Daniel Kelley's Articles

After an impressive enough campaign as the Browns’ interim starter during the Deshaun Watson suspension in 2022, Jacoby Brissett signed with the Washington Commanders in free agency Wednesday, signing a one-year deal worth a reported $10 million, with $8 million in guarantees. The Commanders will be Brissett’s fifth team in eight years, following stints in […]

The Patriots wasted little time in replacing the departed Jakobi Meyers, agreeing to terms with former Chiefs wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster Wednesday on a deal equivalent to the one Meyers signed in Las Vegas. Both receivers got three-year, $33 million deals. Smith-Schuster certainly has a higher ceiling than Meyers. They’re less than two weeks apart […]

The Atlanta Falcons went to the Super Bowl in the 2016 season. In what is unsurprisingly very related news, they were one of the top offenses for fantasy football that year, with only the Packers’ and Saints’ offensive players putting up more PPR points than the Falcons’ 1,745.2. It was a big jump over 2015, […]

The Atlanta Falcons went to the Super Bowl in the 2016 season. In what is unsurprisingly very related news, they were one of the top offenses for fantasy football that year, with only the Packers’ and Saints’ offensive players putting up more PPR points than the Falcons’ 1,745.2. It was a big jump over 2015, […]

The New Orleans Saints appear to have their new quarterback, with CBS’ Ian Rapoport reporting Monday morning that they have agreed to a four-year deal with former Raiders QB Derek Carr. Carr, the 36th overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft, had spent his entire career with the Raiders, starting 142 of a possible 146 […]

NFL teams go into the offseason with all sorts of goals. Build a Super Bowl winner. Improve the defense. Clear some salary. Tear it down and start over. But as fantasy football managers, we want one thing out of the offseason: Points.   With the Super Bowl now behind us, this week I’m taking a […]

NFL teams go into the offseason with all sorts of goals. Build a Super Bowl winner. Improve the defense. Clear some salary. Tear it down and start over. But as fantasy football managers, we want one thing out of the offseason: Points.   With the Super Bowl now behind us, this week I’m taking a […]

This time, it sounds like it’s for real.  Tom Brady announced his re-retirement Wednesday morning, going far enough to say “for good.” That caps off a 23-year NFL career that featured seven Super Bowl titles, three NFL MVPs, five Super Bowl MVPs and … well, the accolades would make this a very long paragraph. He’s […]

Breakout players one year in fantasy football always carry inflated price tags the next. And while you never want to overpay for anyone, as long as the breakout is for real, a slight overpay isn’t the end of the world. Where you can really run into issues is when you invest in a breakout that […]

In my “not working for FTN” life, I also write novels. (Shameless self-promotion: Buy them!) That means that I spend a good portion of my life imagining what could be, rather than what is. And while flights of fancy aren’t necessarily the best way to do fantasy football analysis, it’s still nice to see how […]

Not all fantasy football bold predictions are made equal. It would be a little bold to predict that, say, Najee Harris will be the top-scoring fantasy player in 2022. It would be a lot bold to say Benny Snell will. You have to decide how bold you want to be.   So I offer bold […]

We’re all subject to recency bias, in life as in fantasy football. If you remember this time a year ago, Ja’Marr Chase was falling down draft boards as a result of his supposed stone hands, while Marquez Callaway was skyrocketing because of a shallow depth chart and an impressive preseason. That led to this poll: […]

(As we head toward training camp and the start of preseason, our own Daniel Kelley is asking — and attempting to answer — the most pressing questions around fantasy football for 2022. This is 100 Questions.) This is more an oddity than anything else, but I find it fascinating: Over the last 18 years, someone from […]

(As we head toward training camp and the start of preseason, our own Daniel Kelley is asking — and attempting to answer — the most pressing questions around fantasy football for 2022. This is 100 Questions.) Here’s a fun bit of trivia: Of the teams in the NFC South, the one that has gone the longest […]

(As we head toward training camp and the start of preseason, our own Daniel Kelley is asking — and attempting to answer — the most pressing questions around fantasy football for 2022. This is 100 Questions.) The smallest gap between first and second place in the NFC North in the last five years was 3 games, […]

(As we head toward training camp and the start of preseason, our own Daniel Kelley is asking — and attempting to answer — the most pressing questions around fantasy football for 2022. This is 100 Questions.) The last time there was a repeat winner of the NFC East (the Eagles, 2001-2004), only two current NFL players […]

