Let someone else chase prime Odell in your draft for the 4th year in a row.

There are a LOT of ways you can twist Chark’s 2020 season, to excuse it. It was all good just a year ago. Chark came out of nowhere in 2019, blasted off for 1008 yards and 8 tugs. But Chark forgot to refill the fuel tank in 2020, finishing the year with 93 targs, 53 receptions, 706 yards and 5 scores in 13 games. To be honest, on a per/game basis, the numbers weren’t too far off from his 2019 breakout.

And you might be saying, he did that with a shitshow at quarterback. Between Gardner Minshew (who was great in ’19), Nick Foles, Mike Glennon and Jake Luton, you wouldn’t be wrong.

But projecting a rookie Trevor Lawrence to fix all of their problems and turn them into a well-oiled machine as a rookie would be irresponsible. Fantasy projections have two parts to the equation: volume + efficiency. Playing the efficiency guessing game gets dangerous.

The Jaguars had the single highest pass rate in the NFL last year (66.2%). They were #9 in 2019. It wasn’t by choice. Jacksonville has a combined 7-25 record over the previous two years. Under the same HC, Doug Marrone, this team led the league in run-rate (49%) in their one winning season (10-6) byke in 2017. The most targeted receiver saw 96 of them (Marqise Lee). They’ve had no choice but to be in Heinz mode since 2018.

I can say with confidence that this 2021 Jaguar team will do everything in its power, under Urban Meyer, not to be pass-first.

I’m worried about Chark’s volume. From two fronts.

The offense as a whole, and the addition of Marvin Jones. Inking Jones is far more concerning to me. Jones is still balllllin even into his 30s. And the two of them are nearly identical players. They didn’t opt to add a speedster like John Brown, or Curtis Samuel or Nelson Agholor or even Emmanuel Sanders or a pure possession guy like Kenny Golladay, dare I say Sammy Watkins… but Marvin Jones mannnnn. They’re the same player!!!! With the presence of Marvin Jones and an ascending Laviska Shenault, how sure are we that D.J. Chark is a starter in 2WR sets? I’d like to think he’ll be out there, but even if MJ eats into 10-15% of that? It’s a big hit.

Chark has been a WR2 or better in 10-of-28 weeks (35.7%) over the last two years. A big chunk of that came at the beginning of the 2019 season. Going on nearly two years since we’ve seen the D.J. Chark production we were hoping lasted, but hasn’t. He also just might not be the receiver we thought he was as a route-runner and separator:

Admittedly, Chark was banged up too often last year and that could have contributed to his inconsistency, but there are enough red flags here to suggest that even if he does become the alpha here in Jacksonville, with Lawrence, it won’t be in 2021.

I’d take both Laviska and Marvin Jones at their current cost before D.J. Chark. Laviska has the most upside here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if all three guys finished around the same numbers statistically this year – so give me upside (Viska) or cost (Jones), not the middle man.

I’ll leave you with this tweet from RotoUnderworld’s Josh Larky

Yeah, Chark missed 3 games…. but it’s Keelan Cole.

JuJu finds himself in an offense in which he’s the 4th best option behind Diontae Johnson, Chase Claypool & newly drafted first-round pick Najee Harris. Diontae Johnson caught more slack than Bryce Hall caught haymakers for dropping passes last year and the word elite gets thrown around in the fantasy community more than the Kardashian’s in the NBA community, but Johnson is truly an elite separator and born to be an NFL’s WR1:

Chase Claypool broke out as a rookie and has a ceiling about as high as any player in the class not named Justin Jefferson or CeeDee Lamb.

Claypool’s separation ability was on full display last year:

So was JuJu’s. Sticking to the name, his made us want to puke:

After a stellar rookie year, on limited play-time, Claypool’s volume and time spent on the field is gonna shoot up like a crackhead.

Add in Najee Harris’s arrival as a first-round pick who’s going to command 20+ touches/game and the outlook for JuJu continues to dampen.

Given the route-running success by JuJu seen above (which have been consistently annually), don’t be surprised if the slot wideout isn’t in on many 2WR sets this year, he’s by far and away the worst separator of the Steeler’s starting wideouts.

