Fantasy Football Busts: Aaron Rodgers, David Njoku, D’Andre Swift (2024)

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. Let’s dive into a few notable fantasy football busts to avoid below.

2024 Fantasy Football Draft Busts

Aaron Rodgers (QB – NYJ)

Rodgers is 40 years old and coming back from a torn Achilles. When we last saw him play a full season with the Packers in 2022, Rodgers averaged 6.8 yards per pass attempt (one of the lowest rates of his career) and threw 26 TD passes in 17 games.

The Jets’ offense will inevitably operate at a sluggish pace, which has always been the case when Rodgers has been paired with playcaller Nathaniel Hackett, who was Rodgers’ offensive coordinator in Green Bay for three years. Additionally, the Jets have one of the NFL’s best defenses, so Rodgers won’t be involved in many shootouts.

Rodgers’ ADP is only QB20, but even that modest price seems too high.
– Pat Fitzmaurice

D’Andre Swift (RB – CHI)

D’Andre Swift lands in Chicago with a contract that is large enough to consider him the clear starter for the Bears. Khalil Herbert and Roschon Johnson had their moments last season, but the aggression and contact size for Chicago speak volumes about how they feel about those two rushers. The Bears obviously felt that an upgrade was warranted. Swift ranked 17th in explosive run rate last season while disappointing in other tackle-breaking metrics as the RB24 in fantasy. Among 49 qualifying backs last season, Swift ranked 40th in yards after contact per attempt and 30th in missed tackles forced per attempt. Swift should be a solid RB2 in 2024.
– Derek Brown

David Njoku (TE – CLE)

What David Njoku did late last season should not be ignored.

The Browns’ tight end was FULLY unlocked with Joe Flacco as his QB. In Flacco’s five starts, Njoku has a 22% target share, averaging nine targets per game. 17.1 expected points per game in half-point scoring. But even before Flacco got there, Njoku had been HEATING up. Weeks 7-17, Njoku ranked first in expected fantasy points per game at 16.8 among all tight ends. Deshaun Watson was his QB in just two of those contests.

But in terms of projecting him into 2024, he checks off a lot of the boxes you don’t want from a tight end. He’s going in the middle tier as the TE10. He has a new offensive coordinator and a different QB than the ones that were present during his late-season surge. He did the majority of his damage with Joe Flacco as his QB. He also ranked second in total red-zone targets among tight ends in the last two seasons under his former OC Alex Van Pelt (now with the Patriots).

There’s no denying Njoku’s talent as a player, but there are enough question marks about his current situation to forego him as a priority target in fantasy drafts unless he falls into the late-round tier.
– Andrew Erickson