Najee Harris

Rookie Stock Report: Week 4

The Chuba Hubbard lottery ticket has finally hit, and it’s time for non-CMC owners to cash in while they can. Yes, you need to cash in. Hubbard doesn’t have great vision and doesn’t have the offensive line to overcome that major flaw. Hubbard isn’t anywhere near the talent of Christian McCaffrey and desperate owners competing would more than likely pay a second-round that could turn into an actual starter.

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Rookie Stock Report: Week 3

Elijah Mitchell is RB1 in San Francisco if he’s healthy. Sermon didn’t enter the game until Mitchell left it with a shoulder injury, then he left with a concussion. The entire offense struggled against an Eagles’ defense that looks legitimate against the run once again, so the 17 carries with limited efficiency are still encouraging to see. Mitchell will be a must-start in all formats while healthy until Sermon does enough to take over, or Jeff Wilson comes back to take the starting role. Most coaches stick with the younger hot hands over veterans back from injury.

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Rookie Stock Report: Week 2

Nothing has changed for Justin Fields since last week. He got his own package to get a few plays just like Trey Lance, and completed two for two passing for 10 yards, and running it in for his first real touchdown. The current Bears starter still looks like a competent backup and not the guy you want starting when you’re an HC on the hot seat. Chicago’s rushing attack looks fantastic and will relieve pressure off the rookie once he takes the reins. I can’t wait to see more RPO play-calls with him and David Montgomery. The time for Fields to start is any day now, so buy now before he gets even more expensive than he is.

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Rookie Stock Report: Week 1

Wilson has looked confident and in control the entire preseason and has a clear rapport with expected WR1 Corey Davis. He’s flashed not only the ability to make every throw but the savvy to know when to make the throw. I expect him to have lots of support with this running game straight from the Shanahan coaching tree, and we haven’t yet seen the explosive playmaking from Elijah Moore in a real game. Wilson has a blend of underrated mobility and Rodgers-Esque arm talent that can make him every bit worth the draft capital. I’m buying into the fact that the Jets want to change the culture and want pieces of this team before they boom next season.

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DFF Redraft League: Drafting from the Six Spot

Last weekend DFF organized a 14 team redraft league comprised solely of DFF writers/editors as owners. In this piece, I will talk about how I prepared for the draft, got my strategy together, and actually navigated the live draft. Hopefully, this will give you some insight on not only the players I took but also the methods I used to prepare.

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Fantasy Stock Up, Stock Down: AFC North

Welcome back to the “Fantasy Stock Up, Stock Down” series. We have just two divisions remaining, and this week’s coverage will focus on the AFC North. Check out the breakdowns for the: NFC West, AFC East, NFC East, AFC South, NFC South, and the AFC West divisions here at DFF as well, with the NFC North to follow soon. Keep in mind, there will be a player whose stock is up and a player whose stock is down from each team in this division.

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JuJu Smith-Schuster: 2021 Dynasty Profile

JuJu Smith-Schuster played college football at USC from 2014-2016. JuJu registered a breakout season as a true freshman with 54 receptions for 724 yards and five TDs, but he was truly dominant as a sophomore, racking up 1,454 yards and 10 TDs on 89 receptions. After a solid junior campaign, JuJu declared for the 2016 NFL Draft and was selected by the Pittsburgh Steelers with the 30th pick in the second round.

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Navigating Your Rookie Draft- 2021 Running Backs

Dynasty Build or Dynasty Maintenance?: Najee Harris

The building or maintenance of a dynasty team can be such a fragile project. One early missed pick can quickly change the direction of your team. Such as using a second-round startup pick (1QB) or the 1.01 in rookie drafts on a player who doesn’t project to be worth the price. I am talking about Najee Harris.

Harris was selected 24th overall by the Pittsburgh Steelers who were lacking any sort of production from their backfield. But the bigger part of this is that he became a first-rounder, the 19th running back to do so since 2010. This is great for Harris because between 2010 and 2019, 43.8% of first-round running backs achieved at least an RB5 finish, and 75% achieved at least an RB12 finish.

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Dynasty Sleepers 2021: RB Edition

The days of the traditional sleeper are quickly fading with a community full of hard-working analysts and tape grinders who nail down even the least known players before most of the NFL scouts can get their eyes on them. Ok, that might be a bit of an exaggeration (It’s not!) but the dynasty market is saturated with content. Therefore, most players will be given some sort of spotlight and as a result, the entire population of dynasty managers is more knowledgeable as a whole making “sleepers” much more difficult to discover and take advantage of.

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DFF Draft Coverage: Najee Harris to the Steelers

Najee Haris was already in my top ten rookies for fantasy and now that he is officially the first running back off the board, that might even give him the edge over Travis Etienne for the top running back in the class. Harris now has a sweet five-year contract locked up which will take him through his age 27 season. It was very difficult to find faults in the film and most of the cons came from the context of what he did while being surrounded by loads of NFL talent. I’m not pushing Harris far up my board because this was an expected outcome and his first-round draft capital was mostly baked into his ranking already.

