2024 Fantasy Football Awards

The 2024 fantasy football season is in the books, and it’s time to celebrate the year that was with fantasy awards for the NFL season. (We’re not counting Week 18 in these considerations.)

As always, I’ll be your host. Let’s get to it.

Fantasy Football Awards: 2024

2024 NFL Fantasy Football MVP: Lamar Jackson, QB, Baltimore Ravens

Is that, um, a quarterback being listed as the most valuable player in fantasy football?!? What is this madness? Surely the answer is Ja’Marr Chase or Saquon Barkley — right?!

Nope. It was Jackson. In half-PPR leagues, if you started Jackson every week (you did), you won 64% of your fantasy games. No other player in the league touched that mark. His overall Fantasy Wins Added was 2.16.

This shouldn’t be a shock — despite his position. He threw a ridiculous 41 touchdowns against just 4 INTs, dramatically limiting negative plays and popping off in the TD department. He only threw for over 300 yards twice, but he still racked up 4,172 passing yards and had three games with four-plus passing scores. And, of course, he added 915 rushing yards and four scores.

It’s not King Henry in Baltimore. Long Live Lamar.

Best Fantasy QB of 2024: Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens

See above.

Best Fantasy RB of 2024: Saquon Barkley, Philadelphia Eagles

Barkley enjoyed a career rejuvenation in Philly and joined the record-books with a 2K season. Barkley would have soared past even Jackson in overall MVP-ness if he was more active in the passing game. He saw a career low in targets, receptions and yards per game.

He also blessed us with this.

Best Fantasy WR of 2024: Ja’Marr Chase, Cincinnati Bengals

No surprise here. The Triple Crown winner had only two of 16 games with a negative FWA, and he single-handedly won you at least three games (unless the rest of your team was just terrible): Week 5 (79% win rate), Week 10 (88% win rate) and Week 14 (80% win rate).

Best Fantasy TE of 2024: George Kittle, San Francisco 49ers

In full-PPR leagues, the answer here is Brock Bowers, but Kittle took the cake — perhaps surprisingly — in half-PPR leagues. If you started Kittle every week, you would have won 57% of your fantasy games because of him alone, compared to 55% for Bowers. (Both were amazing!)

Best Fantasy Draft Value of 2024: Baker Mayfield, QB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Mayfield was going in the 13th round and ended up being the QB6 in value, trailing only the elites (Jackson, Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, Joe Burrow, Jayden Daniels). He was the 14^th-most valuable player in all of fantasy football — essentially making him worth a second-round pick. And you got him for free.

Best Fantasy Waiver Pickup of 2024: Jauan Jennings, WR, San Francisco 49ers

Last year, we had fantasy waiver wire pickups like Kyren Williams and Puka Nacua, but that wasn’t the case in 2024. It was a more modest player like Jennings — he didn’t completely light the fantasy world on fire, but he did produce respectable numbers and was a fitting fantasy starter.

According to Fantasy Wins Added, Jennings ended up being as valuable as highly drafted WRs like George Pickens, Jayden Reed, DJ Moore and even Tyreek Hill. He was more valuable than players like Zavier Worthy, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Calvin Ridley.

Best Fantasy Rookie of 2024: Jayden Daniels, QB, Washington Commanders

Special shouts out to:

• Brian Thomas Jr.
• Malik Nabers
• Brock Bowers

This was a close competition, but Daniels eked it out with 1.23 FWA and an average fantasy win rate of 58%, compared to 55%-56% for the other rookies who came close. You really couldn’t have gone wrong with any of these rookies in 2024, though. It was a special class with many players near the top of their respective positions.

Breakout Fantasy Player of 2024: Chase Brown, RB, Cincinnati Bengals

I didn’t want to pick a rookie as a “breakout” player — because you obviously could have picked any of the four I mentioned earlier — so Brown fits the bill as a vet breakout. He seized the starter role and turned into a true fantasy workhouse: rushing, receiving and red zone work — all in an elite offense.

Career Revival Player of 2024: J.K. Dobbins, RB, Los Angeles Chargers

Nobody saw this coming. People thought Dobbins could be successful as a committee back in Jim Harbaugh’s offense, but he ended up being an 18- to 22-touch RB that averaged 4.6 yards per carry and scored 9 touchdowns in 13 games. Dobbins topped 100 yards in the first two games of the season and didn’t hit that mark again for the rest of the year, so he doesn’t have the same ceiling as the truly elite fantasy backs, but he did more than enough to prove he will be fantasy-relevant in 2025.

Fastest Dynasty Riser of 2024: Jameson Williams, WR, Detroit Lions

Williams went from a player who was lucky to see two receptions in a game to a full-time player in an elite offense capable of displaying his deadly speed. Williams topped 1,000 receiving yards on just 58 receptions and scored seven times. He had just 25 receptions in his first two years in the league — and 2024 was looking like a make-or-break season from a dynasty perspective.

Biggest Bust of 2024: Tyreek Hill, WR, Miami Dolphins

We’re not giving Christian McCaffrey the bust label because A) he was injured, and B) he did play a few games and was good in those games.

Hill was worse, because you aren’t really going to bench Tyreek Hill, which means he was killing your lineup week in and week out. OK, well, he wasn’t actually killing you. He was still helping, according to fantasy wins added — but only just barely, with a win rate of 51% with him in the lineup. Given that you drafted him in the top five, though, you were expecting that to be closer to 58%-60%.

Best Game of 2024: Ja’Marr Chase, WR, Cincinnati Bengals

Here were the top 10 single-week performances based on fantasy wins added (an appearance from Taysom Hill!).