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A Running Back Sleeper You Need To Draft in Fantasy Football

by Fantasy Life Staff

2 months ago

In today's Fantasy Life Newsletter, presented by FantasyLife+:

In fantasy football, a little contrarianism never hurt anyone, right? Too much and you are on the road to ruin; too little and you swim in mediocrity. But if you pick the right spots (say, drafting Tank Dell late last year)? You’ve uncovered league winners.

And this brings us to the Chargers. Particularly Gus Edwards. And how he is going to finish as an RB1 this season.

We’ll back that up after the break.

What's in today’s newsletter?

Penning a love letter to Greg Roman
A late-round TE with a new QB? Sign us up.
Watercooler: Preseason Week 1 instant recap.

All Aboard the Gus Bus

by Nando Di Fino

The key to understanding Gus Edwards is understanding Greg Roman. This is a man who has shown us, time and time again, that HE WILL RUN THE BALL.

Want some cold, hard, data?

This is an OC whose offenses have never been lower than 9th in rushing attempts or 8th in yards. Roman’s offenses have finished first in rushing yards four times. Granted, he had Lamar Jackson as his QB, but he also had Gus Edwards running for YPC of 5.2, 5.3, 5.0 and 5.0 in the four years the two worked together.

Todd Monken shows up as the OC in 2023 and Edwards’ YPC drops all the way down to 4.1. And then in March? The Chargers sign Edwards. A month after Roman was hired as OC.

Edwards’ ADP (according to our tool) is a little all over the place: 109 on Sleeper, 117 at NFFC, and 137 at ESPN. Our consensus expert rank is 130. I’m sure that has a lot to do with J.K. Dobbins’ presence, who you could make the same argument for with the Roman connection — except Dobbins is coming off major surgery and his consensus rank is 176.3.

So, really, you can draft them both.

I plan on drafting Edwards as early as the 5th just in case someone else, somewhere, in any of my leagues (especially the NFFC ones, where they notoriously play it close to the chest until they draft) is also using logic that leads them directly to Edwards.

This is your warning! There’s still time to embrace him!

Nando loves the Gus Bus, what about our rankers?

There is only one way to find out…

Head to our Premium Rankings tool to see where Dwain McFarland, Ian Hartitz, Matthew Freedman, and Rob Waziak rank Gus Edwards.

With our Premium Rankings tool, you can either use one of our over 20 pre-built ranking sets, create your own scoring system, or sync your league to make sure our rankings are updated and reflective of your league settings.

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Fantasy Football Regression Candidates for 2024

by Jonathan Fuller

We are less than 30 days from the start of the NFL season. Whether you have been drafting best ball teams for months or are just getting back into the football news cycle, it’s time to lock in and get ready to dominate whatever type of fantasy football you play.

2024 Positive Regression Candidates

Javonte Williams, RB - Broncos

This could be a make-or-break season for Javonte Williams after his disappointing 2023 campaign. Williams saw plenty of volume but struggled in the efficiency department. The below stats compare his 2023 results to his rookie season for a few key metrics:

2023: 3.6 yards per carry, 2.71 yards after contact, 0.156 missed tackles forced per attempt

2021 (Rookie season): 4.4 yards per carry, 3.42 yards after contact, 0.310 missed tackles forced per attempt

There is no guarantee Williams will return to the player he was pre-injury but if it is going to happen, it will likely be this season and his ESPN ADP of 108.6 makes him a relatively low-risk bet. If the efficiency rebounds and he sees a similar level of volume to last season he should smash his current ADP. If he has even a little bit of TD luck then he could suddenly become a home run pick.

The Denver Broncos led the NFL in targets to the RB position last season and then drafted a rookie QB (Bo Nix) who was known for checking the ball down in college. The usage should be there for whoever the top back in Denver is, and there have been some very positive messages from HC Sean Payton about Williams’ progress this offseason.

Per the PFF Expected Points model, Williams’ usage last season was worth 12.2 half-PPR expected points per game which was tied for 22nd among RBs. There is some risk that Denver's committee approach limits his upside, but last season showed us what a bad version of that scenario looks like and he is still only being drafted four spots higher (RB30) than he finished last season (RB34).

Tyler Conklin, TE - Jets

The positive regression scenario for Tyler Conklin is incredibly simple: he just needs to catch some TDs.

Conklin has had exactly 83 targets in each of the last three seasons and has been right around the 60-catch mark. The problem is that he has failed to score more than 3 TDs in any of those seasons, including his brutal goose egg in the TD column last year.

So what could help with his TD efficiency? How about a massive QB upgrade with Aaron Rodgers finally back on the field for the Jets’ offense?

When Rodgers has played close to a full season he has never been below the 25 TD mark and has thrown for more than 30 TDs eight separate times during his career. During the last two seasons combined, the Jets offense has only had 26 total passing TDs. So yeah, I think there are going to be more TDs to go around this offense as long as Rodgers is on the field.

According to the PFF Expected Points model, Conklin should have had 3-4 receiving TDs last season based on his usage. Now that he gets to play with an elite passing QB, I fully expect him to set a new career high for receiving TDs in a single season (just needs to catch 4). In a ceiling scenario, I think he could match his career total of 7 receiving TDs in this season alone.

The Jets WR room isn't that deep, so I wouldn't be surprised to see Conklin emerge as the third weapon in this offense behind Garrett Wilson and Breece Hall which makes him one of my favorite late-round TE selections this year.

What About Negative Regression Candidates?