While it’s difficult to win your league at your draft, it’s certainly possible to get behind the eight ball in a hurry. It’s important to avoid mistakes early in drafts. This includes reaching for players and overvalued positions. Our featured experts here to help with draft day landmines that could blow up your fantasy football season before it begins.
- Identifying Rookie WR1s & WR2s | 6 Wide Receivers Most Likely to Become WR1s
- Draft Targets for Every Round: Early | Middle | Late
- Fitz’s Draft Primers: QB | RB | WR | TE
- 2023 Fantasy Football Draft Kit
Overvalued Running Backs to Avoid
What one RB inside the top 50 in our consensus ADP do you plan on avoiding in all or most of your drafts relative to their price and why?
Breece Hall (RB – NYJ)
“This one’s easy. It’s Breece Hall. I just don’t see the appeal of drafting a running back coming off of a late-October torn ACL who just came off of PUP this week. While the Jets are adamant in saying that the Dalvin Cook signing had nothing to do Hall’s injury, Cook is certainly better competition than the other running backs the Jets already had on their roster. Finally, there’s the unknown of how having a new quarterback (Aaron Rodgers) and play caller (Nathaniel Hackett) will impact their player usage. Too many things that could lead to a low-floor season from Hall to make me want to draft him in the third round. ”
– Sam Hoppen (FantasyPros)
“Breece Hall. The Jets’ recent signing of Dalvin Cook was the nail in the coffin for me. The recovery from injury is one thing that I wasn’t sure I was in on for this season. With the money they’ve given Cook, this isn’t a veteran coming in and expecting to be on the bench. Currently going as RB13? Not for me — even with an expected improvement in offense.”
– Richard King (King Fantasy Sports)
Najee Harris (RB – PIT)
“Although Najee Harris has finished as the RB3 and RB14 in his first two seasons, he has relied heavily on volume with a lack of efficiency. Harris has carried the ball 579 times in the last two seasons with virtually no competition for touches, but that’s about to change with Jaylen Warren making a bid for a role on offense. With the lack of efficiency, Harris’ upside is capped and if his monster workload shrinks, he’s left with more downside than anything.”
– Chad Workman (Fantasy Scouts)
Saquon Barkley (RB – NYG)
“The perception is that Saquon Barkley’s 2022 season was a successful comeback from injury-plagued seasons in 2020 and 2021. Yes, he ran for 1,300 yards and 10 touchdowns. There are warning signs, however. 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. Those are bad numbers. 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. I’m not taking Saquon in the first round.”
– Pat Fitzmaurice (FantasyPros)
Miles Sanders (RB – CAR)
“I just can’t deal with Miles Sanders right now. The Panthers’ prized free agent acquisition has been talked up in the passing game all offseason, but we haven’t seen it on the field because he has been dealing with a lingering groin injury. Considering Sanders posted a 31 percent bust rate in 2022 – the highest among all RBs inside the top-24 finishers last season – he is trending in the wrong direction heading into peak draft season for managers thinking they’re acquiring a consistent contributor. The bust number is pretty glaring considering Sanders had the ideal setup running behind an elite offensive line when the team was always ahead. He likely won’t experience as many positive game scripts in Carolina, which makes his increase in receiving VITAL to avoid becoming the next free-agent running back bust in 2023.”
– Andrew Erickson (FantasyPros)
Rhamondre Stevenson (RB – NE)
“Rhamondre Stevenson at 25th overall became my answer as soon as the Patriots signed Zeke Elliott. It’s not so much because I think Zeke is excellent or will eat into Stevenson’s upside, but more because it shows that the Patriots don’t think Stevenson can carry the load by himself. I was drafting Stevenson as a workhorse running back, but now he’s in a committee, and I think his ADP has yet to really adjust to the news.”
– Andrew Hall (FantasyPros)
Jonathan Taylor (RB – IND)
“Jonathan Taylor is a player I’m avoiding in most situations in drafts this year. The relationship between Taylor and Colts is messy, and he continues seeing unwanted fantasy football drama. Taylor is still recovering from his ankle injury, with three weeks until the season begins. Now that Anthony Richardson will be the day one starter, the rookie quarterback is a significant threat to Taylor’s ability to score touchdowns. The troubles with Taylor overpower his potential upside that you’d be drafting in round two. ”
– Steven Pintado (The Fantasy Coaches)
Travis Etienne (RB – JAC)
“My hesitancy to draft Travis Etienne is well-known at this point. While consensus doesn’t want to admit it, Etienne is in a similar pickle to Kenneth Walker. Tank Bigsby is in line to vulture touchdown opportunities while also cutting into the early down work, much like Zach Charbonnet in Seattle. Etienne’s current RB12 (30th overall) price tag is too tough to swallow with these concerns.”
