If there’s a worse time to deliver a fantasy football mock draft than the week leading up to the wild-card round, we can’t think of when it might be. In fact, this feels like exactly the wrong moment to do what we’re about to do.
But we’ve never allowed reason or good judgment to derail a clickable piece of evergreen content around here, so we’re certainly not going to let it happen now.
Here’s a best-guess, annotated two-round 2024 mock, for the obsessives among you who crave such things …
Round One
Realistically, this pick probably won’t work out because it would require CMC to go back-to-back as the overall RB1, which rarely occurs in this era. Todd Gurley is the last back to pull it off (2017-18) and it hadn’t previously happened since LaDainian Tomlinson’s peak (2006-07). But, hey, you gotta take someone with the first pick. McCaffrey has finished top three among fantasy backs in four of the past six seasons, so he’s as safe as anyone at an unsafe position. Also, as we’ve just experienced, his ceiling is the highest in the game.
Hill is an unguardable receiver tied to an elite offense and he just led his position in both receiving yards (1,799) and touchdowns (13), despite missing Week 15 due to injury. He reached triple-digit yardage in eight games and topped 80 yards in three others. Just an unreasonable and absurd player.
At the moment, we can’t actually tell you who’s going to be throwing Jefferson the football in opening week, but we can guarantee he’ll make that quarterback’s on-field life much easier than it’s ever been. Jefferson only appeared in 10 games this season and he exited two of them with injuries, yet he still finished with 1,074 yards.
We can’t give you the name of the guy who’s gonna be the NFL’s first 2000-yard receiver, but we’d hate to bet against Jefferson. If it’s not him, we’re pretty sure it will be one of the top four wideouts in this mock.
Lamb is carrying a nine-game touchdown streak into the postseason, which is, of course, ridiculous. Dallas waited until October to make the team’s best player the centerpiece of the offense, but at least it eventually happened. He finished second in the NFL in scrimmage yards this year (1,862), a rare and badass achievement for a wide receiver.
Chase and Joe Burrow were simultaneously healthy for only five games in the 2023 season. In those five weeks, Chase caught 40 passes for 537 yards and five spikes on 58 targets. Good times. If you like Chase two or three picks higher than this, no one will argue. He might very well lead the NFL in targets next season if Tee Higgins relocates via free agency.
Taylor is still two weeks shy of turning 25 years old and he already has a league-winning season to his credit. It wasn’t so long ago that he was the consensus No. 1 overall fantasy pick, coming off a year in which he led the league in scrimmage yards and touchdowns. He gave us the full RB carnival ride in 2023, featuring injury, a trade demand and simmering hostility toward team ownership. But when he actually played, he was pretty awesome. Taylor reached the end zone in each of his last six games, closing the season with a 30-carry, 188-yard rushing binge against the Texans. His team’s offense should be a party in 2024.
Philadelphia has been the weirdest sort of near-contender this season, on fumes and sputtering in the closing weeks. Brown himself didn’t cross the goal line over the team’s final six games and he gave us an injury scare in the finale, luckily dodging a serious issue. Let’s just recall that for basically three-quarters of the season, Brown was an unstoppable force. He finished with career highs in receptions (106), receiving yards (1,456) and catch percentage (67.1).
Atlanta is moving on from the Arthur Smith Theater of Pain, a promising development for the fantasy outlook of the team’s best offensive weapons. It’s wild that Robinson found himself in a job-share as a rookie after the Falcons drafted him eighth overall and it became immediately apparent that he was a rare talent, even by NFL standards.
Robinson is an elite receiving threat and outrageously elusive. It’s difficult to imagine the scenario in which a coaching change won’t boost his fantasy profile.
Hall was a one-man wrecking crew in the final weeks of the season, when we needed him most in fantasy. He handled a ridiculous 39 touches in the season-ending win at New England, rushing for 178 yards. Hall was peppered with targets this season (95), particularly as the Jets entered the Tim Boyle/Trevor Siemian phase of their campaign. That high-volume receiving role kept him relevant in our game during a rough nine-week midseason stretch in which he averaged just 2.5 YPC. He clearly isn’t a lock to be the centerpiece of an Aaron Rodgers-led passing attack in 2024, but a richer offensive environment is clearly a win.
St. Brown had only one game all season in which he failed to reach double-digit fantasy points, a silly level of consistency for any wide receiver. He delivered 100-plus receiving yards in nine different weeks, plus he gave us another four games with at least 70 yards. In the end, ARSB established new single-season highs across the board: 119 receptions, 1,515 yards, 10 TDs, 94.7 YPG and 9.2 yards per target. His team will almost certainly have a new OC next season, but every essential offensive weapon should remain in place.
