Four Must-Have Players in Fantasy Football for 2024

In today's Fantasy Life Newsletter, presented by Sleeper:

While we all wait for Matthew’s 2024 “Ride or Die” pick (he’s 2 for 2 on Jalen Hurts and Amon-Ra St. Brown), I figured I’d join in on the fun.

We might still be weeks away from real football, but it’s never too early to fire off some hot takes…

Here are “my guys” for 2024 fantasy drafts…

1. NYG WR Malik Nabers. The third-best WR prospect to enter the league since 2018. No WR cohort breaks out at a higher rate than 21-year-old rookies. Don’t get caught overthinking the situation—he’s going to transform the entire offense. His price in home leagues is egregious.

2. ARI TE Trey McBride. In his eight games with Kyler Murray last year he averaged 8+ targets, 6+ receptions, and 67+ yards per game. He finished behind only George Kittle and Travis Kelce in yards per route run. We’ll be drafting McGronk in Round 1 next year. Don’t be late to the party.

Fantasy Life's 2024 Fantasy Football Draft Kit is LIVE (and free)! Click here to access all of the content you need to dominate your drafts this summer.

3. RB Chase Brown. Let the record show that I was on Brown before he became a camp darling. He’s a home-run hitter in one of the most explosive offenses in football. Draft Brown and enjoy the spoils of 2024’s De’Von Achane.

4. QB Jayden Daniels. Since 2016, no college QB tallied more yards per game off of scrambles than Daniels. Every other QB with significant rushing traits is an early-round pick in drafts, yet Daniels is routinely available after pick 100 on basically every site. The floor is high, but the ceiling is even higher.

What else is in today’s newsletter?

Commish Mailbag: Last-place punishments
Finding Fantasy Football Value: Arbitrage picks to target
Watercooler: Preseason is here

THE COMMISH MAILBAG

by Cooterdoodle

I've heard all of your cries of confusion, collusion, and contempt. But please, save your blood, sweat, and tears for Sundays. We can easily hash out the logistical league bullsh*t together.

Right here. Right now.

💌 From: L7Weenie

Q: "How do we get last year's loser to complete their league punishment? The clock is ticking!"

Oh, L7Weenie, You're not going to like this, but you need to dish out some tough love. It's ultimatum time: The loser has to complete their punishment before the draft (set a hard deadline) OR they forfeit their spot in the league. Plain and simple.

One skipped punishment makes the threat of all punishments meaningless.

I don't care if it's your mom, your boss, or your best friend. For league punishments to work, there has to be unwavering trust throughout the entire league. If one person backs out of a punishment without consequence, what's stopping everyone else from doing the same year after year?

So what will it be, loser? Fulfill or Forfeit?

💌 From: WaiverWorrier

Q: "I manage a couple of leagues where there seems to be too many waiver moves. I'm all for being active, but some teams are just grabbing every player that shows a flash of potential and dropping them the next week, hoping to get lucky. While this isn't totally unfair, I like the idea of being intentional with who I grab on waivers. Is there a way to meet in the middle with these two different play styles?"

Dear sweet WaiverWorrier,

Playing by the rules doesn't always mean playing nicely. The hard truth is this: There's no way to prevent leaguemates from playing the system.

Sir I-Sack Newton once said, "For every established fantasy rule, there is an equal and opposite way to use that rule to your advantage." No matter how you construct the league settings, there will be ways to "abuse" it.

BUT there is good news!

There are ways to mitigate these round-the-clock, incessant waiver wire dart throws. You need to dip your ~~dawgs~~ toes into the world of Free Agent Auction Budgets (FAAB).

FAAB allows everyone to get a shot at their waiver heroes… for a price. Because their FAAB bids are blind and their spending is limited, your league will have to be more intentional with their waiver decisions.

Using Waiver Wire Tools or their gut intuition, they'll have to decide if they want to blow their FAAB early or hoard it for later. Or… a happy mix of the two.

Pro-Tip: For leagues new to FAAB, allow for $0 FAAB bids. This allows managers with nothing left to bid to still remain active in waivers. Sure, it may be slim pickings, but they can at least swap out kickers (sorry, Ian Hartitz) during BYE weeks if needed.

Preseason is here, but are you ready to draft?

That’s a dumb question, we’re always ready to draft.

Better question, are you prepared to draft?