– Derek Brown (FantasyPros)
Overvalued Wide Receivers to Avoid
What one WR inside the top 50 overall in our consensus ADP do you plan on avoiding in all or most of your drafts relative to their price and why?
Amari Cooper (WR – CLE)
“Amari Cooper just isn’t an exciting draft pick for me this year. I would much rather have the other receivers – Deebo Samuel, Clavin Ridley, and Keenan Allen – going around them given the roles they hold in their offenses and the quarterbacks they’re catching passes from. Cooper’s value will be driven a lot by whether Deshaun Watson returns to his playing level when he was on the Texans, and I need to see that before I believe it. Cooper finished as the WR10 in half PPR leagues despite running a route on 89.3% of Cleveland’s dropbacks, and it feels like that might just be his ceiling this year.”
– Sam Hoppen (FantasyPros)
DeVonta Smith (WR – PHI)
“DeVonta Smith is TOO expensive. He was the WR28 in expected fantasy points per game last season. He finished ninth in total points scored above expectation. Overall, he ended the year as the WR16 in points per game. So why is he drafted as the WR12 overall? Before Dallas Goedert‘s injury in Week 10, Smith was averaging fewer than 10 fantasy points per game (9.7). He was the WR29 overall. But after Goedert was sidelined from Weeks 11-15, Smith went en fuego finishing the season (Weeks 11 through 18) as the WR5. The Slim Reaper was averaging 15 points per game in half-point scoring. His current ranking is too heavily weighing his production when Goedert missed time in the second half of the season. Before his injury, the two were posting a nearly identical target rate per route run (20.3 percent vs. 19.4 percent). In the season’s totality, Smith was a fantasy WR1 (top-12) in just 19 percent of his games last season (27th). Three top-12 threshold finishes. ”
– Andrew Erickson (FantasyPros)
DK Metcalf (WR – SEA)
“DK Metcalf finished as the WR16 last season, but the Seahawks recorded their highest pass play percentage since 2017. The Seahawks threw the ball on nearly 60% of their plays, which is just the fourth time that’s occurred in the Pete Carroll era, as the team typically hovers in the mid-40 percentile and the bottom of the league. Carroll certainly prefers a more run-heavy approach and took a running back in the second round of the draft for the second year in a row. Not only that, the team added rookie sensation JSN to its receiver room while Tyler Lockett will continue to command targets. Metcalf has yet to fully unlock his ceiling and I struggle to see a path for it this year.”
– Chad Workman (Fantasy Scouts)
“I love DK Metcalf as a receiver, but the growing mouths they need to feed in Seattle is a lousy thing for fantasy football. Metcalf had 140 targets last year and barely put up 1000 receiving yards. Adding JSN will make a negative impact on Metcalf’s target share. Geno Smith is a solid quarterback but still needs to determine if he has the talent to keep three receivers at elite fantasy level for an entire season. Metcal must be efficient to be trusted as a top 36 in drafts this season.”
– Steven Pintado (The Fantasy Coaches)
Deebo Samuel (WR – SF)
“I don’t have much interest in drafting Deebo Samuel, who might not be the best wide receiver on his own team. From the time Christian McCaffrey joined the 49ers in Week 7 through the end of the 2022 regular season, Brandon Aiyuk had a larger target share than Deebo and averaged 2.8 more PPR points per game. Deebo has provided some rushing value in recent years, but it seems unlikely he’ll move the needle as a runner this year if McCaffrey and Elijah Mitchell stay reasonably healthy. There’s no denying how dangerous Deebo is with the ball in his hands, but he’s not worth drafting at his 40th overall ADP.”
– Pat Fitzmaurice (FantasyPros)
“Deebo Samuel at 40th overall feels way too pricey for me. He’s talented, sure, but he also has a lot of competition for targets between Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, and fellow WR Brandon Aiyuk. I’d rather pass on Deebo and wait and grab Aiyuk a full round or two later. They might have similar outcomes at the end of the year, so why pay the higher price?”
– Andrew Hall (FantasyPros)
“Deebo Samuel. He had a great season which threw him toward the top of draft boards, but he isn’t being used in the way he needs to be for fantasy relevance. Bringing in Christian McCaffrey has really limited what Samuel is going to need to do in the offense. With George Kittle a major target in the offense (when healthy) there are a lot of mouths to feed in the offense.”
– Richard King (King Fantasy Sports)
“San Francisco neutered Deebo Samuel’s production last year, rendering him a low aDOT PPR wide receiver on a run-first offense. This shouldn’t sound appealing at all, but drafters are overlooking that his “wide back” role is gone, and Samuel’s fantasy stock tanked after the arrival of Christian McCaffrey last year. Samuel’s WR16 ADP (40th overall) is insanity.”
– Derek Brown (FantasyPros)
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