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New York Times
5 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
2025 Fantasy football drafts feature four new first-rounders. Are they worthy?
Out with the old; in with the new. Entering the 2025 fantasy football season, there's a 33% turnover in the players being selected as first-round picks. Do the newcomers deserve the faith of fantasy managers, and are the demoted now bargains? According to NFFC's ADP as of July 17, Malik Nabers (No. 7 overall by ADP, WR4), Ashton Jeanty (9, RB4), Puka Nacua (10, WR6) and Brian Thomas (12, WR7) are now being valued in the first round. Advertisement The players they're replacing? A.J. Brown (18, WR10), Jonathan Taylor (21, RB9), Garrett Wilson (26, WR12) and Breece Hall (34, RB13). With the NFFC's valuation of the newly anointed projected first-round picks above, I'm using my positional rankings in this section. I don't mess with overall rankings because of the vast differences between Flex 9 and Flex 10 formats, but I grade all these players — except Nacua — as worthy of their new first-round ADP in three-WR and Flex leagues. He's hamstrung because of his quarterback situation, but that didn't crush his value last year. Nabers was top-10 in targets in the red zone and inside the 10-yard line, where he ranked third (in percentage). He was the 10th fastest player in max speed, just a whisker above Marvin Harrison (I'm surprised he didn't trounce Harrison). However, he won just three of 17 tight targets, a win rate that was 74th among WRs. His yards after catch were negative relative to expected. Nabers can fairly be called a volume player, but I think the targets are earned. Overall, I'm slightly below market on Nabers. Jeanty's status as a top-10 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft matters. This century, 11 of 17 running backs selected in the top 10 had over 200 PPR points as rookies (65%), seven of 17 had over 246 points (41%) and just four of 17 were flat-out busts (24%). His team probably has the 22nd-ranked offense as a floor and the upside of an average offense. Quarterback Geno Smith is at least average and drives my projected range for the offense. Las Vegas' offensive line is generally young and has some upside, but it doesn't enter the season highly regarded. However, we know less about offensive lines in football in the summer than we do about any other position group. Jeanty opened as one of the long shots to lead the NFL in rushing touchdowns at 50-1 odds, and most major sportsbooks have him at 28-1 now; his rushing-yards-leader prop is 18-1 on FanDuel. Fantasy is way more bullish on him than the oddsmakers. I can see Jeanty making his way to all the magazine covers in 2026 and being valued as the top overall pick. Advertisement Nacua ran 239 routes with Cooper Kupp. When he did, Nacua was targeted at a rate of 38% vs. Kupp's 24%. Davante Adams is better than Kupp, so maybe that's 33% to 29% now, which means I expect a 13% decline in usage for Nacua. His 17-game pace last year was 128 receptions, 1,624 yards and five touchdowns. Even if you adjust for the missed games, his red zone and inside-the-10 target rates are bad for a true alpha. He doesn't have the speed to score from deep — 70th in max radar speed behind Amon-Ra St. Brown and, yikes, Adam Thielen. Nacua was also one of the lowest-targeted WRs in the red zone at just 16%. Expect Adams to dominate that area of the field. Thomas did very little with Trevor Lawrence. In basically eight games with Lawrence, Thomas had a 33-580-5 line, which offered great value (the best value, basically, according to me) based on where he was drafted in 2024. And I refuse to believe Mac Jones is better for Thomas than Lawrence. With Jones, Thomas' prorated numbers for a full season were 97-1,263-9, but will Lawrence be able to sufficiently feed a first-round WR? You have to ask whether you think Lawrence, the supposed generational QB prospect, is as talented as Baker Mayfield. Under new head coach Liam Coen, we'll likely see something akin to last year's Mayfield-Buccaneers offense from Jacksonville. According to the radar, Thomas was the fastest WR in the league last year. He was also top-20 in generating yards over expected per catch. Travis Hunter playing alongside him makes his situation better, not worse; the Jaguars' passing tree will be very narrow. Given their fall from first-round status, how do we now value the banished? Brown's environment is a shame. Due to the