With the NFL Draft dust settling we can finally decide which rookies landed in good positions for fantasy football and which ones did not. The NFL season always brings some surprises, but as we sit here several months away, these are the rookies with the worst landing spots.

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NFL Draft Worst Landing Spots

RB Blake Corum to the Los Angeles Rams

Fresh off a season where Kyren Williams averaged a league-leading 21.7 touches per game and finished with 1,350 yards and 15 touchdowns, adding another running back didn’t feel like a priority need. However, the Rams have drafted at least one running back in every draft since 2018 and weren’t about to stop. Blake Corum came off the board with the 83rd overall pick in the third round. Everyone had expected the Chargers to draft Blake Corum but they passed him by in the second and third rounds, resulting in him falling to the Rams instead.

Corum doesn’t bring much that the Rams aren’t already getting from Kyren Williams, who is also a smaller back. While Corum is slightly bigger at 205 pounds, it’s not a big difference. Corum is more powerful in short yardage but doesn’t outrun players, something Williams has excelled at with the Rams. Perhaps Corum steals some short-yardage work, but Kyren Williams had the fourth-most running back red zone rush attempts last year and the fourth-most touchdowns.

Inside the 5-yard line, Williams had 17 touches that resulted in nine touchdowns, showing he can be relied upon in that area of the field. Corum will be able to spell Williams, but he doesn’t do anything well enough to force this into a true committee any time soon. Even if this is another classic rug-pull on a late-round RB we thought had fantasy value, Corum was expected to be one of the few backs with standalone value. At very best, he is now in a timeshare.

WR Adonai Mitchell to the Indianapolis Colts

Pre-draft reports from reputable insiders suggested Adonai Mitchell could be drafted as high as pick 20 overall, and the consensus opinion was he had enough upside to be drafted in round one. This didn’t come to fruition with Mitchell sliding to pick 52, selected as the WR11 off the board. Mitchell is a big-bodied athlete who is a good route runner but fails to produce and doesn’t always play up to his size.

Often in the NFL size is overvalued and prospects are talked up too much for one quality when the lack of production is more important. Mitchell never topped 850 yards in college and only had one season above 500 yards. Now he’ll face competition from Michael Pittman, who saw 10 targets per game in 2023, Alec Pierce who played 94% of snaps last year and Josh Downs, who had an 18% target share. Mitchell can be relevant in best ball, particularly with Anthony Richardson possessing a canon of an arm but don’t expect to enjoy deciding when to start Mitchell in managed leagues.

AD Mitchell film VS analytics pic.twitter.com/sbcEux50Dv

— Tom Strachan (@NFL_TStrack) April 25, 2024

RB Braelon Allen to the New York Jets

The Jets seemed fairly well set at running back with stud workhorse Breece Hall finishing as the PPR RB4 in total points, despite the complete dysfunction in New York last year. Behind Hall was Israel Abanikanda, who the Jets drafted in round five of the 2023 NFL Draft and showed out well enough when called upon, rushing nine times for 43 yards in Week 16 when he got his biggest workload.

However, the Jets decided they didn’t have enough options and drafted Braelon Allen in round four, who profiles as a solid all-around back but one without elite speed or skills in the receiving game. Allen had been expected to go inside the top 18-24 picks in rookie drafts, as someone who could carve out a role in the NFL. With Hall and Abanikanda ahead of him and the Jets also drafting Isaiah Davis in round five, this is a very crowded room. Hall’s talent likely rises well clear of everyone else. Allen will have to be hyper-efficient on limited opportunities — not a good recipe for fantasy football success.

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