Fantasy Football Lessons Learned - Things I Missed On This Year

The 2024 fantasy football season is now complete. As with every season, there were a lot of hits and misses in terms of my preseason takes and expectations. There are always going to be big whiffs and huge wins. It’s the nature of the game.

However, we’re not trying to be right 100% of the time. That’s impossible. We’re trying to be righter than the people we’re playing against. Sometimes, even that is not enough because anything can happen once the playoffs start.

In my home league, for example, I scored 154 points in the second round of the playoffs. The league average was 117. The team with the highest PPG average for the year was 132. The standard deviation was +/- 21. I scored above the standard deviation of the highest-scoring team and still lost. That’s just how it goes sometimes.

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Holding Myself Accountable

I always get a good kick from the “hold yourself accountable” takes from some in the fantasy football community. Most of the time, it comes from a place where others want to point out your bad calls, but what good does that do?

We all make bad calls in this game, and sometimes, there aren’t lessons to be learned. Sometimes, bad luck and variance are at fault; all you can do is take it on the chin and move on.

While I’m not too keen on the whole “hold yourself accountable” mantra, I get a good kick out of looking at what I got right and wrong and determining if there is a takeaway. Sometimes there are, sometimes there just aren’t. Let’s start with the bad.

Big Whiffs

The Pecking Order of the San Francisco Passing Game

I was out on Brock Purdy. I expected plenty of regression after a season where he hit many outlandish statistical anomalies. That proved to be a (primarily) correct call. However, if I was to be out on Purdy, that meant being out on one (or two) of the team’s pass-catchers.

I was out on George Kittle. Last year, he had the lowest target share and target rate among their big three (Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel included). His target share was lower than Christian McCaffrey's.

What I couldn’t foresee, and maybe should get a pass on, were the season-long injuries to Aiyuk and McCaffrey. They combined to miss 23 games. Their absences allowed Kittle to be the team’s No. 1 option in the passing game. Samuel had one of the worst seasons of his career, and Kittle became the team’s primary offensive weapon.

Who knows how the season would’ve played out for Kittle without the injuries to Aiyuk and CMC? We’ll never know.

George Kittle played 14 games this season.

He finished as a TE1 in 13 of those games.

The only outing he fell outside the Top-12?
🌨️ Snowstorm in Buffalo (1 catch, 7 yards) pic.twitter.com/bhOb841WGb

— Underdog (@UnderdogFantasy) January 2, 2025

Remember what I said earlier about sometimes no takeaways or lessons to be learned? This is one of those. Was I wrong? Yes. Was it anything I could’ve foreseen? Nope. Take it on the chin and move on.

Diontae Johnson

What the hell, man? Johnson had a preseason ADP in the mid-to-late 30s for receivers. Considering Adam Thielen had finished as a top-30 WR the year before and the addition of new coach, Dave Canales, there was plenty of reason for optimism for Johnson.

There was so much optimism that everyone was in on him. Everyone was wrong. Dead wrong. He bombed out in Carolina. He was eventually traded to Baltimore for peanuts, a sign that maybe the NFL community isn’t nearly as high on him as the fantasy one.

He barely even saw the field in Baltimore. It didn’t take long before they cut him, and then, due to injuries to Stefon Diggs and Tank Dell, Houston claimed him. It was a completely lost season for Johnson and for his fantasy managers.

Diontae Johnson's tenure with the Ravens:

◾ 4 Games Played
◾ 5 Targets
◾ 1 Reception
◾ 6 Yards pic.twitter.com/d2pfHAbeFl

— FantasyPros (@FantasyPros) December 20, 2024

The takeaway here? I haven’t got one. Reception Perception, who does film reviews of receivers, loved him. His advanced metrics and target-earning potential have always been good, so the analytics loved him, too. The only way to have predicted this was to own a crystal ball.

Kyle Pitts

Pitts was another one where almost everyone was in on. He had 1,000 yards as a rookie. His advanced metrics have always been good. He dealt with a torn MCL in 2022, but had a full year to get healthy going into 2024.