Eagles' reliance on the run, he would have needed a monstrous 30% target rate to reach just 134 total targets in 17 games last year (he actually got less than 25% in his 2024 starts). Advertisement It's the size of the pie that's the problem. Will the Eagles' defense and running game efficiency regress? Sure. But they'll still be extremely strong in both areas. Here's the bottom line on Brown: Put him on the Bengals and Ja'Marr Chase on the Eagles, and Brown would be the WR1 and Chase the WR9. You can't let Brown fall too far because there is a (maybe 30%) chance the Eagles will throw much more in 2025. Brown was third in YAC per catch over expected for WRs, and the two receivers above him had far fewer catches. He's a great player. I have to start by saying how much the nerds hate Taylor, who ProFootballFocus rated the second-worst among qualifying RBs in the NFL last year. I'm ignoring these largely subjective assessments, but they must be noted. Taylor's great year in our game was under the radar unless you played him or against him in the fantasy postseason. Most of the fantasy community had checked out by then. He averaged over 100 rushing yards per game for the season. He also averaged about a TD per game on a team that was 17th in scoring (surprisingly high, at least to me). Can he be more productive as a receiver? Taylor only averaged 2.2 targets per game with Joe Flacco. With Daniel Jones, Saquon Barkley averaged 3.9 targets per game. I would expect similar numbers out of Taylor with Jones. With Anthony Richardson, Taylor averaged 1.1 targets per game. If Richardson gets the nod, the projection is about 25 targets per 17 games vs. an expected 65 targets per 17 games with Jones – a huge swing in value. Wilson has franchise WR money (now) and ability. He's very fast — Jameson Williams' top speed on the radar was 21.03 mph and Wilson's was 21.01. He wins 38% of contested catches, well over average. He's positive in expected YAC. Last year, after Davante Adams arrived, Wilson was used too often on clear-out routes; for the year, he had the fourth-highest rate of nine routes, according to TruMedia, at 25.5%. What a waste. He was 14th in the lowest rate of combined in or out routes, which is even more of a disservice, given his skill set and quick feet. Now he's the only show in town, so the Jets' expected passing volume shouldn't hurt him. New York will have a different offense in 2025 (Detroit's, but with Wilson cast as St. Brown). In 2023, DJ Moore finished with a 96-1,364-8 line, and 72-1,109-8 came when Justin Fields was under center. When they played college ball together, Wilson and Fields combined for 1,155 yards and 11 TDs during Wilson's first and second years. However, Fields has been a terrible passing quarterback who loses so many dropbacks to sacks and scrambles, although both rates have declined in the past two years. Still, many of Fields' previous issues will likely continue. Advertisement See the article I wrote to kick off this draft season. To that, I'll add that Hall broke a tackle once every 30 carries (40th among qualifiers). You can push back and say Hall was third with 80% of team rushing attempts inside the 5-yard line last year, but this is a new staff, and Hall is below average in converting short-yardage and goal-line runs. The Athletic's Zack Rosenblatt anticipates Braelon Allen could serve as the Jets' David Montgomery with Hall their Jahmyr Gibbs (though probably not with the 2024 near 50/50 goal-line split). (Photo of Malik Nabers: Luke Hales / Getty Images)
New York Times
11-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Fantasy football draft steals include ADP afterthoughts Trevor Lawrence, Jaylen Warren
During this magazine mock draft and early best ball season, I'm taking players based on my sense of what the rankings will ultimately be come late August. We're in July, and ADP for high stakes events like NFFC drafts have set in. I've now done all my preseason research and ranked the players I consider relevant before training camp starts later this month. In many cases, my opinions of players have changed in light of the objective data I use to rank players: When the data changes, I change my mind. I don't care what I believed yesterday, I only want to be right tomorrow. I've already looked at early-round picks who give me pause, though those weren't yet filtered through all my rankings research — I'll revisit those players and have more to say once training camp starts. Today I'm looking at players