7 Draft Picks With Massive Upside (2024 Fantasy Football)

Let’s dive into a few notable fantasy football players with massive upside to consider in your upcoming drafts.

Players With Massive Upside

When preparing for your fantasy football drafts, knowing which players to target and others to avoid is important. The amount of information available can be overwhelming, so a great way to condense the data and determine players to draft and others to leave for your leaguemates is to use our expert consensus fantasy football rankings compared to fantasy football average draft position (ADP). In this way, you can identify players the experts are willing to reach for at ADP and others they are not drafting until much later than average.

Terry McLaurin (WR – WAS)

Thanks to a revolving door of mediocre quarterbacks, Washington wide receiver Terry McLaurin has been tapped out as a WR2 thus far in his career. With sensational rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels now at the helm, can McLaurin finally break into WR1 territory? I think so.

People love to showcase the rushing highlights — and there will be plenty of those — but some underestimate how good of a passer Daniels is. The 2023 Heisman Trophy winner had 3,800 passing yards and a 40:4 TD:INT ratio last season while hyper-targeting his two alpha wide receivers Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas Jr.

Expect more of the same for Daniels and McLaurin in Washington this season. McLaurin has been one of the most consistent wide receivers over recent years and his target competition (Jahan Dotson, Dyami Brown, Austin Ekeler, Zach Ertz) is among the weakest in the entire league. Dotson and Brown are in a battle for the WR2 role but I’m not sure either one gets targeted enough to maintain weekly fantasy relevancy.

Zay Flowers (WR – BAL)

Ravens wide receiver Zay Flowers had a terrific rookie season, has little-to-no target competition outside of tight end Mark Andrews and is the clear WR1 on an above-average offense. Yet, Flowers is ranked as the WR28 with an ECR in the 50s.

Last season, Flowers scored 17.7 PPR points in Week 1 and never looked back. Flowers scored 10+ fantasy points in 11 out of 16 games, including 19+ in four of the final five weeks of the regular season. That’s a small sample size, but that’s exactly the type of upside we’re looking for.

Moving forward, Baltimore does project as a run-first offense behind quarterback Lamar Jackson and new addition Derrick Henry, but the loss of Odell Beckham Jr. could open up more opportunities in the passing game. While the passing volume won’t be the same as other offenses, Flowers and Andrews should soak up plenty of targets.

Rico Dowdle (RB – DAL)

Rico Dowdle enters his age-26 season with an opportunity to become the Cowboys’ lead running back. Injuries have unfortunately hampered Dowdle’s career since he fractured his leg at South Carolina University. He joined the Cowboys in 2020 as an undrafted free agent (UDFA). A hip injury landed him on injured reserve (IR) for the entire 2021 season. An ankle injury sidelined him for the majority of 2022.

He won the backup job last season and managed to stay healthy for 89 carries, 361 yards and two touchdowns. Tack on 17 receptions for 144 yards and two more touchdowns. He narrowly outperformed Tony Pollard in terms of efficiency (4.1 to 4.0 yards per carry), and he seemed to get more juice with added touches. In his three games with nine or more carries, he averaged 12.55 half-PPR fantasy points per game.

Dowdle has great size at 6-foot-0, 215 pounds. He runs with physicality and balance. He’s also decisive with plus vision and cuts sharply upfield when he recognizes a lane. He has the most juice in this current Dallas backfield. Ezekiel Elliot had zero 20+ yard rushes on 184 carries in 2023. Dowdle had two on fewer than half the carries. Dowdle also only had one fewer run of 10+ yards (seven). Elliot passed his prime a long time ago. He was one of the worst rushers in the league last season with -71 rush yards over expected, per Next Gen Stats.

Dowdle’s RB43 ADP presents little risk for a potentially significant payoff. The Cowboys averaged 500 rush attempts over the last two seasons, and they consistently involve running backs in the passing game. A nice portion of that should produce a starting caliber fantasy season for even an average running back. The biggest threats to Dowdle’s season are his injury history and a potential in-season trade for another running back.

Jaylen Wright (RB – MIA)

Jaylen Wright’s ADP currently sits at RB47, which tracks with other prized handcuffs like Ty Chandler and Zach Charbonnet. Barring injury, Wright won’t see the majority of touches in this Miami backfield. He should, however, factor somewhat into their plans after Miami traded a third-round pick to draft him. This might be my dynasty brain talking, but I’m willing to roster any Mike McDaniel running back.

Wright had a 26% explosive run rate in college. For reference, Christian McCaffrey’s rate was 16.2% last year. Wright flashed big play ability in his first preseason game against the Falcons, catching a screen and reversing the field for a chunk gain. Wright can be effective in a limited role, especially in this Miami offense that prioritizes speed. He ran a 4.38-second 40-yard dash at the combine.