They signed Kirk Cousins, one of the best pocket passers and most accurate quarterbacks in the league for years. They hired a Sean McVay disciple to be their offensive coordinator. Even now, looking back, there was every reason in the world to be in on Kyle Pitts.

The only problem, none of them mattered. Pitts disappointed again. You could argue (quite successfully) that this was the worst year of his career. On the surface, that doesn’t make any sense. He should’ve had the best quarterback play of his career. Even if Cousins faltered, they had a top 10 rookie! He also had the best coaching in his career.

None of it mattered. I still cannot explain it. I only got that Pitts is simply too much of a tweener. He’s not a true receiver and can’t win from that position consistently. He’s also not a true tight end and isn’t big enough or strong enough to play in-line, so we’re left with a middling player at both spots.

I do not know if that’s what the brightest football minds would say, but it’s all I’m left with. However, buying into a breakout season for Pitts was costly. Again, I’m not sure what the takeaway is here.

He had an elite showing as a rookie. He struggled with an injury in year two. He had lousy coaching and quarterback play in year three. Well, that was kind of true for all three years. He was an elite college prospect who received elite draft capital. If another player in that situation gets an upgraded coach and quarterback, I’ll be all-in again, and I’d bet we’ll hit more than we miss following that logic. Pitts was the exception, not the rule.

Marvin Harrison Jr. Flops

Harrison came into the season ranked as a back end WR1. Fantasy managers expected him to be somewhere in the 8-14 range. He was an elite prospect coming out of Ohio State. He was insanely productive there. The draft capital backed it all up.

Among landing spots for the top three receivers, it was unanimously agreed that Harrison got the best spot. Kyler Murray is better than Daniel Jones, and Caleb Williams was an unknown. While Malik Nabers was the No. 1 target in New York, the same argument could be made for Harrison in Arizona.

Even if you thought Trey McBride would still be the No. 1, the options between those two were non-existent. The substantial target volume was still easily on the horizon. After being drafted as a borderline WR1, he finished as the WR43.

Marvin Harrison Jr. has fewer...

🔻 Receptions than Elijah Moore
🔻 Receiving Yards than Jauan Jennings
🔻 Touchdowns than Rashod Bateman
🔻 Fantasy PPG than Jakobi Meyers pic.twitter.com/nFhJNiNG2e

— Underdog (@UnderdogFantasy) December 30, 2024

He missed one game due to a concussion that he started, hurting his 9.4 half-PPR PPG, but take out that game, and it doesn’t matter. Harrison flopped and flopped hard. Fantasy managers who took him in round 2 had a massive hole in their lineup, where they expected an elite producer to be.

What’s the lesson here? It’s not to avoid elite college players with a long track record of producing exceptional numbers. No, we certainly won’t be doing that. However, the lesson could be not to be too high on rookies that they need a learning curve.

However, that takeaway has its faults. If applied to Brock Bowers, that logic would have resulted in you missing the best rookie tight end season ever and, quite frankly, one of the best tight end seasons in the history of the NFL. So, should that be our takeaway?

Not only that, but Nabers finished as the WR9 in half-PPR PPG. If that had been MHJ, there’d be no problem here. That leads us to, there was anything in MHJ’s prospect profile that would lead us to believe he’d have struggled a bit as a rookie.

No prospect is perfect, so you’ll be able to find things that maybe he didn’t do quite as well as someone else, but he was as good of a receiver prospect as we’ve seen in recent years. I’m, once again, not taking too much away from this one other than “that sucked…”. I’ll be very much in on the next elite collegiate receiver.

Anthony Richardson Disappoints

Richardson scored 21.9 and 29.6 in the only two games he started and finished as a rookie. Despite playing just 50% of the snaps in one game, he still scored 17.7 points. The rushing potential that he displayed was elite. The passing was very much hit or miss (mostly miss), but he was a rookie.

In his first four games! However, that’s a bit of a cop-out because Richardson also struggled throwing the football in college. It is reasonable to expect a highly-regarded draft pick to improve, but the reports on his passing ability should have been highly concerning.