I like after ADP pick 100 — the later-round bargains. I note positional ADP even though all these guys are going after pick 100 in July NFFC drafts. Advertisement I think overall rankings are pointless. As I've written previously, if you play in formats that start two WRs and a flex (Flex 9), you have to prioritize RBs; and if you play in formats with three WRs and a flex (Flex 10), you have to prioritize WRs. Across the industry, leagues are nearly evenly split between Flex 9 (BOO!) and Flex 10 (golf clap). So you can't square this in one set of overall rankings. Positional ADPs are always relevant to all formats. The same goes for SuperFlex formats and positional QB rankings (vs. overall). Trevor Lawrence (QB19): He's my QB9. This comes down to whether you believe Travis Hunter was drafted to supercharge the offense. Based on what they paid, the Jaguars must think Hunter is a better prospect than Marvin Harrison Jr., who was WR8 in ADP last year (a value I hated and advised strongly against). With Brian Thomas, Lawrence could have two top 20 fantasy WRs. 'But Mike,' you say, 'Lawrence is a bust. How can you have him at QB9?' Well, he already was QB7 in our game for a whole year (2022). He can run. He can score rushing TDs. The market seems to be saying Lawrence is not as good as head coach Liam Coen's 2024 QB, Baker Mayfield (QB5 last year). Come on! Wait as long as you can on Lawrence. But guys with his floor in this year's very exciting Jacksonville passing environment is why you wait at QB. Jaylen Warren (PIT — RB34): He was good everywhere in 2024, but not great anywhere. My RB27 has a career yards per carry of 4.8 on 346 attempts. His success rate has always been above average (I use yards gained as a percentage of those needed relative to the down, not EPA). He's earned at least a James Cook-like workload. Like 2023 Cook, Warren hasn't scored many TDs, especially from the goal line (1-for-3 last year, 2-for-8 for his career). On short yardage for his career, Warren has a 64% conversion rate (average is 71%), so it's not like he can't do it. He isn't small and he worked hard this offseason to keep his No. 1 spot on the depth chart. Jaylen 'Bowling Ball' Warren. THIS. IS. WHAT. I. AM. TALKING. ABOUT. Work when NO ONE is watching. LFG. — Jared Kane (@BaddestBearJew) July 3, 2025 Warren is playing his age 27 season with low mileage. He should get a massive uptick in targets with Aaron Rodgers as his QB. He's a bargain at his ADP. (Note Kaleb Johnson is my RB35.) Zach Charbonnet (SEA — RB35): My RB26 beat Kenneth Walker in every objective statistical way in 2024 (it was close though, admittedly). Why is Charbonnet being drafted so far behind Walker (RB15)? I know the consensus is Walker is more talented, but if that's true, shouldn't the stats show he's objectively better? I think pass blocking grades for RBs are pretty unstable, but Charbonnet beat Walker there, too. Charbonnet started four games for the often-injured Walker, combining for 75 fantasy points in those contests (18.8 per game). Of course, never draft Charbonnet before Walker … but don't draft Walker. Try to steal Charbonnet close to his positional ADP. Advertisement Rashod Bateman (BAL — WR58): My WR37 had nine TDs and got paid for it — three years, $38 million with more than half guaranteed. Bateman had 11.3 yards per target, which is a crazy good number (average for a WR is about 9.0, and teammate Zay Flowers was about average). Flowers outsnapped Bateman, but only by a small margin (91% to 84%). Bateman received 13% of the targets in the red zone to Flowers' 11%. But Bateman converted five of those eight targets compared three of seven for Flowers. This is like Charbonnet vs. Walker. Why is Bateman currently WR58 and Flowers WR27? How is Flowers so much better? Based on what? Quentin Johnston (LAC — WR64): He's my WR43. Johnston is a touchdown maker — four of his 11 targets in the red zone were touchdowns, including both of his targets inside the 10. Johnston averaged under 8.0 per target, which is bad. And he dropped 7.7% of his targets (average for a WR is 4.7%). Drops are not predictive, but there was a lot of noise with Johnston's foibles since one drop famously cost the Chargers a game. He's undoubtedly big and fast, with a top radar speed of nearly 21 mph (67th percentile). So he can use his 6-foot-4 height in close and, theoretically, score from a distance. I have no confidence Mike Williams, who returned to the Chargers, will supplant Johnston, who has draft