In 2021, Mike Evans finished as the WR9 in PPR leagues. The next year, he went as WR9 in drafts. In 2022, he fell to WR17, so in 2023, his ADP was WR32. He rose back to WR7 in 2023, and as of now, his ADP has risen again, back to WR17.
Fantasy football drafters are reactionary. That’s natural and correct, of course, but there are times when it goes too far. Yes, Evans was hitting age 30 and losing Tom Brady last year, but he was also coming off his ninth straight 1,000-yard season and hadn’t finished lower than WR17 since 2015; did it really make sense that he’d plummet outside of the top 30 receivers?
Which is a lot of words to get to my hypothesis: We are too reactionary, we lean too hard on the most recent year in fantasy when making our draft boards. To test this, today I’m running my annual experiment: I’m drafting for this year while (almost) completely ignoring 2023.
What does that mean? Well, I pulled in the 2023 ADP and joined a mock draft. I basically turned my brain off and drafted from last year’s field. There were three modifications allowed:
Other than that, brain off, draft on. Let’s check it out.
Normally, I wouldn’t draft multiple quarterbacks and tight ends, but it makes things more interesting for this exercise. So, let’s look at it by position:
Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals (6.11)
Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers (10.11)
It’s hard to imagine a legitimate fantasy roster with more raw talent at quarterback than these two. The problem, of course, is the uncertainty. Burrow missed a big chunk of the 2023 season with a wrist injury that was basically unheard of in quarterbacks, so how he returns is one of the mysteries of the offseason. There’s top-three potential there, and I got him as the ninth quarterback off the board. There’s just a very concerning floor.
Meanwhile, Justin Herbert has as much skill as just about every quarterback in the game, but who is he throwing to? Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, Gerald Everett and Austin Ekeler are all gone, and in their places are … Ladd McConkey. Yeah, they added Will Dissly and Gus Edwards and J.K. Dobbins this offseason, but McConkey is the only thing you’d describe as a receiving weapon. Herbert has sky-high value, but Jim Harbaugh’s offense might not let him recognize it.
Austin Ekeler, Washington Commanders (2.11)
Tony Pollard, Tennessee Titans (4.11)
Najee Harris, Pittsburgh Steelers (5.02)
Dameon Pierce, Houston Texans (9.02)
Miles Sanders, Carolina Panthers (12.11)
I was 100% sure I would be drafting Austin Ekeler in this exercise. He was third overall in 2023 ADP, but he’s RB39 in early 2024 drafts. There was no real way my rules wouldn’t have landed him. So ultimately, the success or failure of this experiment for 2024 is whether Ekeler can rebound from a down 2024, hold off Brian Robinson Jr. and still be a star, or whether he’s over the hill and not worth a pick.
Beyond Ekeler, Tony Pollard is also emblematic of my reasons for this exercise. He got overhyped a year ago despite entering his first year as the No. 1 and coming off a brutal leg injury. After disappointing last year, he’s on a new team and the shine is off, but almost everything we liked about Pollard a year ago is still true.
Najee Harris is entering his last year in Pittsburgh. That gives the Steelers every reason to run him into the ground … except for the fact that Jaylen Warren might actually be a better running back. They’re close to equal in ADP for 2024, so this could go in any direction.
Dameon Pierce is another player I was sure would get to me in drafts. He was a darling after a surprise rookie season in 2022, but he fell flat last year. I was very curious if I’d end up with a starter/handcuff in this exercise with Joe Mixon and Pierce, but Mixon’s ADP remains high enough that he didn’t make it to me. The odds are very heavily in favor of this being a failed pick.
Miles Sanders got plenty of hype moving from Philadelphia to Carolina (and his former RB coach Duce Staley) last offseason, and it proved to be wildly misplaced. His yardage fell from 1,269 to 432, his touchdowns from 11 to 1, his yards per carry from 4.9 to 3.3. Yes, the offense around him did Sanders no favors, but he’s a decent chance to be cut before the 2024 season even starts.
Justin Jefferson, Minnesota Vikings (1.02)
Calvin Ridley, Tennessee Titans (7.02)
Christian Watson, Green Bay Packers (8.11)
Mike Williams, New York Jets (11.02)
Jahan Dotson, Washington Commanders (13.02)
I like my receiver room. Justin Jefferson has a mystery situation at quarterback, but if J.J. McCarthy and/or Sam Darnold finds success, it’ll be by throwing the ball to the superstar quarterback as much as possible. The uncertainty has dinged him a little in drafts, but he’s still a first-rounder.
Calvin Ridley heads to Tennessee, where he’ll likely be the WR2 behind DeAndre Hopkins, and Will Levis as quarterback is an enigma as well. That said, he was basically a disappointment last year, and even that offered 1,016 yards and 8 touchdowns. He has a very high floor.
Christian Watson’s issue is injuries. He’s missed 11 of 34 games in his two seasons and played fewer than 30 snaps in seven more. Last year, he closed on a three-game stretch where he had 14 catches on 20 targets for 186 yards and 4 touchdowns … except that was Weeks 11-13, and he missed the rest of the season to more hamstring issues. If he can stay healthy, he has elite upside.
Mike Williams heads to the Jets and Aaron Rodgers as the only big offseason skill-player addition for a New York team that has sky-high aspirations. If he’s healthy, he should be heavily involved. Of course, that’s a massive “if.”
Jahan Dotson was one of the biggest disappointments of 2023, coming off 7 touchdowns on 35 receptions in 2022 to 4 on 49 in 2023, and seeing his yardage drop from 523 to 518 despite playing five more games. Is he the 2022 up-and-coming star, or is he the 2023 disappointment?
Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs (3.02)
Cole Kmet, Chicago Bears (14.11)
Everyone finally conceded that Travis Kelce was a locked-in first-rounder last year, and the result was his worst season in nearly a decade. The good news is that even a bad Kelce season was still a TE3 fantasy finish, but he turns 35 in October, so this is a very risky play as my TE1.
Which means Cole Kmet might be a very important final skill pick for this team. Kmet has the best quarterback of his career (first overall pick Caleb Williams) and the best surroundings you could really ask for (DJ Moore, Keenan Allen, Rome Odunze, D’Andre Swift). The former could help, but the latter could push Kmet down the target tree. Still, there’s plenty of TD upside in an offense that should be pretty good in 2024.
Good receivers. Good-but-very-risky quarterbacks. A very low floor at running back, especially late on the roster. Tight ends who could be a star duo.
I’ll call this a mixed bag, but the fact that I could even get to a “mixed bag” by completely ignoring the most recent season of results leads me to the same conclusion this exercise has led me to every time I’ve done it: We overweight the most recent season in fantasy football. We can’t ignore it altogether, but as a drafting community, we need to be more willing to remember what we thought of a player only 17 games earlier.
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