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Gamers who hit on a player or players who greatly exceed draft-day expectations are, obviously, at a huge advantage. Hitting on these players can make up for whiffing on an early pick, but they can also elevate a team to the championship-winning caliber. Those who hit on Patrick Mahomes, stashed or added Nick Chubb, or gained a huge positional advantage from George Kittle’s historic season in 2018 know all about the importance of hitting on league-winner caliber players. Below is a list of players with the potential to smash the expectations that accompany their respective ADPs. None of the players listed below are being drafted in the top 12 at their positions, and all have an ADP north of 30 (most much later), thus, they’ll be available to all drafters.
*Player’s position rank and overall ADP below is the consensus for PPR scoring.
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Lamar Jackson (BAL): QB20 – 136.2 Overall
Josh Allen (BUF): QB22 – 154.6 Overall
In standard single-quarterback formats, the position is deep. Mahomes led the position in fantasy points per game last year at 26.1, and Matt Ryan finished second at 22.2 fantasy points per game. There were 10 quarterbacks who eclipsed 19.0 fantasy points per game, and fewer than three fantasy points per game separated Ryan from QB10 Jared Goff. Still, that doesn’t tell the full story of the depth at the position.
A whopping 21 quarterbacks scored more than 17 fantasy points per game. Can gamers win fantasy leagues by ponying up for one of the top QB options? Sure. Having said that, my preference is to wait. The depth of the position allows for streaming if your mid-round/late-round selections at the position flop.
Furthermore, the depth of the position is begging gamers to roll the dice on raw passers with top-shelf rushing skills. Enter Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen. Scott Barrett of Pro Football Focus discussed his key fantasy football stat takeaways from the 2018 fantasy football season in a piece penned back in February, and he closed that piece with a look at running quarterbacks, namely calling out the finishes to the 2018 season from Jackson and Allen.
He noted in the linked piece that from Week 11 through the end of the season, Allen ranked second and Jackson ranked 11th in fantasy points per game out of 32 qualified quarterbacks. Both struggled with efficiency as passers, but made up for those issues with their legs. Each has seen their respective clubs add talent around them, and sophomore strides as passers could easily result in top-10 quarterback finishes from one or both even with rushing regression. I’ll gladly double dip on this duo and load up at running back, receiver, and perhaps spend a premium pick at tight end as opposed to overpaying for a middle-tier or top-tier quarterback.
Devonta Freeman (ATL): RB15 – 33.2 Overall
Freeman’s coming off of a largely lost season. He played in only two games and required surgery for a groin injury. However, he’s on the right side of 30 and is just a year removed from an impressive three-year run. He finished as the top-scoring running back per game in PPR formats in 2015, RB7 in points per game in 2016, and RB13 in 2015.
The veteran runner shared the backfield with Tevin Coleman for all three of his top-15 finishes in per-game scoring, but Coleman’s no longer in the fold after signing with the 49ers in the offseason. How good has Freeman been when Coleman hasn’t played? Damn good, as you can see in the following tweet from Ian Hartitz of The Action Network.
Freeman has a clear path to a bell-cow workload, but that’s not the only good news. He also has some likely upgrades ahead of him to help open running lanes. Atlanta spent two first-round picks in this year’s NFL Draft on offensive linemen. Even a return to form to the worst year from his stellar three-year run from 2015-17 would make him a value, but the upside is that of a top-10 running back.
Aaron Jones (GB): RB16 – 33.4 Overall
Will new Packers head coach Matt LaFleur learn from the error of his ways waiting to fully utilize his best back, Derrick Henry, in Tennessee’s offense in 2018 until late in the year? That remains to be seen, but Jones is clearly the best back in Green Bay, and he’s receiving some offseason love that includes discussion of his work in the offseason to improve as a receiver in this piece from David Schroeder for WBAY-TV.
