Gross Bombs: NFL Props for Week 16
Josh Gross
Fantasy football drafts have arrived and it’s critical to avoid the landmines, so you end up with a winning squad. Get your fantasy football cheat sheets and fantasy football rankings ready as we go through the best pick in every round for your 2024 fantasy football drafts.
Average draft position data comes from FTN’s Underdog ADP tool. And ICYMI: Check out the best picks in each round for 2024 fantasy football drafts as well.
Worst Pick in Round 1: Marvin Harrison Jr., WR, Arizona Cardinals
There’s nothing inherently wrong about Harrison, and he’s being drafted in about the right spot, but it still feels like by far the weakest of the first-round options.
Harrison is hyped beyond hype — and he’s apparently living up to the hype in training camp — but the fact of the matter is that he’s still just a rookie, and his fellow highly-drafted rookie WRs are going much later than him in 2024 fantasy drafts.
Again, Harrison is fine at the 1-2 turn, but he’s completely unproven and certainly a step down from the other WRs going in the first round like Justin Jefferson and A.J. Brown.
Worst Pick in Round 2: Drake London, WR, Atlanta Falcons
He’s actually been pretty solid: 141 receptions, 1,771 yards and 6 TDs rivals Jefferson and CeeDee Lamb. Oh, wait, those are his stats from the last two years combined?
Tell me with a straight face that you feel good about drafting London as high as he’s currently going. He has under 75 receptions and under 950 receiving yards in both years of his career. He has scored only six total touchdowns. Yes, his quarterback situation has been Horrible with a capital H.
Yes, it got a lot better with Kirk Cousins under center. No, that doesn’t make him a smashing pick in the second round. The fantasy community is taking a giant leap of faith here. That’s not to say it can’t or won’t happen — but it is a leap of faith in the truest sense of the phrase.
Worst Pick in Round 3: Stefon Diggs, WR, Houston Texans
Diggs has been remarkable, topping 1,000 receiving yards in sixth straight years and going for 102 or more receptions in five of six. He has also scored a whopping 37 touchdowns in four years with the Bills.
Diggs is not bad. He’s just not going to be fed the ball as much in Houston as he was in Buffalo, where Gabe Davis was his best competition for targets.
In Houston, Diggs faces Nico Collins and Tank Dell. He’s the old vet in the room. Diggs will still get his, but there’s a very real risk that he’s simply over the hill and that Houston won’t need him to do that much because Collins and Dell will be smashing.
I’m not saying that’s what will happen, but that risk is why Diggs is the worst pick in Round 3 right now.
Worst Pick in Round 4: Trey McBride, TE, Arizona Cardinals
Drafters are putting a ton of faith in McBride after just seeing a flash in the pan. And that was before the team spent such a high draft pick on Harrison, who is expected to be the immediate alpha receiver. McBride was enjoying about 10 targets per game over the final half of the season (he had seven or more in all but one game).
The arrival of Harrison — and Zay Jones — combined with the development of Michael Wilson and Greg Dortch, likely means McBride won’t need to be as heavily involved as he was down the stretch last season.
I’d rather take Mark Andrews or Dalton Kincaid a round later, or someone like George Kittle two rounds later.
Worst Pick in Round 5: Keenan Allen, WR Chicago Bears
It’s the exact reason I’m not falling head over heels for Diggs in Houston. Allen is the old wily vet in the room. The Bears just signed DJ Moore to a mega-contract and spent a top-10 pick on WR Rome Odunze.
There’s room for Allen, but if Odunze develops quickly, there might not be as room you suspect.
Worst Pick in Round 6: Christian Watson, WR, Green Bay Packers
A sixth-round pick feels hefty for a wideout that has 69 receptions for 1,033 yards and 12 TDs over the last two years combined. Watson just faces so much competition for targets — Romeo Doubs, Dontayvion Wicks, Jayden Reed — that it’s hard to draft him when you can get a different slice of the Packer pie a little later.
Worst Pick in Round 7: Keon Coleman, WR, Buffalo Bills
People expect Coleman to immediately step into the WR1 role in Buffalo — and he is playing with the starting offense in preseason games — but Coleman is notably more expensive in fantasy drafts than Curtis Samuel and Khalil Shakir, and his prospect profile entering the league doesn’t scream “ready to start and dominate from Week 1.” He’s a bit of a project still.
The opportunity is certainly there — it’s not like Samuel and Skahir have the profiles of dominant WR1s — but the real benefit of drafting Coleman is to get some stock in a Josh Allen offense, so why not just do that a few rounds later?
Worst Pick in Round 8: Brock Bowers, TE, Las Vegas Raiders
Sam LaPorta and Dalton Kincaid smashed in 2024 and apparently made us forget how hard it has been for rookie TEs to put up fantasy TE1 numbers. Bowers has more hype than both of those players combined last year, but he has a significantly bigger problem: Gardner Minshew is his quarterback, and Aidan O’Connell is the backup. Also: Davante Adams and Jakoki Meyers are both fully capable at WR, so there’s no burning need for Bowers to come in and be a target hog.
Rounds 9+
Once you enter this phase of the draft, it’s difficult to call any of the picks “bad.” Some are better than others, but we’re now in the triple-digits of picks, so just make sure you’re swinging for upside.
The only “bad” picks at this point of the draft are players that just have a significantly lower ceiling than their counterparts. Good luck!
