Balancing Safety With Upside in Fantasy Football: Featuring Darius Slayton, Marvin Jones, and More

The fantasy football adage to remember each season is, “You can’t win your fantasy draft in the early rounds, but you certainly can lose it.” It is important to prioritize safety in the early rounds of seasonal drafts. This is where the overwhelming majority of your weekly points will be scored. Busting on a first or second-round draft pick is a death sentence for a fantasy football championship. Taking risks in later rounds, though, can help win it all. Here we will go over why that’s the case, and some good players to draft in that range–including Darius Slayton, Marvin Jones, and others.

Safety With Upside Wins in Fantasy Football: Featuring Darius Slayton, Marvin Jones, and More

Here are the biggest fantasy busts over the past five seasons:

Overcoming those selections proved to be almost impossible given the performance differential ceded to other players. Taking risky players with early-round redraft picks can lead to a rough fantasy season. However, in the mid to late-round selections, risking volatility for upside is the path to win a fantasy title.

Fantasy football expert Scott Barrett outlined this concept beautifully in a recent article for FantasyPoints. He explains that just like in the stock market, low-risk/high-reward stocks are the most valuable commodity. If you are trying a field of (normally) 11 other players, you need to distinguish your roster in order to gain an advantage. Drafting safe players late is a conservative and losing play.

Using current Best Ball ADP data, here are my favorite mid to late-round players that could win you a 2020 fantasy football championship.

(All statistics from PlayerProfiler).

Player:  Michael Pittman (WR)
Team:  Indianapolis Colts
Rationale:  The Colts have a new quarterback in Philip Rivers and a lot of new faces on offense. The 6-foot-4, 223 lb wideout brings a 111.2 (93rd percentile) Speed Score coupled with a 10.24 (89th percentile) Catch Radius. These are essential workout metrics when your quarterback is 38-years old with declining arm strength. Pittman is already listed as a starter opposite T.Y. Hilton and his early second-round draft capital should solidify his early-season opportunities. Head coach Frank Reich believes Pittman could be the best receiver in the 2020 NFL Draft:

Lead wide receiver T.Y. Hilton is now on the wrong side of 30-years old and has missed eight games the past two seasons with injuries. Former tight end Eric Ebron is now with the Pittsburgh Steelers vacating 4.7 targets per game, and both Parris Campbell (24 receptions) and Zach Pascal provide minimal obstacles to a Pittman ascension. Indianapolis is clearly a run-first team as evidenced by the fifth-lowest passing percentage (53.6%) of all NFL teams in 2019. However, if Pittman does ascend to the WR2 role, his opportunities will be large enough to make a significant redraft fantasy football impact.

Player:  Darius Slayton (WR)
Team:  New York Giants
Rationale: The Giants poor defense should provide ample fantasy opportunities for all offensive players. Quarterback Daniel Jones showed instant chemistry with fellow rookie wide receiver Darius Slayton. On just a 79.4% Snap Share, the speedy wideout finished Top 20 among all wideouts in Deep Targets, Yards Per Reception, and Fantasy Points Per Target. His 10.32 (95th percentile) Catch Radius and 87th percentile hand size make him a consistent field stretcher the Giants offense.

Darius Slayton produced three Top 12 WR fantasy performances including the overall WR2 and WR3 performances in Weeks 10 (New York Jets) and 14 (at Philadelphia Eagles) respectively. In many ways, Slayton’s contributions were overshadowed by other rookies, suppressing his current ADP.

Four of the top 5 rookie wide receivers by receiving yards in 2019 finished with a 95+ Athleticism Score: Terry McLaurin, D.K. Metcalf, Deebo Samuel and Darius Slayton.

Titans WR A.J. Brown (93 Production Score) was the only one to finish with an Athleticism Score below 95. pic.twitter.com/AUyQ8yAgwX

— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) February 28, 2020

Darius Slayton will be available outside the Top 36 WRs in redraft leagues, and he has the upside to finish as an overall WR2 or possibly better. Fellow wide receivers Golden Tate and Sterling Shepard prefer operating in the short to intermediate areas of the field, leaving Slayton for the big play targets down the field. His athleticism combined with the Giants need for offensive production makes Slayton a massive upside target in seasonal leagues.