Receiving was the part of Jones’ game that needed the most work from Pro Football Focus’s (PFF) grading standpoint. Jones ranked 35th amongst qualified backs (with a host of unqualified backs sprinkled in, too) in receiving grade. He was a monster in their grading otherwise, though. Jones ranked fourth in run grade. But, wait, I thought he was a liability in pass protection? Well, that was the narrative, but Jones ranked second among qualified backs in pass blocking at PFF.
Football Outsiders (FO) was also impressed with Jones’ work on the ground. Among 47 backs with a minimum of 100 rushes, Jones ranked 10th in Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement (DYAR) with 145 and seventh in Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) at 16.9%. The only thing lacking in Jones’ work in his first two years was volume. He looks the part of a back who can make the leap to being a top-10 running back. I’d slightly prefer him to the aforementioned Freeman, but it’s not out of the question to be able to scoop up both in 10-team or 12-team leagues at the back of the third and top of the fourth, respectively, if either slips a few picks below their ADP. I’d be overjoyed to double up on stud receivers in the first two rounds at or near the wrap around and fill my RB1 and RB2 spots with Freeman and Jones.
D.J. Moore (CAR): WR24 – 58.8 Overall
Moore is the 24th wide receiver off the board on average in PPR leagues. Last year, Adam Humphries finished as the WR24 in overall fantasy points in PPR formats. The former Buc hauled in 76 passes for 816 receiving yards and five touchdowns while rushing for 11 yards.
As a rookie, Moore wasn’t immediately thrust into a prominent role in Carolina’s offense. He played just 25% of the team’s snaps in each of his first two games before playing in 49% of them in Week 3 prior to Carolina’s Week 4 bye. He didn’t play in more than 50% of the team’s snaps until Week 8 when he hit the 71% mark. His lowest percentage of snaps from Week 9 through the end of the regular season (Week 17) was 78%, and he hit 85% or higher seven times down the stretch.
Moore’s usage in the offense after the team’s Week 4 bye extrapolated out to a 16-game pace of 65.3 receptions, 903.4 receiving yards, and 199.4 rushing yards. Moore scored only two touchdowns all season with just one of them coming after the bye, but if you add the fantasy points from his lone post-bye touchdown to his 16-game extrapolated post-bye totals, he’d have finished with approximately 182 fantasy points in PPR formats. Humphries, last year’s WR24 in PPR scoring formats had 188.7 fantasy points. Even if Moore makes zero gains in his second season, his post-bye pace would warrant his current WR24 ADP.
Having said that, why shouldn’t growth be expected as he gets further acclimated to the NFL? Additionally, he played three games after the bye in which he failed to even crack 50% of the snaps played. More playing time alone should help him build on last year’s foundation, and he has a potentially easy schedule this year. There’s the caveat that NFL personnel changes from team to team every year, but as Chet Gresham of Walter Football points out in the following tweet, Moore has a mouthwatering schedule according to FO’s DVOA ranks against No. 1 receivers from 2018.
One area where Moore has plenty of room for growth is in the touchdown scoring department. He reached pay dirt just two times last year. The first of his two touchdowns were of the long-gainer variety on a 51-yard reception. Moore has elite speed to provide home-run scores. He ran a 4.42-second, 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine, putting him in the 89th percentile for 40-yard dash time, per PlayerProfiler. Moore’s elite speed should allow him to accidentally stumble into more than one long touchdown this year.
He also scored on an eight-yard reception last year, and his usage in the red zone late in the year provides a reason for optimism regarding his touchdown potential this season. Moore hauled in five-of-eight targets in the red zone and recorded all of those targets from Week 11 through Week 17, according to Lineups. Christian McCaffrey is the centerpiece of Carolina’s offense, but Moore has a golden opportunity to lessen the load for the superstar back while emerging as a second stud in a potentially explosive offense. Sign me up for his upside at a pick barely within the top 60.
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Josh Shepardson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Josh, check out his archive and follow him @BChad50.