Recently, Andrew Erickson looked at the benefits of targeting players on good offenses. This can help your fantasy draft strategy. Let’s take a look at the Bills and profiles for the players to target on their offense.
Targeting Players on Good Offenses: Bills
BUFFALO BILLS – MEAN ADP (76)
The Bills’ offense is tantalizing for fantasy purposes, as no team has thrown the ball more on early downs under neutral game script conditions the past two seasons. However, this is very much baked into the cost of their top guys. Stefon Diggs and Josh Allen won’t come cheap. And Gabriel Davis — depending on where you draft — could go as early as Round 5 or as late as Round 7.
In a perfect world, getting a potential league-winner like Davis in Round 7 is ideal. But most likely not realistic. So to unearth value, opt for attacking the Bills backfield with either Devin Singletary or James Cook being drafted outside the top 100 picks in Round 9/10.
As I explain in my “Fantasy Football Sleepers for All 32 NFL Teams,” their upside in a high-powered offense is not being captured in their asking price.
Singletary finished as the RB3 in PPR scoring over the final six weeks of the season with 17 fantasy points per game, despite the Bills maintaining a pass-first approach.
But by far the cheapest value option to gain access to Allen’s uber arm is with veteran Jamison Crowder.
If Crowder can just do what Cole Beasley did last season — 82 receptions for 693 yards, WR40 in PPR, WR48 in HPPR — he will vastly out-produce his ADP outside the top 60.
Playing in a super pass-heavy offense will allow Crowder the opportunity to soak up targets underneath, as he has done when healthy for the New York Jets. Just last year, the 29-year-old commanded at least five targets in every single game he played without leaving due to injury.
In those ten healthy games, the slot receiver averaged nearly five receptions and seven targets per game.
Although in the best-ball format that heavily factors in the Week 17 playoff matchups, I’d be keen on using a late-round pick on Isaiah McKenzie. McKenzie flashed big-time upside in his solo spot start for Buffalo in Week 16 versus the Patriots. He caught 11 of 12 targets for 125 receiving yards and one touchdown. It also wasn’t the first time McKenzie had stepped up in Cole Beasley‘s absence.
In Week 17 of the 2020 season, he put up an equally impressive outing with six catches for 65 yards and two touchdowns.
These late-season surges for McKenzie shouldn’t be overlooked, especially considering Crowder has played 16 games once in the last four seasons.
Bills Player Profiles
Josh Allen (QB)
The back-to-back reigning fantasy QB1 showed no signs of slowing down in 2021. Allen led the quarterback position averaging 24.6 fantasy points per game and a whopping 26.7 expected fantasy points – nearly three points more than the next closest signal-caller. The Bills quarterback’s dual-threat ability – third in rushing yards (763) and rushing attempts (122) – provides him a fantasy ceiling that only a few other quarterbacks can match. No quarterback had more top-3 finishes or top-8 weekly finishes than Allen did a season ago
That’s why he’s deserving of being the first quarterback drafted across all formats.
Because even after taking a slight step back as a passer in 2021 – 104.9 passer rating vs. 97.9 passer rating – a higher passing touchdown ceiling exists for Allen in 2022. His 5.6% TD rate was worse than in 2020 and ranked just ninth in 2021. Case in point: despite finishing No. 1 overall, Allen ended with the 5th-most fantasy points under expectation.
Stefon Diggs (WR)
2021 was a somewhat odd season for Stefon Diggs as his fantasy production took a step back from his first season in Buffalo. His 29% target share fell to 24% as did his yards per route run (2.5 versus 1.8). This resulted in Diggs finishing with just two games with at least 90 receiving yards, a dramatic decrease from his ten 90-plus yard outings during the 2020 regular season.
He finished as a top-15 WR just once through the first nine weeks of the season but improved down the stretch as Buffalo’s offense hit its stride. He had three top-10 finishes as the WR8 in fantasy points per game in half-point scoring (14.8).
Still, top-5 upside still exists with Diggs in this explosive Bills offense even if his target share holds at 24% in 2022. Because his command of high-value targets in the Buffalo offense was unmatched by almost every other WR in the NFL.
He was one of just two WRs to hit over 2,000 air yards (Justin Jefferson). Diggs also commanded the most end-zone targets in the NFL (25) during the regular season – six more than the next closest receiver (Justin Jefferson).
Gabriel Davis (WR)
Gabriel Davis averaged 19.8 fantasy points per game (PPR) and 16.0 expected fantasy points per game in his last six games while running a route on 88% of dropbacks as the Bills finally emphasized his playing time in the offense.
As a strong bet to earn the No. 2 wide receiver job come opening day, Davis has a legitimate shot to be a reliable fantasy option in a Josh Allen-led offense in 2022.
Jamison Crowder (WR)
If Jamison Crowder can just do what Cole Beasley did last season – 82 receptions for 693 yards, WR40 in PPR, WR48 in HPPR – he will vastly out-produce his ADP outside the top-60.
Playing in a super pass-heavy offense will allow Crowder the opportunity to soak up targets underneath, as he has done when healthy for the New York Jets. Just last year, the 29-year-old commanded at least five targets in every single game he played without leaving due to injury.
In those ten healthy games, the slot receiver averaged nearly five receptions and seven targets per game.
Devin Singletary (RB)
Buffalo invested second-round draft capital into a rookie James Cook this offseason, but that’s no reason to totally write off last year’s starting tailback Devin Singletary. The fourth-year back was unleashed down the stretch for the Bills, finishing as the RB3 in PPR scoring over the final six weeks of the season – 17 fantasy points per game. He gained the coaching staff’s trust by earning 54-plus snaps to close out the season, the highest snap number Singletary saw all season dating back to Week 1.
Buffalo also didn’t let off the Motor Singletary when the team hit the playoffs, with the RB1 averaging nearly 20 fantasy points per game from the Wild Card Round through the Divisonal Round.
With a proven track record and two years of bell-cow back usage in spurts, don’t be surprised when PFF’s fourth-ranked running back in rushes of 15-plus yards and seventh-ranked player in forced missed tackles in 2021 is the highly sought-after RB breakout that emerges from a high-octane ambiguous backfield.
James Cook (RB)
Rookie running back James Cook has immediate sleeper fantasy appeal across all PPR formats based on his second-round draft capital, pass-catching prowess, explosiveness and offensive situation. The 5-foot-11, 199-pound running back has more than enough heft to manage a decent workload especially as a receiver out of the backfield. The 5-foot-7, 203-pound Devin Singletary was the RB3 over the last six weeks of the regular season when the Bills entrenched him as the featured guy. Cook with an ECR of RB44 seems priced closer to their floor than his ceiling considering Round 2 running backs have finished as top-36 running backs more than half the time (55%) since 2013.
Dawson Knox (TE)
Dawson Knox has major red flags on his profile from his impending touchdown regression to super-low target rate per route run (14%), so any role that O.J. Howard potentially earns coming in is a massive problem.
Considering Knox is being drafted in the middle-range of TEs (TE9) that typically have poor ROIs compared to guys going later, the Bills’ tight end remains hands-off.
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