2018 Fantasy Football Draft Prep: How does Josh Gordon's return impact Browns?

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For all the consternation about when Josh Gordon was going to show up at Browns camp we may have been overlooking an important point: There is a good Fantasy offense in Cleveland. They have a pair of good quarterbacks in Tyrod Taylor and Baker Mayfield. They have three good running backs in Carlos Hyde, Duke Johnson and Nick Chubb. 

And now they have a full receiving corps; let's just hope they don't sign Dez Byrant.

I don't say that because of any issue with Bryant, but because the Browns may, shockingly, just have too many Fantasy assets as it is. Gordon and Landry should both be No. 2 receivers and David Njoku is a nice low-end tight end. The Browns don't need another receiver, and if they get one it only drives down Fantasy appeal.

The one player who is probably undervalued in this offense is Carlos Hyde. Every indication we've gotten from this preseason is that Hyde is the unquestioned No. 1 back on the team. The fact that he's available in the eighth or ninth round is laughable. 

For a more detailed look at how I view the Browns offense here's my breakdown of their Fantasy assets along with updated touch projections.

*Rankings expressed below are in terms of expected Fantasy points. This is a part of our actual Fantasy Football rankings but not a direct correlation to my rankings. Things like injury risk, upside, etc. factor into rankings but they're not being talked about here. This is simply an expectation as the team is currently constructed.

Breaking down the touches

With all these new parts, we have a few contradictions to resolve. Haley's teams have thrown at least 590 passes each of the past three years despite generally positive game scripts. Taylor has never thrown more than 436 passes in a season. Haley and Mike Tomlin have quite famously ridden Le'Veon Bell and shown no real use for a second running back when Bell has been healthy. Now the team has Hyde, Chubb and one of the most talented pass-catching backs in the league, Duke Johnson.

And that's not even touching on the target distribution between Landry and Gordon. Landry has had at least 131 targets each of the past three years. But he's never played with a receiver as talented as Gordon. I've bumped Landry's targets up slightly above Gordon's due to the latter's camp absence but this is admittedly more of a guessing game than most teams.

Of note: 

• Jarvis Landry's touchdown rate will have a big impact on his non-PPR value. he caught nine touchdowns last year but had only 13 on 409 career targets in the three years before.
  
• David NJoku has a wide range of possible outcomes. He could be a top-six tight end or someone you're using only as a streamer.

The Leftovers

The Browns have a lot of mediocre receivers who could be thrown into the mx, but the most interesting deep sleeper to me is tight end Seth DeValve. He's averaged 1.21 yards per reception in his career and caught 33 passes in 2017 sharing the load with Njoku. Njoku has a lot more upside, but if he were to get hurt? I could easily see something like 467-575-6 from DeValve. That would have made him the No. 9 tight end in Fantasy last year.

So what sleepers should you snatch in your Fantasy Football draft? And which huge running backs do you need to jump all over? Visit SportsLine now to get Fantasy Football cheat sheets from the model that called Alvin Kamara's huge breakout last season and find out.