Fantasy Football Busts: Jayden Reed, Jordan Addison, Sam LaPorta (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

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

Jordan Addison (WR – MIN)

Addison’s WR30 finish last year in fantasy points per game won’t be replicable in 2024 unless he cures a BUNCH of massive red flags in his profile. His rookie season was inflated by his insane touchdown luck. He was 15th in end zone targets last year and ran hot with the fourth-most receiving touchdowns among wide receivers behind only Mike Evans, Tyreek Hill, and CeeDee Lamb. All of his other metrics were in the toilet. Among 81 qualifying receivers, he ranked 46th in target share, 59th in targets per route run, 51st in yards per route run, and 58th in first downs per route run. Touchdowns are flukey. Everything points to Addison being a bust in 2024, so I’ll be happily avoiding him.
– Derek Brown

Sam LaPorta (TE – DET)

I’ve mentioned how being the No. 1 or No. 2 target is critical for a tight end to be a top fantasy producer. So that brings up the question: How many times has the TE1 not been the No. 1 target on his team? Last year, it happened with Lions rookie Sam LaPorta.

But it was the first time since 2017 that a tight end finished as the TE1 overall with fewer than 135 targets while also failing to lead his offense in total targets.

Simply put, LaPorta’s status as the late-round tight end was two-fold. Not only did he perform well above expectations (with a clear path to targets, mind you, in Year 1), but it also occurred in a season where the elite TEs failed to fire.

Keep in mind that Rob Gronkowski was the last TE to be TE1 without leading his team in targets that season. He averaged 13.8 points per game in half-PPR.

LaPorta’s 11.6 points per game as the TE1 last season is the weakest TE1 season we have seen since 2016 (Travis Kelce). Before Kelce was providing an elite level advantage among TEs.

In most years, LaPorta would finish closer to TE4 with that production. And that’s why I think he’s vastly overvalued. As the TE1 overall and to the other “elite” tight ends that are drafted one or two rounds after him.

He scored 10 TDs, nearly three of above expectation per PFF. His expected fantasy points per game ranked sixth in the NFL last season among TEs (again per PFF). The FantasyPros Touchdown Regression Report suggests LaPorta is a massive candidate for TD regression closer to the mean.

His points per game through 18 weeks were identical to Mark Andrews and below Kelce and Hockenson. I don’t get the temptation for drafters to select LaPorta – who we can almost all agree won’t see more targets than a healthy Amon-Ra St. Brown given all the other weapons in Detroit’s offense – when Andrews and Dalton Kincaid go nearly three rounds later as much better bets to be the No. 1 targets in their respective offenses.

LaPorta in 2024 is like how Jonathan Taylor was drafted two years ago. He was coming off an overall RB1 season driven by TDs in a year where RB scoring was down. The injuries were not easily predictable the following season, but his status as RB1 should have been discussed more. He was propped up by an unusual down year at his position. And that’s what drafters are doing with LaPorta in 2024. Drafting the TE that saw the biggest boost due to TDs, even though he ranked 7th in receiving yards per game among TEs.

He HAS to be better than he was last year if he wants to repeat his efforts as the TE1 in fantasy football.
– Andrew Erickson