Welcome the first installment of Boring Players Who Win 4-EYED Championships. Thinking of settling for vanilla ice cream when staring at various Ben & Jerry’s flavors? Maybe some vanilla bean ice cream? Sexy, no. Reliable, hell yeah!
We’re looking at each team for one player who you’ll see in your fantasy football draft and think “I mean, I guess I could draft him” and you won’t regret it. The run-of-the-mill RB, the whatever WR, the tedious TE, the quotidian QB (I had to Google that). You won’t tweet about them, but you’ll love their fantasy reliability.
Let’s kick things off with the AFC East’s Boring Players Who Win Championships!
Buffalo Bills – Cole “Boring” Beasley
It doesn’t get more vanilla than Cole Beasley. Look how excited he is to appear in this article! However, Cole is finally starting to get the off-season hype. Over the past month, his average draft position (“ADP”) has SKYROCKETED by nearly a whole round up to…the top of the 13th round.
Yet, in each of 5 of the past 6 seasons, Beasley has averaged over 10.3 yards per reception. In his first year with QB Josh Allen, Boring Ole Cole averaged 11.6 yards/reception. Also, last year, he was a top-30 WR in both targets and yards after the catch per reception. When eyeing your draft board for sexier names with similar ADPs, such as rookie WR Justin Jefferson and 2nd-year WR Parris Campbell, and before you think of drafting a DST in round 11, don’t forget Conventional Cole for stability in your flex spot or as a bye week fill-in WR.
Miami Dolphins – Jordan “Ho-Hum” Howard
Even Jordan Howard knows you’re not excited to draft him in the early 11th round. Who wants to draft Howard when the Dolphins also signed Matt “Fastest Man in the League” Breida this off-season?
Matt Breida reached 22.30 MPH on this 83-yard TD run, the fastest speed reached by a ball carrier on any play since the start of last season.@MattBreida is responsible for 2 of the top 3 fastest speeds reached in that span (22.30 MPH & 22.09 MPH).#CLEvsSF | #GoNiners pic.twitter.com/0a5cnOnfs6
— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) October 8, 2019
Howard shouldn’t be too sad. Pro Football Focus gave him a higher elusiveness rating (50.0, 31st among RBs) than Breida (43.3, 42nd). Breida does get many more of his yards from big plays, a whopping 42.4% of his rushing yards on designed runs that went for 15+ yards. Howard alternatively thrives on 4.3 yards per carry and volume, racking up 250+ carriers per season in Chicago and tracking to have 211 carries last year in Philly. For those thinking Breida will steal the passing down work in Miami, he saw just 1.83 targets per game over 12 games with San Fran in 2020. Howard saw 1.44 targets per game in his 9 games last year.
Ultimately, I think Howard and his 2-year $10 million contract gets the starting job over Breida and his 1-year $3.2 million contract. Miami may use a running back by committee, but the odds are that Breida will be injured for at least part of the season, leading to Howard gobbling up more snaps.
New England Patriots – Julian “I’m Not Dead Yet” Edelman
This might be the only article in which Julian Edelman is described as boring and unsexy. Yet, you, the fantasy football community, have left Jejune Julian for dead at his current ADP of WR36 in the back of the 7th round. Seriously:
Over the past six seasons in New England, Edelman has averaged almost 1,200 yards per season, including an injury-shortened 2015 regular season. Over that same time period, he never saw fewer than 111 targets, including his 10-game 2015 season. In 2020, Edelman’s 147 targets tied him for 4th among WRs with Keenan Allen and was only behind Michael Thomas, Allen Robinson (perhaps to be featured in a future article) and Julio Jones.
Edelman’s current ADP is obviously a reflection on the departure of TB to TB and great unknown of Jarrett Stidham. Ask yourself: will Julian Edelman and the New England passing offense take such a step back to the point that you’d consider drafting Will Fuller or Mike Williams, both with huge upside and bottomless pits for floors, over Steady Eddy? I’m putting my chips on Red-lman.
New York Jets – Jamison “Lost in the” Crowder
Another player brimming with joy to be featured. I present your current WR55 being drafted in the mid-11th round behind Dionte Johnson, Tyrell Williams and James Washington. Thoughts, Jamison?
Me too, Mr. Crowder. Me too. Although he had fewer than 1,000 yards in 2020, Jamison saw a handsome 118 targets. That’s sandwiched between DeVante Parker and Amari Cooper for 15th best among WRs. Fantasydata.com calculated his “true catch rate” – number of receptions divided by total catchable balls – as 87.6%, putting Crowder at WR14 between D.J. Moore and Brandin Cooks.
Now, Crowder did see 24.7% of the team’s targets in 2020. This will probably drop with the signing of Breshad Perriman and drafting of Denzel Mims in the 2nd round. However, it seems unlikely that Crowder will get lost in the crowd (just in case you missed my awesome pun the first time) with the next wideouts on the Jets’ depth chart being Josh Doctson, Vyncint Smith and Braxton Berrios. Count on Crowder the Consistent to be a reliable WR3 once again.
Hope all you #4EYEDfans enjoy your vanilla ice cream! See you next week for the NFC East’s Boring Players Who Win 4-EYED Championships!
