Fantasy Football ‘24: The biggest hits and misses

Looking back at 2024 prognostications: the good, the bad, and the ugly!

The 2024-25 NFL regular season came to an end on Sunday night, with the Lions blowing open a close game against the Vikings in the second half, and taking home the NFC North crown, together with the No. 1 seed in the conference. Is it me, or did this season go by quickly? It seems like only a few weeks ago that I was prepping for fantasy drafts, and sharing that prep with readers.

I’ll be honest: My prep didn’t pay off as much as usual this year, nor did writing 40+ articles between the preseason and regular season. As I discussed in my Fantasy Takeaways column, this was the season of the running back, and if you didn’t invest in the position, or you went WR/TE-heavy early, you probably struggled through the season. A dizzying number of high-end receivers underperformed and/or got hurt, while running backs stayed remarkably healthy and put up big fantasy points. A new trend? I’m skeptical, and we’ll see what next year brings.

At the end of each season, I like to go back and look at two of my preseason columns in particular, to see how I did at prognosticating: Green Light, Players to Target, and Red Light, Players to Avoid. In both cases, the selections were made in the context of draft value (either expert consensus rankings (ECR) or average draft position (ADP)). I’ve linked to them above. My results were mixed, as you’d expect with any large batch of prognostications. Overall, I had more hits than misses. For me, it’s more about whether the analysis was sound than actual results, which can be impacted for all sorts of reasons (not the least of which is injuries), both foreseen and unforeseen. But it’s still fun to look back. Or not, if we are talking about my enthusiasm for Diontae Johnson this season. That’s a good example of what I think was sound analysis (giving Bryce Young a proven high-volume target to aid in his development, on a team that was going to need to throw a ton while playing catch-up), but horrible results. I’ll go through each position and give my biggest hit, biggest miss, and other thoughts.

All fantasy rankings and scoring stats are for Half-PPR scoring, and exclude Week 18.

Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images

Quarterback:

Biggest Hit: Jayden Daniels. I was all over Daniels in the preseason, and had him ranked inside my Top-10 which was higher than consensus. I loved his dual-threat skillset and the ceiling that it brought. I also liked the situation as Washington had an awful defense in 2023 and was likely going to be chasing points a decent amount. His finish as the QB5 on a fantasy points per game (FPPG) basis was better than even I expected. He should be the third or fourth quarterback off the board next season. An honorable mention here goes to my fade call on C.J. Stroud, who I thought was way overpriced.

Biggest Miss: Joe Burrow. I had a fade call on Burrow at his ADP, namely because of uncertainty about his mysterious wrist injury plus the ongoing holdout by Ja’Marr Chase, which wasn’t resolved until right before Week 1. In 2023, Burrow had a calf injury in the preseason and it hampered him for a big chunk of what ended up being a disappointing season. I couldn’t shake that memory.

Other: I had a pretty good feel for the quarterback position, and was generally higher than consensus on all the dual-threats and not willing to overpay for any pocket passers. If you followed the strategy of waiting and then grabbing two of the mid-range guys, you probably did OK. Included in my list of guys you could grab as QB2s with upside were some good ideas (Jared Goff) and some bad ones (Trevor Lawrence and Kirk Cousins). Somehow, I had Justin Herbert included in both columns (my bad on that), but I was a backer as evidenced by me taking him as my QB2 in my main league.

Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images

Running Back:

Biggest Hit: A trio of RBs in the “dead zone” (Rounds 3-6) smashed: Josh Jacobs, James Cook, and James Connor. Thank you very much! All ended up outperforming their draft price by a wide margin, with Jacobs and Cook finishing inside the Top-10 running backs for the season on a FPPG basis, and Conner at RB14.

Biggest Miss: Fades on both Kyren Williams and De’Von Achane. Ouch. I thought both were overpriced and wouldn’t see enough volume to justify their price. Wasn’t Blake Corum supposed to eat into Kyren’s workload, and wasn’t Raheem Mostert supposed to continue splitting the work with Achane? Boy, was I wrong on both.

Other: I was out on Jonathan Brooks, D’Andre Swift, and Rachaad White at ADP, and in on Chase Brown. Great! I was also all-in on Isiah Pacheco (who got hurt, but even if he had stayed heathy, I’m skeptical that he would’ve returned value at his lofty price), and missed on a couple of others including Devin Singletary. Overall, and like many, I wasn’t high enough on running backs (vs. wide receivers) in general in 2024.

Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images

Wide Receiver

Biggest Hit: Fading Marvin Harrison, Jr. Harrison had a preseason ADP of 16. Not WR16, overall player 16! And while his final numbers weren’t atrocious, he missed his value by a very wide margin, despite staying healthy for all 17 games in a year where receivers dropped like flies. He finished the season outside the Top-40 wide receivers, at 9.4 FPPG. Four rookie WRs outscored him, and a fifth (Jalen McMillan) also did if you just count the games where he started. If you spent a precious second round pick on Harrison, it was a lot to overcome.

Biggest Miss: Where do I begin? Let’s go with target (at ECR) calls on Deebo Samuel and Jaylen Waddle. What happened to these players?

Other: I actually did pretty well with wide receivers in a challenging season for the position, despite the big misses noted above (plus whiffs on Diontae Johnson and Cooper Kupp, both of whom I was very high on). I was very right about Chris Godwin having a big bounce-back season working mostly out of the slot…until he suffered a season-ending injury. He was the WR2 before getting hurt in Week 7. Fade calls on Chris Olave and Jayden Reed also worked out – both felt overpriced to me. Targeting Malik Nabers at his value also had a decent return, although his best production came very late, during the fantasy playoffs. And where I really did well was with a few of my “other” guys to target later in drafts (namely Brian Thomas, Jr., Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Khalil Shakir, Rasheed Shahid, and Jameson Williams), although Shaheed was another WR who was lost for the season after a great start. These players were all excellent values, and especially Thomas who finished as the WR9 on a FPPG basis (and the WR4 in total points).

Photo by Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images

Tight End

Biggest Hit: Avoiding both Dallas Goedert and Cole Kmet, at cost. Not that the cost was all that much, but neither of these tight ends showed any consistency, and Goedert has solidified himself as a talented TE who isn’t used all that consistently in his offense, and gets hurt every single season.

Biggest Miss: Hang on. I need to put on some music. OK, I’ve got “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who blasting in the background. Thank you, Kyle Pitts. No really, thanks for nothing. Again. The analysis sounded good in my head. Atlanta was finally going to have a proven, prolific quarterback who could unlock his “generational talent.” I’m out, forever. Although I have to say, Michael Penix looked good at the end of the season, and maybe next year he and Pitts…STOP IT! I won’t get fooled again.

Other: Dalton Kincaid, what happened? I wasn’t alone in whiffing on a big breakout from the Bills’ second year tight end. It’s strange – Josh Allen had an MVP caliber-season but none of his pass-catchers were all that great. He spread the wealth all year, and he and James Cook took a huge chunk of the TDs.

And that’s that. I can’t wait to write these two columns again in 2025. Enjoy the Wild Card games and if you’re playing in some kind of fantasy playoff contest, good luck!