Draft season is upon us, and it’s no mystery that the hunt for late-round gems has begun. The odds of winning a fantasy championship are increased astronomically when a team adds quality contributors in both the higher and lower rounds. In competitive drafts, it is difficult for any manager to come out of the process without feeling as though their team has a position of weakness or a fatal flaw. However, if they crush a pick at a position of need in one of the later rounds, a championship can be closer than ever. It’s time to take a look at which players are shaping up for unexpectedly monumental seasons in fantasy football. Stick around if your league has waited to draft until the week of the start of the NFL season.
Jared Goff - Quarterback, DET
It’s no secret that Goff and the Lions impressed last year. Detroit’s quarterback logged a top-10 finish at his position after being regularly drafted among the bottom half of the league’s starting quarterbacks. In 2023, he ended up recording 4,575 passing yards and 30 passing touchdowns while maintaining a 67% completion rate. He was a huge steal for anyone who felt like picking him up as a backup and found his way into starting lineups as the season progressed.
It could be assumed that Goff’s 2023 production and fantasy finish would have landed him a consistent ranking as a top-12 quarterback on most 2024 fantasy football big boards, however, that is simply not the case. ESPN currently has Goff’s ADP listed at the QB19 slot, again showing him being drafted in the lower half of the NFL at his position.
A few reasons come to mind to explain this. In fantasy football, quarterbacks who can pass and run consistently earn a high amount of fantasy points over the course of a season. Rushing yards and rushing touchdowns carry a significantly greater amount of weight when compared to the value of passing yards and passing touchdowns. Quarterbacks are usually drafted based on their ceilings, not their floors. Goff has rushed for less than 100 yards over the past two seasons combined, only running for 21 yards in 2023.
Despite this, you should draft Goff over his ADP. His combination of weapons and protection is hard to beat when you take a look at the rest of the league. PFF recently ranked the Lions’ offensive line as the best unit in the league heading into 2024. On top of this, Jared Goff has an impressive group of pass-catchers at his disposal. Superstar wideout Amon-Ra St. Brown returns after a stellar 2023 season, tight end Sam LaPorta was among the best at his position in the entire league during his rookie campaign and is a phenomenal threat in the passing game, wideout Jameson Williams has shown flashes over his first few years in the league and has a real chance to break out this season, and running back Jahmyr Gibbs is a great receiving threat out of the backfield. Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson also returns after receiving head coaching interest this offseason. He is a key piece to this offense as well.
The final piece to this puzzle is Detroit’s 2024 schedule. It’s not a terribly hard group of teams to face off against. The point to highlight here is that Goff will be playing in a dome in all but three games during the 2024 season. This is significant because he put together some of his best performances in those types of playing environments in 2023. Goff averaged 277 passing yards and threw for a total of 28 touchdowns across 14 games held in domes last season.
Gus Edwards - Running Back, LAC
This selection may be a little surprising, but just stay with me for a second. The Chargers signed Edwards to a 2-year, $6.5 million contract at the start of the free agency period back in March. On the surface, this move seems slightly insignificant. However, when you take a look at the staff set in place in Los Angeles, a few aspects of this transaction become more important.
One of the first moves that new Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh made was naming Greg Roman as the team’s offensive coordinator. This move came after Roman served as the offensive coordinator of the Baltimore Ravens from 2019-2022. During that time, the team had one of the most prolific rushing attacks in the entire league, led by quarterback Lamar Jackson and a fleet of running backs that usually changed year-to-year. However, Gus Edwards was consistently one of the top running backs on the team, especially after the departure of Mark Ingram II.
Edwards had a career year in Baltimore during the 2023 NFL season. The 29-year-old carried the ball 198 times en route to 810 rushing yards and 13 rushing touchdowns. He also averaged 4.09 yards per carry. As far as advanced stats go, Edwards averaged 3.1 yards after contact per carry and had a 44.4% rush success rate.
It’s no surprise that Roman wanted to add a running back he was familiar with to an offense that figures to be very run-heavy. Edwards has served a key role in Baltimore’s rushing attack over the last few seasons and will be very involved in Los Angeles this year under Roman and Harbaugh, two coaches who have tended to establish the run game as the focal point of their offensive attacks over the course of their careers. In Roman’s offense, the Ravens led the league in rush attempts per game in 2019 and 2020 and were among the top six within the category in 2021 and 2022.
The Chargers also have one of the easiest schedules in the league for running backs this year, making Gus Edwards a strong option in the later rounds of fantasy football drafts. Edwards is listed as the RB40 on ESPN. He has a great chance to outperform his ADP.
It’s worth noting that the Chargers also added former Ravens running back J.K. Dobbins to their backfield. Unfortunately, he has been unable to stay healthy throughout his career and will need to prove himself to earn a role on the team this season.
Tank Dell - WR, HOU
Dell was hard to miss if you watched any of Houston’s games in 2023. He was a constant home-run threat and quickly developed an elite connection with Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud, who called on the Texans front office to draft Tank Dell in the first place, before going down with a leg injury late in the season. Both were in their rookie season last year and quickly left their marks as two of the most explosive young offensive players in the league.
In 2023, Dell averaged 64.5 receiving yards per game; this included two 140+ receiving yard weeks. Dell also scored five touchdowns from Week 9 through Week 12. He was a great deep threat, averaging 14.2 air yards per target and 15.1 yards per reception, the latter statistic tied with Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill.
Over 11 games, the University of Houston product also averaged 0.6 receiving touchdowns per game, which was tied for the fourth-most in the NFL. In fantasy football, Dell is a huge big-play threat and could deliver huge weeks for your fantasy team.
His connection with Stroud is apparent, and with Houston’s offense producing 243.6 passing yards per game (eighth-most in the NFL), Dell should have no problem overachieving his fantasy expectations. Dell is being drafted as the WR30 on ESPN. Even though Houston added former Bills wideout Stefon Diggs to their receiving group, Dell should have no problem outperforming a borderline top-30 positional ADP.
In his rookie season, Dell delivered as a top-20 fantasy wide receiver five times through 11 games in 2023. He finished inside the top-12 three times. The second-year wideout is a safe bet to produce big games in fantasy football this season.
Honorable Mentions - QB Kirk Cousins (ATL), QB Caleb Williams (CHI), RB Blake Corum (LAR), RB Jonathon Brooks (CAR), WR Terry McLaurin (WAS), WR Keon Coleman (BUF)
