NFL Fantasy Football Draft Guide: Target List

By Scott L. - SL Sports Staff

Fantasy Football drafts can get very stressful when we're on the clock, the time is ticking down and we are torn between two or more players. That’s why creating a Target List is essential

Having a list of players we want to target on hand can help take the stress out of the draft process in real time and help us avoid pushing the panic button when on the clock, freezing under pressure or even clicking on the wrong player in the heat of the moment.

The list should be based on available statistical data and research, public information from the offseason and training camp, past experience, intuition and what our eyes tell us. 

For our starting lineup, the Target List should include players we are convinced we want on our team and about whom we have no doubts. If our starters are comprised only of players from this list, we know that we are going to be happy with our draft and most likely field a competitive team that can compete for a championship.

The Target List also should include potential bench players who drop well below what we believe their value to be or who we think will outperform their average draft position (ADP). For NFL teams we follow closely, these also may be players flying under most managers’ radar who are likely to play larger roles than what most people are expecting. 

These are the players we are hoping to steal later in a draft, but they can be the decisions that ultimately make or break our season.  

Building a useful Target List is tricker than it sounds, however, because there are so many great players. Players such as Ja’Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson and Cee Dee Lamb are amazing talents and incredibly productive when healthy. Clearly, they are among the top players in the NFL pretty much every year, but that doesn’t mean they automatically make our final Target List. If they don’t make the list, that also doesn’t guarantee that we won’t draft them. 

We know those players are elite, and if they drop to a certain level they must be selected even over someone who may be on our Target List. For that reason, they don’t necessarily need to be on our list, but we must be prepared to adapt and choose them if they are available as value picks. 

And maybe we do have questions about those players and aren’t as convinced as others are that they are “safe picks” over someone who is on our list. What happens to Lamb if the Cowboys season goes sideways or if Dan Prescott gets hurt and Dallas falls out of the race like last year? 

That’s a legitimate question, but he has caught more than 100 balls in each of the past three seasons and easily surpassed 1,000 yards all three years. Even with Prescott’s injury last year, Lamb caught 101 passes for nearly 1,200 yards. However, that was down from 1,749 yards and 135 catches he posted the previous year. If he lands somewhere in the middle of those numbers this year, is he worth taking over one of our targeted players early in the first round? Maybe not. 

Do we want to risk taking Justin Jefferson as a top-three pick when he’s been hobbled in training camp and suffered an injury that limited him to 68 catches two seasons ago before he bounced back to catch 103 balls last year? Three years ago he grabbed 128 passes.

Again, if he falls somewhere in the middle of those totals is he worth selecting near the top of the heap when we have someone we are convinced will at lest put up similar numbers who is on our Target List and available?

Not every fantasy football manager is going to approach a situation like this the same way or make the same decision that we would. But at least when we have a Target List and a player who is ranked much higher than our guy drops and is available, we have the decision narrowed down to two players and can react quickly. 

Maybe we go into a draft with a plan for the first round that has us targeting Jahmyr Gibbs and knowing that the one of the players we would definitely would take over him if they are available would be Chase or Bijan Robinson.

Participating in many mock or free drafts can help us narrow our Target List and understand exactly how we want to respond when presented with changing and unexpected circumstances. 

Bijan Robinson and Saquon Barkley also present an interesting first-round conundrum for fantasy football managers. Barkley is coming off the career year of all career years and is almost certainly heading for regression. In fact, the Eagles would be smart to cut his usage back given his past injury history and the number of touches he got last year. It’s a pretty safe bet that if the Eagles are in control of a playoff spot for most of the year, they will cut back on his workload substantially. 

Because of factors mostly outside of his control in Atlanta, Robinson was a disappointment his first season and really only emerged as a dominant fantasy performer the second half of last year. Do we really trust the Falcons enough at this point to take him first or second overall in the draft? Taking someone like Gibbs, who we feel may be the safer first-round RB pick, with one of the top three selections seems like too much of a stretch with David Montgomery still figuring to play a key role in Detroit. 

Robinson’s upside and age probably make him the better pick over Barkley at the top of Round 1, but do we have the fortitude to take Gibbs over the Eagles’ back at No. 3 or 4? Yes, we do, but you might not. 

We do know that we would take Chase over all of them, but not Jefferson right now given his preseason injury situation. And we don’t fully trust Lamb at this juncture of his career given the team expectations in Dallas. 

See how this works? The Target List makes life so much easier when the lights flip on and it’s crunch time. 

