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 Kit
- 2024 Fantasy Football Rankings
- 2024 Dynasty Fantasy Football Draft Kit
- Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator
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
Josh Jacobs (RB – GB)
Jacobs hasn’t been the same player since his epic 2022 season. The volume took a toll on him last year. He was unable to finish the season due to a quad strain sustained in Week 13. Coincidentally, he’s already dealing with a hamstring issue this early in the offseason. The biggest worry surrounding this back that I can’t seem to shake is his tackle-breaking juice might be gone…for good.
Last season, Jacobs had the 12th-highest stuff rate while also crawling in at 37th in missed tackles forced per attempt and 44th in yards after contact per attempt (per Fantasy Points Data). If Jacobs can somehow earn a stranglehold on volume, then he could still pay off this season, but with my guy MarShawn Lloyd on the roster and the team already talking up Lloyd’s role, I doubt that will happen. I’m fading Jacobs in 2024.
– Derek Brown
Zack Moss (RB – CIN)
Early reports from Bengals training camp suggest that Chase Brown has an edge over Moss in the battle for RB snaps. Brown is younger and faster than Moss and a better pass catcher. But Moss has an ADP of RB26 and is being drafted several rounds ahead of Brown.
Moss was undeniably sensational for the Colts early last season when Jonathan Taylor was on IR (and in Taylor’s first game back). Over a four-game stretch in Weeks 2-5, Moss had 445 rushing yards, 72 receiving yards and four TDs. But from Week 6 on, Moss averaged 3.6 yards per carry and wasn’t nearly as effective. Don’t forget, Moss wasn’t exactly a dynamo during his two-and-a-half seasons in Buffalo either.
– Pat Fitzmaurice
Stefon Diggs (WR – HOU)
We’ve seen Diggs fall off in the second half of seasons in two consecutive years. If one year wasn’t enough to scare you off, then last year should have been. In the final seven games of 2022, Diggs only logged one 100-yard receiving game with 1.95 yards per route run. It was a similar, except an even more gruesome story in 2023. In Weeks 10-18 last year, Diggs finished as the WR45 or higher in weekly scoring only twice. During that stretch, he only had one game with more than 80 receiving yards while finishing as the WR52 in fantasy points per game.
Moving from Josh Allen to C.J. Stroud is a push as far as arm talent. The problem for Diggs is that even if you want to excuse away the back halves of the last two years, he’ll be challenged for targets by a strong trio of pass catchers in Nico Collins, Tank Dell, and Dalton Schultz. I’ll avoid Diggs in drafts for the upside swing of Collins or the value play of Dell.
– Derek Brown
Jayden Reed (WR – GB)
Reed was a pleasant surprise as a rookie, finishing WR23 in half-point PPR fantasy scoring. On the surface, his ADP of WR35 doesn’t seem unreasonable.
The problem is that Reed had a snap share of 70% or higher in only two of the 18 games he played last year (playoffs included). He didn’t even reach a 70% snap share in any of the eight games fellow Packers WR Christian Watson missed. Reed is rarely on the field whenever the Packers use two receiver sets.
Also, Reed scored 10 touchdowns last season on 75 touches (64 catches and 11 carries) That works out to a touchdown on 13.3% of his touches — a TD rate destined to regress.
– Pat Fitzmaurice
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
More Expert Players to Avoid
- Fitz’s Players to Avoid (Premium)
- DBro’s Players to Avoid (Premium)
- Erickson’s Players to Avoid: QB | RB | WR | TE
Fantasy Football Draft Rankings
Check out the consensus 2024 fantasy football draft rankings from our experts.
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