As the calendar turned to September, there was a chill in the air in a lake in Pennsylvania. Once the sun's reflection was streaking across the lake, and the lightning bugs started flashing across my line of vision. It was peaceful, but it wouldn't stay that way for long. After a deep breath of fresh air, I went back into the AirBNB my friends and I had rented to fetch my computer. You see, we weren't renting this house for a last weekend of summer activities; we were here for our fantasy football draft. As we fired up our desired draft devices and load up Yahoo, Sleeper, or ESPN, I'm buzzing. I always get a weird little-kid energy when the draft starts, and this time is no different. Over the course of the next 24 hours, I'll be drafting 3 teams now. The weekend rolled along, and the drafts were chaotic bliss. As we completed the AirBNB checkout checklist (which was actually reasonable this time around) and loaded up the car, the last of my childish whimsy had dissipated. As the car rolled out of the driveway to return home, it hit me: the worst was yet to come. Immediately I knew I was going to be writing this post, and add another page to its infamous legacy.
Over the next several paragraphs, you are going to see five players whose performance this season will define my fantasy football season. Fun idea, right? You could not be more wrong. This column started in 2021, and the fantasy gods immediately took it as an affront to their power. Every year, the 5 players on this list has included at least one season-ending injury. There have been players who were traded or released mid-season. There have been players who were just flat-out bad. It is a nightmare that I have yet to wake from. But just like that one player in your league who keeps coming back even though he's never even sniffed a championship, I'm back again this year. Sooner or later, this has to break my way. Let's see if this is the year.
Rashee Rice, Chiefs WR It is worth mentioning that fantasy football is a game of accumulating statistics, not of moral judgment. If you're the type to not draft players who are embroiled in legal issues, Rashee Rice is not the guy for you, and you're a better person than I am. But it's difficult for me to ignore Rice's WR1 ascension that took place over the last 6 weeks of the regular season, which was parlayed into Rice establishing himself as the alpha wide receiver in Kansas City en route to their 3rd Super Bowl in 5 years. While it's true that the Chiefs spent high draft capital on WR, and their biggest free agent acquisition was also a receiver, this is still a Rashee Rice-led group. Throw in Travis Kelce coming off of his least productive year and most distracted off-season (you know why) and the departure of Jerrick McKinnon, and there's a clear path for Rashee Rice to be a massive value pick--no matter what you think of his off-the-field choices.
James Cook, Bills RB Maybe I'm crazy, but the running back who performed at a top-5 level on a team with an elite QB and a ton of vacated targets seems like a home run of a situation to target in fantasy football. That's the position that James Cook finds himself in now. Once the Bills swapped offensive coordinators, they started to feed Cook more, and the balance he brought the offense allowed the Bills to make a less-than-probable run into the playoffs. With the team's top 2 receivers Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis both playing elsewhere this season, there's an indication that the balance will be a priority for the Bills once again this year. If that's the case, Cook is going to smash his ADP that saw him being taken in the 3rd or 4th rounds. I've got him in nearly every league I'm in, and I'm so happy about it.
Travis Etienne, Jaguars RB
Seemingly one of the few no-frill early round picks, ETN proved to have a high fantasy floor as the Jaguars' feature back, contributing on any down via the ground or the air. The Jaguars fell apart in a way we don't see too often down the stretch this season, which could mean a scorched earth season for Trevor Lawrence is incoming. If that's the case, his former teammate at Clemson will be a huge benefactor, as Etienne remains the leader of the pack in the Jacksonville backfield. In a season that saw him being drafted behind two aging superstars that switched teams (Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry), we could be looking back in January wondering why ETN wasn't taken as the 4th running back off the board in drafts this summer.
Lamar Jackson, Ravens QB I haven't had the pleasure of trotting the two-time MVP out as my fantasy QB too often, but with Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts, and the aforementioned Josh Allen all going earlier than Lamar this summer, I was able to scoop him in a few spots. Coming off his second MVP season with a scotch-taped offense, Jackson is a little teammate-proof when it comes to adding fantasy value, and now he gets Mark Andrews back--hopefully for a little longer this season. It's easy to expect big things from Lamar Jackson, but I'm hoping that we're about to see him at his best this year.
Jameson Williams, Lions WR If you're a die-hard fantasy football player like I am, there's always going to be a few guys you can't stop believing in. Jameson Williams has become one of those guys for me. The speedy WR who was electric at Alabama hasn't had an offseason where he wasn't hurt or suspended until now, and we've been able to glimpse his potential at various points of his two seasons. With Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta grabbing headlines in the pass game, it could mean that Williams doesn't see much attention, and he has the skill set and ability to make defenses pay for their lack of respect. And if it's not this year, there's a pretty good chance I'll run it back again in 2025.
As we come to a close, I'm naively optimistic about the five players I've presented to you. There's simply no way I can be this bad at identifying players due for an excellent fantasy foorball season, right? Well, either way, it will be fun to follow this throughout the NFL season. As usual, you can expect to see some kind of power rankings or tiers through Week 4 of the season, when we start to see who's going to contend, and who's going to need a big turnaround to make any noise. I'll leave you as I usually do, with some other fantasy football draft trends that I noticed. Let's have a season!
Other Notes:
-This was not a year for me to get a TE early. I wasn't too interested in LaPorta or Kelce in the 3rd round, and just never had a good read on when Trey McBride was going, who I love.
-Terry McLaurin also seems to be poised to swing a lot of leagues if he is able to build rapport with Jayden Daniels early. He's far too talented of a receiver to be going as late as he was.
-With all the noise surrounding Jamarr Chase, I was happy to get a share of Tee Higgins, who will be playing for his next paycheck this season.
-I fell for the preseason hype on Chase Brown in a big way, but him ending up as a bust wouldn't have defined my season as much as some of the players I listed above, so I wanted to mention him here.
-Another situation to monitor if you're looking for league winners: with Nick Chubb potentially missing the entire first half of the season, Jerome Ford could shift the fantasy landscape completely since his ADP never caught up to the value he could bring.
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