As we approach the peak of draft season, I have been doing tons of mocks and best-ball leagues. These experiences have led me to know who my favorite players are this year, or “My Guys”. In this piece, I will share one guy from each position that I have been heavily targeting in these drafts.
QB: Justin Fields, Chicago Bears
ADP: QB16, 123rd Overall
The Bears are not a great organization, but they did have a great rookie QB fall into their laps. They’re saying Dalton is their starter but we will see how long that lasts, my guess is not long. The Bears start the season at the Rams, vs the Bengals, and at the Browns. The Bears could easily lose all three of these games and start 0-3. If this happens there will be very loud voices chanting for Fields every day. Once he becomes the starter he has elite fantasy upside. Justin falls in the Konami Code category of fantasy QB and they reign supreme these days. Plus he is so cheap you can draft him late in your draft as your QB2 and comfortably wait for him to become the starter. I am targeting him in every single redraft league.
RB: Austin Ekeler, Los Angeles Chargers
ADP: RB10, 13th Overall
Austin Ekeler is an absolute PPR monster. He has an Alvin Kamara-type profile but has yet to show his full potential. In 2019 he was hampered by Melvin Gordon and in 2020 he spent half the year injured. So let’s look at what Ekeler has done when healthy, with Herbert at QB.
This graphic is courtesy of RotoViz.com, and the In Split column shows Austin Ekeler’s per-game stats in games that he played with Justin Herbert. The numbers on the right of the “/“ are just the per-game numbers extrapolated over a 16 game season. We can see that Ekeler has not scored many TDs but he has gotten a lot of targets, and targets are what score fantasy points. Ekeler is a consistent high floor option that could see RB1 overall upside with an improvement in goal-line usage. Draft Ekeler with confidence in the late first of your drafts.
WR: Jerry Jeudy, Denver Broncos
ADP: WR35, 82nd Overall
Jerry Jeudy had a less than stellar rookie year in 2020. However, there are many promising signs to take from it. First of all, there should be a QB improvement. One of two things will happen, either Drew Lock improves or Teddy Bridgewater takes his job. If either of these things happens Jeudy will see more catchable targets and a higher catch rate. The Broncos also get a healthy Sutton back this season which should take a lot of pressure of Jeudy and give him more room to work with. This also allows Jeudy to work more in the slot where he excels and therefore garners more consistent targets. This will increase his fantasy production and consistency, making him a more valuable fantasy asset.
@LateRoundQB also does fantastic work on identifying players to smash ADP. He has four pieces he looks at for WRs, they are ambiguous WR room, WR1 drafted far above the WR2, year two-player, prior year target share of 15% or more. Jerry Jeudy is in an ambiguous WR room (the WR1 is drafted round five or later), he is a year two-player, and he had a 20.3% target share in 2020. The fact that Jeudy hits three out of these four metrics makes me even more confident in his abilities for 2021.
TE: Tyler Higbee, Los Angeles Rams
ADP: TE14, 120th Overall
Thanks again to the RotoViz game splits app we can see why Tyler Higbee should be heavily considered as a late-round tight end target. The left column shows Higbee’s stats in games where Gerald Everett also played, the right is when Everett was out. Higbee averaged a massive 10 targets and 23 fantasy points per game. Well, guess what, Everett is now in Seattle and Higbee has the tight end room all to himself. He also has a QB who loved targeting his old tight end, T.J. Hockenson back in Detroit. This will be the year of Higbee and he is so cheap there is not much of a downside to drafting him as a late tight end.
Wow, you read all the way through! Thank you, I really appreciate you using your time to enjoy my content. If you would like to talk to me about my article or ask me any generic dynasty or trade questions. You can find me on Twitter @ChrisMiles1017, DFF Draft Director. Shoot me a DM, they are always open. Come join the #DFFArmy where I provide #Dynasty, #Redraft, and #Analytics content, along with rankings for @DFF_Dynasty. Thank you so much!
Did you enjoy this article and want more Dynasty, Devy, IDP, and Redraft content? Click here for a 12-month DFF Membership.