capital, elite traits and also had a mild breakout last year despite a Week 6 ankle injury that sidelined him for the next two games. His July ADP is stupidly low. But obviously I want you to pay market prices. Tucker Kraft (GB — TE12): I'm very bullish on Kraft, who's my TE7. He has excellent speed (88th percentile at the position, according to the radar), is great at yards after the catch (No. 1 in YAC over expected per catch at 2.7 yards, also according to NGS) and excellent in the red zone (21% of team targets there, converting 6 of 11). But the Packers are 24th in rate of targets to TEs, about four points below average. Why? Their WRs aren't great. This seems to be a major inefficiency. If the Packers wise up, Kraft could be a league winner relative to cost at his position. No Green Bay receiver since Davante Adams has had 100 targets (hat tip: Yahoo's Scott Pianowski). Kraft deserves that kind of market share at a minimum — admittedly, he's probably not going to get it. (Photo of Trevor Lawrence: Mike Carlson / Getty Images)
New York Times
09-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
A Zero SP fantasy baseball strategy prioritizes hitters. What's the advantage?
Last week, we revisited the Zero SP draft strategy I recommended in February. Inevitably, I suggested not drafting a starting pitcher in at least the first five rounds and ideally abstaining through the seventh round. So, in the most extreme execution, no starting pitchers are selected before pick 100. Advertisement If we took the same approach with hitters, readers asked, what would those results be? In the comments of my Zero SP column, I said we don't need to 'statify' what we know, and we know hitters are less volatile than pitchers. But I've opted to put a fine point on this, at least for the first half of 2025. We can use first-half numbers to determine the chance of finding a top-30 hitter after pick 100 and selecting a bust among hitters in the top 100. In high-stakes drafts for the final week of the draft season, on average, 64 hitters were picked in the top 100 overall compared to 24 starting pitchers. Let's see where the top 30 hitters (as of July 8) were selected in March. I'm ranking the top hitters using auction values calculated by TGFantasyBaseball, based on 12-team mixed leagues with 70% of a $260 budget spent on hitting. Again, ADP is from high-stakes NFFC leagues for the final week of the draft season. Position value is factored minimally in the dollar values, as all positions are allocated a share of the 70% budget. We can quibble with these dollar values, but we're trusting them for this exercise as we did with the pitchers. So we have 33 hitters because of a tie for 30th place. Of those, 11 were drafted after pick 100 (or not drafted at all) compared to 23 of our top 32 pitchers (again, because of ties for 30th). For the hitters, that includes No. 2 (Pete Crow-Armstrong), No. 8 (Brandon Lowe), No. 9 (Byron Buxton), No. 11 (Michael Busch), No. 16 (Riley Greene) and No. 21 (Brice Turang). Two of the top 30 were mostly undrafted: Jonathan Aranda and Andy Pages. So, after pick 100, you still had a shot at 34% of the top hitters through the first half of this season. Compare that to 72% of the top-30 pitchers you could have drafted after pick 100. Now let's look at busts who have thus far devastated managers who picked them among the top 100: That's 20 disasters out of the 64 hitters picked in the top 100, a bust rate of 31%. The bust rate for starting pitchers selected in the top 100 was 42%. But, just five of the top-30 hitters drafted were busts, a bust rate of 17%. (You want to draft as many top-30 hitters as your league will allow.) So, 34% of the top-30 hitters were picked after pick 100, and 31% of those picked in the top 100 were busts. Compare that to 72% of the top 30 starting pitchers being chosen after pick 100, and 42% of the starting pitchers selected before pick 100 ending up as busts, thus far. There's little hope of finding top hitters on waivers during the season because so many more are drafted compared to pitchers. And the constant churn of pitchers, due primarily to injuries, creates opportunities for new ones to emerge in a steady stream. There is a lot less churn on a percentage basis with hitters. MLB managers know hitters tend to perform close to the back of the baseball card, so they are more patient with struggling hitters than with struggling starting pitchers. Advertisement We tend to find hitters early in the season, including Aranda (who I touted here early) and Pages; otherwise, we depend on prospect hitters getting promoted and hope they quickly acclimate to the big leagues — a tough ask. Let's end with a list of top hitters in expected stats (xwOBA) who may be available on waivers. Simply stated, there are not many options. That's it. Hitters are very hard to find at this point in the season, and it's not like these names, as well as they've hit in the past 30 days, offer much league-changing hope. (Photo of Pete Crow-Armstrong: Matt Marton / Imagn Images)
