Now that we’ve reached the end of Fantasy 2020 in the majority of leagues, it’s the perfect time to revisit the beginning.
In the final installment of TT&T this season, we’re taking a look back at this past summer’s fantasy drafts to Monday morning quarterback the best and worst consensus picks from each of the first five rounds. We’re also shining the spotlight on some of the true league winners: The hidden, high-scoring gems unearthed in the later rounds who wound up producing at early-round starter levels.
For our purposes here, we’re using MyFantasyLeague.com average draft position data for 12-team point-per-reception redraft leagues conducted July 1 or later.
Round 1 (ADP 1-12)
Best pick: Alvin Kamara (ADP 5, RB4)
With the consensus first four selections (Christian McCaffrey, Saquon Barkley, Ezekiel Elliott and Michael Thomas) all winding up underperforming and/or missing most of the season due to injury, Kamara was the first first-round pick who wound up living up to his lofty billing.
It was a triumphant, bounce-back season for Kamara, who wound up pacing fantasy’s most important position (running backs) and all non-quarterbacks with 377.8 total fantasy points. It was capped, of course, by his already legendary six-touchdown, 56.2-point Christmas Day outing in Week 16 that essentially decided an untold number of fantasy championship weekend matchups as they were just getting started.
And, no, the above “bounce-back” reference isn’t understated as Kamara already has 127.8 more fantasy points than he totaled in 14 injury-addled games a season ago while scoring only six TDs. Through Week 16, Kamara leads the league with 21 total scores (16 rushing, five receiving).
We’re not going to expand on honorable mentions in the rest of the rounds, but fantasy’s No. 1 wide receiver, the Packers’ Davante Adams (ADP 9, WR2), definitely deserves a shout-out with his position-leading 17 TDs and obscene 26.4-fantasy-point-per-game average, which is merely the best among all wideouts since the 1970 merger, as fellow fantasy analyst Scott Pianowski pointed out Monday on Twitter.
Worst pick: Thomas (ADP4, WR1)
There are myriad deserving contenders here — namely McCaffrey, Barkley and Elliott — but we’re going with Thomas, the only non-running back selected among the top eight.
Taking the first wide receiver is almost always a swing pick in drafts, and it wound up burning a number of general managers who not only ended up missing out on the likes of Kamara (ADP 5), Dalvin Cook (6), Derrick Henry (7) and Adams (9), but they received just 83.8 fantasy points (40 receptions for 438 yards and no TDs) in seven games (4.7 points total in Weeks 1-8) with only three contests with more than 10.1 PPR points from the injury-addled Thomas himself.
And those came in Weeks 11, 13 and 14, long after Thomas had been traded away or benched by many of the fantasy squads that had drafted him. And, then, just when it seemed he was finally heating up, Thomas was placed on injured reserve after Week 14, ending his deeply disappointing, injury-marred fantasy regular season for good.
Not exactly the encore performance anyone envisioned following Thomas’ record-setting 149-catch, 1,725-yard, nine-TD season in 2019.
Round 2 (ADP 13-24)
Best pick: Travis Kelce (ADP14, TE1)
Worst pick: George Kittle (ADP 23, TE2)
We group these two together here as their 2020 seasons make the case for and against drafting a tight end early.
Kelce was the third wide receiver/tight end selected on average, and he comes out of Week 16 with the fourth-most total fantasy points (312.6) among the two positions, trailing only Adams (343.8), WR teammate Tyreek Hill (334.9) and Bills stud wideout Stefon Diggs (314.0). And, like Adams, Kelce’s 20.9 fantasy-point per-game average is the best among tight ends since the merger.
Kelce’s 1,416 receiving yards not only are a single-season tight end record, they’re 44 more than anyone else aside from Diggs (1,459) has compiled through Week 16.
So not only did drafting Kelce give you elite WR1 production, it gave his fantasy teams a massive weekly advantage at tight end as Kelce and the Raiders’ Darren Waller (16.9 points) were the only tight ends who have played at least eight games and are averaging more than 12.6 fantasy points per outing.
