Fantasy Football Draft Busts: David Njoku & Zack Moss (2024)

Thankfully, the 2024 fantasy football season is just around the corner. Each year, fantasy players want to construct their team with a proper mix of good-value players and upside sleepers while avoiding players with high bust potential.

In the second part of an eight-part series, I identified two fantasy football ADP values, two likely-to-bust candidates, and two potential sleepers from the AFC North. We dive into a few notable picks below.

Fantasy Football Draft Busts

ADP via FantasyPros

Fantasy Football Bust Candidates

Zack Moss (CIN): ADP 80.3 | RB26

Some have high hopes for Moss after the Bengals signed him to replace Joe Mixon this offseason. The veteran running back averaged 22 touches and 12.7 half-point PPR fantasy points per game in his five healthy contests for the Indianapolis Colts without Jonathan Taylor last season. However, he was a wildly inconsistent player during those five games. Moss averaged under four yards per rushing attempt and scored nine or fewer fantasy points in 60% of those contests.

Unfortunately, the veteran was even worse than those numbers suggest. His 3.1% explosive run rate, 2.29 yards after contact per attempt, and 51% stuff rate during those five games would have ranked in the bottom six among 33 running backs with at least 170 rushing attempts in 2023 (per Fantasy Points Data). Moss has struggled to stay healthy in his career as the starter. Meanwhile, Chase Brown (ADP 121.3 | RB41) has gained ground on the starting role and received significant hype lately.

"If I could play fantasy football, I'd take him as my first running back…He's going to have a year. I guarantee it. Special talent, special player."

– Bengals OT Orlando Brown on RB Chase Brown via @espn pic.twitter.com/K3fVtxZ1zI

— SleeperNFL (@SleeperNFL) August 3, 2024

David Njoku (CLE): ADP 88.7 | TE10

Njoku had the best year of his career in 2023. He set career highs in several categories, including receptions (81), targets (123), receiving yards (862), touchdowns (six), and half-point PPR fantasy points per game (10). However, he was the TE13 in the five contests that Deshaun Watson had at least six pass attempts, averaging 6.3 fantasy points per game. By comparison, Njoku was the TE1 in the five games with Joe Flacco under center, averaging 15.2 fantasy points per contest, scoring 13.4 or more in all but one.

More importantly, he had a significantly higher target per route run rate (29% vs. 17%), air-yards share (15.8% vs. 2.4%), yards per route run (2.48 vs. 1.23), and fantasy points per route run (0.49 vs. 0.23) with Flacco under center compared to Watson (per Fantasy Points Data). Unfortunately, Njoku won’t catch passes from Flacco in 2024 after the veteran joined the Indianapolis Colts. Meanwhile, Jerry Jeudy’s arrival means there is one more receiver for Watson to target over the veteran tight end.