The preseason is over, and final cuts are being made to NFL rosters this weekend as fantasy players gather for their drafts. Over the last month of preseason games we’ve witnessed some players seemingly come out of nowhere and emerge as potential contributor for 2017. Here are the top five based on average draft position (ADP), advanced stats and metrics, and opportunity.
Kenny Golladay – Lions WR, 177.3 ADP
Golladay has received arguably more hype than any other rookie wide receiver in the 2017 draft class. At 6-foot-4, 218-pounds, Golladay is a unique talent. When you compare Golladay to other players on the basis of his physical attributes and college numbers, the touted rookie is among productive names. Specifically, his Height-Adjusted Speed Score of 110.7 (92nd percentile), college market share of 41.8 percent (83rd percentile), and breakout age of 19.8 (68th percentile) place him in an elite cohort.
| Breakout Age | College Dominator Rating | Speed Score | |
| Demaryius Thomas | 19.7 | 70.90% | 124.4 |
| Calvin Johnson | 19.9 | 55.30% | 139 |
| Jordan Matthews | 18.1 | 48.30% | 110.1 |
| Miles Austin | 18.2 | 48.00% | 110.2 |
| Amari Cooper | 18.2 | 47.20% | 110.6 |
| Stephen Hill | 19.4 | 44.90% | 123.9 |
| Kenny Golladay | 19.8 | 41.80% | 110.7 |
This is an exceptional group despite the presence of the notorious NFL flameout, Stephen Hill. Overall, the players on this list enjoyed productive NFL careers. The gifted Golladay now has a chance to absorb a portion of the 95 targets in the Lions passing attack vacated by Anquan Boldin following the 2016 season. For a rookie who is already among elite players in regards to his athleticism, playing for a team that was top-three in three-receiver sets last season should afford him plenty of snaps right away.
De’Angelo Henderson – Broncos RB, 213.7 ADP
The Broncos backfield depth chart is tenuous. C.J. Anderson is the starter, Jamaal Charles is the change-of-pace back, and Devontae Booker will be in the mix after he’s recovered from his wrist injury, but all of them have significant weaknesses. Booker has missed most of training camp and likely won’t be ready by Week 1. When given the opportunity to start last year, he did poorly enough for the team to want to bring in Charles, who played well enough in the third preseason game to keep his roster spot even though he still looked a little stiff coming off his second ACL surgery. Most importantly, Anderson has underperformed expectations for consecutive seasons with a -4.7 Production Premium in 2015 and -10.3 Production Premium in 2016 (PlayerProfiler).
With these players in front of him, Henderson has a chance to emerge as a Zero RB producer during the season. As a college runner, Henderson was one of the most dominant backs in the 2017 rookie class. He was a true bell cow back at Coastal Carolina, indicated by his 45.4-percent market share (94th percentile). Henderson boasts a 4.48-second 40-yard dash (81st percentile), which Jonathan Bales has highlighted as a strong indicator of running back success. Here are Henderson’s athletic comps with sub-4.50 speed and 45-plus percent college dominance.
| College Dominator Rating | 40-Yard Dash | |
| Ray Rice | 45.10% | 4.42 |
| De’Angelo Henderson | 45.40% | 4.48 |
| Austin Ekeler | 45.70% | 4.48 |
| LaDainian Tomlinson | 46.20% | 4.46 |
| DeAngelo Williams | 47.10% | 4.5 |
| Donnel Pumphrey | 48.70% | 4.48 |
| Danny Woodhead | 49.00% | 4.43 |
| Christian McCaffrey | 50.70% | 4.48 |
| Matt Forte | 57.30% | 4.46 |
While Henderson missed a portion of the 2016 season, he turned in a full workload in 2015. In his most productive season, Henderson racked up 222 carries for 1,346 yards and 16 touchdowns while adding a career-high 40 receptions for 402 yards and three touchdowns through the air. No stranger to heavy workloads, Henderson has the pass-catching prowess to prove effective on third downs, which will help him get on the field faster and provide value in points-per-reception leagues.
Cole Beasley – Cowboys WR, 153.9 ADP
Dak Prescott is heading into his second season as the starting quarterback for the Cowboys, and Ezekiel Elliott is likely at some point to miss a significant number of games due to suspension. The Cowboys face the 10th-toughest schedule heading into the season and will likely have more negative game script than they had last season when they were last in pass attempts with 510. They will almost certainly throw more this year than they did last year, when Beasley had a serviceable 11.81 DraftKings points per game with a +2.10 Plus/Minus (per our Trends tool).