Kittle, meanwhile, did average 15.9 fantasy points per outing but played in only seven games due to injury. One of those seven came Saturday in Week 16 when he returned from a two-month absence with 13.2 fantasy points, but that comes long after most of his fantasy teams had seen their seasons end.
In all, Kittle has 111.3 total fantasy points, 20th among tight ends, on the season. And with Kittle having been selected well ahead of the likes of Calvin Ridley, D.K. Metcalf, Adam Thielen, Keenan Allen, Mike Evans, Jonathan Taylor, Chris Carson and Waller it makes for a failed second-round tight end gamble.
Round 3 (ADP 25-36)
Best pick: Jonathan Taylor (ADP 34, RB17)
Taylor provided a lesson in rookie running back patience as he had only four top-20 weekly RB finishes through his first nine games before reeling off five straight top-15 finishes with at least 15 PPR points since Week 11. That put him on a bunch of league-champion rosters as he compiled the fourth-most points (69.4) at the position during the fantasy postseason.
It’s all added up to 216.4 total fantasy points in 14 games — eighth most among running backs and only fractions behind Elliott (216.6), who was selected 31 spots and two round higher.
Worst pick: Leonard Fournette (ADP 33, RB18)
Real close here between Fournette, WR Kenny Golladay and fellow RBs Todd Gurley and James Conner, but we’re going with the released-Jaguar-turned-Buccaneer who wound up playing second fiddle to Ronald Jones in the Bucs’ backfield for the majority of the season and compiled a pedestrian 127.3 fantasy points (35th among RBs) and on 126 touches in 12 games.
He had only three RB2 weekly finishes/scoring more than 11 fantasy points and fell well short of third-round value expectations while playing in the high-scoring Tampa Bay attack.
Round 4 (ADP 37-48)
Best pick: Ridley (ADP 45, WR16)
With the getting-long-in-the-tooth Julio Jones battling injuries and limited to nine games this season, Ridley enjoyed a third-year breakout and emerged as the Falcons’ top pass-catcher.
Only four wideouts (Adams, Hill, DeAndre Hopkins and Diggs) have totaled more fantasy points this season than Ridley, who was selected behind but easily outperformed the likes of Chris Godwin (37th among WRs), Odell Beckham Jr. (84th), Golladay (99th), JuJu Smith-Schuster (16th) and D.J. Moore (24th) — and not all of it was due to injuries.
Worst pick: Le’Veon Bell (ADP 42, RB21)
Bell started the season with the Jets and was drafted to be a RB2, but he ranks 61st at the position with 74.6 total fantasy points — fewer than the likes of McCaffrey (three games), Brian Hill, Boston Scott, Johsua Kelley, Kalen Ballage, Devontae Booker and fullback Kyle Juszczyk, among others.
After leading the league with 406 touches only three years ago in 2017, Bell has only 108 in 11 games this year and has produced just 353 total yards and two TDs. Even in his second “start” for the Chiefs on Sunday with injured rookie Clyde Edwards-Helaire sidelined, Bell had all of 39 total yards on eight touches — a final, brutal blow for those in deeper leagues who took a flex flyer on Bell on championship weekend.
Round 5 (ADP 49-60)
Best pick: Kyler Murray (ADP 52, QB6)
Even with the hullabaloo fellow QBs Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson have received — in fantasy and reality from pre-draft through this past weekend — your highest-scoring fantasy QB is none other than Murray with 445.8 total fantasy points and his average of 29.7 per game. His legs have played a major role with 816 yards and 11 TDs on the ground.
The only knock on the second-year Cardinals QB is that he didn’t save his best for last with all four of his non-QB1 weekly finishes coming during his last five games.
Still, even if Murray didn’t wind up winning his fantasy squads many titles, he most definitely was a major factor in driving them to the fantasy postseason. Not bad for the sixth QB off the board.
Worst pick: Mark Ingram (ADP 54, RB25)
More than a few fantasy GMs thought they were snaring a fifth-round bargain in Ingram, who finished 2019 as fantasy’s 11th-ranked back with 242.5 total points.