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2021 Rookie RB Comps

In this series, we are going to do a deep dive into the top 2021 NFL Draft Class running backs, and see who they compare to historically. We are going to build them out from the standpoint of their physical acumen, their athletic abilities, and then bring it full circle by looking into their college production. Combining these three components we will settle on a final comparison that I believe most accurately outlines each player’s potential range of outcomes in the NFL. In this article, we will make comparisons for the top five running back prospects in the draft.

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Dominating Your Rookie Draft: 2021 Rookie Tiers

The Rookie 1.01 Draft pick always holds a premium in dynasty fantasy football. Rookie draft picks also vary in value based on the current time of the year that we are in. In the second part of this article, we are going to explore how to dominate the 2021 Rookie Drafts and revisit the value of how rookie pick values change at different parts of the season.

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The 2021 RB4: A Case for Kenneth Gainwell

Among running backs in the 2021 rookie class, three players have clearly risen to the top: Najee Harris, Travis Etienne, and Javonte Williams. All of these players are likely coming off the board in the first round of rookie drafts. The next RB to come off the board is where the questions start to come up. Who is the best of the rest? In this series, several members of the DFF staff will try to make a case for who they think answers that question. Today, I’ll be making the case for Kenneth Gainwell.

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draft stock week seven

DFF Way Too Early Mock Draft 1.0: First Round

Yes, some of us are still nursing Super Bowl hangovers or regretting watching Tom Brady walk out of the organization he called home for the last two decades, but there are three things we love in Fantasy Football: Start-Up Drafting, Trading & Rookie Drafts. So the team at DFF got on board and jumped the gun on a 2021 way too early Rookie Mock, and the results will surprise you in just how deep this class is on the back of a stellar 2020 class. 

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Navigating Your Rookie Draft- 2021 Running Backs

Navigating Your Rookie Draft: 2021 Running Backs

Whether the running back position “matters” in football can be debated, and likely will continue to be debated as analytics become more commonplace, however, it cannot be argued that running backs are ultimately the lifeblood of a fantasy football roster. In this segment, we will be looking at the hit rate of rookie running backs based on the inputs of draft capital, and age. Using DLF’s trade finder tool we will look at the market value of some of the top running backs in the league. For this exercise, to stay uniform with the quarterback segment, we are using values based on superflex leagues.

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NFL Team Deep Dive: Jacksonville Jaguars

The Jaguars fired both HC Doug Marrone and GM Dave Caldwell. Caldwell was the first to be let go. Leading Jacksonville to a mediocre 39-87 record in eight seasons. The Jaguars lost 10 or more games in seven of those seasons. After a franchise-record 10th consecutive loss, team-owner Shad Khan decided to pull the plug on Caldwell. Trent Baalke took over as the interim GM and has a chance to take over as the official GM of the team.

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National Championship Game Review: A Devy Newbie’s Perspective

As most of you know, I’m not a devy writer. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever written a devy article for DFF, mostly focusing on dynasty and redraft. I’ve published 377 articles without writing a single devy article thus far. However, that’s all about to change. Like most football fans, I tuned into the National Championship game, where Alabama defeated Ohio State 52-24. I noticed that Alabama was the far superior team, although even I knew that much from my cursory knowledge of college football. This game was the first college game I watched from start to finish all season, so I’m genuinely a new viewer. Even though I wanted to watch the game just for fun, I also got into some of the draft prospects. I know that Alabama and Ohio State are both loaded with incoming NFL talent, especially Alabama. Let’s jump into some of what I saw from a newbie’s perspective.

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draft stock week seven

Draft Stock Watch: Week 7

Each week I will bring you the latest updates and NFL buzz surrounding college players that should prove to be integral to future fantasy success. I will utilize recent statistics, performance and film, and general “front office whispers” to compile the intel I share with you. My hope is to provide you with a leg up on your opponents. You will know which devy players to target in trades and/or in what range of draft picks (both NFL and fantasy drafts) you can expect these players to be selected. If you want to read last week’s article, click here. Week 7 of the college football season saw five more ranked opponents take an “L”. I think we can definitively say that SEC defense is a thing of the past now after watching all of these high scoring affairs. The BIG10 conference will finally be joining the season looking ahead in Week Eight, but for now, we will examine this past weekend’s player performances and draft stocks.  

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Thinking Ahead: 2022 Pick Value on the Rise

2020 has been a year unlike any other. The COVID-19 virus has changed the way the world operates. The United States with over 160,000 deaths and over 5,000,000 cases has been affected in ways we as a society have not seen. One of the most impacted ways of our community has been sports. High school, collegiate, and professional sports have been devastated. One of the most impacted organizations is the NCAA.

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