Perfect Fantasy Football Draft from 2024

What would it look like if you drafted the perfect fantasy football team last August? As you can imagine, the below team is absolutely, unapologetically, disgustingly good.

And it could have been yours.

To keep this fun but also mostly realistic, we’ll assume you drafted right in the middle of Round 1 and that players might have fallen a few picks beyond ADP, but not too many.

2024 Perfect Fantasy Football Draft

Round 1: Ja’Marr Chase, WR

Chase was not just the best WR drafted in Round 1 — he was the best player of the round. According to FTN’s Fantasy Wins Added metric, you won 62% of your games simply by drafting Chase this year. No other player drafted in the first round cracked 60% (Amon-Ra St. Brown came close, sitting at 59.5%).

No surprise here. The Triple Crown winner anchors your team.

Round 2: Saquon Barkley, RB

Barkley gave you a win rate of 63%. Paired with Chase in Round 1, your team might already be unstoppable if you were a terrible drafter the rest of the way. Mr. 2K was by far the best pick of Round 2.

But this is the perfect draft, so we’re just getting started.

Round 3: Derrick Henry, RB

The Big Dawg did not rest in Baltimore. Who says you need to ignore older RBs on their second team? In this perfect draft, you double-dip and fill out the RB room within the first three rounds.

Henry had a fantasy win rate of 60%. Rashee Rice was on pace to top that (61%), but he only played three games coming out of this round, so the crown goes to the King.

If you want to take a different position here (because there are a lot more good RBs later in the draft than good WRs), you could lock up Mike Evans.

But let’s be real, you’re taking Henry.

Round 4: Lamar Jackson, QB

Jackson was not only the best QB — he was the best player in fantasy. Period.

He was drafted at the 4-5 turn, so anyone in Round 4 had a shot at him. Yes, some other great QBs went a lot later (Joe Burrow and Jayden Daniels), but so did other players at other positions. Lock up the fantasy MVP.

Round 5: Terry McLaurin, WR

McLaurin took off with Jayden Daniels this year. His yardage was about the same as it’s always been (1,096 yards on 82 receptions — exactly on par with his career) — but he scored 13 TDs after scoring 14 over the previous three seasons combined. He locks in a deadly WR2 for your perfect squad.

Round 6: Brian Thomas Jr., WR

Technically George Kittle had the highest FWA of any player in this round, but we get better value with a TE a little later in the draft. In this perfect draft, we take the rookie Thomas to fill our flex spot, who produced only four negative games (Weeks 3, 6, 9 and 10) and absolutely dominated in the playoffs, producing fantasy win rates of 69%, 68% and 61% in Weeks 15-17.

Round 7: Alvin Kamara, RB

It was kind of hard to mess up in Round 7 this year. Alvin Kamara had the highest FWA of any player in the group. The biggest problem with Kamara is that he didn’t play in the fantasy playoffs final two rounds, but he’s a bench player on this perfect team anyway. You also could have drafted Ladd McConkey, who smoked in the fantasy championship round (67% win rate).

Round 8: Brock Bowers, TE

Another rookie! And you could have gone a different direction here with yet another rookie (Jayden Daniels), but we lock up the TE position with Bowers, who went insane with 112 catches and nearly 1,200 yards. He just needs to score more (5 TDs).

You could make an argument for going with Kittle in Round 6 (57% win rate vs. Bowers at 55%), and then Courtland Sutton or Jordan Addison in Round 8, but Brian Thomas Jr.’s playoff performances give him the edge.

Round 9: Chase Brown, RB

We continue to build up our RB room with Brown, who became a three-down workhorse for an elite offense down the stretch. After taking over in Week 9, Brown did not produce a single negative FWA game the rest of the fantasy season, playoffs included.

Round 10: Jakobi Meyers, WR

You were best off not drafting anyone who had an ADP in Round 10, but that’s not how this experiment works. Rashid Shaheed was on pace to be the best pick of the bunch, but he played only six games. So stick Meyers on your bench and be happy with it. He didn’t hurt your team, but he didn’t blow the lid off either.

Round 11: Jerry Jeudy, WR

Jeudy overcame a slow start and a parade of bad QBs to have the best season of his career and best two-month stretch to close out the year. He started the season with negative FWA in four of his first seven games. Then he was positive the rest of the way save for Week 16. Granted, Week 16 would have been a bad week to be bad — but if you drafted a team this good you would’ve had the foresight to bench him that week anyway.

Round 12: J.K. Dobbins, RB

The career resurgence was incredible, and you — you perfect fantasy player, you! — drafted him as your RB5.

Round 13: Adam Thielen, WR

Pretty gross round overall, but you snag Thielen who won 67% of his games in the fantasy championship round thanks to his performance. You probably would have had to keep him on your IR spot, though, because he didn’t play Weeks 4-11. However, his Championship-round performance was worth the wait.

Round 14: Bucky Irving, RB

Now you’re just showing off.

Round 15: Jauan Jennings, WR

OK, we get it — you’re a genius.

The Final Squad

• QB: Lamar Jackson
• RB: Saquon Barkley, Derrick Henry, Alvin Kamara, Chase Brown, J.K. Dobbins, Bucky Irving
• WR: Ja’Marr Chase, Terry McLaurin, Brian Thomas Jr., Jakobi Meyers, Jerry Jeudy, Adam Thielen, Jauan Jennings
• TE: Brock Bowers

If you did end up drafting this incredible squad, you’d want to trade some of those later-round RB gems for more WRs.