Players with Red Flags to Avoid?

August 22, 2021

NFL players with dubious stats from 2020 to consider avoiding in 2021 fantasy football drafts due to red flags. These fantasy players can be draft day busts.

When it comes down to facing a fantasy draft, two numbers are often the most sought after by fantasy GMs: current ADP and overall rank from the prior season. No matter how experienced fantasy players are, those two numbers are thought of as the ultimate all-encompassing representations of every football player's value. Knowing what he did in the league the last year and where he is getting drafted this season should be more than enough to make a reasonably good projection going forward, isn't it?

Turns out, those two numbers can be way misleading. Today, I'm here to focus on last season's overall rank of players, that is, where they ranked among peers in 2020. The fact that someone finished the year as a second-tier (RB13 to RB24) running back in total points doesn't mean he wasn't better than players at the first tier in the position. What if that player missed some games, getting fewer chances to rack up points? What if he had played a full 16-game schedule? Questions, questions, questions...

Up next, I will point out some players that experienced inconsistency in 2020 and advise how to assess their fantasy upside for 2021, this time for the bad (worth avoiding even if they looked great).

Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles

Jalen Hurts is now the QB1 of the Eagles for good. I was curious about how Hurts played last season when compared to other "partial" (no more than five games started) rookie-season numbers put up by players at the position through the past two decades. Turns out he racked up the most FP among all of them with 109.1, just above Tim Tebow's 2010 campaign.

But are we sure this kid can truly perform for a full year? Like, to finish something close to mid-QB2 levels of play? I'm hesitant. Perhaps he's not the one to blame, and the problem is an Eagles offense that doesn't give me much confidence, but things just don't look easy for Hurts in 2021. I might die alone on this hill, but that's how this whole situation makes me feel.

PFF isn't too bullish on Hurts making wonders next season, either, as they have him projected to a QB18 finish. That projection has a quite high rushing production baked in, though, which I wouldn't assume will be there. He could reach it (125-642-7 projection) but that'd mean he would have finished last season with the third-most (among QBs) rushing attempts and rushing yards, and the fifth-most scores.

Hurts posted a 6:4 TD:INT ratio in his four starts and 15 total games while attempting 148 passes in that sample. That's the only "good" thing he did among all quarterbacks as he was a net-zero in terms of percentile-ranking at every metric other than Interceptable Att./G. I'm definitely not paying his current ADP of QB10. No, sir.

Joe Mixon, Cincinnati Bengals

Mixon's ADP evolution is a rather interesting one to explore. Mixon entered the league as a rookie in 2017 with an overall ADP of 46th. He raised his stock to 26th, then 20th, and finally 16th last summer. He, of course, always underperformed, making him a bad value for those GMs betting on him. Only in 2018 could he best his positional-ADP when he was drafted as the RB12 and finished the year as the RB10 in PPR formats. Not that great, I guess...

I'm a Soldier of Mixon, don't get me wrong. But it is one of those things that for much that you want them to really happen, never truly take place. Two consecutive top-13 finishes in 2018 and 2019 pointed toward--finally--a potential top-six finish in 2020 until an injury left Mixon out of 10 games last year. Cold World. But he wasn't putting up otherworldly numbers, either, logging his lowest YPC mark since he was a rookie, a career-low YPR mark, and also having scored just four touchdowns in the six games he got to play last season.

With the addition of Joe Burrow two summers ago--and supposedly healthy from the early days of the upcoming campaign--and doubling up on pass-play assets after drafting WR Ja'Marr Chase with another first-round pick a few months ago, these Bengals certainly look more like a passing team than a rush-first one.

Mixon--assuming he stays healthy--is probably a lock to finish the year as an RB1 or high-end RB2 at the very least. But Mixon's past also tells us to be cautious for one reason or another. Not the most expensive of tailbacks out there (RB12 ADP) but definitely not the safest pick among all options available.

Julio Jones, Tennessee Titans

Enter Julio, he of the Titans lore. Nope, that's not a typo. Jones will be receiving checks from an organization not based in Atlanta for the first time in his career starting next season, and that might be good for all parts involved. Sadly, you're not one of those parts and therefore, as a fantasy GM, should resign yourself to see both of them (Julio and the Falcons) putting up duds come 2021.

Jones finished 2020 as Atlanta's no. 3 WR in total fantasy points (PPR leagues). He was, though, up there taking the WR1 role in early pre-season depth charts. Yessir! Legends first! Obviously, Julio's bad outcome last year came attached to a seven-game-missed season in which he only played nine games total. That softened the blow, or not. Jones was averaging 16.2 FPPG when he had to say goodbye to 2020, which was his lowest average since 2017 and his second-lowest since all the way back in 2012. Ugh.

Going from Matt Ryan to Ryan Tannehill might appear to be good, but remember that Tannehill has been a QB1 once in the past five years, and only twice a top-24 quarterback in the last four. The Titans are a Derrick Henry-led team, and that won't change. A.J. Brown, a 24-year-old stud and WR12 last season, is here to stay and should be the prioritized receiver out of these two.

Jones is playing his age-32 season in 2021, and do you know how many players 32+ years or older have finished those seasons as top-20 receivers (Julio is getting drafted with an ADP of WR17) in the past five years? Two of them, two times each. The other 43 WR-player-seasons at age 32 or more went for as much as 190 PPR points--or a WR25 finish if you prefer. Don't overpay for a washed-up man, folks.

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