(As we head toward training camp and the start of preseason, our own Daniel Kelley is asking — and attempting to answer — the most pressing questions around fantasy football for 2022. This is 100 Questions.) As I write this, on DraftKings Sportsbook, the Las Vegas Raiders have the lowest over/under for wins in the […]

(As we head toward training camp and the start of preseason, our own Daniel Kelley is asking — and attempting to answer — the most pressing questions around fantasy football for 2022. This is 100 Questions.) Over the last five years, there are only three divisions in the NFL that are under .500 cumulatively, and […]

(As we head toward training camp and the start of preseason, our own Daniel Kelley is asking — and attempting to answer — the most pressing questions around fantasy football for 2022. This is 100 Questions.) In the last three years, three of the four AFC North teams have won the division. In the last […]

(As we head toward training camp and the start of preseason, our own Daniel Kelley is asking — and attempting to answer — the most pressing questions around fantasy football for 2022. This is 100 Questions.) For a generation of football, you could largely overlook the AFC East for fantasy, with three teams that rarely […]

You can’t provide an answer if you don’t know the question. That’s true in fantasy football as in life. So over the next three weeks, we’re going to ask and (at least attempt to) answer the biggest questions facing us as we head into the 2022 fantasy football season. That works out to three questions […]

Daniel Kelley and Dan Fornek continue with the 2022 Sleepers, Busts and Bets series to preview all 32 NFL teams for the upcoming year. Next up: The New England Patriots.   Daniel and Dan will list their picks with confidence in “The Answers,” Then expand upon their picks with more details reason in “The Explanation.” […]

Daniel Kelley and Jeremy Popielarz continue with the 2022 Sleepers, Busts and Bets series to preview all 32 NFL teams for the upcoming year. Next up: The New Orleans Saints.   Daniel and Jeremy will list their picks with confidence in “The Answers,” Then expand upon their picks with more details reason in “The Explanation.” […]

In simplest terms, a fantasy football draft pick is a lottery ticket. The early rounders carry the best odds, but they cost you a lot. Late-round picks are cheap and potentially life-changing if they hit, but the odds are long, so you have to grab a bunch of them to have a real chance at […]

Daniel Kelley and Jeremy Popielarz continue with the 2022 Sleepers, Busts and Bets series to preview all 32 NFL teams for the upcoming year. Next up: The Cleveland Browns.   Daniel and Jeremy will list their picks with confidence in “The Answers,” Then expand upon their picks with more details reason in “The Explanation.” Follow […]

Even in the offseason, we have fantasy football on the brain. So while there are no games to analyze, we thought it would be fun to offer up a few brain-teasers. These are our fantasy football quizzes.  Weekly winners? Most points ever? Who did what the best? Follow along as each day we tickle your […]

We’ve reached the finals of this season of Survivor, and (spoiler, but if you were waiting for the end of my season recap to find out the winner, you’re weird) Maryanne took the crown. But I’m left with one question: How do they learn to spell each other’s names? I will grant that editing copy is […]

Height is a help in football … until it isn’t. There have only been three running backs listed at 6-foot-4 or taller to reach 1,000 career PPR points, none at 6-5 or more. There have been plenty of wide receivers at 6-5, but once you get to 6-6, the list falls off a cliff. Basically, […]

Exactly what it means to be “unlucky” as a receiver in the NFL is fair to debate, but here’s a fun measure: Over 100 yards, no touchdowns. It’s hard to put up those two things at the same time, and it’s especially difficult to do it more than a time or two. But some of […]

Two players in NFL history have been named a first-team All Prop 10 times. Neither has been around for a while – Jim Otto’s career ended in 1974, while Jerry Rice called it quits in 2004. Among active players, seven first-team All Pros is the current leader. There are 28 active players (meaning they played […]

Passer rating is of course an imperfect measure, but it’s a decent shorthand. If you put up a high number, odds are you performed well; if you put up a low number, odds are you didn’t. When the stakes are highest, that’s just as true.   So for today’s Quiz of the Day, let’s look […]

Having satellite TV (I’m the last remaining non-cord-cutter, I think) is good, but man, rain is annoying, especially since Survivor doesn’t drop to streaming until the day after. Long story short, it’s 6:55 a.m. Thursday morning as I write this, which feels like an extremely nerdy way to live your life. Anyway, Wednesday was our penultimate […]