In the past six years, my home redraft fantasy football league has crowned a new League Champion each year. After missing the playoffs in the first three years, I wanted to figure out how to draft better value in each range. I started looking at Average Draft Position, Expert Consistent Ranking, and listened to every FantasyPros podcast with the late, great Mike “Tags” Tagliere. I tried my best to get better; learning how to draft in tiers and not in ranks. It may sound crazy, but it was an important lesson I learned.
That being said, I wanted to look at FantasyPros’ current ECR to see which players are targets in their draft range. I will be using their most recent 1QB ECR as of June 20th. Starting at Pick 37 overall (4.01 in a 12 team league), I will be breaking down who I would be targeting in groups of 24 (2 full rounds of 12 team leagues). I will try to give one to three names in each range of players to target.
Rounds 4 & 5: Picks 37-60
- Josh Jacobs – 4.06 Pick 42
Josh Jacobs is continually underrated. Having finished as a fantasy football RB1 in both of the last two seasons, Jacobs is averaging over 1000 rushing yards, 9 touchdowns, and 45 targets a year. Getting a top 12 RB at RB20 cost is the kind of player you need to target in the middle of the fourth round. When a team’s offense improves, the running backs tend to be better for fantasy football. After all, my first rule of redraft is to take RBs on good offenses.
- Travis Etienne Jr. – 4.10 Pick 46
Travis Etienne Jr. missed his entire rookie year due to an ankle injury. While James Robinson had another great season last year, it ended on a sour note when he suffered an Achilles injury. Now, with Robinson questionable to be healthy for the preseason, Etienne is in line for a massive workload. They added a rookie late in Day 3 of the NFL draft to help play as a spell back, but ETN is sure to have a great fantasy football season as Jacksonville’s lead RB and is sure to get plenty of targets from his college QB.
Rounds 6 & 7: Picks 61-84
- Allen Robinson – 6.02 Pick 62
Allen Robinson is paying with best QB of his career. There’s no questions asked about that. Look at what he’s done with worse QBs! Four years with 150 plus targets, three years with 1100+ receiving yards, and four years with 5+ touchdowns including a 14TD year. If he can do that with worse QB play, imagine what he could do with Matthew Stafford throwing him the ball.
If Robinson somehow hits his career average of 106 targets, he could see anywhere from 75 to 85 receptions for 800 yards and 8TDs. That would have landed him as the fantasy football WR26 last year. WR28 in ECR is not a great value. However, the WR2 for the Rams last year combined for the WR20. That was with Odell joining in the middle of the year. A full off-season with Stafford could lead to Robinson having a top 20 finish yet again.
- Jalen Hurts – 6.09 Pick 69
Jalen Hurts is the starter in Philly. They traded for A.J. Brown, one of the best young WRs in the league and Hurts’ close friend. Chemistry is important for quarterbacks and their receivers. If we see Hurts improve his passing game with the addition of A.J. Brown, we could see the first QB to have over 4000 passing yards and 1000 rushing yards in a season. Now, that’s very unlikely seeing as he had 3100 passing yards and 780 rushing yards last year. However, Hurts totaled over 3850 intended air yards. That means that his receivers dropped over 750 passing yards over the season. To top it all off, Brown is one of the most efficient receivers in the NFL since he was drafted. Hurts has a legitimate chance to finish as a top 3 fantasy football QB and is being drafted as the QB6.
Rounds 8 – 10: Picks 85-120
- Zach Ertz – 8.09 Pick 93
Ertz is a good mid-tier TE to target in the middle of the eighth round of your drafts. Last year, he finished as the TE5 in fantasy football PPR leagues, even with being traded during the season. The Cardinals use the TE a lot in their scheme. Both Ertz and Maxx Williams were fantasy relevant when they were the lead TE. Since 2016, Ertz has only finished outside the top 6 TEs once, in 2020, when he missed five games to injury.
- Russell Gage – 9.09 Pick 105
Gage was hand-selected by Tom Brady himself to join the Bucs. Having been picked by the GOAT himself is sure to mean a fair target share for Gage. Plus, reports are circling that Chris Godwin may start off the season on the PUP list. With Gronk retiring, that leaves Gage with to help take over the workload of Antonio Brown, Godwin, and Gronk! I don’t think he’ll have the combined 278 targets, but he will see a large chunk of those targets. Look for him to get around 90-110 targets this year.
Rounds 11+: Picks 121+
- Tim Patrick – 13.04 Pick 148
- Khalil Herbert – 13.11 Pick 155
- Tyler Allgeier – 14.04 Pick 160
- David Njoku – 14.07 Pick 163
- Rachaad White – 15.03 Pick 171
Watch these players. They may not hit, but they have the opportunity. Patrick has been the efficient the past two years with worse QBs. Herbert has a chance to split the carries in Chicago. Allgeier has a chance to take over the rushing work now that Mike Davis is in Baltimore. Njoku just got a major contract and his biggest competition is now in Tennessee with Hooper being cut. Rachaad White is my favorite late round target. With his Day 2 draft capital, he’s the backup to Fournette in Tampa. All five of these names are players who have the opportunity to get opportunities! That’s the best thing for a late round flier.
D/ST Late-Round Draft options:
While I know most of my fantasy football articles last year were weekly D/ST Streamers, I will give you a few D/STs outside the top 5 D/STs that I like for the early schedules (Weeks 1 through 4).
- Cleveland Browns – Panthers, Steelers, Jets, Falcons to start the year. All four of those could be great matchups for their D/ST
- Philadelphia Eagles – Lions, Vikings, Commanders, Jaguars to start. After improving all sides of the ball, the Eagles are my personal favorite D/ST this year.
- Chicago Bears – 49ers, Packers, Texans, Giants to start. While the defense isn’t great, they have a good start to the year. 49ers have a first time starting QB, Packers are without their best offensive player, Texans are slowly rebuilding, and the Giants are still starting Daniel Jones.
Hunter Greene
Hunter started writing for The League Winners in the summer of 2021. Hunter has been playing fantasy football for about a decade, starting in middle school. Now he’s a professional landscaper and avid Colts and Purdue fan.