One Take For Every Team (AFC)

Enjoy Your Drafts This Weekend :)

I’ve written a lot of posts this year, and perhaps offered even more takes on various shows — from my own every Tuesday on Fantasy Points — to various stream appearances. In the last few weeks I’ve done multiple on the channels of Ron Stewart, Liam Murphy, Davis Mattek and Ben Gretch if you want to check any of those out!

So with most remaining home league drafts happening in the next few days, I wanted to synthesize a lot of my biggest takes this year into one place, and I’m going to try to be as brief as possible in the analysis. Here’s my biggest take on every NFL team for fantasy football in 2024, starting with the AFC.

Buffalo Bills: Bet on the Backs

The Bills are going to have a strong offense in 2024, because Josh Allen is the second best QB in the NFL. However, their receiving options (beyond Dalton Kincaid at least) are tough to parse for fantasy points as the biggest upside swing (Coleman) has a very low floor, and the other bets (Shakir and Samuel) don’t profile as a type of breakout bet we want to be making given a sustained sample-size of non-difference making production or peripherals.

The best way to play this team is through the RBs. As explained below, I’m buying into the elite xFP RB profile Bills RBs had under Joe Brady, and making the bet on both James Cook (in most formats at least) and Ray Davis (everywhere) at cost this year.

Miami Dolphins: Jaylen Waddle is the most under-priced high-end WR

Jaylen Waddle is coming off a year with career highs at 27% TPRR and 2.63 YPRR and NONE of you care: I mean seriously, you don’t care at all! Waddle goes near the end of Round 2 in Best Ball drafts and late round 3 in redraft — even in high-stakes. It’s a massive exploit I’m surprised we get to play at this stage of fantasy analysis.

People simply aren’t valuing him based on his per-route numbers, which is a valid critique of a Rasheed Shahid rotational type we’re trying to project into a larger role… but is not a valid critique of a clear-cut starting star WR. Yes, Waddle’s per-route numbers are *slightly* inflated because he and Tyreek Hill never hit the 95%+ route rates other offenses give their top-WRs. But the majority of the gap between Waddle’s per-route profile and his PPG last year was a matter of TD underperformance, and in-game injuries which kept him off the field for far more snaps in several weeks than would have otherwise occurred.

Waddle is a top-10 WR in earning targets and providing post-target efficiency, and does it in a downfield role on an explosive offense. He’s under-priced for his base projection and arguably has the most contingent upside of any top-end WR.

New York Jets: Bet Big on the Garrett Wilson Breakout

Garrett Wilson is an elite WR and I won’t let the PPG gaslighters tell me different. Wilson was one of just three WRs to post a 30% target share and 40% air yards share in 2023 (Davante Adams, Tyreek Hill), and was also ranked 5th by open score, and 96th percentile in success vs. man coverage in reception perception.

Every metric — qualitative or quantitative — tells you he is one of the best in the business at WR with the exception of YPRR and PPG… and I’m pretty sure the most logical conclusion is that Zach Wilson may just be to blame for that.

Sup-Optimal QB play effects many WRs. But Garrett Wilson has been subjected to an entirely different level of incompetence. Give this man a Derek Carr and it would be an infinite upgrade.

With Aaron Rodgers in tow, and little target competition to speak of, this is aligning for Garrett Wilson to compete for WR1 overall. To me, his price tag at 1.10 actually represents a slight discount rather than an over-priced projection.

New England Patriots: Bet on Drake Maye as the Rising Tide

Drake Maye was my QB2 in this year’s rookie class and I argued that even the gap between him and Caleb Williams was not as large as consensus.

But a poor landing spot in New England and Jacoby Brissett holding the Week 1 job has led to a far lower draft cost on Maye than Williams or Jayden Daniels.

Maye was the most consistently strong and willing deep passer in this class, and brings a truly underrated level of athleticism and scrambling inclination. This is a spot where all the downside is priced in and it’s worth taking bets.

Drake Maye is my #1 most drafted QB in Best Ball, while all of Ja’Lynn Polk, DeMario Douglas, and Hunter Henry are top-five exposures for me at their positions.