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2021 Fantasy Football Bold Predictions

Fantasy Football Bold Predictions; “Gardner Minshew is a QB1” was my first fantasy football bold prediction last year
Fantasy Football Bold Predictions

“Gardner Minshew is a QB1” was my first fantasy football bold prediction last year. YIKES. It might make you wonder why I haven’t deleted my Twitter account yet. So it goes with fantasy football bold predictions and, ultimately, fantasy football in general. By the way, Minshew Mania is still alive and always will be, just the same as Ryan Mathews and CJ Spiller RB1 SZN is. Never give up hope!

Fantasy Football Bold Predictions for 2021

Before we get into these fantasy football bold predictions, I want to preface this by saying that all of these predictions are, by no means, the most likely outcome. Most of them should be considered 80th or 90th percentile outcomes or better. Some are more likely than others, but that will depend on your own opinions of each player. For reference, all of these are based on a full PPR scoring format.

1. Austin Ekeler is a top-five RB.

My affinity for Austin Ekeler is no secret. It’s not for no reason, however. Ekeler is truly one of the best receiving backs of all time. Through his first four years, he’s seen 261 targets in 56 games played. He also is averaging 8 yards per target, 9.8 yards per reception, and has a 6.1% touchdown rate. Last year he suffered a major injury that limited him to only 10 games. Even in those 10 games, he still had almost 1,000 total yards and 54 receptions. In that span, he averaged 16.5 PPR points per game and was the RB11.

Heading into 2021 there’s so much in Ekeler’s favor once again. Joe Lombardi is now the Offensive Coordinator for the San Diego Chargers. Lombardi has been with New Orleans since 2016 which is promising considering how good Alvin Kamara has been and his usage in the passing game. As previously mentioned, Ekeler was incredible in his limited time last season. If he stays healthy all year, 100 receptions are well within reach. He should also set a career-high in rushing yardage this season too. Should he reach that and see some good touchdown luck, Ekeler could best his 2019 season in which he was the RB4.

2. Najee Harris outscores Nick Chubb and Saquon Barkley.

Volume. Is. King. This is, and always will be, true when it comes to fantasy football, especially the running back position. Najee Harris should have all the volume he can handle right from the jump. It helps a bit when the guy is extremely talented as well and Harris has plenty of talent. He was the first running back off the board in this year’s NFL Draft when he was selected 24th overall by the Pittsburgh Steelers. 

Harris has great size and speed as he ran a 4.53 (4.48 at his pro day) 40-yard dash time and measured in at 6’1” and 232 pounds. Not only that, but his production over the last two years in college has been incredible. Over that span, he’s racked up more than 3,400 total yards and 50 touchdowns. His pass-catching ability is top-notch as well as he’s caught 70 balls the past two years and his 13.4% target share last year ranked in the 90th percentile. The only real knock is how good Pittsburgh’s offensive line will be. That changes so much year over year as is and isn’t highly correlative to fantasy points as is. With no real competition for touches, the sky’s the limit for Harris as a rookie.

3. Terry McLaurin is a top-five WR.

Terry McLaurin is already an elite wide receiver in the NFL. He looked to be on the “Allen Robinson” career path in which he was destined to be subject to overcome poor quarterback play. Luckily for McLaurin, and for us fantasy gamers, Washington Football Team brought in Ryan Fitzpatrick to play quarterback this year. Fitzpatrick represents a huge upgrade over the three-headed monster of Dwayne Haskins, Kyle Allen, and Alex Smith that McLaurin dealt with last year. Last year McLaurin was able to put up 87 catches for 1,118 yards and four scores in spite of that quarterback carousel.

Heading into 2021 McLaurin should also see positive touchdown regression as well. After scoring seven times as a rookie, he dipped to four last season despite seeing 41 more targets. Improved quarterback play should help in this area as well. As mentioned before, Ryan Fitzpatrick is now the quarterback for Washington. Everywhere he’s played, he’s been known as a guy that can boost the fantasy stock of his top wide receivers. Whether it was stars like Mike Evans and DeAndre Hopkins or guys like Stevie Johnson and DeVante Parker, Fitzpatrick loves to force-feed his top playmaker enabling them to have monster seasons. If everything clicks and McLaurin stays healthy, 100+ catches, 1,500+ yards, and 10+ touchdowns are a possibility. He’s currently the 11th wide receiver off the board and could pay huge dividends. 

