WNBA Best Bets (Wednesday 9/25)
Josh Gross
Welcome to Sleepers, Busts and Bold Predictions for the 2024 fantasy football season. Our Chris Meaney and Daniel Kelley are going to go team-by-team around the league all summer. They’ll pick sleepers, busts and bold predictions for each team. Sometimes they’ll agree! Sometimes they will go completely opposite one another! And that’s fine, because they’ll defend their positions, and you can decide for yourself who to side with. Up today: The New York Giants.
Below, they tackle the team, starting with their picks in “The Answers,” then expanding on their picks in “The Explanation.”
2024 Sleepers, Busts & Bold Predictions: New York Giants
The Answers
Favorite Sleeper
Meaney: Tyrone Tracy Jr.
Kelley: Wan’Dale Robinson
Biggest Bust
Meaney: Malik Nabers
Kelley: Malik Nabers
Bold Prediction
Meaney: Tyrone Tracy outscores Devin Singletary
Kelley: Devin Singletary Finishes as a Top-20 RB
The Explanations
Sleepers
Meaney: Tyrone Tracy Jr.
I’ll be honest here, I don’t want any part of the Giants in redraft leagues. They were 30th in points per game last season and lost their best offensive player in Saquon Barkley. We’ll get to their new shiny toy at WR in a bit, but this is a team I don’t expect to be good this year. Devin Singletary was brought in to replace Saquon Barkley, but good luck. Saquon was hit behind the line of scrimmage on 46% of his carries, which was the third-highest rate among qualified backs. Singletary is going ahead of Brian Robinson Jr., Gus Edwards and Ezekiel Elliott, who I’d much rather have. So with that, give me the cheaper back with my last pick in drafts and that’s Tyrone Tracy Jr. The converted receiver doesn’t have a lot of competition for touches and may rack up a few catches on a team playing from behind quite often.
Kelley: Wan’Dale Robinson
Wan’Dale Robinson played 15 games last year. He had at least 5 targets in 10 of those games. The yardage was middling (525, no more than 85 in a game), and he only scored 1 receiving touchdown (2 total), but he profiles as and was used as a short-yardage specialist as a receiver, the dumpoff option in an offense that no longer has Saquon Barkley and either won’t have or won’t be able to trust Darren Waller. With Robinson, you’re getting a receiver who could easily reach 100-plus targets (even low-value targets) at WR76 in PPR drafts (his current ADP). That’s a high-floor option who can slide into flex or WR3 lineup spots almost any week.
Busts
Meaney: Malik Nabers
This one hurts because I love Nabers, and he’s easily the best wideout on the team. He had a career year in 2023 for LSU, which resulted in 1,568 yards on 89 receptions and scored 14 touchdowns. The 6-foot, 200-pound speedster can make plays down the field and is explosive with the ball in his hands. Nabers can line up all over the field and can beat defenders in multiple ways. Whether it’s a contested catch or after a grab, Nabers can do it all. The Giants have been starving for a dynamic playmaker. However, Nabers is a rookie on a very bad football team. We don’t know if it’ll be Drew Lock or Daniel Jones in Week 1, and I don’t think we should care. The offensive line in New York is also awful, so there won’t be much time to throw the football, and boxes will be stacked. Nabers is currently getting drafted ahead of DeVonta Smith, DK Metcalf, Cooper Kupp, Zay Flowers, Tee Higgins and Terry McLaurin. Those are all wideouts we’ve seen before, and most of them play with great QBs. Pass on Nabers in redraft leagues, but don’t let him slip in dynasty drafts.
Kelley: Malik Nabers
To get Malik Nabers in fantasy this year, you have to spend a top-20 WR pick (top-30 overall). Talent-wise, that’s just fine. But his fit in New York concerns me. His quarterback, Daniel Jones, threw the ball deep enough early in his career (8.4-yard average depth of target as a rookie in 2019, 8.0 in 2020), but that number has plummeted (6.4-yard aDOT in 2022, 6.9 last year). We can talk what is the cause vs. what is the effect of that, whether he throws it shallow because his receivers have been bad or whether he was going to throw it shallow regardless, but what we do know is that Nabers’ aDOT in college was at least 10.5 yards all three seasons he spent at LSU. I fully expect Jones to throw it to Nabers as much as he can justify, but if that’s just not what he’s good enough at, it will be hard for Nabers to finish as a top-20 receiver.
… And of course that’s all before considering whether the Giants will score enough to justify any receiver finishing top 20. The team scored 266 points last year, better than only New England and Carolina. The arrival of Nabers and a healthy Jones will help that, but we’d need to plan on another 100-ish points for the offense to even be average. Can Nabers dominate the team’s limited production enough to provide return on his investment? I’m skeptical.
Bold Predictions
Meaney: Tyrone Tracy outscores Devin Singletary
I’ll double down on Tracy. My bold prediction is that the Giants will have zero fantasy-relevant players, but I don’t know how bold that is. Singletary is coming off a career-high in carries (216) and rushing yards (898) in his only season with Houston. He was serviceable in fantasy with the Buffalo Bills before he landed with the Texans, but New York’s line will be the worst he’s ever played behind, so he could struggle. Tracy certainly could as well, but with his ability to catch passes, the Giants may decide to give him more looks later in the season. My other bold take that has nothing to do with fantasy is that Daniel Jones has already played his last game as the starting QB with the Giants. That’s right, it’s Drew Lock SZN. New York fans are in for another long season.
Kelley: Devin Singletary Finishes as a Top-20 RB
There are a few things we more or less know about Devin Singletary:
- He doesn’t miss time (has played every game since his 2019 rookie season).
- He almost always beats his ADP (finished higher than he was drafted four of five years).
- He finished as RB32 in PPR last year despite starting the year as a backup and not getting anything like a full-time role until midseason.
- He’s available at RB34 in early drafts this year … or lower than his only-started-half-the-year result of 2023.
- The depth chart behind him in New York consists of Eric Gray, Jashaun Corbin and Dante Miller (combined 20 carries for 60 yards last year) and fifth-round rookie Tyrone Tracy Jr., who only became a running back a year ago.
Singletary will likely never be a top-10 running back. But it’s hard for me to come up with a way that he doesn’t return massive value on an RB34 ADP. He’s an easy low-end fantasy starter.
