The 2024 NFL season is still months away but planning for your Fantasy Football teams starts now. At Fantasy Football Today, we've already been drafting a lot in the last few months with even more mock drafts taking place since the conclusion of the 2024 NFL Draft. We've hit all different formats from Superflex to half-PPR and through it all I've seen a lot of different trends in ADP (average draft position) unfold. So when I was asked to join FFT this past Monday, I knew it was time to discuss my "most wanted" list for the 2024 season. These are the five players I am drafting everywhere based on their current ADP:
Travis Kelce, TE, Chiefs
Drafting Kelce felt like stealing in all formats for a stretch of several seasons leading up to 2023 Fantasy drafts. In 2021 and 2022, you could grab Kelce sometimes as late as the back-end of Round 2 or even Round 3 and he would give you a weekly positional advantage at TE. Finally, Fantasy managers caught up and Kelce came off the board in the middle to late first round of drafts last summer. Of course, he responded by returning his least productive season in the last four years, but let's unpack that a little. First of all, Kelce played through an injury and played fewer snaps. After finishing with the fourth-most snaps played in 2022, he finished with just the 14th-most in 2023 -- 150 fewer snaps. Despite this, he finished with the second-most Fantasy points per game at tight end behind Sam LaPorta. He also scored just five touchdowns, averaging 10.7 touchdowns per season over his last three. Nothing is more due for regression in Fantasy Football than touchdowns scored. Despite playing 200+ snaps fewer than LaPorta, Kelce led the NFL in first-down receptions. He remains the go-to target for Patrick Mahomes on third downs and in the red zone where his touchdowns are likely to rise. I grabbed Kelce with the final pick of the third round in our pick-by-pick FFT draft that you'll be able to read in this summer's FFT Magazine. That felt like stealing.
Garrett Wilson, WR, Jets
Wilson is the last of the wide receivers I believe can return first-round value and therefore he is one of my priority picks at the Round 1/2 turn. He benefits from playing in a Nathaniel Hackett offensive system that derives from the Mike McCarthy tree and thus relies on finding one-on-one matchups on any given snap. Wilson will see more of these favorable matchups in 2024 with a fully-healthy Breece Hall and the addition of Mike Williams. We've seen Aaron Rodgers lean heavily on his top target in this system (Davante Adams) in the past. Wilson racked up the fourth-most targets of any wide receiver in 2023 and he barely leaves the field (seventh-most snaps among all receivers). He has the best chance to break into the elite WR1 range of any player who can at times be had in Round 2 of your Fantasy drafts.
Brock Purdy, QB, 49ers
All Purdy did was produce in 2023 and yet he finds himself coming off Fantasy draft boards sometimes outside the top-100 picks as a borderline QB1. I can't figure out why. The 49ers only improved around him this offseason by adding a first-round wide receiver (Ricky Pearsall) to the mix. Purdy finished with the seventh-most Fantasy points per game in 2023 and he led the NFL with 40.5% of plays going for first downs or touchdowns. This wasn't just the best in the NFL -- it was over four percentage points higher than the next best quarterbacks and then after that the next 10 quarterbacks were separated by less than a percentage point.
Zack Moss, RB, Bengals
Moss surprised many in 2023 as one of the best waiver wire additions in Fantasy Football but those who were tracking his ability to create yards after contact and force missed tackles saw this coming. He thrived in the Colts scheme and now has an opportunity for a lot more work with the Bengals. Joe Mixed played the fifth-highest snap percentage of all running backs in 2023. Although second-year running back Chase Brown is talented, he only topped 170 carries once in his collegiate career. Moss is likely to lead this backfield and he may have a bigger workload than anticipated. Despite all that, he's currently coming off the board in the Rounds 9-10 range.
Jayden Daniels, QB, Commanders
This one is pretty simple to me. Daniels won the Heisman Trophy in 2023 by putting up some insane numbers. He accounted for 50 combined touchdowns (passing and rushing), 90 plays of 20-plus yards combined and a 22 to 0 touchdown to interception ratio on all deep pass attempts (20+ yards) with a 67% completion rate on those throws. He is the most exciting dual-threat QB to enter the Fantasy Football realm since Lamar Jackson with more upside as a rusher than Anthony Richardson and yet he's coming off the board outside the top-100 picks overall. This is easy value for me and a player who I think is being selected multiple rounds after where he should be given his upside.
