Fantasy Football Busts: Brock Purdy, Josh Jacobs, Stefon Diggs (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

Brock Purdy (QB – SF)

I think my initial post-season analysis of Brock Purdy summarizes him perfectly.

“Back-to-back seasons where Purdy has posted a passing TD rate at 7% or higher. Most fantasy points scored ABOVE expectation in 2023. Nearly an average of 5 points or more scored over expectation. Tossed nearly 10 more TDS over expectation. QB33 in expected points per game. But with all that factored in. Still under 20 points per game at 19.2 (QB8). If you don’t draft Purdy, I don’t think it will kill your fantasy team. Everything has to remain perfect around him for him to be a top-8 fantasy QB, let alone top-5.”

We saw last season when Purdy lost a weapon or key offensive linemen, it was not a fun ride. Given that the 49ers are primed to experience a Super Bowl hangover – No.1 red-zone offense and No.2 healthiest offense – things might not be as smooth sailing for the third-year quarterback if the situation around him weakens.

Again, Purdy doesn’t offer the requisite rushing ability to mitigate any potential in passing TD efficiency.

I also don’t love the 49ers’ opening schedule. Home versus the Jets and then on the road versus the Vikings. New York still has one of the best defenses in the NFL. And the Vikings gave Purdy fits last season, holding him to under 13 fantasy points.
– Andrew Erickson

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

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