With Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis leaving the Bills, many targets have been vacated in Buffalo. Rookie Keon Coleman may already be the best interview in the league and it’s easy to twistbut his 7.3 YPT was the second lowest among this year’s WR prospects, and he was never a target during college. Khalil Shakir had his moments, but shot a low 14.2% target percentage last season, even when given a bigger opportunity.
There has been some Chase Claypool hype, but Curtis Samuel should be considered the favorite to be Buffalo’s best wide receiver in 2024. He fits in well in Buffalobringing a dimension the Bills offense desperately needs. Samuel outperformed Jahan Dotson in a desperately dysfunctional Washington offense last season, somehow producing five weekly top-25 WR finishes while catching passes mostly from Sam Howell. Samuel is likely to face injury at some point, especially with an expanded role, but he looks like one of the best WR values in fantasy drafts right now.
The Bills Went Heavy After Joe Brady took over play-calling last seasonbut Samuel is still in good shape to have the best fantasy season of his career.
• Typically, I’m inclined to draft younger players for fantasy football, but I’m making two notable exceptions in 2024, with Cooper Kupp being one of them. His performance unquestionably fell last season, when he was clearly playing through an injury. But a committed Kupp still managed to match Puka Nacua’s targets when they were in the field togetherIncluding target portion of first reading. Nacua emerged as a true alpha as a rookie and will continue to demand goals, but Kupp enters 2024 finally healthy.
Kupp just turned 31, but fantasy wide receivers traditionally don’t show much decline during his eighth year in the league. The Rams led the NFL in yards per play when their offense was fully healthy last season, and Sean McVay is a master at producing WR fantasy points. Kupp is just two seasons removed from posting a 191-145-1,947-16 record, but he is available in the fourth round of Yahoo drafts, with 20 wide receivers being drafted previously. The Rams have Demarcus Robinson as their WR3, Colby Parkinson as their TE1, and an RB1 who has suffered multiple injuries throughout his brief career, so the targets will be extremely condensed.
I rank Kupp as a top 12 fantasy WR.
• Derrick Henry is the other senior I’m really excited about this year. His declining numbers over the last two seasons (when he still scored 25 TDs) were another product of a bad Titans offense what Henry’s performance; he remained explosive and was in the top three in YPC after contact against stacked boxes in 2023. He’s 30 now, but Henry’s touches were limited early in his career, and he is also simply built different. Henry’s instant share was reduced to 53% last seasonbut he still led the league in rushing for the fourth time in five years on an offense that gained just 4.9 yards per play.
It’s hard to underestimate how much of an upgrade Henry saw upon leaving Tennessee for Baltimore during the offseason. Henry came across More than 120 boxes for eight men than any other RB over the last three seasons, while Lamar Jackson helped a depleted Ravens RB group score the fourth most fantasy points last year. Gus Edwards benefited from a ton of short-range touchdownsIt is Henry’s style appears to be a great option for Baltimore’s attack; your YPC career jumped more than a meter full of shotgun and pistol (5.1 YPC).
The Big Dog will also go from indisputably from the worst run blocking unit in the league to the best. Henry averaged nearly double 0.5 PPR fantasy points during victories throughout his careerand no team led more than the Ravens last season. Henry averaged 98.4 rushing yards (5.1 YPC) with 65 TDs in 59 wins compared to 49.1 rushing yards (4.0) and just 15 touchdowns in 44 losses during his career. Baltimore is designed win more than 11 games in 2024. The Crows would I would love to give Henry 300 loads in an offense that averaged 28.4 points per game last year, and King stay motivated.
Henry is my RB6, and I would pick him in the middle of Round 2, even in PPR formats.
• There’s no reason to pick Sam LaPorta in the top 25 when you can pick Trey McBride three rounds later. Or Dalton Kincaid in the 5th round, if you prefer. LaPorta had an incredible rookie season, but he was hardly elite and many fantasy points came an unsustainably high TD rate. LaPorta finished fifth among tight ends in expected fantasy points and classified 47th overall in fantasy points over replacement per game while running well for touchdowns. LaPorta is being drafted as the clear fantasy TE1 despite not being the top target for his own team (which is expected to continue to have one of the lowest pass rates in the league above expectations).
Meanwhile, McBride was a stand out player in college, where he scored more than twice as many touchdowns as LaPorta. McBride also recorded a target attendance of over 20% in 12 consecutive games after becoming a full-time player in Week 8 last year, a mark LaPorta achieved in just six games all season. McBride averaged 11.6 fantasy points (0.5 PPR) in Weeks 10 through 17 while recording just one touchdown; LaPorta averaged 12.0 fantasy ppg in that span while scoring five TDs. LaPorta will continue to benefit from playing football at Coors Field (he scored 9 of his 10 TDs at home last year despite playing fewer games), but his profile suggests regression is coming.
There is a strong level 1 of tight ends (although your cut line may vary) This year’s drafts are worth focusing on, but ideally it should be after this group. Admittedly, McBride will lose some targets to rookie Marvin Harrison Jr., but the competition in Arizona after that will be demonstrably worse than that in Detroit.
I moved McBride to TE1.
• Speaking of Harrison Jr., why does he have more than 55 picks ahead of Malik Nabers in the Yahoo drafts? I’ll admit that Arizona’s quarterback situation makes Harrison the favorite to finish with more fantasy points as a rookie, but the odds should be much closer to 50/50 than five rounds of ADP. The youngest Nabers it could even be the best perspective.
• Stefon Diggs showed real signs of decline last seasonand he will enter into a new offense in the 10th year. Diggs yards per target on deep balls fell off a cliff in 2023while your off-target rate remained stable. Shakir had more receiving yards than Diggs in Buffalo’s last 10 games despite seeing less than half the number of targets, Diggs is still frequently drafted ahead of Kupp.
Meanwhile, Tank Dell had a slightly higher target share (22.6%) compared to Nico Collins (22.1), but a big advantage in air yard share (36.0% vs. 25.4%) during the seven games in which both played at least 50% of the snaps. Dell is a legitimate route runner who averaged 10.8 targets, 6.3 receptions and 92.3 receiving yards with five touchdowns in his last four games as a rookie.
CJ Stroud is the real deal (and his rookie numbers would have looked even more impressive had he not suffered multiple concussions), and there’s no chance the Texans will finish 19th in PROE again like they did in 2023. Assuming Dell’s fully recovered from his injuries (which included a shot, but fortunately it is not a “TightRope” surgery on the leg), he is a candidate to lead Houston in targets this season.
Dell was drafted as the WR29 in Yahoo leagues, but I rank him as a top 20 fantasy WR and well ahead of Diggs (WR22 on Yahoo).
BONUS – TV/Film Talk: “Dark matter” he was an absolute tripand I can’t wait to see how it ends this week… Watching Al Bundy portray the horrible Donald Sterling is a little surreal, but this isn’t even the wildest cast in “Cut” … “Presumed Innocent” is my go-to when it comes to popcorn entertainment. Peter Sarsgaard might be the best villain on TV right now (for him real life brother-in-law)… Just when I think “The boys” can’t be more extreme, he sets a new standard with a scene in the newest season. It’s no surprise to anyone who watched the highly underrated “Ghost,” but Antony Starr acting was legitimate … 2nd season of “Tokyo Vice” is easily one of the best shows of the year. Wrapped up well, but still a pain see this canceled. I highly recommend it… It’s hard not to like Glen Powell, but Hitman it was more good than great. It wasn’t Richard Linklater’s best work, but I liked Patrick Bateman’s scene… I was a “The Game of Thrones” fan, but I can’t log in “House of the Dragon” as much as others.