They also paid him accordingly. JuJu signed a deal to play in Pittsburgh for one more year which is cool, but not to his bank account. He signed a 1-year, $8M deal. He became the 29th highest-paid WR in 2021. 29th doesn’t seem that low, but when you account for every WR still on their rookie contract is going to be paid less than that, it’s brutal.

JuJu was fine last year because he saw volume, but those target numbers are coming down in 2021, as is the whole offense’s passing volume. PIT ranked 2nd in the NFL in pass attempts/game (41.9) in 2020 with a 39-year-old QB coming off of serious elbow surgery. You draft a 225lb+ running back in the 1st round to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

Vegas has JuJu’s over/under for receiving yards this year at 790.5…. in a 17-game season. Gross.

I might look byke at this writeup in a year and cringe. But for many of the same reasons that D.J. Chark spun his way onto this list, Shenault will share the stage. Viska is going a few picks after Chark, but I expect that to flip by the time seasonal drafts kick-off.

If you told my right now that Laviska was the full-time slot receiver in Jacksonville, I’d be on board. I think he’d be great in that role. He wouldn’t need to separate on the outside and fend off cornerbacks to get open. But we don’t know that. And I have very little confidence that Urban Meyer will make it happen.

I feel more and more like they’re going to force him into a role that he won’t excel in. If you can get the ball into Viska’s hands, the sophomore’s gonna be a problem for defenses. But he needs some work as a route-runner before he’s position-proof:

This chart is VERY reminiscent of JuJu Smith-Schuster’s. In the right situation, position and offense, both can blow up. I just don’t see the right situation, position and offense for Viska to take off being the 2021 Jacksonville Jaguars. They’re going to be a run-first team with a handful of other playmakers in Marvin Jones, Chark, James Robinson and Travis Etienne eating into each other’s revenue.

Again, the move for Jag wideouts this year is to draft Marvin Jones 3+ rounds after the others.

Man, even with D.J. Chark is recovering from hand surgery and not playing in this one, Shenault was ousted (played on 8-of-15 snaps) off the field in favor of Collin Johnson in 2WR sets…. smh. As we’ve been saying, Marvin Jones might not only be the best value pick out of the group but the best fantasy option straight up in 2021.

In the name of everything holy, we need to stop trying to force the WR2 in this offense. You don’t want Demarcus Robinson, you didn’t want Sammy Watkins and for the love of every latina woman out there, Mecole Hardman is not going ot happen in fantasy football.

If the arguments you keep finding yourself making for a player are ONLY situationally based, you shouldn’t draft him. We have next to nothing positive to say about Mecole Hardman as a football player.

“hE’s FaSt”

That’s not a football player attribute. Let this dude go run track.

For me to buy into a player, I need to know that they’re good at football, first and foremost. Have you performed on a football field at a high level, statistically, over a long period of time. Mecole Hardman has never done that. Hardman couldn’t beat out Demarcus Robinson or Sammy Watkins last year, finishing 4th on the team in snaps.

Despite reports that Mecole Hardman entering Chiefs camp as the WR2, what matters is who leaves it with that role. While Watkins is in Baltimore, the Chiefs re-signed Demarcus Robinson

A more important point to get across here is that it doesn’t matter how good Patrick Mahomes is, the WR2 doesn’t have to be good for fantasy. Last year Sammy Watkins was the second-best fantasy WR on the Chiefs. He finished as fantasy’s WR77 in points per game. In 2019, Watkins again was the WR2 on Kansas City and finished as fantasy’s WR55 solely because of his 9-198-3 Week 1. Let’s run it byke with Sammy once more into the breaches. In Mahomes’ historic 5000-50 campaign in 2018, the Chiefs WR2 again was Sammy Watkins. Watkins couldn’t even finish the year as a fantasy WR3. He was fantasy’s WR39 in points per game. 5,000+ passing yards and 50 passing touchdowns, and the Chiefs couldn’t spit out a fantasy WR3 behind Hill.

