With fantasy football drafts taking place over the next couple of weeks, time for research and last minute hot-takes on player values is running out. With time at such an essence, we cut out the middle man by bringing you five busts and sleepers to keep an eye on for the upcoming season. These are players that you should either avoid (busts) or be willing to take a couple of rounds earlier than projected (sleepers) in your 2019 fantasy football drafts.
A bust is a player that fails to live up to their projected expectations, while a sleeper is someone that outplays their current average draft position. While most busts are players to avoid in the early rounds, you’d still be considered a disappointment for failing to reach your 10th round ADP. It just stings a bit more when your early-round picks don’t live up to the hype.
Fantasy football is all about value, making even the slightest of difference in preseason ADP and actual finishing position the difference in making the playoffs or being on the outside looking in.
With playoffs and championships the ultimate goal in fantasy football, here are five potential busts to avoid in 2019 redraft leagues, followed by five sleepers to target. For this article, I will use FantasyPros‘ ADP for PPR leagues since it’s a combination of six different sources.
Busts
A player that fails to live up to expectations based on their current average draft position.
Antonio Brown (20th overall ADP)
The 4x All-Pro with over 11,000 career receiving yards is one of the easiest fantasy football fades of the 2019 NFL season. Even before the current news cycle, including frozen feet and a threat of retirement over a helmet, it was hard to imagine a scenario where Antonio Brown produced up to expectations.
Whether the perennial Pro-Bowler will admit it or not, he takes a massive downgrade at the quarterback position by replacing Ben Roethlisberger with the average Derek Carr. He also goes from one of the best offenses in the National Football League to an average one with very little room for growth.
Last season, Pittsburgh led the league in pass attempts while running the fifth most plays. Meanwhile, Oakland was 16th in attempts and 24th in plays. Brown enters 2019 at 31-years old and is bound to see a regression in touchdowns, yards, and targets in Oakland.
At his current ADP, Brown is a full-blown fade for me, and it would take him falling a round or two for me to consider drafting him. No matter how great of a talent he is, Brown just isn’t set up to meet expectations once he re-joins the team from his current sabbatical.
Damien Williams (27th overall ADP)
With a current ADP in the top-30, Damien Williams is easily one of the most polarizing players in 2019 fantasy football drafts.
While Williams has unlimited potential in this Kansas City Chiefs’ offense, it’s extremely risky drafting a guy with 733 career rushing yards in five NFL seasons. That’s usually a mistake I’m going to let someone else make.
Even while excelling as a pass-catcher out of the backfield since his days in Miami, Williams has never shown the ability to carry a full rushing workload. In 74 career games, Williams has rushed for over 100 yards twice in his career and has over 20 carries in a game only once.
Williams’ value is bolstered in PPR leagues due to his passing game prowess, but he’s a must-avoid in standard leagues. There’s just no way he has enough success on the ground to justify the choice at his current ADP.
Williams is already battling a hamstring injury early in training camp, while head coach Andy Reid has hinted at utilizing a committee approach in Kansas City. Carlos Hyde and rookie Darwin Thompson seem likely to take snaps and targets away from Williams throughout the season.
Leonard Fournette (32nd overall ADP)
Sometimes, the greatest ability is availability. In Leonard Fournette‘s case, his lack of availability is why I’m always skeptical of drafting the third year running back out of LSU.
Fournette has only started 21 games over the past two regular seasons due to numerous injuries and a suspension after getting into a fist-fight with Buffalo Bills defensive end Shaq Lawson.
Even when Fournette is healthy enough to start, he’s often an inefficient runner that relies on volume and goal-line touchdowns for fantasy football success.
Last season, Fournette rushed for 439 yards in the eight games he was available. He didn’t go over 100 yards in a single game last season, including games against the Pittsburgh Steelers and Indianapolis Colts where he received 28 and 24 carries, respectively.
In Fournette’s 2017 rookie season, he broke 100 yards six times in 16 total regular season and playoff games. In those six games where he rushed for 100 yards or more, he averaged over 25 carries per contest. He’s never once rushed for 100 or more yards without at least 20 carries.
This is who you’re drafting in the third round? No thanks. Let someone else make that mistake and flourish off their error. There are just better options available in the 30s than an injury-prone, inefficient runner on one of the worst offenses in football.
Aaron Jones (33rd overall ADP)
In a lot of ways, Green Bay Packers running back Aaron Jones is in a similar situation as Fournette. After missing eight games due to suspension and multiple MCL sprains over his first two seasons, Jones is a risky pick at his current ADP.
Unlike Fournette, Jones has shown the ability to be an effective runner when on the field. Jones has averaged 5.5 yards per rush in each of his two NFL seasons, while Fournette has yet to break 4.0 in his career.
Although I like Jones a lot more than Fournette, it doesn’t minimize the risk involved with drafting him. In fact, the 30s seem chock-full of running backs with a tremendous amount of risk involved.
Along with Fournette and Jones, running backs like Derrick Henry, Josh Jacobs, and Marlon Mack all have question marks about their ability to produce relative to their ADP. Luckily for you, there’s plenty of late-round running backs that make it easier to pass on these risks.
Eric Ebron (75th overall ADP)
Despite being cast aside and labeled a first-round bust in Detroit, Eric Ebron rebounded with one of the most statistically shocking turnarounds in NFL history. After only scoring 12 total touchdowns in four seasons in Detroit, Ebron went to Indianapolis where he scored 14 total touchdowns in year one.
As impressive as the 2018 season was, there are many reasons to doubt Ebron’s ability to reproduce those numbers in his second season with the Colts.
For one, Jack Doyle is healthy and ready to cut into Ebron’s time-share at the tight end position. In the six games both played last season, Doyle out-snapped Ebron 331-164 with 11 more targets.
The return of Doyle, not to mention wide receiver additions Parris Campbell and Devin Funchess, combined with the likely touchdown regression for Ebron makes him a no-go for me in fantasy football drafts. I’d much rather take the risk on David Njoku around the same range or wait a round or two for Austin Hooper or Mark Andrews.