My 2024 “Your Guys” – Three Players I’m Avoiding in Drafts (Fantasy Football)

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Draft season is officially in full swing. If you’re like me and your next few days are loaded with fantasy drafts, here are a few names to consider leaving for your league mates. I’ve identified three players currently going in the top five rounds who I do not expect to return on their current value…or even come close. Read on to find out who these players are and why they’re going to bust this season.

Kyren Williams

I’m coming out of the gates hot with this take. Kyren has become a fantasy darling for many folks after bursting onto the scene and finishing as the RB6 last season despite playing in just 12 games. He’s going in the second round of drafts right now as the eighth RB off the board – a value if he were to pick up where he left off with last year’s torrid pace. Unfortunately for those who have already drafted him, that isn’t going to happen.

My skepticism of Kyren Williams‘ fantasy value started at the 2022 NFL Combine, where he weighed in at 194 pounds and posted a 4.65s 40-yard dash. These would be pretty impressive numbers for a high school kid, but not an NFL running back. If you look at the rest of the running backs being drafted in the top 10 (and beyond), you’ll notice a trend. Almost all of these guys weigh at least 210 pounds and run sub 4.5s 40-yard dashes. 

Now, every once in a while you’ll have an outlier. Sometimes a guy is so big or fast or talented that you can overlook one of these metrics. Jahmyr Gibbs, for example, is slightly undersized at around 200 pounds, but what he lacks in size he makes up for with lightning speed, clocking in at 4.36 seconds in the 40. Rarely, if ever, have we seen a running back that lacks in both the size and speed departments and consistently finishes as a top fantasy performer. 

“So, if Kyren is so slow and undersized, how was he so good last year?” – the voice of public opinion asks.

That, my friends, is a bit of a mystery, but I think it comes down to a couple of factors: 

• The Rams had no other options at running back – Kyren’s 82% snap share led the NFL, ahead of Christian McCaffrey
• Touchdown efficiency – 15 touchdowns in 12 games
• Head Coach Sean McVay – admittedly an offensive mastermind who gets the most out of his players

One of these things is not changing. Sean McVay will be calling the shots for an offense that projects to be near the top of the league again. What is changing is that the Rams brought in a running back in Blake Corum who they drafted with third-round capital and profiles as more of a workhorse than Williams. While McVay has shown a willingness to use a bell cow running back at times (Todd Gurley from 2017-2019), he’s also shown a propensity to go with a committee approach when it suits his roster.

Williams’ breakout last season inspired me to look for a comparison – a late-round draft pick with below-average size and speed who broke out in a massive way. The player I came up with was Devonta Freeman, who weighed in at 206 pounds and ran a 4.58s 40-yard dash – both slightly better than Kyren. Freeman finished as the RB6 as a rookie in 2016, and then slowly faded into fantasy oblivion, never finishing higher than RB14 the rest of his career. Look for Kyren Williams’ career to follow a similar arc, and avoid him in drafts this season. 

Stefon Diggs

This take is a little less spicy. Despite being a Vikings fan, I don’t have quite the same level of vendetta with Stefon Diggs as I do with undersized, slow running backs. What this take really boils down to is that I don’t think Diggs is as great as he used to be, and furthermore, I think he’s the third-best WR on his own team. 

Diggs turned 30 last season, and it showed. We’ve seen the age-30 dropoff with other great wide receivers – Julio Jones, Antonio Brown, and AJ Green, to name a few – but none quite as pronounced as what Stefon Diggs did last season for Buffalo. Diggs turned 30 on November 29th, which fell between Weeks 12 and 13. In the 12 games prior to his birthday, he averaged 15.5 fantasy points per game, and in the seven games after his birthday (including playoffs) he averaged 6.7 fantasy points per game. If that doesn’t scream age cliff I don’t know what does!

Birthday jokes aside, Diggs didn’t look quite like his old self down the stretch last season. Buffalo subsequently moved on from him, and they had to package a couple of late-round picks with him just to get a second-round pick back from Houston. As far as landing spots go, it doesn’t look too bad to be paired with another young star quarterback in CJ Stroud. I can understand the temptation for fantasy managers to envision Houston plugging in a superstar as their new number-one WR in a high-flying offense. But Nico Collins and Tank Dell proved last season that they can get along just fine as 1A and 1B in this offense, and if Diggs is truly past the age cliff as last year’s numbers seem to suggest, he’s going to have a hard time carving out a significant role between the two up-and-coming studs in Houston.

Michael Pittman Jr.

As a proud owner of a Pitty City T-shirt, this one brings me some pain to write. Pittman is coming off a strong 2023 campaign which saw him finish as the WR15, buoyed by a career-high 156 targets, most of which came from backup quarterback Gardner Minshew. This year, Minshew is in Las Vegas, and second-year quarterback Anthony Richardson is healthy again and set to be the full-time starter. The sample size of Pittman playing with Richardson last year is small, but what we know about Richardson is that he likes to pull it down and run. Pittman is currently being drafted in the fifth round as the 23rd WR off the board. The truth is I don’t believe Pittman has the same upside as other players going in this range of drafts. 

With fewer targets to go around, I think Pittman might currently be getting drafted at or near his ceiling, while other players in this range (Malik Nabers, DK Metcalf, Tank Dell) possess top-10 upside. Pittman is still a fine pick as a WR2, but consider other options if you’re looking for a potential breakout this season.