People be like “he has upside”. Literally, because he’s fast, that’s it. That’s now how upside works. Hardman has one career game with more than 4 receptions (32 games played). All that “upside” and he’s NEVER had a game where he’s crossed 100 receiving yards.

I’m sorry fam but y’all are doing the MOST to try and make Mecole Hardman happen – he just ain’t it.

Chalk up another one for the good guys. Despite Hardman’s WR2 status on the coffee boy intern’s first depth chart out of Kansas City, Hardman looks to be running behind Demarcus Robinson for the third year in a row.

Y’all keep doing you tho.

At this point, I’m confident in saying that we know what Marquise Brown is, and that’s not the 1st-round alpha the Ravens mistakenly took him for as the first wide receiver off the board in the 2019 NFL Draft. A.J. Brown, Deebo Samuel, D.K. Metcalf, Diontae Johnson and Terry McLaurin were taken after Bollywood Brown. You hate to see it.

Brown is a field-stretching WR2 in a low-volume offense that just drafted another first-round WR, Rashod Bateman, who’s set to occupy that alpha role. I know Bateman is going to miss some time early on with the groin surgery, but he’ll be back by Week 4, assuming Hollywood is even playing by then.

There’s a time and place for Bollywood, and that time and place isn’t during your fantasy football draft.

Especially not with the “serious” hamstring injury that’s kept and will continue to keep him sidelined from practice deep into summer. Any multi-week injury at this point in the off-season takes up my worry-radar like Animal’s ass takes up a lawn chair.

Brown is too fast not to break free from the defense every once in a while, but good luck figuring out which games to start this half a man.

If I’m buying any parts of this Philadelphia Eagles passing offense, which I’m extremely hesitant to do at this point in the summer, it’s DeVonta Smith. (If Deshaun Watson lands in Philly, I’ll circle byke on this).

So, the fact that Dallas Goedert is the “next man up” after the second tier of TEs (Pitts, Hockenson, Andrews) is irresponsible.

Fantasy players are like fucking boxers man. They keep getting hit straight in their face, over and over again, repeated shots to the nose and never think to themselves “hey I should do something different”.

Year after year we see the same thing happen at the tight end position (much like the running back position) we force talented players into imaginary roles that they don’t have for the sake of hypothetical fantasy upside. Teams invest in young, athletic tight ends while they still have investments clogging up space on their rosters in the form of veteran tight ends. And those veteran tight ends piss us off like a late train.

We’ve sung this song with Goedert already. Zach Ertz is still in Philly…. Like Kyle Rudolph was still in Minnesota when we were forcing an Irv Smith breakout and Jimmy Graham is still in Chicago while we’re projecting a Cole Kmet breakout, and Delanie Walker to Jonnu Smith and Greg Olsen to Ian Thomas, and Antonio Gates to Hunter Henry and on and on and fucking on. How many times do we have to learn the same lesson? How the fuck could Derrick Henry hit his ceiling while DeMarco Murray is still in uniform? There’s one answer. He can’t.

And neither can Dallas Goedert. And that was BEFORE the Eagles franchise went to shit. Now? Who knows what this passing offense will look like in 2021. Do we have high hopes for fantasy sure? We’d love to see a top-5 season from Hurts, and a top-20 from Smith and a top-15 from Sanders and for their line to stay healthy and all that shit. But there’s a reason why their Vegas win total is scary-low (6.5).

Here are some Goedert splits from the three games that both he and Hurts were on the field together towards the end of 2020:

The amount of respect Goedert gets in the fantasy community relative to what he’s actually accomplished is a bigger stretch than MJ’s arm at the end of Space Jam.

Goedert’s career highs are

• 87 targets
• 58 receptions
• 607 yards
• 5 touchdowns

Just last year, we had 11 TEs finish with 87+ targets, 9 TEs with 58+ catches, 12 TEs with 607+ yards and 15 TEs with 5+ touchdowns. I’d almost put money that both Robert Tonyan and Rob Gronkowski double Goedert’s touchdown total in 2021.

