Fantasy Football Advice: Zack Moss, Nico Collins, Dak Prescott (2024)

FantasyPros analysts Derek Brown, Andrew Erickson, Pat Fitzmaurice and Mike Maher continue a series of preseason roundtables by discussing QB strategy, players they’re second-guessing and offense that could be sneaky sources of fantasy football goodness. And check out last week’s fantasy football roundtable for even more expert advice.

Fantasy Football Roundtable

We’re at the precipice of peak fantasy football draft season. Here’s your chance to talk fantasy managers out of drafting one player you believe is destined to disappoint. Which player has you putting on the hazard lights?

Zack Moss

Derek Brown: I’m avoiding this year’s Alexander Mattison, aka Zack Moss.

Moss has been splitting first-team snaps with Chase Brown, which is already concerning. If we look at Moss’s 2023 season closer, it is frightening. Moss’s 2.79 yards after contact per attempt doesn’t look bad on the surface until you realize that a few big games propped it up. Moss failed even to hit 2.7 yards after contact per attempt in seven games while ranking 23rd out of 50 qualifying backs in elusive rating (per PFF).

If Moss can’t maintain a stranglehold on the early-down work, he won’t be able to look to passing-game usage to save him. Last year, he ranked 41st in yards per route run and 48th in targets per route run. Moss looks like a 2024 land mine to avoid.

Nico Collins

Pat Fitzmaurice: Fading talented players is never fun, but Texans WR Nico Collins is overpriced as a high-end WR2 who typically goes around the Round 2/3 turn.

Collins is unlikely to match his 2023 efficiency — 16.2 yards per catch, 11.9 yards per target, 3.11 yards per route run — and he has to share targets with talented teammates Stefon Diggs and Tank Dell.

Dak Prescott

Andrew Erickson: I spent this past weekend at a bachelor party (congrats, Andy), and you can only imagine how many questions related to fantasy football I received. A lot of Texans WR questions, to which I echo Fitz’s sentiment that Nico Collins carries the most bust risk. But thinking back on the weekend, I remember specifically citing Dak Prescott as a huge value trap.

It’s telling when a so-called “elite” fantasy QB requires a top-75 pick. He’s the lowest-ranked quarterback before we get into the late-round territory. I think he should be ranked closer to that late-round QB tier. The 2023 season was the perfect storm for Dak. The Dallas defense underwhelmed vs. expectation, and Prescott greatly benefitted from Tony Pollard’s inability to score rushing TDs. Dak led the NFL in passing TDs in 2023. Can he be a fantasy QB1 again? Sure. But I am very skeptical that he’ll be a top fantasy QB again.

Betting on Mike McCarthy doing the right thing is something that, in my opinion, doesn’t work in the long run. And there’s no denying that Dak must be elite from a passing perspective again without any rushing to fall back on. Keep in mind that Dallas likely won’t be as fortunate with injuries. Should anything happen to CeeDee Lamb (or if he continues to hold out), Dak would be in big trouble. There’s a severe lack of WR depth behind Lamb on the roster. Brandin Cooks is getting older, and the Cowboys are hoping Jalen Tolbert can ascend to the No. 3 role. Just draft Jordan Love and his team filled with four No. 1 WRs.

Dontayvion Wicks

Mike Maher: Should I use this space to continue my crusade against Marvin Harrison Jr. at his current price? Nah, I’ve talked about him enough in recent weeks throughout this series. Instead, let’s throw some water on everyone’s favorite sleeper heading into 2024: Packers WR Dontayvion Wicks.

This isn’t to suggest that I don’t like Wicks. Quite the opposite, actually. In fact, I was one of the first people in the fantasy football industry to hop on the Wicks bandwagon. I wrote about him back in February 2023 after what I felt was a quietly impressive Senior Bowl. While he wasn’t getting the headlines coming out of Senior Bowl Week, I saw an underrated WR who was consistently getting open and making tough catches. The Packers managed to grab him in the fifth round of the 2023 NFL Draft, and then he impressed last season when injuries opened up playing time for him.

This brings us to why I’m fading him in 2024. I love the talent. But what is the path to playing time and target volume? I don’t love that situation nearly as much. Green Bay has Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, Jayden Reed, Bo Melton and Wicks at WR to go with two talented young TEs in Luke Musgrave and Tucker Kraft, plus they went out and signed RB Josh Jacobs, drafted RB MarShawn Lloyd and brought back RB AJ Dillon. That many weapons are a great problem to have, but it also makes it nearly impossible to project the distribution of targets and touches for this offense. When targeting late-round WRs, I want to target someone with a clearer path to production.