4. Three rookie QBs finish top-12 in fantasy points per game.

It used to be good advice to avoid rookies in fantasy football. That’s not the case anymore. The game has changed so much and the rookies are coming in more ready than ever. The quarterback position is still one that is a very tough transition, however. That transition can be made so much easier when the quarterback can do plenty of damage with his legs. Rushing yardage is worth 2.5 times as much as passing yardage. If a quarterback can manage even 500 yards on the ground more than another guy, the other guy needs an extra 1,250 passing yards to make up for that. This is a massive advantage and why the “Konami Kode” quarterbacks have become so coveted. This year we were blessed with a plethora of promising, young quarterback prospects, most of which can use their legs to their advantage.

Starting with the first overall pick in the NFL Draft, Trevor Lawrence has already been named the starter for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Lawrence is considered the most polished and a generational prospect. He also has sneaky rushing ability considering his 86th percentile 40-yard dash and rushed for over 500 yards in 2019. Zach Wilson was the second overall pick in the NFL Draft for the New York Jets. Wilson has a 78th percentile 40-yard dash and has already shown great improvisational skills. Trey Lance, the third overall pick in the NFL Draft, has the highest upside. He’s the true dual-threat guy of this group as he rushed for 1,100 yards in 2019. Justin Fields might be the most athletic of the group with his 99th percentile 40-yard dash. He also rushed for nearly 50 yards per game last year. Mac Jones is the final guy and he’s more of a dark horse since he doesn’t have the same mobility as the rest of the group.

5. Justin Jefferson is a top-three WR.

Heading into last season, all the buzz was that the 2020 rookie class was one of the best in a long time. It surely did not disappoint. While plenty of running backs and wide receivers had great rookie years, Justin Jefferson stood out above the rest. He posted the best rookie season by any wide receiver in NFL history. Jefferson’s 1,400 receiving yards set an NFL record. His 88 receptions were also a Minnesota Vikings rookie record. He topped it off with seven scores. Jefferson finished as the WR9 in full PPR scoring 17.1 points per game. Not too shabby for the fifth wide receiver drafted in the 2020 NFL Draft and someone who went undrafted in plenty of fantasy football drafts.

One of the craziest parts of Jefferson’s rookie season was that he wasn’t a full-time player in the first two weeks last year. Olabisi Johnson relegated him to a part-time role. Jefferson only put up five receptions for 70 yards total in the first two games combined. After that, the rest is history. This year he comes in already fully established as a true alpha wide receiver. His surface stats were incredible and a deeper dive looks even better. Jefferson was fifth in the NFL in yards per route run (2.65), fifth in yards per target (11.2), fifth in EPA (77.1), seventh in fantasy points per route run (0.52), and 12th in fantasy points per target (2.19). He did this despite being 26th in snap share and 19th in routes run. Jefferson is certifiably good at the game. Plenty of studies have shown that targets are earned and generally anytime a rookie wide receiver is efficient, they will see a target spike the following year. If that’s the case, 115+ receptions, 1,700+ yards, and 12+ touchdowns are in the range of outcomes for this sophomore sensation. At this time next year, Jefferson could be in the mix as a late first-round pick and one of the first few wide receivers off the board.

6. Jalen Hurts is a top-five QB.

Everyone knows that quarterbacks that can run are a cheat code in fantasy football. Somehow, though, every year we see running quarterbacks getting drafted later than they should be. This year that guy looks like Jalen Hurts. Sure there are question marks about how refined he is as a passer but those are the same knocks being said about Lamar Jackson heading into 2019 and that turned out alright. Hurts might not be quite the same athlete as Jackson or as electric in the open field, but his production isn’t as far off as you might think. 

Last year Hurts didn’t start a game until Week 14. His passing numbers in that win against the New Orleans Saints left something to be desired but he showcased what he can do as a runner. He finished the game with 18 carries for 106 yards. Even though Hurts only passed for 167 yards, in fantasy football it was the equivalent of 432 passing yards for a pocket passer like Tom Brady. In the next two games, he passed for 330+ yards and ran for 60+ in each of them to show off the upside. In his four starts, Hurts was the QB7 and averaged 23.74 fantasy points per game in that span. It’s a small sample size but so was Lamar Jackson’s sample before he took over as the starter. The Philadelphia Eagles also gave Hurts another big-time weapon when they drafted DeVonta Smith. The Eagles’ defense is also nothing to fear and they play in a division that could be full of shootouts. All the stars look like they are aligning for a monster year in fantasy football for Jalen Hurts.

7. Kyle Pitts is NOT a top-ten TE.

Don’t get it twisted, Kyle Pitts will be a great player at some point. That point just might not happen to be this year. Pitts is a freak athlete with an unfair combination of size and speed. Measuring in at 6’6″ and 245 pounds, he ran a 4.49 40-yard dash that put him in the 99th percentile. He was pretty much unstoppable in college in 2020 racking up 770 yards and 12 touchdowns in just 8 games. All this is great, but the NFL is still hard. Transitioning as a rookie usually isn’t easy especially for a tight end and the problem is that people are already putting him in the hall of Fame and anointing him the next Calvin Johnson before he even plays a down in the league.