Goedert needs to be lumped into the wasteland middle tight ends like Mike Gesicki, Noah Fant, Tyler Higbee. None of them are bad players, just don’t move the needle whatsoever, relative to each other and to grab the most expensive one (Goedert) makes zero sense.

Like Dallas Goedert all you want, but drafting him as the TE7 while Ertz is still suiting up in Philly is asking to be put on blood pressure medication.

Like Dallas Goedert all you want, but drafting him as the TE7 while Ertz is still suiting up in Philly is asking to be put on blood pressure medication.

Speaking of mid-late TE1/2s that do not move the needle….

Thomas was another feel good story in 2021. A 30-year-old breakout tight end who smashed career-highs across the board.

He led all NFL TEs in snap share (97.8%), slot snaps (474), routes run (576) and route participation (95.8%). He finished … I’ll let the image explain:

Whole lotta volume.

When we project a player’s fantasy outlook, we try to figure out two things: volume and efficiency. Thomas’s volume shot to a level that has nowhere to go but down. And that’s not a guess. They signed Curtis Samuel and Adam Humphries before drafting UNC wideout Dyami Brown in the 3rd round to make sure of it.

Ok, so volume goes down. He’ll be fine as long as he’s efficient, right? He’s not. It was the counterargument to exactly why Darren Waller was a GREAT pick in drafts last summer. Everyone assumed Waller’s volume was going to drop in 2021 because the Raiders drafted Henry Ruggs, Bryan Edwards, brought in Nelson Agholor, etc. My argument was that it didn’t matter because Waller was a top-5 tight end in nearly every single efficiency metric during the year prior. He was a great tight end and would produce like it at whatever type of volume he saw. The same can’t be said for Logan Thomas.

Straight bottom of the barrel down the board.

I’m not excited for a player who doesn’t make plays with the ball in his hands, nor is efficient. The volume is coming down, and so is Thomas’s fantasy ceiling in 2021.

Some people in the fantasy world have gotten out over their skis on Trautman already. He’s being taken as the TE14 on Underdog Fantasy right now, and like a stinky butthole that’s something I just can’t get behind. Trautman is a TOTAL projection at this point. Most fantasy players are, but the guys going right before him have already broken out – Noah Fant, Robert Tonyan, Irv Smith, MIke Gesicki. Like yeah, we’re projecting a good year from these guys, based on previous big years. It makes sense.

Trautman’s rookie year saw him appear in 15 games. He saw 16 targets. He caught 15 of them for 171 yards and a touchdown. People are doing the most to pretend as if those stats are good. Obviously, we’re projecting a big jump up in playtime and opportunity, but just how much uptick can we actually expect?

Since the year 2000, there have been 168 tight ends to finish with fewer than 200 receiving yards in their rookie season.

Of those 168 rookie tight ends:

• 159-of-167 (95%) finished with fewer than 400 receiving yards in Year 2
• 154-of-167 (92%) scored fewer than 4 touchdowns in Year 2
• 160-of-167 (95%) caught fewer than 40 passes in Year 2

The highest Year 2 totals among the 168 rookie tight ends were:

• 676 receiving yards
• 55 receptions
• 6 touchdowns

People are acting like these numbers are Trautman’s floor. Again, these were literally the best numbers of all time for a tight end that finished his rookie season with fewer than 200 receiving yards, which Trautman did.

I also feel like people have this skewed viewpoint of Trautman’s athleticism.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s an extremely strong athletic profile – and does point to an eventual breakout, but he’s not Noah Fant. He ran a 4.80. Don’t get it twisted.

Players like Trautman hit gradually, not all at once. rather than going step-by-step, we’re trying to jump up the entire staircase. We’re a year away from Trautman being a fixture of fantasy lineups. If he drops to like TE16-20 in your draft, go for it – but don’t be depending on him as your starter is irresponsible.

I’m just too fucking good at this.

“Trautman ran a route on 6-of-13 first-team pass attempts overall”. He’s just simply nowhere close to the lock y’all think he is in fantasy this year. He’s a late-round flier, not a draft and start.