CeeDee Lamb is back at practice, and he's an easy pick for me after Christian McCaffrey is off of the board. Breece Hall and Bijan Robinson are fair alternative picks if you want to swing at massive CMC-like upside and secure an RB1. For my money, Lamb is the pick. As we saw last year, he is in a perfect storm in Dallas. The Cowboys have abandoned the run and Lamb has the ability to push his target share into the stratosphere as the unquestioned alpha on this roster.
Lamb and Tyreek Hill (here's his upside case) are the only wide receivers who I would select ahead of Hall and Robinson, even with full PPR scoring. If you do start your draft with one of these stud receivers, how aggressive do you need to be in targeting the RB position in Rounds 2 and 3?
This is our 12-part, PPR pick-by-pick series where me, Dan Schneier, Adam Aizer, Thomas Shafer, Jamey Eisenberg, Heath Cummings, and Dave Richard all took part in a six-person mock draft. We each built two of the 12 teams in this 14-round draft to show you a different strategy from each spot.
If I haven't been able to grab an RB with the upside to post 300+ PPR points early in the draft, I'm usually waiting at the position in 2024. Beyond the obvious big three, the running backs that I classify as offering that type of upside are De'Von Achane, Jahmyr Gibbs, Kyren Williams, and Josh Jacobs. In this draft, I landed Achane in Round 3.
As a reference point, all touchdowns in this league are worth six points, and we award one point for every 10 yards rushing and receiving and one point for every 25 yards passing. We also award one point for every reception. We feature a starting lineup of QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, TE, and FLEX (RB/WR/TE).
Here's my team from No. 3 overall:
1.03 -- CeeDee Lamb, WR, Cowboys
2.10 -- Nico Collins, WR, Texans
3.03 -- De'Von Achane, RB, Dolphins
4.10 -- Josh Allen, QB, Bills
5.03 -- Kyle Pitts, TE, Falcons
6.10 -- Najee Harris, RB, Steelers
7.03 -- Xavier Worthy, WR, Chiefs
8.10 -- Jaxon Smith-Njigba, WR, Seahawks
9.03 -- Blake Corum, RB, Rams
10.10 -- Bucky Irving, RB, Buccaneers
11.03 -- Curtis Samuel, WR, Bills
12.10 -- Khalil Herbert, RB, Bears
13.03 -- Carson Steele, RB, Chiefs
14.10 -- Adonai Mitchell, WR, Colts
Nico Collins is elite. I detailed his path to a massive yardage total on FFT's Beyond the Boxscore with Dan Schneier (Matthew Berry also made an appearance). The Year 3 breakout for Collins may have seemed to come out of nowhere, but he absolutely is a bonafide superstar.
Beginning a start-three-receiver full-PPR-scoring draft with Lamb and Collins feels like cheating. The Cowboys and Texans could finish first and second in passing in 2024, and I have the stud young WR1 for each offense. I do not think that you need to panic at the RB position if you start with Collins, especially in a format where you have to start three receivers.
In Round 3, I took a shot on the legendary upside of De'Von Achane in Mike McDaniel's cheat code of a rushing scheme. There's a path to even more upside for Achane beyond just the absurd rushing efficiency, too. If his receiving role expands in Year 2, Achane might produce like a Round 1 pick in PPR formats.
I did not draft my third receiver until Round 7, but I took four swings at landing big upside at WR between Rounds 7-14. Outside of potentially having to slow roll with Curtis Samuel's (you can read more about why I am excited for his change of scenery) turf toe recovery, I should get a long look at my other three receivers right away.
With Marquise Brown recovering from an injury, Xavier Worthy is likely to be featured right away. He was on the field and used as a pre-snap motion player for Kansas City's first preseason play (a play that Brown was healthy for). You can watch every preseason route for the electric rookie if you want to better familiarize yourself with the newest weapon available to Patrick Mahomes.
Tyler Lockett has missed practice time with a leg injury leading up to Week 1, so we could see the veteran eased into action. Even if Lockett plays a full role, I still think that we can reasonably expect Jaxon Smith-Njigba to be on the field much more in Year 2.
We could see a huge Year 2 leap from Smith-Njigba in a much different offensive design.
My last pick was used on Adonai Mitchell, a second-round selection of the Indianapolis Colts. You can watch every preseason route that he ran if you'd like to get an idea of how he might impact this Colts offense. He has pushed Alec Pierce off of the field when the Colts go to two-receiver sets and was used in a lot of pre-snap motion as the fill-in slot receiver with Josh Downs sidelined. We're likely going to get a decent visual of what type of regular season role Mitchell will play right away in a potential shootout against the Green Bay Packers.
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There are plenty of Fantasy managers who don't like Zero-RB and would prefer to have safer running back options. However, if you like Zero-RB then this is a great blueprint to follow, especially if you pick at No. 7 overall.
I made the unfun decision to add Najee Harris to this team with my Round 6 pick. This allowed me to enjoy my ice cream in full peace and contentment in Rounds 9 and 10. Bucky Irving is such a fun pick! New offensive coordinator Liam Coen studied the run game under Sean McVay and worked with a rookie Kyren Williams (identical to Irving from a height-weight standpoint) in 2022. He then worked with Ray Davis during his monster 2023 season. The presence of Coen, Irving, and Round 1 bully-ball center Graham Barton could elevate Tampa's rushing offense in a meaningful way in 2024. Irving excels at avoided tackles and creating yards after contact and runs with a decisiveness that has lacked for Rachaad White during the first two years of his career with the Bucs. The rookie could demand a part-time role right away and has the ability to contribute on all three downs if White misses time. Irving caught 56 of 61 targets in his final season at Oregon. He's an awesome late-round rookie to grab if you feel confident in your RB2, especially in PPR formats.
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You can watch all of Bucky Irving's preseason plays here.
I doubt that I'll regret drafting Josh Allen. But there is plenty of uncertainty existing in regards to the quality of his pass-catchers. If we get a worst-case outcome, Allen's 2024 could resemble something similar to the 2023 Patrick Mahomes season. I'm plenty optimistic about Buffalo's position players, but it could go worse than I'm expecting. The offensive line has had to lose pieces over the years and now looks like a below-average unit. This may not be the same offensive juggernaut that has enabled Allen to elevate his game to the heights that we've seen. And on top of that, I struck out on the Allen-Dalton Kincaid stack. I hoped to land Kincaid in Round 4, but he went one pick before me. Looking back at it now, I see that Heath Cummings has Jalen Hurts (his Round 3 pick) ranked ahead of Allen. I could have let Allen slide and taken Kincaid in Round 3, and it's possible that I then would have been able to pair him with Allen in Round 4. Instead, I took Kyle Pitts in Round 5. And that was ultimately probably my riskiest pick of the draft.
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Kyle Pitts brings massive yardage creation upside.
Tight ends were leaving the board quickly in this draft. Every draft is different, which is why tiers are important. To me, Pitts and George Kittle mark the end of an elite tier of tight ends, and I didn't feel confident that either would make it back to me at the back end of Round 6 in this draft. So I went with Pitts. He brings yardage upside to the tight end position that is truly unique to him alone. My projections have Pitts finishing seventh in points at the TE position even with a TD projection of just 3.9. If he pushes beyond that number, Pitts could be a league-winner for me. Of course, he could break me (again) if the math equation does not actually matter when real-life football is being played. We will see!
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