Tom Strachan | Fri, Aug 23rd 2024, 7:17am EDT

Fantasy Football Mock Draft: How to Approach Pick 1.05 (2024)

The NFL season is almost here, and before that comes the all-important fantasy football draft season! What better way to prepare for your fantasy football draft than completing FREE mocks with our fantasy football mock draft simulator?

This series will give you an overview of what you can expect to see no matter which first-round pick you draw. In what feels like a very strong first round in 2024, nailing your pick will be more important than ever.

Let’s dive into our approach for the fantasy football 1.05 pick for upcoming drafts. We look into the players likely to be available, those to target/avoid, and a mock draft from the pick to help you prepare for your fantasy football league.

Fantasy Football Draft Strategy: Pick 1.05

Players to Consider at 1.05 Fantasy Football Draft Pick

Here are players who are likely to be available when you make your selection.

Players to Target at 1.05 Fantasy Football Draft Pick

Ja’Marr Chase (WR – CIN)

Ja’Marr Chase continues to apply pressure to the Bengals to extend his contract now, rather than waiting, which seems to be the Bengals’ preferred move. Chase will likely cost them very close to, or if not more than, the $35 million a year that Justin Jefferson got. Much like CeeDee Lamb, Chase continues to not train while waiting for a contract, but ultimately it feels like Chase will still be on the field in Week 1.

Per Jacob Gibbs, when Tyler Boyd has been off the field over the past two seasons, Chase’s targets per route run rate rose from 24.1% to 27.6%. Chase also benefits from playing more often in the slot when Boyd isn’t on the field, similar to players like Jefferson and Lamb. This allows them to accumulate some easy catches in addition to the high-value ones they already see.

The Bengals face one of the easiest strengths of schedules thanks to finishing fourth in the AFC North last year, and if Burrow can stay healthy, Chase can be an elite fantasy option in 2024.

Bijan Robinson (RB – ATL)

No team in the NFL received a more significant offensive upgrade this offseason than the Atlanta Falcons. While the Kirk Cousins and Michael Penix situation is messy at best, it ensures that the Falcons’ skill position players will have adequate quarterback play this year, something that was impossible to say in the past two seasons under Marcus Mariota and Desmond Ridder.

Bijan Robinson out-touched Tyler Allgeier by 272 to 204 in 2023 and had 78 targets to Allgeier’s 20. However, Robinson was kept off the field in the red zone, with 23 touches to Allgeier’s 36, including only three carries inside the five-yard line versus Allgeier’s six. Everything we’ve heard from the new coaching staff since they took over from the fantasy football demon known as Arthur Smith suggests this will no longer be the case.

The coaching staff predominantly comes from the Sean McVay coaching tree, and that approach historically means preferring to lean on one running back rather than using a committee. That would also be the sensible move when you have Robinson under contract. Either Cousins or Penix will be a more efficient quarterback than past years and keep the team on the field more often, which would be welcome after the Falcons finished eighth-lowest in drive success rate, a statistic that measures how often a drive resulted in points for the offense.

Robinson was viewed as generational when he was drafted, and it’s not too late for him to show us that the hype was warranted.

Breece Hall (RB – NYJ)

Despite playing with a miserable set of quarterbacks and a horrible offensive line, not to mention coming off an ACL injury in his rookie season, Hall led all running backs with 93 targets and was second in receptions with 74.

Due to the ineptitude of the Jets’ offense, however, Hall finished with only eight touchdowns, tied for 17th most among the position. There were 36 other running backs that had more attempts inside the red zone than Hall did and the Jets ranked fourth-worst in percentage of drives to end in points (26%). The offensive line has been improved on paper and even with an aged Aaron Rodgers, he’ll be an upgrade on who the Jets had previously. Hall has the RB1 overall potential in his outlook.

Players to Avoid at 1.05 Fantasy Football Draft Pick

Here are a few potential fantasy football draft landmines that you should avoid.

Amon-Ra St. Brown (WR – DET)

Landmine might be a little strong for any player in the first round, but nevertheless, Amon-Ra St. Brown feels like a less safe pick than those who come before his average draft position (ADP). The Lions ran nuclear fission hot in 2023 and their offense looks well set for the long term.

But if Jahmyr Gibbs and Sam LaPorta make second-year leaps, which is not uncommon, and Jameson Williams finally has a clean offseason, then it could eat a bit into Brown’s volume.

The wide receivers at the top of the board all have mediocre levels of target competition on their team. CeeDee Lamb only faces Jake Ferguson and Brandin Cooks, and Chase has little to contend with outside of the oft-banged-up Tee Higgins. Meanwhile, Justin Jefferson could have a trickier time, but TJ Hockenson is likely to miss a reasonable chunk of the season and then have to get up to speed with a rookie quarterback. Lastly, Tyreek Hill has shown he is the dominant receiver in Miami, and the only other threat in the passing game is Jaylen Waddle.

Meanwhile, St. Brown faces two first-round picks and a second-rounder, all while hoping Jared Goff can keep the fire burning. St. Brown is a great pick, but not great enough to be ahead of the tier ahead of him.

A.J. Brown (WR – PHI)

While the wide receivers are the more attractive pick at this spot in the draft, there is no need to reach further down to get A.J. Brown. This past year was a tale of two halves for Brown, who scored 22.6 points per game in Weeks 1-9 before going off a cliff and scoring only 12.3 points per game for the rest of the season.

Part of this can be attributed to the Eagles’ collapse and an injury to Jalen Hurts that was never fully disclosed; however, that didn’t seem to hinder DeVonta Smith. Smith still returned reasonable value as the PPR WR13 over the second half of the year, scoring 3.2 points more per game than Brown despite seeing a 6% lower target share than Brown’s 31%. Although A.J. Brown is a fun player with a super-high ceiling, we don’t need to reach on him here.

Roster Constructions to Consider at 1.05 Fantasy Football Draft Pick

When we’re drafting from the 1.05, we are at the edge of a tier of top-talent players. While the ones coming afterward are also great players, there start to be a few questions about their ceiling outcomes. Wide receivers dry up very quickly in this year’s drafts, so however you build in the first two rounds will dictate how you attack the rest of the draft.

If we select Ja’Marr Chase or Justin Jefferson, then we’d likely have to reach make sure we got one of De’Von Achane or Kyren Williams in the second round to get a running back, since Jonathan Taylor and Saquon Barkley will most likely have been chosen already. The other option is to lean into a ZeroRB build, which was incredibly successful in 2023.

If selecting Robinson instead, then it’s a good idea to swing towards wide receivers in Round 2 and build with a classic HeroRB approach where we can wait a few more rounds for our second running back. Otherwise, if we add a second running back in round two, our WR1 might end up being Malik Nabers or DeVonta Smith, who are both fine players, but they lack a bit compared to who some of the teams around us will be boasting.

Fantasy Football Mock Draft from the 1.05 Pick

We used our FREE fantasy football mock draft simulator to show you an example of a draft from the 1.01 position. You can sync your league for free and mock draft against your fantasy football league settings in order to prepare more specifically for your draft. Here’s how our fantasy football mock draft from the 1.05 position turned out.

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