If the Cowboys throw more, that should benefit Beasley, who will likely see an increase on his 61.3 percent snap share (93rd). While Beasley wasn’t on the field as often as most stud receivers, his 16.3 percent Hog Rate is good for 10th among receivers, indicating that when Beasley was taking snaps he was a dominant presence. The cohort of receivers with top-10 Hog Rates last year is impressive.
|
2016 |
Hog Rate |
| Tyreek Hill | 20.0% |
| Julian Edelman | 18.3% |
| Julio Jones | 18.2% |
| A.J. Green | 18.0% |
| Mike Evans | 18.0% |
| Michael Crabtree | 17.4% |
| Odell Beckham | 16.9% |
| T.Y. Hilton | 16.4% |
| Demaryius Thomas | 16.3% |
| Cole Beasley | 16.3% |
Meanwhile, Dez Bryant finished 33rd with a 14.0 percent Hog Rate in 2016, suggesting that Beasley, not Bryant, is actually Prescott’s favorite receiver. After all, Beasley did lead the team with 98 targets.
One benefit of rostering Beasley in daily fantasy lineups is that he’s likely to have low ownership in guaranteed prize pools. This year FantasyLabs users can review ownership trends across GPPs of various buy-in levels with our DFS Ownership Dashboard, which is reason enough to subscribe to FantasyLabs. Monitor our Vegas Dashboard to see how the market views the Cowboys each week. With our DFS Contests Dashboard, you’ll be able to see throughout the season just how contrarian lineups with Beasley are. You can use our Correlations Matrix to get a sense of the statistics that might impact Beasley’s production most, and if you want to pair him with Dak you can use our Lineup Builder to create stacks.
Rex Burkhead – Patriots RB, 161.5 ADP
Anything Mike Gillislee can do, Burkhead can do better. It helps that Burkhead, unlike Gillislee, wasn’t injured for most of training camp. A high-end athlete as evidenced by his 120.5 SPARQ-x Score (73rd percentile), Burkhead sat on the bench for most of his four years with the Bengals before flashing late in 2016 to the tune of 74 carries for 344 yards and two rushing touchdowns, adding another 17 receptions for 145 yards out of the backfield. To put it into perspective, Gillislee has a total of 15 receptions for 79 yards and one touchdown since entering the league in 2013. Drafted in the same year, Burkhead has more than doubled those totals.
In his last full season at Nebraska (2011), Burkhead carried the ball 284 times for 1,357 yards and 15 touchdowns and hauled in 21 passes for 177 yards and two additional scores, posting an 8.9 percent college target share (63rd percentile). With exceptional burst and agility at 5-foot-10, 214-pounds, Burkhead wins in all game situations from short-yardage downs to two-minute drives. While Gillislee may seem to be the next LeGarrette Blount in New England, Burkhead is a Swiss Army knife offering a better all-around skill set with the requisite size to command goal-line carries and receiving skills to be a true bell cow back if the backfield touch distribution skews in his favor.
Alvin Kamara – Saints RB, 177.5 ADP
Trading away next year’s second-round pick for the opportunity to draft Kamara this year with a third-rounder, the Saints clearly value Kamara and will look to use him as a receiver throughout the season. Kamara is one of the truest pass-catching backs of this year’s rookie class, posting a 14 percent college target share (90th percentile) during his time at Tennessee, finishing 2016 with 40 receptions for 392 yards and four touchdowns. Although it’s easy to knock Kamara for his 23.3 percent market share (36th percentile), remember that he was a stud at Hutchinson Community College before transferring to Tennessee, rushing for 1,253 yards and 18 touchdowns in just nine games. Additionally, he had to share touches with a talented running back in Jalen Hurd for most of his time with the Volunteers, who ran a high percentage of their offense through dual-threat quarterback Joshua Dobbs in 2016.
In New Orleans, Kamara finds himself with a team that last year threw to backs 162 times (24.2 percent of all targets). Moreover, Travaris Cadet, John Kuhn, and Tim Hightower absorbed 100 of those targets. With 62 percent of the backfield’s targets up for grabs, Kamara could be the most prolific New Orleans receiving back since Darren Sproles in 2011-13.
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In researching for this piece I consulted and relied upon the data and advanced metrics of PlayerProfiler.
