The preseason phase of the NFL calendar is about to end, which means we’re just counting down the days before REAL football commences and, at the same time, the first week of fantasy football is played. But before that, we should be looking forward to our respective fantasy leagues’ drafts.
By and large, most fantasy owners know which players to target in the early rounds, but the deeper the draft gets, the lesser idea they have about who to take off the board.
With that said, here are 10 names you should be keeping on your cheat sheet if you’re trying to strike gold late in the draft and get an upper hand in your fantasy football league.
Fantasy Football Quarterbacks
Tyrod Taylor (Cleveland Browns)
Not many people prepare for a fantasy draft telling themselves “I’m going to get myself a Browns quarterback.” In Taylor’s case, that line of thinking becomes at least a bit forgivable, especially for those who are looking to stock up on as many flex position players before drafting a quarterback.
Taylor is the latest in the long line of quarterbacks the Browns are hoping could right their ship that’s seemingly on an eternal loop that ends with it hitting an iceberg and cracking in half. But unlike in recent years, the Browns will enter the season with their quarterback surrounded by a solid collection of talent. Jarvis Landry, Josh Gordon, and David Njoku are all pretty targets for the experienced Taylor to throw at downfield. If the Browns sign free agent Dez Bryant, it will be a significant boost not only for the Browns’ passing game but for Taylor’s value as well.
Marcus Mariota (Tennessee Titans)
The Titans’ dual-threat quarterback is coming off a down year, having regressed by around 200 passing yards, but it’s the discrepancies in passing touchdowns and interceptions between his 2016 and 2017 totals that are hurting his value. In 2016, he had 26 passing TDs and only nine interceptions. The following year, he cut his passing scores in half with only 13 while defenders feasted on his 15 picks thrown. The hiring of a former defensive coordinator Mike Vrabel as the Titans’ latest head coach could scare even more fantasy managers away from taking Mariota, but doing so is also to forget that Tennessee has brought in a shiny new offensive coordinator in Matt LaFleur.
The 38-year-old LaFleur is some sort of a quarterback whisperer, who has a proven track record in orchestrating huge season from signal-callers he’s worked with. He was a QB coach during Robert Griffin III’s first two seasons in the NFL before serving that role with the Atlanta Falcons in 2016, the same year Matt Ryan had an MVP campaign. In his last itinerary before landing a new job in Tennessee, he guided Jared Goff into having an insane 2017 season that saw the quarterback lead the third-highest scoring team in the league.
Based on that trend, Mariota is going to have a huge year ahead of him.
Fantasy Football Running backs
Royce Freeman (Denver Broncos)
The rookie out of Oregon is starting to creep up ADP rankings. He’s still far from a go-to running back option for fantasy managers, but if you’re trying to load up on wide receivers in the first two or three rounds at the expense of letting other owners get elite running backs, Freeman is not a bad player to take somewhere in the late third or fourth round, where he should still be available. Plus, he’s only a Devontae Booker injury away from taking over as the Broncos’ primary option in the backfield.
Freeman probably doesn’t even need to hope for such an awful thing to happen, since Booker isn’t really that valuable of a player to keep Denver from eventually putting the rookie atop the depth chart. Booker is averaging just 3.6 yards per carry in his career and mustered just 3.8 last year, so he’s not exactly someone like Aaron Rodgers, who need not worry about getting displaced by DeShone Kizer.
Aaron Jones (Green Bay Packers)
Jones has missed most of training camp and has yet to play in the preseason as of this writing because of a hamstring injury. Also harming his fantasy outlook is the two-game suspension he’ll serve in the first couple of weeks of the regular season for violating the league’s policy on substance abuse.
The good news is that he’s finally made his way back to practice. Jamaal Williams will likely serve as the Packers’ starting running back over that two-week span, but if he can’t show Green Bay enough, the team is not going to be stopped from giving the keys in the backfield back to Jones, who averaged a fantastic 5.5 yards per carry in 12 games (four starts) and had two outings of at least 125 rushing yards last year. Those numbers are hard to ignore, especially by a team that needs to complement Aaron Rodgers with a competent running game. Jones is worth a stash spot on the bench.
Peyton Barber (Tampa Bay Buccaneers)
Rookie Ronald Jones used to be the hot fantasy target in the Bucs’ running back group, but Barber is doing an excellent job of spoiling that narrative to the point that Tampa Bay head coach Dirk Koetter has stopped short of naming the former Auburn Tiger as the team’s Week 1 starting running back, per Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times.
