Fantasy Football Player Notes

Going from Kirk Cousins to Josh Allen isn't going to be a highlight of Diggs' career, as Cousins has continually been one of the better deep-ball passers, while Allen was among the worst in 2019. Diggs actually led the league in yardage on passes that traveled over 20 yards in the air last year. The Bills are still a run-first team that has a top-tier defense, so it's hard to expect a big jump in pass attempts. They targeted their wide receivers 310 times last year, which was a lot for a team that threw the ball just 513 times. The 60.4 percent target share was the fourth-highest mark in the league. So, again, it's tough to say there will be more to go around. Knowing that John Brown was fantastic last year (115 targets), as was Cole Beasley (104 targets), it's tough to take targets away from them, but we have to start taking them from someone because you don't trade for someone like Diggs and not target him. Still, giving him even 115 targets might be too generous, as it'd completely crush the value of Brown, who already has experience with the quarterback/offense. Realistically, I have Diggs down for 111 targets in my projections. When tied to Allen's inconsistencies, that is a WR3 in fantasy who can get into WR2 territory at year's end, similarly to the way Brown did last year. Diggs is probably a top-eight wide receiver in the league, but you need to targets to move up the boards in fantasy football. I'd be happy landing him as my WR3, but that's about it.

There were many celebrating the end of the Frank Gore era in Buffalo, but they went out and added one of my favorite backs in the draft, Zack Moss, to use in that Gore role. GM Brandon Beane said, "I think more of the goal line and things like that as we did with Frank last year, you'll see Zack do. I think Devin will do a similar role that he had." This is your reminder that Singletary had just two carries inside the five-yard-line all year, while Josh Allen had five, and Frank Gore had 11. That's a crushing blow to Singletary's value.

Did you know that 36.4 percent of Allen's fantasy production came on the ground last year? His nine rushing touchdowns were the sixth-most all-time, while his 631 rushing yards ranked 18th on that list. According to where his carries took place on the field, he scored 30.97 more fantasy points than he was supposed to on the ground alone. As a passer, he scored 1.66 fewer fantasy points than expected. The Bills want to play solid defense with a ball control style offense, and knowing Allen's strengths, they'll be running the ball quite a bit. The addition of Zack Moss to the backfield will lower Allen's rushing touchdown ceiling, as Moss is a better version of 2019's Frank Gore. Not many realize Gore ranked 13th among running backs for carries inside the five-yard-line. Adding Stefon Diggs will certainly help his choices when scanning the field, but Allen needs to get better completing the deep ball. My issue with Allen is his inconsistency, and I can best explain it with this stat: It took 18.6 fantasy points on average to finish as a top-12 quarterback in 2019. Allen hit that mark just 43.8 percent of the time, which was worse than Ryan Fitzpatrick, and the same percentage as Jared Goff. Sure, the booms will be bigger with Allen than those guys, but he's not someone you want to put in your starting lineup every week.

The Bills have already come forward and said that Moss will take over the role that Frank Gore played last year. Before injuries and age started to add up for Gore, he was getting a lot of work in the Bills offense. He averaged 12.5 carries per game through Week 12, which is a big enough role to be considered an RB4. Not just that, but Gore ranked 12th among running backs for carries inside the five-yard-line. Moss is going to crush Devin Singletary's upside, and if Singletary were to miss time, Moss would be a top-15 start every week.

The addition of Stefon Diggs likely crushed the appeal that Brown had in fantasy football. The Bills gave up a first, fourth, fifth, and sixth-round pick for Diggs (and a seventh rounder). That's a lot. The fact that there will be no preseason certainly helps Brown, as he has experience and chemistry with Josh Allen, as well as knowing the offense. Here's the crazy part about Brown last year: He hit WR3 or better numbers in 73.3 percent of his games, which ranked 11th in the league. He only hit WR2 or better numbers in 26.7 percent of his games, which ranked 51st in the league. Now start removing targets to get Diggs his, and we suddenly lose some of that WR3 floor that he had. He is a good football player who just won't get enough targets to start on a consistent basis. Now, if Diggs were to miss any time, we could go back to playing him as a low-end WR2/high-end WR3. Until then, Brown is in the WR4 range for me.

There were some plays that Knox made last year that suggested he could be a fantasy asset in the future, but the Stefon Diggs trade threw a wrench into any increase in projected targets we could give him. There were eight games where Knox had four-plus targets in his rookie season, which is actually quite good, but we can't pretend the Bills are going to become a team that throws the ball 600 times overnight. Knox is someone you might want to stream when the Bills receivers have tough matchups, but even then, it's going to be hard to project more than five targets for the second-year tight end.

It's odd, but the trade for Stefon Diggs doesn't really affect Beasley's role at all. He's the slot receiver in the offense when they go three-wide, and he's the safety valve for Josh Allen. With that being said, many more plays will be designed to the perimeter in order to get the ball into Digg's hands. That will cap the number of targets Beasley sees, which was at a tremendous 104 last year. Even without Diggs on the roster last year, Beasley produced just two games with more than 14.3 half PPR points, so it's not like you were winning weeks because of him. He was a fine streamer during bye weeks as someone who wouldn't crush your lineup. Lowering expectations to around 80-85 targets, Beasley's floor has been lowered and there will be better options to choose during bye weeks in 2020.