2024 FTN NFL Power Rankings Through Week 15: Who Takes Over the Top Spot?
Daniel Kelley
(Knowing the right question to ask is as important as knowing the answer. In 100 Questions, FTN’s Daniel Kelley identifies the key fantasy football questions to ask heading into the 2021 NFL season. Today: The AFC North.)
Two fun facts: One, in its current configuration, no team has ever won the AFC North in three straight years. Two, the Cleveland Browns have never won it in any configuration. Meaningful? Nah. But both are interesting!
Also interesting: This entire division. There is the potential for big-time fantasy value everywhere in the North.
Baltimore Ravens
After a 14-2 2019 and a unanimous MVP for Lamar Jackson, hopes were high for the Ravens. So while most teams would be happy with an 11-5 record and one playoff win, Baltimore had to consider 2020 a letdown.
17. Is it breakout season for J.K. Dobbins?
Dobbins had light use early as a rookie, but he came on strong down the stretch — after missing Week 12, Dobbins was the PPR RB10 over the last five weeks, with 425 rushing yards and 6 touchdowns.
Best answer: Did you notice what I didn’t include above? Receiving. During his hot stretch, Dobbins had exactly 1 reception (2 targets). And he didn’t have a massive workload on the ground either, 12.4 carries per game even during his “heavy” use. Lamar Jackson will carry it a lot. Gus Edwards isn’t going away. The Ravens are supposedly going to pass more. Right now, you’re drafting Dobbins ahead of guys with more confirmed workloads like David Montgomery and Chris Carson (per the FTN Fantasy ADP tool), and that’s crazy to me. The talent’s there. The workload isn’t.
18. If the Ravens are going to pass more, should we buy into the receivers?
Marquise Brown is the prime holdover, but the Ravens also signed Sammy Watkins and drafted both Rashod Bateman (first round) and Tylan Wallace (fourth). It’s the best receiver room Lamar Jackson has ever had to throw to, which … isn’t saying a lot. But the additions, and the team talking up its passing game, could make for intrigue.
Best answer: The Ravens have more receivers. The Ravens are (probably) going to pass more. There still isn’t a lot of receiver value here. Those can all be true — the team isn’t likely to pass so much more than it can support multiple fantasy receivers, so whatever increase there is will likely be spread among everyone. Brown’s still going first among this group, WR42 by ADP. Bateman’s not far after, WR59. That feels right. Both (and maybe Watkins?) will have the occasional big week, and they all make for good emergency fill-ins. But no, there isn’t a Baltimore receiver we feel great about.
19. Mark Andrews: Borderline Tier 1, or borderline Tier 3?
Mark Andrews was TE5 in 2019, TE6 in 2020, but if he had put up as many points in 2020 as he did in 2019, he’d have been TE3 — the position just tanked. As I mentioned in the leadoff to this series, there are three TE tiers this year — Tier 1 (in some order, Travis Kelce, George Kittle, Darren Waller), Tier 2 (Andrews, T.J. Hockenson, Kyle Pitts), Tier 3 (everybody else).
Best answer: Andrews’ biggest selling points have been the lack of surrounding weaponry in Baltimore and end-zone prowess. Well, the offseason moves negate the first reason, and after 9 scores on 19 red-zone targets in 2019, he scored only 4 times on 20 such targets in 2020. If Andrews isn’t the prime target and isn’t a goal-line Godzilla? He’s closer to Tier 3 than Tier 1.
Cincinnati Bengals
The Joe Burrow era got a false start last year because of his injury, so the team can look at 2021 as His Debut, Part 2, and shoot for optimism that way.
20. Is Joe Mixon a sure RB1?
Joe Mixon averaged a wholly acceptable 16.8 PPR PPG last year. That would have been solidly top-10 over 16 games. Of course, he only played six and put up a whopping 42.1 points in one of them; without that, and he drops to 11.7 PPG, not even top 30. On the flip side, he’s in store for more of a three-down role than ever before, with Giovani Bernard now in Tampa and no proven replacement.
