Tom Strachan | Fri, Jul 19th 2024, 7:07am EDT

Fantasy Football Mock Draft: How to Approach Pick 1.05 (2024)

The NFL season will be here faster than expected, and before that comes the all-important fantasy football drafting season! What better way to prepare for your fantasy football draft than completing FREE mocks with our fantasy football mock draft simulator?

This series will give you an overview of what you can expect to see no matter which first-round pick you draw. In what feels like a very strong first round in 2024, nailing your picks will be more important than ever.

Let’s dive into our approach for the fantasy football 1.05 pick for upcoming drafts. We look into the players likely to be available, those to target/avoid and a mock draft from the pick to help you prepare for your fantasy football league.

Fantasy Football Draft Strategy: Pick 1.05

Players to Consider at 1.05 Fantasy Football Draft Pick

Here are players who are likely to be available when you make your selection.

Players to Target at 1.05 Fantasy Football Draft Pick

Ja’Marr Chase feels the most likely player to be gone from this section, but if he’s available, he’s a clear pick. If he’s not available, you should target these fantasy football players at the 1.05 draft pick.

Justin Jefferson (WR – MIN)

It’s possible that Jefferson deserves to be going higher than Chase in average draft position (ADP) when all is said and done. Jefferson has shown us far more consistency and is everything we’d hope Chase could turn into. Over the last three seasons, Jefferson has averaged 102.3 yards per game, 20 more than Chase’s 82.6, and Jefferson also averages 15.0 yards per reception compared to Chase’s 13.9.

Jefferson has finished higher than Chase in point-per-reception (PPR) points per game in every single year they’ve both played in the league. In 2021, Jefferson was the WR4 to Chase’s WR5, then WR1 to Chase’s WR5 in 2022 and again in 2023, Jefferson pipped Chase to finish as the WR5 to Chase’s WR10.

Bijan Robinson (RB – ATL)

No team in the NFL received a more significant offensive upgrade this offseason than the Atlanta Falcons. While the Kirk Cousins and Michael Penix situation is messy at best, it ensures that the Falcons’ skill position players will have adequate quarterback play this year, something that was impossible to say in the past two seasons under Marcus Mariota and Desmond Ridder.

Bijan Robinson out-touched Tyler Allgeier 272 to 204 in 2023 and had 78 targets to Allgeier’s 20 but was kept off the field in the red zone with 23 touches to Allgeier’s 36, including only three carries inside the five-yard line versus Allgeir’s six. Everything we’ve heard from the new coaching staff since they took over from the fantasy football demon, Arthur Smith, suggests this will no longer be the case.

The coaching staff predominantly comes from the Sean McVay coaching tree, who has a history of preferring to lean on one running back rather than using a committee. Something that would be sensible when you have Robinson under contract. Cousins, or Penix, will be a more efficient quarterback and keep the team on the field more often, which would be welcome after the Falcons finished eighth-lowest in drive success rate, a statistic that measures how often a drive resulted in points for the offense.

Robinson was viewed as generational when he was drafted, and it’s not too late for him to show us that was warranted.

Players to Avoid at 1.05 Fantasy Football Draft Pick

Here are a few potential fantasy football draft landmines that you should avoid.

Amon-Ra St. Brown (WR – DET)

Landmine might be a little strong for any player in the first round, but nevertheless, Amon-Ra St. Brown feels like a less safe pick than those who come before his average draft position (ADP). The Lions ran nuclear fission hot in 2023, and their offense looks well set for the long term.

But if Jahmyr Gibbs and Sam LaPorta make second-year leaps, which is not uncommon, and Jameson Williams finally has a clean offseason, then it could eat into Brown’s volume somewhat.

The wide receivers at the top of the board all have mediocre levels of same-team competition. CeeDee Lamb only faces Jake Ferguson and Brandin Cooks, and Chase having little to contend with outside of the oft-banged-up Tee Higgins. Meanwhile, Justin Jefferson could face trickier years, but TJ Hockenson is likely to miss a reasonable chunk of the season and then have to get up to speed with a rookie quarterback.

Lastly, Tyreek Hill has shown he is the dominant receiver in Miami, and the only other threat in the passing game is Jaylen Waddle. Meanwhile, St. Brown faces two first-round picks and a second-rounder, all while hoping Jared Goff can keep the fire burning. St. Brown is a great pick, but not great enough to be ahead of the tier ahead of him.

A.J. Brown (WR – PHI)

While the wide receivers are the more attractive pick at this spot in the draft, there is no need to reach further down to get A.J. Brown. This past year was a tale of two halves for Brown, who scored 22.6 points per game in Weeks 1-9 before going off a cliff and scoring only 12.3 points per game for the rest of the season.

Part of this can be attributed to the Eagles’ collapse and an injury to Jalen Hurts that we never heard any proper details about; however, that didn’t seem to hinder DeVonta Smith. Smith still returned reasonable value as the PPR WR13 over the second half of the year, scoring 3.2 points more per game than Brown despite seeing a 6% lower target share than Brown’s 31%. Brown is a fun player with a super-high ceiling, but we don’t need to reach on him here.

Roster Constructions to Consider at 1.05 Fantasy Football Draft Pick

When we’re drafting from the 1.05, we are at the edge of a tier of top-talent players, and while the ones coming afterward are also great players, there start to be a few questions about their ceiling outcomes. Wide receivers dry up very quickly in this year’s drafts, so however you build in the first two rounds will dictate how you attack the rest of the draft.

If we select Chase or Jefferson, then we’d likely have to reach on De’Von Achane or Kyren Williams in the second round, when their ADP is early third, to get a running back—as Jonathan Taylor and Saquon Barkley will most likely have been chosen already. Instead, this sets us up for a ZeroRB build, which was incredibly successful in 2023.

If selecting Robinson instead, then it’s a good idea to swing towards wide receivers in Round 2 and build with a classic HeroRB build where we can wait a few more rounds for our second running back. Otherwise, if we add a second running back in round two, our WR1 might end up being Malik Nabers or DeVonta Smith, who are both fine players but lacking a bit compared to what some of the teams around us will be boasting.

Fantasy Football Mock Draft from the 1.05 Pick

We used our FREE fantasy football mock draft simulator to show you an example of a draft from the 1.01 position. You can sync your league for free and mock draft against your fantasy football league settings in order to prepare more specifically for your draft. Here’s how our fantasy football mock draft from the 1.05 position turned out.

Check out my complete draft results here.

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