I ignored that. I focused on his elite rushing ability. After all, remember what Justin Fields had done in 2022 when he rushed for 1,143 yards, and he couldn’t throw the ball either! Of course, I ignored what happened with Fields in 2023 when he struggled mightily.

Then, in the offseason, no teams wanted Fields. Now, Richardson isn’t Fields, and it’s not entirely fair to compare them, but there were some red flags with Richardson’s skill set, which is similar to Fields’s.

I ignored the risks with Richardson’s significantly lacking passing skillset and focused only on the rushing. Still, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson didn’t reach elite status as fantasy quarterbacks without passing. The rushing only provides a strong floor.

The takeaway here is one I should’ve learned after Fields. Rushing is crucial to a quarterback’s elite upside, but passing is just as important. However, for the NFL, passing is still more important than rushing.

A quarterback’s job is unsafe if they cannot consistently throw the football. This has been a lesson that has been proven multiple times. We sometimes think teams might ignore that for the rushing upside, sheer athleticism, or the “wow” plays, and they might, for a while. In the end, though, it won’t be enough.

Not Being High Enough on Saquon Barkley, Malik Nabers, or Baker Mayfield

I wasn’t out on any of these players. If they fell to me at or around their ADP, I was in. However, the answer was to focus on all three of these guys. Barkley was drafted around RB5. Nabers was around WR25, and Mayfield was around QB18. They all look egregious in hindsight. Barkley finished as the RB1 and this year’s fantasy MVP. Nabers was a top 10 receiver, and Mayfield was QB5. Why was I hesitant to be more in on these players?

With Barkley, it was the tush push and Jalen Hurts’ target shares history with running backs. I thought Barkley wouldn’t get enough touchdowns or target volume to produce a top three running back. Some of that proved true. Barkley had the lowest target volume of his career by far.

He’ll finish with less than 45 targets this season. He’s finished with less than 60 targets twice, once in 2020, when he tore his ACL in the second game, and again in 2021, when he finished with 57 targets in 13 games.

As for the tush push, that was legit, too! Hurts averaged the most rushing touchdowns per game for his career. He has 14 touchdowns, the second highest of his career, but in 2023, when he had 15, he played all 17 games. This year, he’ll have missed two.

Barkley made up for the tush push and lack of targets with touchdown runs of 65, 70, 72, 39, and 68 yards. Of his 13 rushing touchdowns, only four came inside the 10-yard line. Eight of his 13 rushing touchdowns came outside of the 15-yard line.

Barkley scored 15 total touchdowns. The average distance away was 29.4 yards. Barkley needed these plays to pay off at his ADP because he received so few chances inside the 5- and 10-yard line, where running backs do most of their damage.

Did I end up being wrong not being higher on Barkley? Yes, absolutely. Without a doubt. Would I do anything differently in the future? I’m not sure. You can argue we should bet on talent, but we already were. His ADP of RB5 wasn’t cheap. We were betting on his talent overcoming the tush push, which significantly lowered his touchdown chances, and the target volume, which was the lowest of his career.

As talented as the player is, each touchdown being scored almost 30 yards away is a gigantic ask. Kudos to Barkley, though. You win this time.

Let’s move on to Nabers. I was in on Nabers. You can’t be out on a player as talented as he is, but I was worried about the quarterback play, the state of the offense, and his upside. I bought into Drake London and Garrett Wilson as rookies, and both were burned by terrible quarterback play.

I didn’t question Nabers’ ability to hit his ADP of WR24, but I asked how much upside he had. How many touchdowns could he score with Daniel Jones at quarterback? That concern kept me from valuing Nabers too much higher than his ADP.