Best answer: A three-spot difference between ADP and FTN Fantasy rankings is significant in the fantasy-starter range. That’s Mixon’s gap (ADP: RB12; rankings: RB15), and it should tell you a lot. The buzz has Mixon as a borderline RB1. The smart rankers see his injury history, his dodgy O-line and his offense that seems geared to pass a lot and says “RB2, thanks.”
21. How do we sort these receivers?
The 2020 Bengals were supposed to have a three-headed monster at receiver, but that was before we found out A.J. Green’s legs had gone to the Big Skyline in the Sky. Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd ended up with similarly decent stat lines (67-108-908-6 for Higgins, 79-110-841-4 for Boyd), while Green scuffled to a 47-104-523-2 line and is now gone, with first-rounder Ja’Marr Chase replacing him.
Best answer: Higgins and Boyd did that with only a little over half a season with their rookie quarterback. Assuming Burrow’s healthy, you’d expect them to build on their WR28/29 finishes and Chase to be up there as well. Maybe not all three succeed, but it’s impossible to be confident in which shines above the others as shown by ADP and rankings (all three are firmly in the WR3 range). Instead of trying in vain to identify the best of the three, the strategy should be to take no stand at all, draft whichever falls to you at the right time, and hope that guy is one that really pops (maybe all three do!). No sense in offering false confidence — throw a dart and enjoy.
22. Are we buying Joe Burrow in 2021?
The important part of the previous answer was “Assuming Burrow’s healthy.” Because Burrow’s backups are Brandon Allen (who we’ve seen be a not-good-enough backup) and Kyle Shurmur (who we haven’t, which tells you something). It feels like Burrow missed the majority of 2020, but he actually didn’t get hurt until Week 11. So can we count on him?
Best answer: Every report about Burrow’s rehab has been good, which is reassuring. Here’s the flip side: People are drafting Burrow early. He’s 13th per ADP, 11th in our rankings. Isn’t that a ceiling pick? He doesn’t have significant rushing upside (12 or fewer rushing yards in seven of 10 games) and had more weekly finishes of 20th or worse (four) than top-10 (three). Burrow has a nice ceiling, but it’s still a spotty O-line and a fairly quick injury turnaround. I’d pass at his price.
Cleveland Browns
The laughingstock Browns are a thing of the past. The team might not win in 2021, or at any point in this era, but they are genuine contenders, which previous iterations of this team would have killed for. That means the fantasy conversation is also much more interesting than it used to be.
23. Is Nick Chubb locked and loaded as an RB1?
Nick Chubb finished 2020 as the PPR RB11 despite missing four games. His 1,067 rushing yards ranked seventh in the league, but he scored 12 times. Teammate Kareem Hunt finished one spot ahead of Chubb, at RB11. If Chubb can stay healthy for 16 games in 2021, are we sure he’s an RB1?
Best answer: Drafters (ADP RB8) and our rankers (RB9) say yes, and the truth is that Chubb is probably a back-end RB1 at worst. But it’s important to acknowledge that he significantly improved his touchdown rate without a dramatic increase in red-zone work. And in 18 career games between when he became a starter and Hunt’s Browns debut, Chubb averaged 3.3 targets and 2.5 receptions per game. In 20 games with Hunt, those averages drop to 1.8 and 1.4. Chubb can absolutely be an RB1 in 2021. But there’s significant risk. Austin Ekeler, for one, seems like a safer pick currently going behind Chubb.
24. Is Odell Beckham still a star?
- Odell Beckham’s average, 2014-16: 10.6 targets, 6.7 receptions, 95.9 yards, 0.8 touchdowns, 21.1 PPR points. Superstar! Hall of Fame! Party!
- Odell Beckham’s average, 2017-20: 8.7 targets, 5.1 receptions, 69.4 yards, 0.4 touchdowns, 15.2 PPR points. Fine player! Not exciting! Basically Robert Woods!