Our top-target wide receivers are Nico Collins and Brian Thomas. Collins initially was being picked at the top of the second round but now has dropped into the first round and keeps inching his way up. Thomas consistently has been selected in the 12-through-15 range.

Based on our Target List, we would love to be able to get Gibbs with picks three, four, five or even six, but in 95 percent of the mocks we’ve done he’s been gone by pick five. 

We prefer Collins over players like Malik Nabers, Amon Ra St. Brown and Puka Nacua. We probably even would take him over Lamb. 

If Gibbs is gone, are we willing to pay up a bit for Collins? The answer is yes.

We would consider paying up for Thomas, too. Here’s why: Our next targeted running back is Derrick Henry based on his physical presence, durability and high volume. We feel that he is as safe a running back pick as any that can be made.

Christian McCaffrey has the highest RB upside this year, but he’s burned too many fantasy managers too often going at the top of drafts over the years. 

Ashton Jeanty will get a ton of guaranteed volume, but the NFL is going to be an adjustment for him, and is his body ready for the beating it likely will take running 20-plus times a game while likely also catching four or five passes behind the Oakland offensive line?

We prefer Henry to both of them. Jonathan Taylor is in the conversation for us as well. 

Earlier this draft season, taking one of the two targeted receivers in the first round would have been a no-brainer for us given that Henry frequently was available as late as selection 17 or 18. That has changed dramatically recently, however, as Henry has moved into the first round. Lately we’ve seen him taken as high as No. 8. There still is a chance we could get Collins or Thomas and Taylor, but that hasn't proven to be true consistently in the drafts we've completed.

Meanwhile, McCaffrey at one point was being picked among the top five, but he now has dropped to the second round in many drafts. 

In an ideal world, getting Collins or Thomas in the first round and Henry or even Taylor in the second would have set us up for an incredible draft based on our Target List. With two Tier 1 players at RB and WR, at that point we might even have considered paying up for Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen or Jayden Daniels at quarterback. 

As the season approaches and average draft positions continue to shift, that scenario doesn’t seem likely. It's certainly not one we can bank on. But even though he’s not one of our targeted players, the possibility of getting a potential top-three talent like McCaffrey late in the first round is intriguing. 

Taking the obvious best player available always is a consideration, so when a talent like McCaffrey drops a full round in ADP without being injured while playing for a well-coached offense with a good quarterback that is lacking healthy weapons, any questions tend to get thrown out the window.

The problem with taking McDaffrey or Henry instead of paying up a bit for one of our targeted receivers is that instead of getting players we feel are elite at both RB and WR, we might end up with an elite RB while having to settle for a very good player who is a tier below the other two such as Ladd McConkey as our WR1. McConkey also is on our Target List. 

Paying up a few spots for Collins or Thomas still probably gives us a chance to select one of our other targeted running backs such as Bucky Irving or Chase Brown. If we don’t get one of them, high-volume beast Josh Jacobs might be available.

While we would miss out on Henry, we would have a bona fide elite WR with RBs to choose from who have a real opportunity to move into the top tier of backs if they improve on their breakout performances from a year ago. Jacobs likely can move into elite territory, too, if he stays healthy and sees similar usage to last year. 

The only reason we list Jacobs below the other two is because of his age and the amount of wear and tear on his body. He was as good as just about any back in football late last season when the weather got bad and the games became more important. 

There are many lessons to be learned from walking through these hypothetical scenarios:

• The Target List allows us to have a solid plan heading into a draft and makes decision-making much easier and less stressful.

  
  

• While it’s important to use the list as a guide, it’s more important to be willing to deviate from the list when presented with a draft opportunity we simply can’t refuse.

  
  

• When presented with a seemingly obvious selection, having a Target List allows us to quickly analyze that pick and look ahead to see what impact that selection might have on our options in future rounds. 

If we take McCaffrey instead of Collins or Thomas, are we going to be happy with McConkey as our WR1? If he’s gone, who else might be available? If none of our next tier of targeted WRs is available with our next pick but we can get Irving, Brown, Jacobs or even James Cook, are we going to be okay with two really strong running backs and lower-end players in our WR1 and WR2 slots?

In this case, if we were to get McCaffrey and let’s say Jacobs, it’s very possible that we would be choosing from a list of receivers that includes Marvin Harrison Jr., Terry McLaurin, Davante Adams, Mike Evans, DK Metcalf, DJ Moore, Jameson Williams, Cortland Sutton, Jaylen Waddle, DeVonta Smith or Calvin Ridley to be our WR1 and WR2

Is that acceptable to us? 