Targets Per Game Leaders

1. Malik Nabers - 11.6
2. Puka Nacua** - 10.9
3. Ja'Marr Chase - 10.1
4. CeeDee Lamb - 10.1
5. Davante Adams - 9.9
6. Tee Higgins - 9.5
7. Garrett Wilson - 9.3
8. Trey McBride - 9.1
9. Justin Jefferson - 9.1
10. Brock Bowers - 9.0

— Josh Larky (@jlarkytweets) January 3, 2025

Ultimately, he finished as the WR9, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing. From Weeks 7-16, he averaged 10.8 half-PPR PPG. He scored 57.2% of his points in just five games. That inconsistency likely made his WR9 finish feel a bit like a mirage.

as I wrong on Nabers? Yes, but I’m not losing sleep over it. My concerns regarding the lack of upside were true for most of the season. He scored less than 12.5 points in nine out of his 14 points. That’s tough for fantasy managers to handle.

Now, onto Mayfield. This one hurt. I was dead wrong. I thought he experienced a resurgent season, much like Geno Smith had, but with the loss of Dave Canales as offensive coordinator, he’d experience a step back. I didn’t think he’d be bad by any means. I just didn’t think he’d be able to duplicate, to the same degree, the season he had in 2023.

I was wrong, big time. He didn’t just duplicate. He got better. Much better. He finished as the QB5 and was one of the best late-round draft selections you could have made this season.

Baker Mayfield could join 2011 Drew Brees & 2020 Aaron Rodgers as the only players with Comp% above 70% and 40+ Pass TDs in a season 👨‍🍳

Mayfield has a 71.7% Comp% and 39 Pass TDs going into Week 18 https://t.co/iXlJTx0PGq pic.twitter.com/qgccZ2J75d

— The 33rd Team (@The33rdTeamFB) January 2, 2025

If you waited on quarterback and drafted Mayfield late, you were in a prime position to dominate. I had advocated for Mayfield in the past. I think his years in Cleveland largely get misinterpreted. He was far better there than is remembered. Not buying higher on Mayfield was a major miss, however. There’s no way around that.

In hindsight, it seems foolish. I still liked Mike Evans this year, and I loved Chris Godwin. That right there should’ve had me smashing Mayfield at around QB20. Looking back, I’m not sure why I didn’t, but I didn’t, and that was dead wrong.

Age and Achilles Injury

I was in on Kirk Cousins and didn’t mind Aaron Rodgers’ ADP. More importantly, I was very much interested in Drake London, Kyle Pitts, and Garrett Wilson. Wilson and London did fine. They had a slightly negative return on investment, but nothing that couldn’t be overcome.

However, the lesson here is that Father Time is undefeated. We all know this. I knew this. I knew Cousins’s and Rodgers’s time was coming. For whatever reason, I just didn’t believe it was in 2024. However, given their age and the injury they were both attempting to overcome, I should’ve been far more cautious than I was.

Both quarterbacks looked like a shell of themselves, negatively impacting the players around them. It was a domino effect and not a good one.

Other Misses

Not Believing in Sam Darnold (Kevin O’Connell) Enough

I wasn’t out on any Minnesota pass-catchers, but I was skeptical about their ability to hit their ceilings. Darnold has only always been bad. Granted, he’s always been in bad situations, but after seven years in the NFL, how much could we expect him to improve?

Well, whatever answer I settled on, it was not high enough. Darnold has played like one of the best quarterbacks in the league. He kept Justin Jefferson in the top three, something I was skeptical of, and also helped Jordan Addison have a major second-year leap. I was wary of that, too.

Darnold ended up finishing as a top 12 quarterback, cementing himself as one of the waiver-wire darlings of the season. While missing Darnold was a miss on its own, the bigger miss was not believing in Darnold, which caused me to question if Jefferson could keep up his elite production.

Jefferson wasn't a player I avoided, but I made sure to diversify around his ADP, not getting enough shares of the superstar receiver. I did avoid Addison more than I should have, given Darnold's elite play. While expecting the offense to take a step back with the loss of Kirk Cousins, Darnold

Playing it Safe with Brock Bowers

We’ve already touched on MHJ and Nabers. I didn’t play it safe with Harrison (wrong), but I played it safe with Nabers (also wrong). With Bowers, much like Nabers, I didn’t trust the environment, the coaching staff, or the quarterback play.

