Fantasy Football Draft Values: Miles Sanders & Kyle Pitts (2023)

Thankfully, the 2023 fantasy football season is just around the corner. Each year, fantasy players want to construct their team with a proper mix of good-value players and upside sleepers while avoiding players with high bust potential.

In the seventh part of an eight-part series, I will identify two ADP values, two likely-to-bust candidates, and two potential sleepers from the NFC South.

AFC ADP Sleepers, Busts & Values: East | North | South | West
Draft Targets for Every Round: Early | Middle | Late
Fitz’s Draft Primers: QB | RB | WR | TE
Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator

ADP Values

Miles Sanders (RB – CAR): ADP 48.3 | RB19

The 2021 season was one to forget for Miles Sanders and his fantasy managers. The former Penn State star was the RB45, averaging 8.7 half-point PPR fantasy points per game. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a single touchdown despite totaling 163 touches that season. Thankfully, Sanders bounced back last year. He was the RB13 in 2022, averaging 12.2 fantasy points per game. Furthermore, the veteran had 11 rushing touchdowns, beating his career total entering the season by two.

Sanders was also one of the more underrated runners last year. He finished 13th in evaded tackles (64), 14th in true yards per rushing attempt (4.7), and 15th in breakaway runs (12) among running backs. Unfortunately, the veteran had almost no impact in the passing game, totaling only a 5.2% target share and 40.3% route participation. However, that will change in Carolina. Running backs have averaged 116.5 targets per year in the four full years Frank Reich was with the Indianapolis Colts. More importantly, Sanders could have even more rushing upside now that he doesn’t have to split goal-line work with Jalen Hurts.

Kyle Pitts (TE – ATL): ADP 63.7 | TE6

Fantasy managers had high hopes last year for Kyle Pitts following his impressive rookie season. The former Gator was the TE7 in 2021, averaging 8.4 half-point PPR fantasy points per game despite scoring only one touchdown. However, he joined Mike Ditka as the only two tight ends to have over 1,000 receiving yards as a rookie. Unfortunately, Pitts was a massive fantasy bust last year, finishing as the TE33, averaging 6.2 fantasy points per game. However, fantasy players should expect a bounce-back season from the former Gator.

Marcus Mariota held Pitts back last year. His catch rate dropped from 61.8% as a rookie to 47.5% last season. Furthermore, he had a 59.3% catchable target rate, one of the worst in the NFL. Mariota completed only 23.5% of his pass attempts over 20 yards downfield. However, the former Gator had the highest target share among tight ends in 2022 (34.3%) and has a 91.2% route participation rate in his career. While Desmond Ridder won’t be an elite quarterback, he only has to be better than Mariota for Pitts to succeed this season.