New York Times
02-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Why the Zero SP draft strategy continues to be the right approach in fantasy baseball
Let's revisit the Zero SP approach I recommended in February. The strategy suggests not drafting a starting pitcher in at least the first five rounds and ideally abstaining through the seventh round. So, in the most extreme adherence to the strategy, it means no starting pitchers before pick 100. Looking at just the high-stakes drafts during the final week of the draft season, on average, that's either after 17 starting pitchers are drafted (starting in Round 6) or after 24 are off the board (starting with pick 100). These numbers are down from 19 and 31, respectively, last year, so more people are passing on pitchers early. Advertisement Let's see where the top-30 fantasy baseball starters selected in March were as of July 1. I'm ranking the top pitchers now using auction values calculated by TGFantasyBaseball based on 12-team mixed leagues with 30% of a $260 budget spent on pitching. ADP is from high-stakes NFFC leagues over the final three weeks of the draft season. We have 32 pitchers because of a tie for 30th place. Of those, 23 were drafted after pick 100, or not drafted at all, including Hunter Brown (No. 2), Max Fried (No. 3), Logan Webb (No. 8), Andrew Abbott (No. 10) and Kris Bubic (No. 11). Abbott and Bubic were not even drafted. Last year, it was 20 out of 35. And the number of late-drafted starting pitchers hits is higher this year, despite people waiting longer on pitching. If you didn't draft a single starting pitcher before pick 100 (on average), you still had a shot at 72% of the top SPs (through the first half of the season). The list is weighted heavily towards wins, which are largely unpredictable, but that's all the more reason not to invest heavily in starters. Let's look at the early-drafted busts who have destroyed their managers. Logan Gilbert (ADP 31), Corbin Burnes (40), Cole Ragans (47), Dylan Cease (50), Blake Snell (54), Michael King (69), Pablo Lopez (78), Tyler Glasnow (95), Bailey Ober (96) and Aaron Nola (97). Roki Sasaki (101) just misses the ADP 100 cutoff. Not including Sasaki, that's 10 busts of the 24 starters drafted (on average) in the top 100, which is a bust rate of 42%. So, 72% of the top-30 starters were picked after pick 100, and 42% of the starters picked before pick 100 are disasters. 'But Mike,' you say, 'most of these are injuries, and injuries are unpredictable!' To which I say, 'Exactly!' The point is injuries are completely unpredictable, so why tie up premium draft capital in them? I understand that the increasingly popular Head-to-Head formats are starting to become pitching dominant because you typically have 10 pitchers active compared to just nine hitters. So the format is forcing you to prioritize starters. Basically, you're being forced to drive into a brick wall. The other issue in today's games with starters is innings. Starters are worth less than ever because they are throwing fewer innings than ever. The average number of innings of this year's top-32 pitchers (listed above) is a relatively robust 96, about a 200-inning pace. But a bunch of these guys are injuries waiting to happen. With most of them, who cares, since they cost nothing and the profits are locked in. But today, 200 innings is something achieved by a handful (less than five, on average) of pitchers, and 175 is solid, meaning we would sign for that. This is a 15-to-20% hit in expected value just since the 2010s. Advertisement The three pillars to a Zero SP strategy: (1) Injuries don't hurt you as much as they hurt SP-heavy teams; (2) Starters are pitching fewer innings when healthy and are thus less valuable; (3) The top pitchers are much harder to predict than the top hitters and are about twice as likely to be found on waivers. This is validated year after year, yet we still persist in drafting pitchers early. Heck, I