When it comes to drafting your fantasy football team, sometimes it can feel more confusing than it needs to be. While deep dives into data and analytics are great, there are often a few ways to get a leg up on your competition that don’t feel like rocket science. Andrew Erickson has shared one of those strategies to follow as you’re making decisions between players on draft day: prioritize players on good offenses. Erickson lays out his case in that article. Below we’ll take a look at a few fantasy football draft picks to consider on one of these offenses, the Jaguars.
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Fantasy Football Players to Target
Absolutely wild folks. The hype is real. The Jaguars are “America’s Team.” Their team ADP has skyrocketed from 26th to second from last season. Everybody is more expensive than there were last year…except for running back Travis Etienne Jr. ETN was RB16, 36th overall, and now is priced at RB14, 39th overall. What a shame after a great first season in the NFL.
Travis Etienne had a Johnathan Taylor-esque rookie season in 2022.
But nobody cares.
I just see concerns about his lack of receiving work, when the Jaguars were the healthiest team on offense last season.
Hard for any RB to be heavily targeted when all the WRs/TEs are healthy
— Andrew Erickson™ (@AndrewErickson_) May 24, 2023
The Jags RB1 proved himself to be a great fantasy asset during the 2022 season, averaging 15 fantasy points per game from Weeks 7-17 (RB8 in points per game) and finishing tied for 5th in carries inside the 10-yard line (23) despite only scoring four touchdowns on those carries. ETN ended the year with 1,291 rushing yards averaging 5.1 yards per carry in 19 games played as PFF’s 19th-highest graded rusher.
WR Calvin Ridley‘s price continues to rise to Round 3 in some draft rooms, making him a slightly tougher target after so much time missed. And Christian Kirk seems like he is being drafted as the WR26 nearly 3 rounds ahead of his ADP last season, when he faces his stiffest target competition to date with Ridley added to the fold.
There’s not much value juice to squeeze in Jacksonville County outside perhaps No. 3 WR, Zay Jones. He’s obviously come a long way since WR87 from 2022, but WR60 is hardly giving him much credit for his WR26 finish through 17 weeks.
We cannot overstate how effective Jones was in his first year in the offense after signing a 3-year $24M deal with $14M guaranteed. He played a nearly full-time role running a route on 87% of dropbacks (37.1 per game, 14th, same as Kirk). He ended the year as the WR24 while posting career highs across the board in receptions (82), yards (823) and yards per route run (1.44). But what was most impressive, was Jones’ 27% top-12 finisher rate, which ranked 16th-best among all WRs. His four top-12 finishes were the same amount that Christian Kirk tallied.
Even if Jones takes a small step back in terms of targets with the addition of Ridley, I don’t envision his actual playing time decreasing too drastically. Remember, the Jaguars had three WRs last season running a route on at least 73% of the dropbacks (30-plus per game). And Marvin Jones‘ departure vacates 22 targets of 20-plus air yards. There are still plenty of opportunities to go around in this Jaguars’ ascending offense, and Jones represents the cheapest access point.
Just seems to me that the market is penalizing Jones more for the addition of Ridley than they are with Kirk.
Fantasy Football Draft Strategy: Leverage ADP
As you prepare for your fantasy football draft, it’s important to have a sense of rankings and where players are being drafted. Of course, this will change league-to-league, but you can usually get a sense of where a player is likely to go in your draft with a little fantasy football research. To really zero in on a player’s average draft position (ADP), you can use our consensus ADP. This, combined with our Expert Consensus Ranking, will allow you to get a sense of players that are drafted earlier or later in general drafts versus where the experts would recommend you targeting them.
For example, if you have a player with an ADP of No. 12 overall, but our consensus of experts view them as a top-five player, that’s probably someone you want to consider targeting in the back-end of the first round. On the flip side, if a player has an average draft position of No. 5 overall but our experts view the player as outside of the top-10 overall in their rankings, you’re likely better off allowing one of your league mates to make that draft pick.