Player: Derrius Guice (RB)
Team:  Washington Redskins
Rationale: Robust RB drafting is coming back en vogue, but if you pick at the back end of Round One, you may find better value in a WR/WR start. This will lead you scrambling for a mid-tier running back with Top 12 potential. Look no further than Washington’s Derrius Guice.

I never subscribe to the “if he can only stay healthy” caveat. Injuries to running backs happen every year, and spending a Round 6 or 7 pick on Guice is a low-risk proposition. In 42 carries last season, Guice averaged a robust 5.8 yards per carry along with seven receptions for 79 yards, producing three total touchdowns.  He is being selected near running backs that are relegated to a time-share situation like Marlon Mack, Ronald Jones, Damien Williams, and Matt Breida.

Guice suffered a torn ACL in his left knee prior to the 2018 season, and then had surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his right knee last season. While frustrating to fantasy owners, this does not appear to be a degenerative knee condition like Todd Gurley. Still just 23 years old, Guice’s 4.49 40-Yard Dash speed at 224 lbs translates to a 110.2 (91st percentile) Speed Score. In just a five-game sample size last season, he proved elusive (34.2% Juke Rate) and efficient with 3.33 Yards Created Per Touch (second among all running backs). Here is a sample of what Guice did on the field just six months ago:

After battling injuries that kept him off the field for over a year…

Derrius Guice led the @Redskins to a win with 129 yards and two TDs! 🙌 @DhaSickest #HTTR pic.twitter.com/c9R5as23zj

— NFL (@NFL) December 4, 2019

With only 35-year old Adrian Peterson and third-round rookie Antonio Gibson (33 rushing attempts last season) as the main competition, Washington will give Guice every opportunity to earn the majority of backfield touches. He represents the exact type of risk/reward balance that wins fantasy football championships.

Player: Marvin Jones (WR)
Team:  Detroit Lions
Rationale: Recency bias provides a great buying opportunity for Detroit’s veteran wide receiver Marvin Jones. The 30-year old wideout missed the last three games of the 2019 season with an ankle sprain after contending with poor quarterback play after Matthew Stafford missed the final eight games with a back injury. When Stafford was healthy, Jones consistently produced at a WR2 level last season.

Kenny Golladay's last 16 games: 65/1,190/11

Marvin Jones' last 16 games: 78/1,017/11

Golladay's FFPC ADP: WR8
Jones' FFPC ADP: WR43#Lions

— Evan Silva (@evansilva) May 22, 2020

The suppressed ADP provides a perfect opportunity to grab a mid-round wideout with high-WR2 potential. Currently, Jones is being drafted after unproved rookies CeeDee Lamb and Jerry Jeudy, as after older veterans in worse offenses such as Julian Edelman. When he is healthy, Jones is a solid WR2 that is being drafted well outside the Top 36 pass catchers, much like Darius Slayton.

Player: Chris Thompson (RB)
Team:  Jacksonville Jaguars
Rationale: It doesn’t get much cheaper than new Jacksonville running back Chris Thompson, who will likely be available with your last pick in seasonal leagues. He is reunited with offensive coordinator Jay Gruden and could be the beneficiary of continual contract issues between lead running back Leonard Fournette and Jaguars management. Jacksonville declined Fournette’s fifth-year option valued at $8.4 million, and then openly discussed trading Fournette in April. If Fournette was cut, Thompson would compete with Devine Ozigbo and Ryquell Armstead for backfield touches on a team that projects for several negative game scripts.

#Jaguars backfield is a complete enigma this year

Leonard Fournette's targets by year:
2017: 48
2018: 26
2019: 100 👀

Meanwhile, newly signed pass catching specialist Chris Thompson hasn't had less than 50 targets since 2015

Something's gotta give. Which will it be?

— Matthew Betz (@TheFantasyPT) May 25, 2020

While only tallying a 47.8% Snap Share behind Adrien Peterson and Guice last season, Thompson still finished Top 20 in receptions among all running backs. Over the past two seasons, Thompson has averaged at least four receptions in every game played.

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