But through Sunday, Ingram has produced all of 49 fantasy points — including only 14.7 from Week 6 forward — on 69 total touches in 10 games. Meanwhile, rookie J.K. Dobbins (136.5) and Gus Edwards (122.2) have emerged as the only usable fantasy RBs on the league’s top-ranked rushing team (177.8 yards per game).
Later-round finds (ADP 70 or higher)
- David Montgomery (ADP 71, RB29): Fantasy’s sixth-best back for the season (236.6 points) has been the second-best RB in the fantasy postseason (73.8), trailing only Kamara (97.0).
- Allen (ADP 74, QB8): Only Murray has more fantasy points than Allen’s 441.8 and only Rodgers (47) has accounted for more total TDs among QBs than Allen’s 42, which include eight rushing. And to think Allen’s huge third-year leap has even more impressive in reality than it has been in fantasy.
- Rodgers (ADP 84, QB11): After three straight seasons outside the top six at the position, the 37-year-old Rodgers has tossed a league-leading 44 TD passes and ranks fifth overall at the position with 411.4 total points.
- Antonio Gibson (ADP 93, RB35): The Washington Football Team rookie has made a name for himself on the team with no name, totaling the 12th-most RB fantasy points (197.1) on the year, despite a late-season turf toe injury that kept him out Week 14 and 15 and most of Week 13.
- Justin Jefferson (ADP 122, WR48): This rookie 11th-round fantasy steal has been one of the true gems of a standout rookie class, ranking ninth among wide receivers with 247.9 fantasy points and seventh with 1,267 receiving yards.
- T.J. Hockenson (ADP 129, TE14): Only Kelce and Waller have totaled more fantasy points to date among tight ends than Hockenson’s 169.8 as he has stepped in the for the injured Golladay as the Lions’ go-to target.
- Ryan Tannehill (ADP 138, QB21): The rejuvenated Titans’ quarterback has shown that his red-hot 2019 was no fluke, ranking eighth at the position in total fantasy points (360.9).
- James Robinson (ADP 184, RB59): His Week 16 injury absence (his first missed game of the season) was certainly brutal in terms of fantasy timing, but this undrafted Jaguars rookie has been the out-of-nowhere fantasy success story of the season as he ranks fourth overall at running back with 250.4 fantasy points.
- Robby Anderson (ADP 185, WR63): This former Jet was almost totally overlooked this summer as a late-round/undrafted end-of-the-fantasy bench wide receiver, but five months later we find him ranked 16th at the position with 217.1 fantasy points.
- Justin Herbert (ADP 189, QB31): Speaking of overlooked, this Chargers rookie has set the league rookie record with 28 TD passes (and counting) while ranking seventh in average fantasy points per outing (25.7) among QBs who have started six or more games.
- Mike Davis (undrafted): Being without McCaffrey wasn’t a death knell for fantasy GMs if they managed to secure the services of the veteran Davis, who has proven to be a fine low-end RB1 fill-in, ranking 11th among RBs with 208.5 fantasy points on the season.
- Myles Gaskin (undrafted): The since-released Jordan Howard (ADP of 34 among RBs) and Matt Breida (41) were the only Dolphins RBs selected in the majority of drafts this summer, but this unheralded, second-year back quickly took charge in the Miami backfield and has averaged the eighth most fantasy points (16.7) among RBs who have played in at least seven games this season.
- J.D. McKissic (undrafted): In Gibson and a tight end listed below, the WFT was full of fantasy sleeper surprises, and McKissic’s unexpected rise rivals any as he ranks 16th among running backs with 185.4 PPR points. That’s chiefly courtesy of his 75 receptions and 559 receiving yards, which trail only Kamara (83-756) at the position. Truly one of the shocking stats of the fantasy season.
- Robert Tonyan, Logan Thomas (undrafted): Reliably productive tight ends remain among the rarest of fantasy commodities, but these two waiver-wire finds currently have compiled the fourth- and sixth-most fantasy points, respectively, at the position.