Fantasy Football Draft Values: Brock Purdy, Adam Thielen, Jake Ferguson

Here are a few fantasy football values to target in drafts on CBS.

Fantasy Football Draft Values on CBS

The NFL season is upon us. Throughout August and into early September there will be more fantasy drafts than ever.

With so many fantasy platforms out there like ESPN, Yahoo, Sleeper and CBS, you can find players at different average draft position (ADP) values on each site. Here, I’ll focus on CBS.

Below, you’ll find three values I’ve found at CBS after brewing their ADP data.

Brock Purdy (QB – SF)

If you’re looking to pick up a quarterback later in drafts, look no further than Brock Purdy, who’s going as the QB11 and No. 92 overall in CBS leagues.

Purdy finished last season as the QB6 and the team around him only improved. This ADP may reflect the potential departure of Brandon Aiyuk, but right now, he’s still on the roster, though it’s looking likely he could depart.

Still, the 49ers added Ricky Pearsall in the first round and still have Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle and Deebo Samuel.

Purdy finished as the QB6 despite attempting just 444 passes, the second-lowest among all quarterbacks to play at least 15 games. He was only ahead of Atlanta Falcons signal-caller Desmond Ridder.

He threw for 4,280 yards, 31 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. Of course, losing Aiyuk would be about 1,300 yards of offense and a valuable deep threat, but Pearsall will be involved.

Even without Aiyuk, I still expect Purdy to finish well inside the top 10 of fantasy quarterbacks due to his incredible passing efficiency.

Adam Thielen (WR – CAR)

The Panthers added Diontae Johnson via trade and Xavier Legette in the second round of the 2024 NFL Draft, but I still like Adam Thielen as a PPR player this season.

At age 33, Thielen caught 103 passes for 1,014 yards and four touchdowns. The touchdown numbers were low, but that’s to be expected when your starting quarterback barely breaks double digits.

Johnson will be a valuable weapon and Legette will be a nice deep ball target, but Thielen is excellent in the short game. On passes thrown zero to nine yards downfield, 53.7% of Thielen’s targets were in this range. As for Bryce Young, 42.9% of his attempts were in this range. Of course, as a second-year player with a quarterback-driven head coach, you’d like to see a bit more downfield passing, but Young will certainly still look to Thielen as a reliable outlet option.

Thielen is going No. 189 overall in CBS leagues, behind players like Quentin Johnston. He’s an excellent last-round dart throw.

Jake Ferguson (TE – DAL)

Behind CeeDee Lamb, Jake Ferguson will fight with Brandin Cooks for the No. 2 spot.

Interestingly, Ferguson and Cooks were used similarly as Cooks saw 40.2% of his targets come on passes 0-9 yards downfield while Ferguson was over 60%. As for touchdowns, all five of Ferguson’s came in the red zone, whereas six of Cooks’ eight did.

Right now, Ferguson is going No. 90 overall as the TE9. The players ahead of him make a lot of sense, but he could be a prime candidate for teams deploying a strategy to wait on tight end.

He’s only 25, while Cooks is officially in his 30s. Expect Ferguson to get many valuable red zone looks in a contract year for Dak Prescott.

NFL Brock Purdy Brandon Aiyuk Ricky Pearsall Christian McCaffrey George Kittle Deebo Samuel Desmond Ridder Adam Thielen Diontae Johnson Xavier Legette Bryce Young Quentin Johnston Jake Ferguson CeeDee Lamb Brandin Cooks Dak Prescott