do it sometimes because we think the No. 25 pitcher in the draft is really No. 15 (it's a trap!). It's because we want to like our team after the draft and not enter the season with a mockable staff. We want the projected standings and draft grades to like us, dammit! The other benefit of no premium on starting pitching is no loyalty to any pitcher on your roster. There is no such thing as a sunk cost. So you are not stuck with the dregs of the world because you paid for them. All the starters you have on your team are churnable from the minute the season starts. It's 'put up or get out!' You're always searching the waiver wire for upgrades. Right now, in my top Head-to-Head league, which is very pitching heavy, some names on waivers include Jeffrey Springs (2.97/0.99 the past month), Brayan Bello (2.87/1.21) and Michael Soroka (3.49/0.81 with 36 Ks in 28.1 IP). Mike Burrows (2.73/1.22 with 30 Ks in 26.1 IP) and Justin Wrobleski (2.73/1.06 with 26 Ks in 26.1 IP) are generally available in Yahoo leagues. Pitchers who can actually help your team are always available, while free-agent hitters more often facilitate treading water. (Photo of Hunter Brown: Kirby Lee / Imagn Images)
New York Times
27-06-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Justin Jefferson, Christian McCaffrey and more 2025 fantasy football early ADP traps
Let's look at some overvalued players based on early 2025 fantasy football ADP, according to 47 NFFC drafts this past month. I'm using positional rankings, not overall rankings, as you should too, because formats are highly variable. Flex 9 (two WRs and a Flex) is an RB-first format. Flex 10 (three WRs and a Flex) is a WR-first format. I'll have more on this later in the draft season, but it is what it is. You don't have to draft accordingly, but (if you don't) you won't have an ideal structure regarding expected value. Advertisement From 2020-22, Mahomes averaged 384 fantasy points per year — his range was 361 to 416. He averaged 16.3 games played, so that's 23.6 points per game. Let's call it about 6 points per game over the average starting fantasy QB. I would not spend a premium pick for that, but I get it. It's defensible. But the past two years, he's tallied 280 and 282 points in 16 games per year — a replacement-level 17.6 points per game. You can stream that off waivers in your league, if it's a one-QB format and not every team drafts two QBs (but almost every team in every league does). If you draft two QBs, you will likely find a 17.5-point-per-game QB very late. There is no way Mahomes is worth QB6 with these numbers. He's just a name now. If you think he's more than 75% of what he was, or even 90% of his 2020-22 level, fine. But what evidence is there of that? He's a middle-of-the-pack scoring QB on a middle-of-the-pack offense (15th in yards, 15th in points in 2024). There's dissonance because he's obviously elite in real life, but this is a case where the points just aren't there. It happened to Dan Marino. He's also like Troy Aikman was a generation ago — great in real life, a sure-fire Hall of Famer, but a fantasy dud. He had 11 games of 30+ fantasy points from 2020-22 and, in the two years since, just one 30-point effort (none in 2024). How many second acts are there for running backs? His fantasy production wasn't just impacted by his injury; McCaffrey did nothing in the four games he played (4.0 yards per carry and no rushing or receiving touchdowns on 65 touches). He was 28. Let's look at Hall of Fame running backs who played less than half the season at age 28 with 4.0 yards or less per carry and see if there were any bounce backs. We only have three players: John Riggins, Terrell Davis and Gale Sayers. Riggins was a fullback at age 28 and had subsequent big years following his setback (knee), basically securing his Hall of Fame status — an incredibly unique career. Davis was injured in 1999 and 2000 (age 28), played for one more year (2001) and did not score a TD in eight games (179 touches). Sayers retired after his age 28 season. We're reading that McCaffrey is healthy after his injuries to his Achilles and knee in 2024. But the fact is, there are only three comps, and two of them were busts. Advertisement If we expand to non-Hall of Famers who were top players, we add Wilbert Montgomery, Larry Johnson, Clinton Portis, Lawrence McCutcheon and Ahman Green. How did they do at age 29 (or at any point after)? The only one who did anything was Green, but only in his age-29 season — RB20 production