Welcome to the grand unveiling of the 2024 Fantasy Football Forecast, a critical juncture for fantasy football fans, marking the end of 2023 with our sights set on next season!
This guide is your key to navigating the endgame of fantasy leagues, offering vital insights for managers and enthusiasts alike, especially those looking to get ahead of the game for 2024 fantasy football drafts.
We will hit on all the usual suspects that make up the weekly forecast articles – air yards, target share, snaps, route participation, red-zone usage, etc. – but this time it will highlight how players/teams did from a season-long perspective (along with overlooked Week 18 contests) as we craft our rankings, takes and strategies for the 2024 fantasy football season. Because YOU can already draft fantasy football best ball teams for the 2024 season. What a world to be part of. Here’s the full 2024 Fantasy Football Forecast. Below we dive into a few notable names.
2024 Fantasy Football Forecast
Carolina Panthers
The Panthers showcased a strong rushing game in Week 18, totaling 131 yards with Chuba Hubbard contributing 83 yards on 23 carries.
The passing game, led by Bryce Young, was less effective, totaling only 94 yards. Young completed 11 of 18 passes, with D. J. Chark being the top receiver, catching 2 passes for 46 yards (4 targets). Chark caught a long pass that was initially ruled a TD, but it was overturned to a fumble through the end zone. Woof. He is a free agent in 2024 and will likely land on a new team that has a complimentary deep threat who misses games with injuries.
Chark was the WR58 overall in 2023, averaging 6.5 points per game (65th). He led the Panthers in TDs (5) and posted over 1,000 air yards on a team-high 31% air yards share (33rd). No player had more air yards with fewer targets (66) than Chark despite two missed games.
Adam Thielen had 3 targets, and nobody else had more than 2.
Thielen’s 2023 season provided the full-body experience of an older veteran WR with zero competition for targets. He started off out of the gates red hot, as the WR11 overall through 11 weeks, scoring fantasy points per game at a top-15 rate at 13.7. But alas the 33-year-old could not continue his production with shoddy QB play from his rookie QB. WR51 from Weeks 12-18.
Overall, Thielen’s performance in the half-PPR format for the season placed him as a reliable WR2 or flex option for fantasy managers. With 103 receptions (10th) on 137 targets (25% target share, 14th), Thielen racked up 1,014 receiving yards, averaging 9.8 yards per reception, and notched 4 touchdown receptions running the 5th-most routes in the NFL. He ended the season with a 10.6 points per game average, securing him as the 25th overall wide receiver in half-PPR scoring. Per game, he ranked WR31. He’s under contract until 2026 and will be entering the offseason as the Panthers’ No. 1 WR until they add more WRs in the draft/free agency – the latter of which will likely happen based on the Panthers’ interest in the WR market before this past year’s trade deadline.
Let Thielen’s 2023 season be a learning lesson to drafters in 2024 for two reasons. No. 1. Take a shot on discounted/projected No. 1 WRs even on bad offenses. The price here is key. With older players, be aware that their production will almost certainly be more FRONT-LOADED. In certain roster builds, they can be avoided entirely, but rosters that need immediate production can benefit greatly from these veterans completely written off by the market.
Note this as well. Entering last season just four players finished as top-50 fantasy wide receivers in 2022 above age 30: Tyler Lockett, Adam Thielen, Keenan Allen, and DeAndre Hopkins.
Fast forward to 2023:
NINE players finished as top-50 fantasy wide receivers in 2023 above age 30: Brandin Cooks, Cooper Kupp, Tyler Lockett, DeAndre Hopkins, Thielen, Davante Adams, Stefon Diggs, Keenan Allen and Mike Evans.
I’ve tracked this for a while, and this year is a MASSIVE outlier, considering it’s been exactly four 30-year-old WRs to be top 50 guys since 2020.
- 2022 -4
- 2021 – 4
- 2020 – 4
Note that this inflated number might just be based on the sheer TOTAL of older WRs playing in the NFL. Because even though a bunch of older guys delivered, there were plenty that busted: Odell Beckham Jr., DeVante Parker, Robert Woods, and Michael Thomas.
The following WRs are already 30 years old (not already mentioned) or will turn 30 during the 2024 season: Tyler Boyd, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Mike Williams, Demarcus Robinson, Amari Cooper and Tyreek Hill.
Miles Sanders has an out in his contract in 2025 but will be due $7.7 million next season. Dead cap hit would be $8.4 million. He likely sticks around, but who knows given the Panthers’ likelihood of blowing up the roster in 2024. Especially with a new offensive playcaller coming in as the head coach.
Chuba Hubbard is in the final season of his rookie deal, and it would make sense for the team to just continue to feature him on a cheap deal. After fully unseating Sanders as the starter in Week 7, Hubbard finished the year onward as the fantasy RB23 averaging 10.9 points per game. 4th in total carries from Week 7 onward. Finished the season top-10 in total rushing attempts (11th in touches) and 20th in rushing yards while playing just under 60% of the offensive snaps (16th).
And maybe this is a bit of a trip down narrative street, but two of Hubbard’s best games against the Buccaneers’ elite run defense. As the Bucs OC, new head coach Dave Canales saw in -person what Hubbard could do against a strong defensive front. Think that bodes well for Hubbard to be the team’s RB1 to start in 2024.
As for the smallish elephant in the room…Nowhere to go but up for Bryce Young. The rookie year was an utter disaster for Young, but this roster could receive a massive overhaul to help him on the offensive side of the ball. This needs to happen quickly after Young took 62 sacks last season. NFL QB whisperer and new Panthers HC Dave Canales has resurrected two QBs in back-to-back season, between Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield. Be optimistic that Canales can help turn things around for Young in Year 2.
Canales taking over bodes well for WR Jonathan Mingo, after a disastrous rookie campaign. 18th in route participation with zero production to show for it. 16% target share. 4.2 points per game ranked 90th among WRs. Woof.
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