How do we define the Fantasy MVP? Is it Christian McCaffery, who puts up week-winning stat lines with regularity? Is it CeeDee Lamb, who finished as the overall WR1 despite being drafted after a handful of others? The answer is probably neither one. The real Fantasy MVP is typically not the top overall pick who finishes as the top scorer but more the pick with the sixth-round average draft position (ADP) who ends up a top-five player.
Last year I was fortunate enough to get Puka Nacua on waivers in my redraft leagues or late in rookie drafts of my dynasty leagues. He keyed me to several league-winning teams, finishing as a WR1 despite a preseason ADP well outside of the top 150. That is what made Nacua the Fantasy MVP for 2023: The opportunity for every league manager to have a shot at drafting him or picking him up on waiver.
Unlike McCaffery, who as the consensus top overall pick, is only accessible to a handful of teams in every league, the Fantasy MVPs are available to every team; it is just a matter of whether or not they have the foresight to take them. Below I go over four potential Fantasy MVP candidates, one at each skill position.
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Fantasy Football MVP Candidates
Andy Reid has a knack for turning his running backs into fantasy gold and Isiah Pacheco is the latest in a long line. He has received rave reviews this preseason and he’s been in on nearly 100% of Patrick Mahomes‘ snaps. Pacheco is coming off a season where he caught 44 passes. Without Jerick McKinnon, there is room for growth as a receiver. He should also find himself in plenty of positive game scripts meaning a 1,000-yard rushing season should also be in the cards.
If you squint hard enough, you can see a world where Pacheco challenges to be the RB1, although he would need to catch 80+ passes for that to happen. If he plays 80% of the snaps, it isn’t out of the question that he finishes with 1,500 total yards and 65 catches. Coming off the board around the 24th pick (RB12), according to fantasy ADP, you can make a solid case that he should be a first-round pick. Take the discount and profit.
If Malik Nabers had anyone besides Daniel Jones throwing him passes, he would probably be drafted in the top 20. Instead, he is getting knocked down draft boards because of Jones (an entirely reasonable stance). Looking deeper, though, there are reasons to be bullish. In Week 2 of the preseason, he had a 33% target share, seeing six targets out of 18 pass attempts from Jones. There is reason to think that could carry over to the regular season.
If it does, we are talking about Nabers having arguably the best target share of any receiver in football. I think Nabers is going to be a stud from Day 1. One of my hottest takes is that he outscores Marvin Harrison Jr. this season. He is being drafted as the WR23 at 47th overall, which will look silly by October. He may be the closest thing to Puka Nacua we get this year.
Dalton Kincaid will replace Stefon Diggs in Buffalo as Josh Allen’s top target, which is probably enough for Kincaid’s ADP of 51 to be a round too low. Kincaid’s 91 targets were second on the team to Diggs. With over 44% of Buffalo’s target share from 2023 no longer on the roster, it isn’t hard to make the case Kincaid may end up as the TE1. Kincaid has such a unique skill set that even without the evidence presented above he would be a breakout candidate.
However, between the anticipated jump in targets and a boost to his touchdown equity (he had just two scores in 2023), it is hard to justify that he shouldn’t be the first tight end off the board. I know some will argue Mark Andrews has a better ceiling and Travis Kelce is timeless but Kincaid is ready to take off. It is wheels up in Buffalo. Next year at this time he will be a top-20 pick.
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Jason Kamlowsky is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Jason, check out his archive and follow him on Twitter @JasonKamlowsky.
