Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Drake London played quite well as a rookie but struggled to produce fantasy numbers due to his team’s run-heavy ways. With a quarterback change and the addition of the best running back prospect since Saquon Barkley, will it be more of the same for London? What is his fantasy football outlook for the 2023 season?
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Drake London’s Fantasy Outlook
By all accounts, London had a fantastic rookie season. He caught 72 passes for 866 yards and four touchdowns. When you consider the offense he played in, it looks even better.
Last season, the Falcons had an absurd run rate of 57% during neutral game script, the highest in the NFL. What’s even more outrageous was their 51% negative-game-script (trailing by 7+) run rate, also the highest in the league.
Essentially, Atlanta did not care about the score or game situation; nothing was going to stop them from running the damn ball.
In addition to being the most run-heavy NFL team, the Falcons also played incredibly slow. The team’s 29.8 seconds per snap in neutral game script was the eighth-slowest pace of play in the league. That fact is even more surprising considering they ran no-huddle at a 12% rate in neutral game script, tied for the sixth-highest rate.
Amidst all of this running, London still managed a respectable season of 10.5 PPR fantasy points per game, good for a WR43 finish. It wasn’t what fantasy managers were hoping, but London’s underlying metrics suggest he’s good at football.
Although the overall volume was small, London did command an absurd 29.4% target share as a rookie — fifth highest among all wide receivers. While he only ran a route on 87% of pass plays, London was targeted on 32.4% of his routes run, the second-highest rate in the league, and his 2.4 yards per route run was 11th.
What these numbers establish is that London would be an absolute smash if not for his horrible offensive situation. The question fantasy managers need to answer if they are going to consider drafting him is whether it can improve.
To that, I would say it can’t possibly get worse. There’s simply no way the Falcons — even with Bijan Robinson and the desire to continue running the ball — can throw more than they did last season.
Should Fantasy Managers Draft London at his ADP?
If we extrapolate Desmond Ridder’s pass attempts during his four starts over an entire season, we get 488 total attempts. Last season, the Falcons attempted just 415 passes. For 2023, my projections have Atlanta throwing it 506 times, which is a 25% increase but would still put them in the bottom five of pass attempts.
In those projections, assuming London continues to command targets as his skill suggests, I have him catching 90 passes for 1,123 yards and 5.1 touchdowns. That comes out to 14.2 ppg and a WR21 finish.
There are definitely concerns that I chose not to buy into. For example, London’s splits with and without Kyle Pitts were jarring. In seven games without Pitts, London saw 8.3 targets per game and averaged 12.3 ppg. In his 10 games with Pitts, London saw just 5.8 targets per game and averaged 9.8 ppg.
Here’s why I’m willing to mostly dismiss that as noise.
Six of the seven games Pitts missed were the final six games of the season. Historically, rookie wide receivers often meander over the first half of the season before really getting into gear over the second half as they acclimate to the NFL more.
If you choose to attribute London’s increased usage to Pitts’ absence, then you’re going to fade him at his WR23 ADP, No. 58 overall. If, like me, you attribute it to London just getting better and commanding more volume, you’re more bullish on his 2023 outlook.
I have London ranked as my WR19. If we view projections as the median outcome, then there’s a lot to like here. Of course, drafting players at their floor is ideal, but there are only a handful of those opportunities every season. With London, we can expect par value based on his ADP, which already bakes in significant progression. But there’s upside here, too.
We’re projecting the Falcons to be extremely run-heavy based on what they did last season. But what if they throw more than we expect? What if Ridder is a pretty sizable upgrade on Marcus Mariota, enabling London to be more efficient with his targets? What if London scores more?
The point I’m trying to make is there are several different paths to London meeting and exceeding his cost in fantasy drafts. Plus, sophomore wide receivers are historically very good investments. Fantasy managers should recognize the risk of drafting a pass catcher in a run-first offense but be cautiously optimistic about London this season. He’s definitely someone worth selecting in 2023 fantasy drafts.