Too late? Too early? Dunno, but we have the next eight or nine months to figure out the Williams situation. He was a machine whenever he was active this season, making 15 house calls over a dozen games and averaging a league-best 95.3 rushing YPG. Williams was also dominant during the most important period on the fantasy calendar, delivering 360 total yards and five spikes in Weeks 15-17.
Sean McVay clearly prefers an every-down, all-situation featured runner, a throwback trait for an otherwise exceedingly modern head coach. It’s a philosophy greatly appreciated by the fantasy community.
Gibbs closed his season by scoring five touchdowns over his final four games, splitting the red-zone and goal-to-go carries evenly with David Montgomery. It wasn’t always clear that Gibbs was going to justify his team’s cartoonish draft night exuberance, but, in the end, he got there. He finished his first pro season with 1,261 scrimmage yards, 11 scores and 52 receptions on 71 targets.
Round Two
Wilson opening his career with back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons despite the worst QB situation in recent memory is just … well, wow. It’s an all-time underrated achievement. He deserves a full, healthy season from Aaron Rodgers.
Many of you are going to pivot away from Diggs in drafts next summer, feeling that he sabotaged your team when you needed him most this season. It’s your loss, because this is still an elite receiver, the unchallenged top target in a dangerous offense. Fade Diggs at your own peril.
Barkley closed his season with a respectable surge, confirming that he remains one of the league’s premier multi-use running backs. He topped 1,200 scrimmage yards for the fourth time in his career, reaching double-digit touchdowns in a mostly miserable offense.
This is roughly the point in the draft at which A) no receiver or running back seems obviously better than the next dozen-or-so and B) none of the tight ends quite deserve second-round status, because the top tier at that spot is kinda loaded. So let’s just go ahead and snag the QB1, a dude who just delivered 44 combined touchdowns.
17. Puka Nacua, Los Angeles Rams
Six months ago, very few of you had heard of this person and no one was drafting him in leagues of standard size. Today, he feels like a filthy steal in the second round. What a ridiculous and beautiful game.
It wasn’t always pretty or efficient, but Etienne just delivered a top-three positional finish and his second straight season with over 1,400 scrimmage yards. He’s the unchallenged featured back for a team that is somehow both ascending and depressing.
19. Deebo Samuel, San Francisco 49ers
If you wanted to take Brandon Aiyuk at or near this spot in place of Samuel, we couldn’t really find fault with the decision. Here, it’s simply a stylistic preference. Imagine attempting to tackle this man:
Aiyuk actually averaged 9.4 more yards per game than Samuel, but the latter had the touchdown edge. Samuel gave us nine TDs in Weeks 12-17, so his timing was impeccable.
Moore leveled up in 2023, establishing new career highs in everything we care about, including a stellar 70.6% catch rate. He’d never experienced life in the NFL with even a league-average passer, so perhaps we shouldn’t be shocked by the elite production. We don’t yet know who will be at the controls of Chicago’s offense in 2024, but the QB situation definitely won’t be downgraded.
If you had Kupp on a roster this year, you experienced the full range of receiver-related emotions. His season opened with injury panic, then transitioned to “OH YEAH, HE’S BACK!” before descending into “Oh no, he’s washed” territory. In the end, he was fine. Kupp was productive when healthy and he gave us four games with 100-plus yards. He has one of the greatest receiving seasons in league history on his resume, so let’s not ignore his ceiling.
Cook’s season ended somewhat quietly and his year was a little light on touchdowns (because his QB is an unapologetic vulture), but his best games were ridiculous. He gained 1,567 total yards, caught 44 passes and averaged 5.6 yards per touch. If we could somehow secure a guarantee that Buffalo won’t make any significant backfield additions in the offseason, Cook would jump a few spots in this mock.
23. Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles
As long as the NFL doesn’t outlaw the Eagles’ signature offensive play, which works spectacularly for them and only occasionally for other teams, it’s difficult to see how Hurts could possibly finish as anything other than a top-three fantasy QB.
Collins vaulted over several receiver tiers this season, placing himself firmly in the second-round conversation for 2024. He averaged 86.5 receiving YPG this year, ranking seventh in the league. His best moments seemed unfair:
Honestly, this whole C.J. Stroud-Collins-Tank Dell situation seems like an emerging crisis for the rest of the league. The Texans are already a huge problem, and these guys are just getting started.
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