• Third-year receiver Khalil Shakir should look to earn plenty of fantasy-relevant looks in Buffalo: With a thinner receiving corps and an elite quarterback, Shakir's upside makes him a strong value in drafts right now.
• There’s still likely juice left to squeeze out of Zach Ertz: The Washington Commanders lack options outside of Terry McLaurin, which should allow Ertz to be a bigger part of the offense than expected.
• Dominate your fantasy draft: Subscribe to PFF+ to get full access to PFF’s full suite of fantasy football tools, including the fantasy mock draft simulator, live draft assistant, fantasy rankings, cheat sheets and more! Click here to subscribe!
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
There is often plenty of value in the later rounds of fantasy drafts because many aren't as tuned into the options going outside of the first 10 rounds or so. This list will highlight some of the more enticing fantasy options to target in those double-digit rounds. Some of these players are likely to be on the rise for those paying attention, so get in on them at a discount while you still can.
QB Will Levis, Tennessee Titans
- Sleeper ADP: 205.1
Levis did not get a full season under his belt as a rookie, as he spent the first half of last season backing up starter Ryan Tannehill before circumstances led to a change. Levis took over in Week 8. Things started great, as he delivered four passing touchdowns in his first NFL start, but that ultimately ended up accounting for 50% of his entire passing touchdown total through all nine of his starts the rest of the year.
Brian Callahan takes over as Titans head coach and will hopefully help with one of the biggest issues that seemed to hurt Levis last year — a heavy reliance on low-percentage throws. Levis’ 11.1-yard average depth of target last season was the highest in the NFL, and quite a bit higher than Tannehill he was a starter (8.4). For Levis and the new coaching staff, the focus has to be on higher-percentage completions for him to properly develop after his 57 20-plus-yard throws were the 14th most in the league, tied with C.J. Stroud, who played six more games and had nearly twice as many dropbacks.
Adding to Levis’ sleeper potential this season will be his improved receiving corps, including the additions of Calvin Ridley and Tyler Boyd to join DeAndre Hopkins, which moved the Titans from ranking 30th in PFF’s receiving corps ranks in 2023 to 12th heading into 2024.
QB Drake Maye, New England Patriots
- Sleeper ADP: 222.6
Maye is currently in a starting quarterback battle with veteran Jacoby Brissett for Week 1, but it’s more than likely the third-overall pick will become the starting quarterback sooner rather than later, even if not for Week 1. As a two-year starter at North Carolina, Maye put together one of the more encouraging collections of passing metrics for a quarterback prospect in recent years. This includes an 8.2% big-time-throw rate (97th percentile) and a 2.1% turnover-worthy-play rate (95th percentile) while dominating the PFF stable metrics over these past two years despite a lesser supporting cast than Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels.
While his passing ability is promising, Maye isn’t lacking as a rushing threat either, averaging 8.4 rushing fantasy points per game for his career, which is nearly identical to Williams (8.5). His 8.3 rush attempts per game rank behind only Daniels in this year’s class, and he delivered encouraging rushing metrics when doing so, ranking 74th percentile in missed tackles forced per attempt (0.20) and 88th percentile in yards after contact per attempt (3.54).
While his passing weapons aren’t necessarily elite in New England, he didn’t have such an arsenal in college but was still able to find success. As an undrafted quarterback in most single-QB formats, deeper redraft leagues should consider stashing Maye for the potentially better upside he offers with his passing and rushing prowess, compared to other truly late quarterback options.
RB Dylan Laube, Las Vegas Raiders
- Sleeper ADP: 261.4
Laube currently sits behind Zamir White, Alexander Mattison and Ameer Abdullah on the depth chart with the expectation that he will at least pass the latter two options and earn a relevant passing-down role in this offense. Through the first two preseason games, the Raiders rotated backs by drive, which indicates that they might not be fully sold on Zamir White as a starter.