In the end, none of it mattered. Bowers dominated anyway. However, the Davante Adams trade certainly helped him. He averaged 9.6 half-PPR PPG in the first three games where Adams was a Raider, which ballooned to 12.7 half-PPR PPG without him on the field.

Brock Bowers among all rookie receivers in NFL history:

+ The most receptions of any rookie ever (108)
+ The 11th-most receiving yards (1,144)

In @FantasyPtsData history:

+ The most YPRR by a rookie TE (2.17)
+ The most 1D/RR by a rookie TE (0.11)

— Ryan Heath (@RyanJ_Heath) January 3, 2025

Before I asked what the takeaway with Harrison was, I said maybe it’s being more cautious with elite rookies. I was with Nabers and Bowers, and it burned me. If I had trusted the talent and been in all of them, like I was for MHJ, I would’ve had a higher hit rate.

Maybe there isn’t a takeaway with the MHJ miss. Perhaps the takeaway exists with the misses on Nabers and Bowers. Always be in on elite talent. You won’t always be correct, but you’ll be right more than you’re wrong, and that’s the primary goal.

Two Running Back Misses

I was out on Josh Jacobs. I was concerned about the running back by committee approach that Matt LaFleur had. This dated back to his lone season in Tennessee, where he didn’t make Derrick Henry a workhorse back, instead opting for a timeshare with Dion Lewis.

I was also concerned about the touchdown upside in Green Bay. I know that doesn't sound very smart in hindsight, but from 2020-2023, their running backs had averaged just nine rushing touchdowns per season. Now, for the first nine weeks of the season, this take was looking good.

Jacobs was the RB21 from Weeks 1-9. At that time, he had just four total touchdowns. During those first nine games, he had just two with over 15 half-PPR points. We all know how this ended, though. From Weeks 11-17, following their Week 10 bye, Jacobs averaged 20.5 half-PPR PPG.

After scoring just four touchdowns in the first nine games, he scored 11 in the final seven. That included two games where he found the end zone three times.

This is now Josh Jacobs' seventh straight game with a rushing touchdown, tying Paul Hornung (1960) for the longest streak in Packers history.

— Rob Demovsky (@RobDemovsky) December 29, 2024

It was a tale of two seasons for Jacobs. Had his second half of the season come first, maybe my take would have been a win. However, since it was not, it’s a miss. Jacobs ended up being one of the best players in fantasy over the second half of the season and into the playoffs when fantasy managers needed them most.

The takeaway here is don’t get too cute. I looked at his 2023 stats, which were bad, at MLF’s history of a running back by committee, and the poor recent scoring output of Packer running backs and got nervous. In the end, however, targeting proven workhorse backs in potent offenses is almost a winning bet.

That part of the lesson isn’t new. That part is well-documented. Like every rule, there are exceptions, but identifying the exceptions is difficult. You’re better off following the rule every time and chalking up a few losses rather than trying to get cute and thinking you can find the exception as I tried. Lesson learned.

The other running back I was out on was Joe Mixon. He’s always been good for fantasy football, but not good-good. His stats have never stood out. He hasn’t been overly efficient. He just gets fed the ball a lot. With him going to a new team, a new coaching staff, his poor efficiency, and his increasing age, I decided it was safer to avoid the risks than target the upside – a workhorse back in a good offense.

It turns out that the Houston offense wasn’t all that good. One could argue that they opted to lean on Mixon more than CJ Stroud, but that’s a debate for another day. However, Mixon finished as the RB5 in the end, solidly outplaying his preseason ADP.

Joe Mixon came out red hot this season, but really cooled off during the fantasy home stretch… pic.twitter.com/vNqr9jjrjX

— Field Yates (@FieldYates) December 27, 2024

However, Mixon limped to the finish line. He averaged 21.5 half-PPR PPG from Weeks 1-11. That dropped to 9.5 PPG in Weeks 12-17. Unlike Jacobs, who showed up in a big way for fantasy managers during the playoff push and into the playoffs, Mixon left fantasy managers high and dry

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