It may very well be the case that he’s the outlier that breaks all the records but that’s hard to bank on. Let’s just say he does become Calvin Johnson right away, even Johnson’s rookie year wasn’t anything special. Johnson put up 48 receptions, 808 total yards, and five total touchdowns. He scored 10.59 fantasy points per game that year. That would have equated to TE10 last season and less than a point ahead of TE14. This seems like a realistic median expectation considering his receiving yardage prop is 775. Considering the state of the tight end though, this might be the boldest of the fantasy football bold predictions.

8. Diontae Johnson is a top-ten WR.

For some reason, people seem to be extremely fixated on Diontae Johnson’s drops last season. People use it as a reason as to why he’s not a good receiver in their opinion. The funny part is that nobody seems to mention players like Stefon Diggs, Tyler Lockett, D.K. Metcalf, Tee Higgins, CeeDee Lamb, and Jerry Jeudy. All of these fan-favorites were in the top ten in drops in the NFL and most of them saw fewer targets. Drops are so variant and ultimately don’t really matter in fantasy football so don’t even think about it. Aside from the drops, Johnson had an awesome sophomore season. He finished with 88 receptions for 923 yards and seven touchdowns on 144 targets. The targets were the eighth-most in the NFL in 2020. 

Diving even deeper, Johnson’s numbers were truly elite. As seen here in games where he made it through the entire game, he led the NFL in targets per game, was second in expected fantasy points per game, and was fourth in actual fantasy points per game while seeing double-digit targets in all 11 games with Ben Roethlisberger. Johnson was truly an elite wide receiver for fantasy, especially in full PPR formats. In addition to this, his film checks out as well. According to Matt Harmon’s Reception Perception, Johnson was the 16th most successful wide receiver against press coverage, seventh most successful against man coverage, and he led the NFL in success against zone coverage. Everything checks out and if the Steelers continue to be a pass-heavy team, expect Diontae Johnson to make another leap in his third year into the ranks of the elite fantasy receivers.

9. Tyler Boyd is the highest-scoring Bengals WR.

Tyler Boyd is creeping up on Robert Woods for the title of “perenially underrated fantasy receiver.” Boyd puts up good numbers every year yet every year he gets drafted later than he should. Last year before Burrow went down with an injury he was averaging 16.1 fantasy points per game as the WR16. From that point on the entire offense struggled and Boyd finished the year as the WR36 averaging 12.8 fantasy points per game. He finished with 79 receptions for 841 yards and four scores. Boyd has now seen at least 108 targets in three consecutive seasons and caught at least 76 balls in that same span.

Heading into 2021 it is wheels up for Boyd and the Cincinnati Bengals offense. Joe Burrow is back under center and they drafted him another weapon in Ja’Marr Chase. The offensive line returns former first-round pick Jonah Williams and they signed another former first-rounder in Riley Reiff. The Bengals also drafted two more offensive linemen and brought in a new (and former) offensive line coach. Chase is still getting up to speed and Boyd is also solidified in his role as the slot wide receiver. The Bengals will also likely remain very pass-heavy and fast-paced which will help the offense, Boyd included. Second-year wideout Tee Higgins has shown a lot of promise but it’s Boyd that will be the reliable option once again. Expect Boyd to see a healthy dose of targets all year and another 90+ reception season is certainly possible.

10. Joe Mixon is a top-six RB.

Saving the best for last, Joe Mixon quiets the haters this season. Mixon sees more hate than any running back despite being pretty solid to this point in his career. The first thing that gets thrown around is that he’s injury-prone. That’s simply not true. Last year was the first season he’s missed more than two games in his four seasons. Even after only playing in six games last season, he’s still played more games than Dalvin Cook, only one less game than Christian McCaffrey, and only four less than Aaron Jones over the last four years. The next thing that’s said is that he’s simply not good. That’s not true either. Mixon has been RB10 or better in terms of fantasy points per game in two of the past three seasons.

As mentioned previously everything is pointing up for the Bengals. The offensive line was atrocious last season but should be much improved this year. Joe Burrow is coming back from injury which should help the team move the ball and score more often. Ja’Marr Chase should also help in that area as well. But perhaps the biggest change in the right direction for Mixon this year is that Giovani Bernard is no longer on the team. Mixon already saw a career-high in targets and carries per game last year and with Gio now gone, he could see even another boost in the passing game. He saw the third-best usage rate last year and that should, at the very least, be solidified with upside for more. 300+ carries, 60+ receptions, 1600+ total yards, and double-digit scores are all attainable this season. Mixon has the skill and opportunity in 2021 to be a truly elite running back in fantasy football.

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