Best answer: Coming off an ACL tear and with only two hundred-yard games and eight touchdowns in two years in Cleveland, no one is drafting Beckham as anything like what he used to be. Rightly. His current ADP is WR29 and our FTN Fantasy rankings have him at WR27. Here’s the thing: It’s probably right, and also possibly too low. How many WRs have the ceiling Beckham could still have and go that low? That number’s very small. As my third receiver in 2021, I’d be ecstatic to take a flyer. I’d follow with a relatively safer pick as my WR4.
25. What is Baker Mayfield’s ceiling?
After a successful rookie year, Baker Mayfield’s 2019 ADP was an almost-comical QB4 (I said that at the time). He finished as the QB19. So in 2020, his ADP fell to QB18. He finished as QB17. (If we’re being fair, his 2020 included several games of horrific weather, losing his top receiver for half the year, and a game where his entire receiver corps was out. QB17 was a deserved finish, but he could have been higher.)
Best answer: Three years in, Mayfield has seasons of 131, 141 and 165 rushing yards. In other words, he’s never going to do a lot for you on the ground, and that’s going to keep him from being a locked-in QB1 (check Eliot Crist’s Konami Code QBs). But there also aren’t many higher floors in Mayfield’s range. He’s never missed a game to injury. He has the best line. He has upper-tier weapons. Our Jeff Ratcliffe has long advocated for taking one QB with upside paired with a safety valve, and doing that here (say, Mayfield and a rookie with rushing upside) could be a league-winner.
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Steelers started 11-0! That’s good! The downside? They went 1-4 down the stretch, got smacked around in the playoffs, and googling “worst 11-0 team ever” gives a lot of 2020 Steelers results. Still, you’d rather be the worst 11-0 team than the best 0-11 team, and the Steelers have pieces for 2021.
26. Can Najee Harris overcome the O-line?
Almost everyone projected the Steelers would take Najee Harris as the first RB in this year’s draft, and they did. He’s a huge-ceiling back with a three-down skill set, and that adds up to all sorts of drool-worthy fantasy intrigue.
Best answer: Harris will be plying his trade behind what could be the league’s worst line, after Alejandro Villanueva and Maurkice Pouncey were the latest departures. Still, an elite back is an elite back. Assuming Harris stays healthy, a bad O-line isn’t going to keep him from being a good fantasy player; it just might keep him from being the overall RB1. Our FTN Fantasy rankings currently have Harris as the RB12, with the FTN Fantasy ADP showing him at RB14. The only back in that range with a comparable ceiling to Harris’ is Antonio Gibson. Feel free to pounce early.
27. How do you sort out these wide receivers?
Diontae Johnson was the 2020 breakout, catching 88 balls for 923 yards and 7 scores, finishing as the PPR WR21. Chase Claypool was the exciting rookie, riding a few huge games to 62 receptions, 873 yards, 9 touchdowns, WR23. And JuJu Smith-Schuster? He was the disappointment … who finished better than either of them, a WR16 finish with 97 catches for 831 yards and 9 scores.
Best answer: If PPR, I’m still opting for Smith-Schuster, in contrast to both current ADP and our rankings. His role seems the least likely to be cannibalized by the other two, and his massive reception total (even if it didn’t turn into even 850 yards) should keep him reliable in PPR. In standard? Johnson is probably the play. But ultimately, the answer here is the same as it was for the Bengals: Take whichever one makes sense at your pick. We can’t confidently delineate between these guys to any great confidence.
28. This all depends on Ben Roethlisberger still being decent, right?
The Steelers have the league’s oldest quarterback (non-immortal division), and he’s coming off his lowest yardage (other than his two-game 2019) since 2012. His offensive line is in shambles, he’s notorious for being banged up all the time, and his backups (Mason Rudolph, Joshua Dobbs, Dwayne Haskins) have been exciting in the NFL for exactly zero minutes.
Best answer: You don’t need Roethlisberger to be good for fantasy! He’s barely a QB2. You just need him to get the ball to Harris and the receivers. And as long as he’s upright, Ben should be safe to do that. His time to throw last year was 2.15 seconds, comfortably the quickest in the league, as he worked to keep himself safe, and that’s yet another reason why sort options like Harris and Smith-Schuster intrigue me the most here.
