Fantasy Football Busts to Avoid: Saquon Barkley, Najee Harris, Breece Hall

It all comes down to this. All of the offseason fantasy football draft prep. All of the mock drafts. All of the time you’ve spent preparing for your 2023 fantasy football drafts will come down to the next few weeks. Are you ready? As always, we’re here to help. Our analysts have put in the work to identify players they are avoiding in drafts that could sink your season before it even begins. You can find a few of their least favorite fantasy football draft picks below. And for all of their targets and avoids, check out our articles from each analyst.

Pat Fitzmaurice: (Targets | Avoids) (Premium)
Andrew Erickson: (Targets | Avoids) (Premium)
Derek Brown: (Targets | Avoids) (Premium)

Fantasy Football Busts to Avoid

Saquon Barkley (RB – NYG)

Saquon hasn’t been truly effective as a pass catcher since 2019. He averaged 5.9 yards per catch and 4.4 yards per target last year. Over the 13 games he played in 2021, he averaged 6.4 yards per catch and 4.6 yards per target. Saquon has had two TD catches in his last 34 games (playoffs included). His rushing production started to taper off late last season. Over his first nine games of 2022, Saquon averaged 103.4 rushing yards per game and 4.7 yards per carry. Over his last seven regular-season games, he averaged 54.4 rushing yards per game and 3.9 yards per carry. (And it really wasn’t a matchup thing … the only top-5 run defense he faced during that stretch, based on DVOA, was Dallas. The Lions’ run defense, which was 26th in DVOA, held him to 22 yards on 15 carries.)

-Pat Fitzmaurice

Breece Hall (RB – NYJ)

Full disclosure. I was frequently drafting Breece Hall throughout the summer, but I had been dialing back my exposure. The Twitter doctors are giving me the green light based on his youth and type of ACL injury. I don’t want to miss Hall’s upside. Therefore, I’m not overly concerned about his injury from last season.

#NFL Injury FAQ:#Jets Breece Hall – Cook signing doesn't mean Hall is behind schedule. But does increase chances that they will slow-play his return.

Young RBs avg 3-4 games to ramp up touches. They will likely take at least that long w/Breece.

1/5

— Deepak Chona, MD. SportsMedAnalytics (@SportMDAnalysis) August 15, 2023

But I acknowledge that I am not a medical professional. And as great as the doctors are on the newly-named X App, they aren’t Hall or Jets team doctors. So, it’s important to note there’s always going to be more inherent risk in drafting a running back coming off a torn ACL than not. As I’ve made clear throughout the running back busts section, is that injuries are what causes players to bust often. And until we see Hall fully suit up and practice in some capacity in training camp, he brings a much higher bust profile. Being activated off the PUP list was a good sign. But Hall commenting on knee soreness and “trust” in cutting is really ominous. Specifically, because Hall’s ADP is still in the back-end fantasy RB1 range.

A sluggish start could seriously put fantasy football gamers behind the 8-ball, making Hall someone you need to get a draft day discount with. For me, he has to be drafted outside the first four rounds. The Jets have a brutal six-week schedule to open the year and their offensive line has been a mess all summer, so nobody will be surprised if Hall struggles out of the gates. The team also recently signed veteran Dalvin Cook to a pretty lucrative one-year contract, suggesting he’s not there to just be a backup. He’s going to play, most likely from the get-go. Aaron Rodgers wanted to get this guy.

So in addition to rehabbing a torn ACL, Hall faces a brutal schedule behind a shaky offensive line, learning a new offense with a new QB and overall touch competition from a seasoned veteran that owns a three-down skill set handpicked by the team’s starting QB to join the team. If it’s this easy to see how Hall fails to fire this season, why are we taking on so much risk with a top-5o pick?

You want to be a smart drafter in the early rounds and there are just too many red flags that suggest Hall isn’t the best use of high-end draft capital. Remember, most players BUST. When they burn you, it’s because they don’t hit expectations. Not because you faded them with an expensive ADP.

There are other good players in Hall’s draft range that possess high-end upside as well, without nearly the same risk factors such as Travis Etienne Jr., Lamar Jackson, Jahmyr Gibbs, DK Metcalf or Jerry Jeudy. Don’t be a hero if you don’t have to be.

Hall’s rookie year featured him finishing as RB1 (top-12) in 29% of his games. That ranked 17th. Tied with Kenneth Walker (also cheaper than Hall). D’Andre Swift was at 31%. Raheem Mostert 33%. James Conner 38%. His new teammate, Cook was at 25%. As was Travis Etienne Jr., A.J. Dillon and J.K. Dobbins.

Simply put, there are other RBs with high upside…not-named Breece Hall.

Hall is probably a better buy-low target after the start of the year, where he can probably be obtained at a further discount. And if you do draft him, you need to come prepared with a contingency plan in case he’s not at full strength from a productivity standpoint. Ie. Jamaal Williams, Samaje Perine can help plug your RB roster hole.

-Andrew Erickson

Najee Harris (RB – PIT)

Weeks	Yards after contact per attempt	Breakaway %	Elusive rating
1-5	2.48	7.2%	39.3
6-18	2.83	14.6%	67.4

In the first five weeks of last season, Harris struggled with a metal plate in his shoe while playing through a preseason Lisfranc injury. His tackle-breaking and explosive play ability suffered immensely. After the plate was removed after Week 5, Harris looked more like the player we saw in his rookie season, as he ranked 22nd in Yards after contact per attempt and tenth in elusive rating. His ability to provide explosiveness still was lacking, though, as he had the fifth-lowest breakaway percentage among running backs across his final 12 games. It’s sad, but at this juncture, Harris looks like ugly David Montgomery in fantasy, which, to be honest, is probably too heavy-handed and a slight to Montgomery. Montgomery bests Harris in career yards per route run, PFF receiving grades, and YAC per reception. The Steelers coaching staff came to their senses and worked in the lightning-in-a-bottle Jaylen Warren more as the last season wore on. We could see that continue in 2023, with Warren taking even more work away from Harris. After Week 5 last season, Warren bested Harris with 30.6% of the team’s high-value touches as Harris sat at 17.8%. After a rookie season where Harris played less than 75% of the snaps only three times, Harris only crossed that mark three times in 2022. After Week 5, Warren posted 1.6 yards per route run and drew a target on 23% of his routes run, which dwarfed Harris (0.87, 20%). Warren can further eat in Harris’s snaps in 2023, especially on passing downs which will send Harris packing his bags for bust town.

-Derek Brown