One guy who doesn't sound like he needs any more convincing is coach Dirk Koetter. When asked if Barber is performing like the starting running back, Koetter said yes.
Jones has struggled in the training camp and in preseason games, and Barber was wise to capitalize on the opportunity. In Week 2 of the preseason, Barber had 32 rushing yards on just six touches against Tennessee. Before that, he had 21 yards on four carries versus Miami. He is averaging 5.3 yards per carry in the preseason, which could be taken with a grain of salt until you realize that Jones only has 11 yards on 12 carries through the first couple weeks of the preseason. It’s not too late for Jones to recover, but for now, Barber is emerging a the top running back in Tampa Bay.
Fantasy Football Wide receivers
Kenny Stills (Miami Dolphins)
The Dolphins have Ryan Tannehill back under center after surviving a year of Jay Cutler. But even without considering Miami’s better quarterback landscape this year than in 2017, Stills is bound to have a good season ahead based on opportunities alone.
With Jarvis Landry gone, the 161 targets he got last season will have to be divvied up by those he left behind in the Fins’ receiving corps, and who better to expect to get most of them than Stills, who somehow remains untouched by owners until the 10th and 11th rounds. Stills got 106 targets last season even with Landry around and converted those into 58 receptions, 847 receiving yards, and six touchdown catches. He also got looked at in the red zone 11 times, making seven catches there to go with three TDs.
DeVante Parker is probably the closest threat to Stills’ status as WR1 on the team, but the former Louisville Cardinals star has been a habitual fantasy letdown due to his injuries, poor work ethic, and just plain inconsistency on the field. Stills will reward owners who’ll get him in the later rounds of the draft with tremendous value.
Taywan Taylor (Tennessee Titans)
We talked about Mariota’s potential to bounce back this year, and if he does rebound from a bad season, Taylor’s production should go up as well. However, much of Taylor’s potential to be a sleeper gold in 2018 is tied with the health of Rishard Matthews, who is currently one of the two top receivers on the team’s depth chart together with Corey Davis.
Matthews is still on the PUP list as of this writing, as he continues to recover from a recent surgery to repair a torn meniscus. He is reportedly close to a return, but his absence has given way for Taylor to wow people in practice and in the preseason. In Tennessee’s second preseason game, Taylor had an electrifying performance, catching all four targets for 95 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Taylor only had 16 receptions, 231 receiving yards, and a touchdown on 28 targets, but a revamped offense under LaFleur and a solid offseason offer optimism for the former third-round pick, who deserves a second chance.
Cameron Meredith (New Orleans Saints)
Meredith isn’t only a sleeper, he’s also a forgotten man. Meredith missed the entire 2017 season with the Chicago Bears due to a torn ACL before resurfacing in April by signing a two-year deal with the Saints. Before he got injured, Meredith was a productive member of the Bears’ receiving corps in 2016, catching 66 of 97 looks and made 888 receiving yard and four touchdowns. Meredith could not have wished for a better place than New Orleans to resume his career after a long absence, considering that Drew Brees always makes sure to feed all the mouths downfield.
Fantasy Football Tight Ends
Dallas Goedert (Philadelphia Eagles)
Zach Ertz is safely the Eagles’ TE1, but veteran Richard Rodgers might have already been overtaken by rookie Dallas Goedert as the team’s TE2. With Trey Burton now in Chicago, Rodgers and Goedert are left competing for the Eagles’ No. 2 tight end, though, it’s possible that the South Dakota State product has now surpassed the latter, thanks to his emergence in preseason games.
In three exhibition contests, Goedert has racked up 149 receiving yards and a touchdown on nine catches. Should anything happen to Ertz, Goedert will become a must-add, so he’s worth drafting as a handcuff late in the later rounds.
David Njoku (Cleveland Browns)
Kudos to Njoku for having a decent rookie season despite co-existing with the highly inaccurate DeShone Kizer. In spite of Kizer being the Browns’ quarterback last season, Njoku converted a touchdown on 10 targets in the red zone. He finished his first year in the league with 32 receptions, 386 receiving yards, and four touchdowns.
The insanely athletic tight end enters the 2018 season as a more experienced and more mature player surrounded by big-time talents, and most importantly, with a decent quarterback set to heave passes at him. Regardless of which quarterback (Mayfield or Taylor) the Browns start, the expectation is that Cleveland’s offense is bound to improve by multiple folds this year with Njoku projected to play a big role in a system that offers plenty of opportunities to score.
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