at 215 PPR points. So I'm giving McCaffrey a 0-to-25% chance to come close to returning value on the investment. I want no part of him anywhere near this price. Hall has talent, as his career yards per carry mark (4.6) indicates. But he's not a bell cow. He's never rushed for 1,000 yards, a number hardly worth celebrating. He offers value as a receiver, but I can't see Justin Fields dumping off much, given he considers himself the dump-off option. What is guaranteed with Hall? Not rushing yards, receptions or even touchdowns, given that the Jets are one of the NFL's worst short-yardage conversion teams during Hall's tenure. Braelon Allen has proven much better in short-yardage situations, converting 12 of 14 short-yardage runs on third and fourth downs last year versus 6 of 10 for Hall (15 of 26 in his career). I'd rather draft Allen with one of my last picks than Hall at this ADP. We have only two examples of a top returning fantasy receiver playing with a new starting QB who has never thrown an NFL pass. Larry Fitzgerald was 23 years old in 2006 when he was paired with rookie Matt Leinart (for 11 starts — Kurt Warner started the first four games of the season and Week 17). And Randy Moss was age 23 when Daunte Culpepper, in his second year, took over behind center for Minnesota in 2000. That works out to one miss (Fitzgerald) and one hit (Moss). Both Fitzgerald and Moss were drafted in the top three at the position in the year with the new quarterback. Jefferson, playing his age-26 season, is being drafted as the No. 2 WR (and often the No. 2 pick). So, is J.J. McCarthy going to be more like Leinart or Culpepper? We think we know, but we do not. Let's call it a 50% chance that McCarthy is at least average and Jefferson doesn't skip a beat. Do you like those odds at this price? How is Jefferson being drafted ahead of CeeDee Lamb, who will play with the same QB (Dak Prescott) who made him the top-scoring WR in 2023-24? It makes zero sense. And Jefferson is not a TD maker, scoring once every 12.4 catches. So he needs 120 catches for 10 TDs. His price only makes sense if you think McCarthy will match Sam Darnold's 35 TD tosses. At best, I give that a 5% chance. The Bengals' ADPs are all irrational. We know players regress and top scorers have difficulty repeating, but we're expected to draft the previous year's top scorers highly. The Bengals are extremely unlikely to repeat their pinball scoring of 2024 because their 2025 defense will surely be better, and likely much better. I'm not making judgments based on offseason moves or draft picks; I'm just looking at how historically good and bad defenses hardly ever repeat. Advertisement So, can this offense support two top-15 WRs? You know Ja'Marr Chase will get his. But Higgins is behind him in the pecking order. So he will be more the 2021-23 version of himself than the 2024 one. We're talking about a line of 75 receptions, 1,150 yards and 7 TDs, not the 103/1,300/14 pace he played at last year. And he's played in 12 games in each of the past two seasons, and had a combined four DNPs the two seasons before that, so expectations that he misses at least two games should be priced in. Higgins is more WR20 than WR14. Even so, I'm still suggesting that the Bengals have two top-20 receivers and giving them a boost for the overall shape of the team and offense. I'm just not projecting the offense to be the super-charged 2024 version of itself. LaPorta is fine. He's a 100-target, 8.0 yards per target player with a TD every 12 targets. So the projection should be 800 yards and eight TDs. That's fine, but you can probably find a player who does this at the end of the draft or on waivers, though it will likely take a few tries. And if you don't find it, who cares? This is not difference-making scoring. How out of your way will you go on draft day for this? There are potential top-20 WRs on the board in the sixth round. Starting RBs still remain in that draft range. Why am I drafting a TE who is this close to the average bucket when I can get one of the last guys in this bucket at the end of every draft? LaPorta's been volatile, ranging from 120 targets as a rookie to 83 last season. So maybe you're shooting a shot at that target ceiling (120). That means the Lions will again have to be in or around the bottom 10 in defense, like they were in 2023 and the end of the 2024 season (due to injuries), which is highly unlikely. (Photo of Justin Jefferson: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