Wright also has the tools to excel in short-yardage situations. He’s currently the heaviest back on the team and runs with solid balance and strength. He could spell Raheem Mostert for some goal-line touches in 2024. The Dolphins scored 27 rushing touchdowns last year. While it’s safe to assume that number could diminish, there’s still plenty of opportunity in this high-scoring offense.

De’Von Achane and Raheem Mostert have extensive injury histories. The team might also want to use Mostert more sparingly in his age-32 season. Achane was the most electric running back in the league last year, but his slight frame couldn’t hold up under a significant workload. He also lines up in the slot often, which would allow multiple running backs on the field. Wright figures to earn some run in 2024. At worst, he’s an insurance policy with more upside than Charbonnet, Chandler and similarly ranked handcuffs.

J.K. Dobbins (RB – LAC)

I won’t quit you, J.K. Dobbins. A breakout 2020 rookie season had everyone crowning Dobbins as the next great Baltimore running back. He took 134 attempts for 805 yards and nine touchdowns, leading the league with 6.0 yards per carry (YPC). Fast forward two years and two significant injuries later, and he’s RB41 and a Los Angeles Charger. Some things, however, don’t change. He once again shares a backfield with Gus Edwards in a Greg Roman offense. He’s also going from (John) Harbaugh to (Jim) Harbaugh.

Dobbins came back strong after a torn ACL, averaging 5.7 YPC before suffering a ruptured Achilles. Unfortunately, this injury has recently killed the careers of Marlon Mack, Tarik Cohen, Cam Akers and James Robinson. It didn’t work for all those people. People somehow deluded themselves into thinking it might, but… it might work for JK Dobbins.

While Dobbins has been injury-prone, he’s always looked like the same talented runner on the field. Betting on an Achilles is risky business, but his RB41 ADP mitigates this risk. He’ll have the opportunity to regain his form, as Harbaugh and Roman have a history of featuring the run game. The Chargers also just bolstered the trenches with first-rounder Joe Alt. Edwards sits atop the depth chart to enter the season. While he’s very effective in short-yardage situations, he doesn’t offer the same creativity we have come to expect from Dobbins. The split could become closer to 1A and 1B than Joe Hortiz’s bell-cow comment might suggest. Dobbins signed with the Chargers a month after he said this. People say things. Things change.

Jayden Daniels (QB – WAS)

Coming in right at QB13 is rookie Jayden Daniels. Coming out of LSU, Daniels rushed for 1,134 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2023. He also passed for 3,812 yards, 40 touchdowns and four interceptions. While I don’t expect him to have those kinds of numbers his first season in the NFL, the rushing upside is real and could be the key to him reaching that QB5 marker.

Kliff Kingsbury is the new offensive coordinator with the Commanders. During his college coaching days, Kingsbury utilized more of a spread offense, but he reigned that in when he became head coach of the Arizona Cardinals. Still, the Cardinals were an up-tempo team.

Here’s how the Cardinals ranked in plays per game from 2019 to 2022:

2019: 62.5 plays (21st)
2020: 67.7 (third)
2021: 65.6 (eighth)
2022: 67.3 (third)

Daniels will continue to run, has decent weapons headlined by Terry McLaurin and has an offensive coordinator that’ll give him multiple chances to make something happen.

Pat Freiermuth (TE – PIT)

In his rookie season, Pat Freiermuth was the overall TE13 in PPR scoring and TE17 in points per game. Freiermuth took another step forward in year two, finishing as the TE7 overall and TE9 in points per game. In those two seasons, Freiermuth was one of the most efficient tight ends in the league, tallying just 79 targets in year one and 98 in year two. Last season, however, he was limited to 12 games due to a hamstring injury that lingered for much of the season.

More impactful to impeding Freiermuth’s success was the trainwreck we refer to as the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback situation. No one is anointing Russell Wilson as the savior, but he should provide the offense with a competent arm to deliver the football from point A to point B.

New offensive coordinator Arthur Smith is often criticized for Kyle Pitts’ lack of success, but Smith has always utilized his tight ends dating back to Delanie Walker and Jonnu Smith in Tennessee. Although Wilson is not known for utilizing the middle of the field, there’s an expectation in Pittsburgh that the offense will look to do more of that this season, which obviously benefits Freiermuth.

Reports out of camp also suggest Freiermuth is looking like the Steelers’ WR2. I anticipate him to be heavily utilized in the red zone. Wilson is not the same quarterback he used to be, but he was one of the best quarterbacks inside the red zone last season, tossing 20 touchdowns to one interception. Double-digit touchdowns are well within Freiermuth’s reach this season. I expect his most productive season yet.