Harrison and Metcalf are on our Target List. McLaurin would be a steal at that point as long as he ends up back in camp and is ready to start the season. Evans and Moore definitely would be acceptable to us, while Sutton, Ridley and Williams would be okay but might be a bit of a stretch at WR2. We don’t have much interest in Waddle, Adams or Smith. 

Nothing is guaranteed, but having two potential elite running backs along with two of those guys at wide receiver would be a pretty nice start to the draft. Keep in mind that other receivers such as Jakobi Meyers, Deebo Samuel, Stefon Diggs, Ricky Pearsall, Zay Flowers, Jerry Jeudy, Rome Odunze, Cooper Kupp and even Chris Olave still probably would be out there and potential great fits at WR3.

Some very good tight ends who could produce like WR2 or W3 such as Sam LaPorta, TJ Hockenson, Travis Kelce, Evan Engram and Mark Andrews also could be available as well if we aren’t happy with the receivers still on the table.

And if we go the receiver route instead of one of those TEs, our top-targeted tight end, rookie Tyler Warren, could be an option later on although he is surging up many draft boards rapidly.

Speaking of rookies, we haven’t mentioned many as potential selections in this article, but readers can CLICK HERE to read our rookie draft breakdown. 

Depending on how the draft plays out, it’s possible that we could get one of those potential receivers as WR3 and still have an opportunity to take Bears high-volume running back D’Andre Swift, Panthers volume-monster Chuba Hubbard, Cardinals veteran stud James Conner, Chiefs starter Isiah Pacheco, Vikings veteran starter Aaron Jones or Giants likely stater Tyrone Tracy. 

Having a Target List along with a DO NOT DRAFT List allows us to think and respond quickly under pressure as the draft unfolds and to plan ahead on short notice so we can determine what impact selecting a particular player might have on our roster-building process. 

It also comes in handy if we get stumped and the clock is running down. When in doubt, always take someone from the Target List. That minimizes risk and generally should prevent catastrophic mistakes. 

CLICK HERE to see our DO NOT DRAFT List. 

The best fantasy football managers aren’t married only to their Target List. Finding diamonds in the rough who unexpectedly fall well below their market value and being prepared to pounce on those opportunities are what separate the good managers from the great ones and can lead to league championships.

Below is our complete Target List. Remember, these are not the only players we will consider drafting, but this list, when used in combination with our DO NOT DRAFT List and our Rookie Draft Breakdown, will give you an outline of the players we would consider at various stages of a draft. 

StatLogic Sports Fantasy Draft Target List

Jammer Gibbs - RB Lions

Nico Collins - WR Texans

Brian Thomas - WR Jaguars

Derrick Henry - RB Ravens

Bucky Irving - RB Buccaneers

Chase Brown - RB Bengals

Jonathan Taylor - RB Colts

Ladd McConkey - WR Chargers

Plan B if Henry, Irving or Brown are not available:

Josh Jacobs - RB Packers

Jaxon Smith-Njigba - WR Seahawks

Marvin Harrison Jr. - WR Cardinals

James Cook - RB Bills

DK Metcalf - WR Steelers

Terry McLaurin - WR Commanders

DJ Moore - WR Bears

D’Andre Swift - RB Bears

Chuba Hubbard - RB Panthers

Isiah Pacheco - RB Chiefs

Tyler Warren - TE Colts

Evan Engram - TE Broncos

Zach Charbonnet - RB Seahawks

Jakobi Meyers - WR Raiders

Ricky Pearsall - WR 49ers

Emeka Egbuka - WR Buccaneers

Deebo Samuel - WR Commanders

Stefon Diggs - WR Patriots

Kyler Murray - QB Cardinals

Tyrone Tacy - RB Giants

Bill Croskey-Merritt - RB Commanders

Travis Etienne - RB Jaguars

Rome Odunze - WR. Bears

Cooper Kupp - WR Seahawks

Rshid Shaheed - WR Saints

Christian Kirk - WR Texans

Michael Pittman - WR Colts

Keenan Allen - WR Chargers

Justin Fields - QB Jets

Drake Maye - QB Patriots

Dak Prescott - QB Cowboys

Jared Goff - QB Lions

Jordan Love - QB Packers 

Dalton Kincaid - TE Bills

Jonnu Smith - TE Steelers