My pre-draft rookie rankings
As always, I'm not a rookie guru, but I'll get some takes off
The NFL draft is this week, and with it we will learn what is arguably the most important piece of the puzzle for each prospect in the 2023 rookie class. There are two parts to that — landing spot and draft capital — that will give us an indication both how the NFL views each player from a talent perspective, and also what the early-career opportunity might be like.
Part of why I don’t do a ton of rookie work before the NFL draft is because of how important that piece of the puzzle is. The bigger reason is just that there are so many people far better at it, and I trust they’ll cover the analysis as well as I would have expected to. I’ve been a redraft fantasy football player for nearly 25 years, but I used to more or less just fade rookies in redraft, and I didn’t start playing dynasty until after my fantasy football content career started. I’m only now at a point where I feel like I have enough years of dynasty experience to really have a feel for the things sharper players talk about, and how those manifest over multiple seasons, but it’s still not something I see as worth my energy — or your time reading — to get my unformed thoughts on a topic where I’d personally rather defer to others.
All that said, I’m in a dynasty league with a rookie draft that occurs prior to the NFL draft, and we’re deep into it, in the fourth and final round. I’ve already made seven selections — most in the later rounds — and that process has certainly led me to dig into the profiles a bit more. And it’s been something of an annual tradition around here for me to at least fire off whatever rookie takes I have, in some format, right around the week of the NFL draft. So without further ado, while I don’t pretend to have any great chops analyzing, I’m more than happy to offer up how I am thinking about this rookie class for fantasy purposes in these final days before everything changes.
We’ll assume a SuperFlex and TE Premium format for the below ranks, and I’ll tier out the players. As I mentioned, draft capital and to a much lesser degree (and often overweighted) landing spot will shift these rankings quite a bit in just a few days. The biggest note on draft capital is for any prospect you like, you’d really like them to go by the end of Day 2 (by the end of Round 3). Hit rates fall off considerably after that point, which is widely assumed to be because it’s an indication of how the team feels about the player, and essentially how much opportunity they are likely to step right into versus how much they’ll have to earn in limited offseason reps. A WR going in Round 3 or Round 5 is no different as an actual player, but how the team that selects him views him — and the chances they’ll give him to be a legit rotational player who can show off how good he is — can be vastly different. So when I refer to draft capital, I’m essentially just referring to that.
Tier 1
1. Bijan Robinson
2. Jaxon Smith-Njigba
3. Bryce Young
4. Jahmyr Gibbs
Honestly, I’m already ready to abandon ship on this exercise. There is a solid top six or so in this class, but where you draw tier lines is extremely difficult to identify. Right now, I think Bryce Young is the safest QB prospect, and as the overwhelming favorite to go No. 1, I like the situation he’ll walk into with Frank Reich and Josh McCown.
From a dynasty perspective, that means value safety. I feel most confident there aren’t really scenarios where Young’s value could crater between now and post-draft, or also between now and next offseason. Assuming he really does go No. 1, he’s going to play, and I think the situation is set up where he’ll play reasonably well. I also buy the conversation around him having the potential to run a bit more than his college profile suggested, which should help the way he’s viewed over the early part of his career. And then there’s a ton of optimism around his passing potential, which is important less for how his fantasy profile lines up and how he scores points, and more for how he is viewed as a long-term player. If the Trey Lance thing has taught us anything, it’s that uncertainty about accuracy and the passing side of things can quickly infect even the NFL organization that invested in the player.
Bijan Robinson is widely regarded as a fantastic RB prospect, and sounds like a lock to go in Round 1. He has a three-down profile, but I don’t have him in his own tier largely because I think there’s a bit too much certainty he can’t bust just based on how fortunate we’ve been over the past several seasons with high-end RB prospects like him hitting. If you go back a bit further, there were some that had strong profiles that didn’t make it, and I’m merely arguing for some uncertainty.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba is about as can’t-miss as Bijan, probably, but with some concern about his ultimate ceiling as a slot-first guy. I was really encouraged by his testing this offseason, with elite agility numbers and even a strong 40 time. The upside is a slot-plus profile like Cooper Kupp or Amon-Ra St. Brown, and I don’t shy away from guys being slot-first players, particularly for PPR formats where that profile can lead to massive reception numbers when it hits.
Jahmyr Gibbs is another borderline can’t-miss prospect, where he’s crazy athletic and it showed at Alabama. His receiving profile in particular is just ridiculous on a per-route basis for a RB. That’s something Shawn Siegele ran through on a recent episode of Stealing Bananas, and he breaks it down far better than I could. The concern for Gibbs is merely whether his smaller size will limit the ultimate touch upside — specifically the all-important goal-line work more so than low-value rush attempts — but there’s a strong floor for a guy who looks like he’ll immediately be one of the best receiving backs in the NFL from Day 1. He’s not tiny, either, just not necessarily “three-down” big, and the NFL does seem to really like him with rumors he’ll go in Round 1 Thursday night.