With FantasyLife+ no one will be more prepared for draft day than you. Our Premium Rankings tool and Draft Champion (mock draft simulator) will make sure you know who your guys are and help you build a strategy to make sure you get them. You can also use our site-wide League Sync integration to make sure all of our tools are customized to your league settings.

Fantasy football has changed, and so should your research.

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TAKE ME TO FANTASYLIFE+

The best arbitrage picks for 2024 fantasy drafts

by Ian Hartitz

A fun question to ask yourself before making any given fantasy football draft pick:

“What can I get now that I can't get later?”

While identifying a cheaper version of any given player doesn't necessarily imply that the more expensive talent is mispriced, it does help drafters better utilize tier-based drafting to hopefully maximize every pick at our disposal.

This takes us to today's goal: What are some of the best "arbitrage" picks available in current fantasy drafts?

Basically, who are the rich, middle-class, and poor man's versions of various archetypes?

As always: It's a great day to be great.

Fantasy Life's 2024 Fantasy Football Draft Kit is LIVE (and free)! Click here to access all of the content you need to dominate your drafts this summer.

Questionable passer with high-end rushing ability

Rich man: Colts QB Anthony Richardson (QB6, pick 51 ADP on ESPN)
Middle-class man: Commanders QB Jayden Daniels (QB12, 123.6)
Poor man: Steelers QB Justin Fields (QB25, 169.1)

High-end dual-threat QBs don't really bust in fantasy land. Of the 27 signal-callers with 100-plus carries in a single season over the past 10 years:

11 (41%) finished as top-three fantasy QBs on a per-game basis
16 (59%) finished as top-six fantasy QBs
Only 3 (11%) finished outside fantasy's top-12 QBs (2014: Collin Kaepernick, 2018: Lamar Jackson, 2020: Cam Newton)

Hell, even some of the league's very worst passers in Tim Tebow (QB8 in Weeks 7-17, 2011) and Taysom Hill (QB6 in Weeks 11-14, 2020, and QB7 in Weeks 13-15, 2021) provided legit great stretches when thrust into action back in the day.

High-end rushing volume has routinely helped turn mediocre real-life QBs into fantasy stars over the years.

Current Fantasy Life Projections have Daniels (734 rush yards), Richardson (633) and Fields (413) as top-eight finishers at the position in terms of total yards on the ground. The latter is only that low because of the expectation that Fields won't start the entire season, as the NFL's second-ranked all-time QB in career rushing yards per game would vie for the top spot with the assurance of 17 starts.

This brings us to our aforementioned group of subjects:

The potential for Richardson to emerge as the Colts' goal-line hammer is the main driver behind his lofty top-six standing. He was the NFL's No. 1 QB in fantasy points per dropback as a rookie.

Daniels needs to chill out on his Johnny Knoxville-esque open-field tendencies, but otherwise, the reigning Heisman Trophy winner stands out as arguably THE late-round QB option of 2024 should the Injury Gods look the other way.

Only Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow have averaged more fantasy points per game than Fields over the past two seasons. Arthur Smith's last QB, Desmond Ridder, posted six top-12 finishes (!) last season despite, you know, sucking at football.

Five- and six-point passing TD leagues obviously change things, but otherwise? Sign me up for the exact archetype that has served as fantasy's closest thing to a legit cheat code for the better part of eternity.

Finding More Arbitrage Picks

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The latest fantasy nuggets, silliness, and NFL gossip from our merry band of football nerds:

⚔️ Who’s the QB1 in Pittsburgh? Breaking down the most important positional battles in training camp.

🤝 Sleepers, breakouts, busts and more. Your WR guide to 2024.

✍️ 100 Facts You Need To Know Before You Draft. Matthew has you covered.

🔍️ Is the Cowboys backfield coming into focus? Seems like it.

🤢 The Colts TE room is an absolute mess. A stay away, even with Downs hurt.

🙏 Great news after the D’Onta Foreman scare. Very positive development.

🤣 Jameis Winston is a national treasure. Lmao.

🚑️ A follow-up on the Rondale Moore injury. Sad stuff.

🏗️ A recap from last night’s preseason action. Pats are still a project.

🚨 Draft season is upon us. Join Ian and Dwain for a DraftKings Best Ball Draft LIVE at 11:15 AM ET.