Even the experts can have a tough time during their draft evaluations. We asked six analysts to reveal which player has been their hardest to rank for the 2024 fantasy football season.
I’m having a hard time ranking DJ Moore. On the one hand, he balled out last year and was a top-five fantasy receiver when Justin Fields was his quarterback. On the other, he’s sharing targets with Keenan Allen and Rome Odunze from a rookie QB on a franchise that’s never produced a 4,000-yard or 30-TD passer.
Caleb Williams could be an immediate star. Allen has an injury history and is 32 years old. Odunze is a rookie with an offensive coordinator who sidelined Jackson Smith-Njigba last year. There’s definitely a bull case for Moore, who produced an NFL-high 45.5% first-read target share on third/fourth downs last year.
But Williams is a rookie who showed flaws as a prospect last year and has zero ties to Moore. Allen remains a target hog even at his advanced age, ranking just behind Moore in the aforementioned first-read target share stat. Odunze was a top-10 pick and could be a star right away.
Moore has averaged just 4.8 touchdowns during his career, so I can’t quite get on board with his ECR as a top-20 WR in half-PPR scoring, but he clearly has a wide range of outcomes. — Dalton Del Don
Ranking Tony Pollard has been a battle of willpower for me. I want to approach Pollard with fresh eyes and could excuse lackluster production as a byproduct of his prior year’s injury, but it’s tough to trust him. He thrived off efficiency playing opposite of Ezekiel Elliott, but Pollard flopped as a lead back. His yards per carry dropped from 5.22 to 3.99 and, despite the significant rise in total touches, Pollard’s total touchdowns were cut in half.
The Cowboys provided ample red zone opportunities but Pollard simply failed to take advantage of them. In 2023, Pollard was second in attempts inside the 20 at running back with 57 total attempts, converting only four touchdowns. For comparison, David Montgomery had 51 red zone attempts, resulting in 10 touchdowns. Pollard was essentially the least effective lead back in the red zone.
[2024 Fantasy Draft Rankings: QBs | RBs | WRs | TEs | D/ST | Kickers]
To make matters worse, Pollard is technically not the lead back. Pollard and Tyjae Spears are co-starters on the Titans’ depth chart. A split backfield may actually help Pollard return to the back we were so excited to draft after the 2022 season, but it’s difficult to take that leap of faith.— Tera Roberts
Where to rank De’Von Achane?
Achane was one of the most rostered players on fantasy championship teams last season. This makes sense when you remember he averaged a record-high 7.7 yards per touch on his 130 touches as a rookie.
Not only that, but he ranked second in broken tackle rate and first in explosive run rate as a rookie. His 4.32 speed fit perfectly into this Dolphins offense.
So, what’s the issue?
Well, now Achane goes in the second round of drafts. This higher cost makes us investigate his flaws a bit more. Achane was on the injury report, or out, for 65% of his games last season. He dealt with four different injuries as a rookie. His smaller frame at 188 pounds coming into the league was a concern and this may have led to him picking up more injuries in Year 1.
Achane has claimed he put on muscle this offseason, but the question becomes how much and is it enough to hold up against 300+ pound defensive linemen in Year 2? This makes Achane a difficult rank for me. — Sal Vetri
Where to rank the Buffalo Bills wide receivers?
I can understand why the Bills freshly painted their receiver room in the offseason, given how Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis slumped in the second half. But we’re left with an unusual collection of talents, and ranking them is a challenge. Of course, anytime you can solve a nebulous fantasy room, there’s profit to be had – especially when a presumptive winner gets to work with a star quarterback like Josh Allen.
Khalil Shakir is the only receiver on the roster who’s caught a game pass from Allen, and Shakir (10-75-2 over two games). That’s something. Keon Coleman enters the mix as a polarizing rookie prospect, a former basketball player who’s shown the ability to make contested catches . Curtis Samuel is something of a journeyman entering his eighth NFL season, but back when he was linked to OC Joe Brady with the Panthers in 2020, .
The early market is cool on these players, (that’s also how ). But it’s the uncertainty of the situation driving that data; it’s not a lack of talent. Even if there isn’t a superstar wideout on this roster, at least one of these players is likely to provide a major return on investment. Nobody ever goes broke making money.
(And yes, if your answer to the Buffalo receiving game is “draft tight end Dalton Kincaid instead”, I’m not going to say you’re wrong.) — Scott Pianowski
Zamir White has been a challenging rank for me. He profiles as the typical running back dead zone player to avoid; a trap even the sharpest fantasy player will fall for every few seasons. At the same time, I can’t get the nagging feeling out of my mind that Zamir could be this year’s Rachaad White, a young back who ends up beating the dead zone.
White touched the ball a whopping 93 times in the Raiders’ final four games as the starting back in relief of Josh Jacobs. He was electric in that span, averaging 4.7 yards per carry.
However, I struggle with just how pure the Raiders run from a game script perspective in that stretch. The team went 3-1, including a 63-21 blowout win over the Chargers and a defense-dominated win over Kansas City. I’m not sure I buy the Raiders being able to replicate those scripts over a full season, especially with an unsettled quarterback duo at the helm.
I’m also not confident that White will have a commanding hold on passing-down work, which is how Rachaad White was able to keep his fantasy outlook afloat last season. If White loses receiving work to Ameer Abdullah or even rookie Dylan Laube, he will not have a reliable projectable floor.
If the Raiders can carry over their defensive success from last season, White leads the team in carries and the quarterback situation isn’t embarrassing, I can see the RB returning value at ADP. But that’s a lot of “ifs” and we know how players in this range have burned us before. I don’t think my eventual end-of-August rank will reflect a strong stance on White as a fade or buy in his tier of running backs. — Matt Harmon
The most difficult players to rank in fantasy (across all sports) are always the guys who plainly have the talent and team environment necessary to obliterate a conservative preseason projection. For me, Christian Watson is one of those dudes this year.
On the one hand, he entered the league as a developmental receiver and his first two seasons have been beset by various mistakes, small and large. Also, he’s only played 23 games in two years due to persistent hamstring injuries.
On the other hand, when Watson is on the field and fully healthy, he often looks like an unstoppable superbeing. He pretty much always finds the end zone whenever he’s not dinged. Watson is 6-foot-4 with 4.36 speed and crazy leaping ability, so he is athletically unlike any other player in Green Bay’s receiving room.
But on the other other hand, the Packers might just have the deepest group of receivers in the NFL at the moment. It’s a team loaded with playmakers, all of whom deserve respectable target shares. Watson isn’t even the first Green Bay receiver off the board in terms of ADP. Last season, no player on the team saw more than 96 targets, and we could be headed for a similar distribution of opportunities in 2024.
That is, unless Watson legitimately solved his hamstring issues in the offseason, which he seems to believe has happened. If we get an upgraded and fully operational version of this man in the year ahead, he will absolutely destroy his draft price and humiliate those of us who ranked him as anything other than an emerging star. — Andy Behrens
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