High Upside Late-Round Redraft Targets

In the late rounds of redraft leagues, I’m always hunting for upside. There’s no point in playing it safe and taking boring contributors that provide no opportunity to make a difference or to be league-winners. These four players are an example of what I’m talking about, one at each position. I’m not saying that any of these players will hit, and I would bet against some of them doing so. However, they all have high-end potential. If I’m wrong about one of them, I can cut them after a week or two with little to no harm.

Cam Newton

Here’s a quick snapshot of Cam Newton’s fantasy career:

As you can see, outside of 2016, Newton has been a top-8 fantasy quarterback in points per game every season that he’s played a majority of the games. Also, Newton is not injury-prone, as some might believe. He played 14 or more games in every season until 2019.

Even though Newton has a past of fantasy success, there are certainly concerns with Newton in 2020. The Panthers released him in favor of Teddy Bridgewater, so his old team had no confidence in Newton’s overall health. Then, Newton remained unsigned throughout most of this offseason. While that may have due to circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, other players with injury concerns like Todd Gurley got signed much earlier. 

The Patriots signed Newton to a minimum, incentive-laden deal with only $550,000 in guaranteed money. He can earn up to $7.5 million if he hits all his incentives, though. With that commitment level, Newton isn’t even guaranteed to start Week 1 over Jarrett Stidham, although I believe Newton will win the starting job. I have no confidence in Newton’s health right now, as he has both foot and shoulder injuries. But, he begins in Week 1 with a dream matchup against the Dolphins. I would be happy to stream Newton in that matchup, so, therefore, he’s an excellent late-round target with extreme upside.

Antonio Gibson

The Redskins selected Antonio Gibson with the 66th overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. While Gibson played a hybrid role in college, the Redskins made it clear that they saw Gibson as a running back. Head coach Ron Rivera stated that Gibson had a similar skill set to Christian McCaffrey, who Rivera coached in Carolina.

In my Redskins’ preview, I downplayed Gibson’s potential, and I said that he would struggle to find early-down work ahead of Derrius Guice and Adrian Peterson. While I stand by that take, there is a chance that Gibson could challenge for more carries than I expect. He will immediately step into the old Chris Thompson role as the Redskins’ pass-catching back, so it wouldn’t take many carries for Gibson to be fantasy-relevant.

Like Newton, my favorite part about drafting Gibson is that we will know immediately whether it was a good pick. In Week 1, Gibson will either get carries or not. I believe that decision has less to do with Gibson and is more dependent on Guice’s health. Since Guice is seemingly never healthy, there’s a chance that Gibson commands a significant role from the jump. However, it’s tough to assume injuries, which is why Gibson is so low in my rankings. 

Gibson is the perfect flier, though, as the Redskins are devoid of passing-game weapons outside of wide receiver Terry McLaurin. He has a locked-in role and wouldn’t need many carries to be an RB3. Also, Redskins’ quarterback Dwayne Haskins struggled in Year 1 and might choose to check down to a receiving back in Year 2 to help complete some easy throws. Gibson’s rushing upside makes me prefer him to other receiving backs like Nyheim Hines, who have far stiffer competition for carries than Gibson.

Mecole Hardman

Back in mid-May, I broke down the Chiefs’ offense for redraft. In that piece, I emphasized that I saw Mecole Hardman’s teammate Sammy Watkins as the Chiefs’ WR2 behind Tyreek Hill, but that Hardman has more upside and potential to break out. Hardman only had 41 targets in 2019, but he turned those targets in 26 receptions for 538 yards and six touchdowns.

Hardman averaged 20.7 yards/reception and 13.1 yards/target, which would have led all receivers in both categories if Hardman had enough touches to qualify for the leaderboard. The Chiefs’ offense has the best quarterback in the league in Patrick Mahomes, and they could easily support a third receiving weapon beyond Hill and tight end Travis Kelce.

Hopefully, the Chiefs take notice of Hardman’s ridiculous efficiency from 2019 and give him an expanded role in 2020. Unlike Hardman, Watkins has been wildly inefficient in 2018 and 2019, averaging around 13 yards/reception in both seasons and recording a miserable 7.5 yards/target in 2019. If Watkins hadn’t performed well in the Chiefs’ Super Bowl run, I firmly believe the Chiefs would’ve moved on from him. However, they decided to give Watkins $9 million to return for 2020, which unfortunately means they will continue to provide him with more targets than they should. The Chiefs also retained depth receiver Demarcus Robinson, although on a much smaller, $2.3 million contract.

Even though Hardman has second-round draft capital, the Chiefs have a crowded wide receiver depth chart. Therefore, Hardman is only my WR56, as I can’t guarantee a second-year breakout. With that said, I believe Hardman has mid-WR3 upside from merely playing in the Chiefs’ offense, and there’s always the chance he beats out Watkins for the WR2 role. Like Gibson, we’ll know in Week 1. Either Hardman will come out and play a full complement of snaps, or he’ll be in the 50-60% range. Based on that, fantasy owners will have an easy decision to make between keeping Hardman or moving onto the new, hot waiver wire pickup.

Blake Jarwin

Like Hardman, Blake Jarwin plays in a crowded but high-powered offense. In 2019, Dak Prescott threw for 4,902 yards and 30 touchdowns, so there’s a lot of receiving work to go around between the Cowboys’ receiving weapons. I broke down the Cowboys’ offense for redraft leagues, and I concluded that Amari Cooper was the best bet in the receiving game. The Cowboys extended Cooper to a 5-year, $100 million deal in the offseason, so he’s guaranteed targets.

However, beyond Cooper, the Cowboys still have plenty of targets for the remaining offensive weapons. Given the disrupted offseason, I expect Michael Gallup to maintain a similar role from 2019, where he had 113 targets and 66 receptions. The Cowboys lost Randall Cobb and Jason Witten in free agency, both of whom had 83 targets. 

Rookie receiver CeeDee Lamb and Jarwin will directly fill that void. Jarwin already had 41 targets in 2019, which he converted into 31 receptions, 365 yards, and three touchdowns. The Cowboys failed to sign a second usable tight end, so Jarwin might have a chance to consolidate Witten’s role into his own in 2020. 

The main obstacle for Jarwin is Lamb, who could undoubtedly expand on Cobb’s role from 2019. Even though Lamb was a first-round pick, every day that passes emphasizes how different this offseason is from a typical offseason. Lamb hasn’t had the chance to work with Prescott and might struggle out of the gate. While Lamb is talented enough to overcome those obstacles, Jarwin could gain more targets if Lamb gets off to a slow start. 

Jarwin’s ultimate upside would be if he essentially combined his and Witten’s stat lines from 2019. That would account for 94 receptions on 124 targets for 894 yards and seven touchdowns, which would have been the TE2 in 2019. Even if Jarwin only had 80% of that total, he still would have finished as the TE7. As with the other players, I want to clarify that I’m not projecting this outcome. Jarwin only ranks as my TE18, since I think the Cowboys focus their offense around their three wide receivers. But, Jarwin does have high-end upside, making him a great late-round selection.

Thanks for reading this article. You can find me on Twitter at @DFF_Karp. I love to interact with anyone in the community, so reach out at any time! I take fantasy questions and help with all formats, so keep sending those questions my way.