Fantasy Football Targets: Diontae Johnson, Rome Odunze, Brian Robinson

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 some of Derek Brown’s favorite middle-round fantasy football draft picks to target.

2024 Fantasy Football Draft Advice

Diontae Johnson (WR – CAR): Earning volume is a skill. It’s a reflection of talent, and few do that better than Johnson year after year. Once he returned from injury in Week 7, he continued to gobble up targets like usual, ranking 14th in target share (23.7%), sixth in air-yard share (41.6%), and 20th in FD/RR (0.109). In that span, he was the WR33 in fantasy points per game. Johnson should have no issues earning similar volume this season in Carolina, flanked by Adam Thielen and Xavier Legette. Look for Bryce Young to pepper his new WR1. Johnson is a WR3/4 that could easily post WR2 production in 2024.

Brian Robinson (RB – WAS): Brian Robinson‘s overall stat lines don’t portray how good he was last season. Robinson was the RB14 in fantasy points per opportunity and the RB22 in fantasy points per game. He also stood out in efficiency categories, ranking 22nd in explosive run rate and 13th in yards after contact per attempt (per Fantasy Points Data). In the 12 games in which he played at least 40% of the snaps, Robinson averaged 15.5 touches and 77.9 total yards per game. He quietly displayed a three-down skillset last season, proving that he can play on passing downs, ranking fifth in yards per route run and 12th in PFF’s pass-blocking grade (minimum 20 targets and 50 pass-blocking snaps). Robinson will have to fight Austin Ekeler for passing down snaps and red zone work as he settles into the RB2/3 zone for 2024.

Rome Odunze (WR – CHI): No one should question Odunze’s talent. In his final season in college, Odunze ranked 18th in YPRR and 8th in PFF receiving grade. It is fair to wonder about his ability to earn targets in year one, as D.J. Moore and Keenan Allen will flank him. There are reasons to be hopeful for Odunze, though. Unlike Jaxon Smith-Njigba last year, Odunze can still have splash weeks this year because of his ability to stretch the field, as his 15.5 aDOT in 2023 attests, so he can maximize some lost volume with big plays. The volume of this passing attack could surprise us as well, though. In 2021-2023, under new Bears’ offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, Seattle ranked seventh in neutral pace and ninth in neutral passing rate. If the passing volume shocks the world and/or Keenan Allen or D.J. Moore misses any time, Odunze could outplay his ADP.