While Laube has a shot to work his way into some of the starting running back’s carries, the better shot for fantasy relevance likely comes from his potential to lead the backfield on passing downs. Laube offers a strong profile as a receiver for his career coming out of the FCS, as he posted three straight seasons with at least an 81.1 receiving grade, including a 90.5 in 2023. He’s also earned at least 60 targets in each of the past two seasons while delivering a career-high of over 700 yards and seven TDs as a receiver in 2023. With Mattison not offering much of a receiving profile at all while Abdullah is now 31 years old, it’s entirely plausible that Laube takes over that role sooner rather than later, which would up his value in deeper and PPR formats.
RB Chuba Hubbard, Carolina Panthers
- Sleeper ADP: 153.4
The Panthers were the first team to take a running back in this year’s NFL draft, which signaled that Hubbard’s time as a starter was unlikely to last much longer. Jonathon Brooks is the top Panthers running back being drafted at the moment as RB28, but he’s also less than a year removed from a torn ACL, causing the team to confirm that he may not be ready for the start of the year. Brooks only has one year of starting experience and coming off the ACL without much time to work into practices with the team is going to cause a slow start as he’s eased into action. In the meantime, Hubbard figures to be the primary beneficiary of that absence.
Hubbard won the Panthers starting running back job last season due to Miles Sanders‘ missed time and underwhelming performances, and as a result, Hubbard served as a decent fantasy option in the back half of last season. Hubbard ranked as the PPR RB10 from Weeks 12-17 when he was fully embraced as the lead back while his 79.4 rushing grade ranked as the 17th-best mark among all backs on the year. Hubbard should serve as the lead back once again, even if for the first half of the year before Brooks is fully healthy, which is still more valuable than his current ADP would indicate, making him a valuable target late in drafts.
WR Josh Palmer, Los Angeles Chargers
- Sleeper ADP: 151.8
Palmer has consistently found a way to make himself more valuable for fantasy than his preseason ADP would indicate, and this season should be no exception. Palmer barely cracked the top 60 wide receivers drafted for the first time in his career this offseason despite finishing outside that range in points per game only in his rookie year. However, even in that rookie season, he was able to deliver 10.9 PPR points per game across the final five games once he became a regular part of the offense. Since then, he’s posted no worse than 10.6 PPR points per game in a season, often being helped by either Keenan Allen and/or Mike Williams missing time — both of whom are no longer on the team.
Palmer is currently being drafted four rounds after rookie teammate Ladd McConkey, and while there’s plenty of reason to like McConkey, it’s no guarantee that he leads the Chargers in receiving production over Palmer, who has an established connection with quarterback Justin Herbert. When Williams went down in Week 3 last year, Palmer posted 2.01 yards per route run from Week 4 on, which ranked 27th among wide receivers. In that span, he also posted 12.4 PPR points per game across seven appearances, which ranked as the PPR WR35 over that span, a chunk of which was played without Herbert at quarterback.
WR Khalil Shakir, Buffalo Bills
- Sleeper ADP: 142.7
Shakir has a strong shot to emerge as one of the top target earners in a high-end offense with an elite quarterback. Shakir became a regular in Buffalo’s offense in Week 7 last season, finishing second on the team to only Stefon Diggs in target rate (14.1%) and total targets (51). He also led the team in receiving yards (646) and yards per route run (1.78) and tied for the team lead in touchdowns (three) from that point on, including the playoffs.
Shakir averaged around a 72% route participation rate once he became a regular in the Bills' offense last season, which led to 9.0 PPR points per game while contending with Diggs' volume. For Shakir to maintain or improve his fantasy production in 2024, he’ll have to continue being a regular in the lineup and average around 75% of routes run for the year.
Shakir departed college with an 86th-percentile mark in career yards per route run (2.80) among prospects since 2019, doing so as more than just a slot-only wide receiver. Shakir also ranked in the 77th percentile in yards per route run when lined up wide (2.61) and the 81st percentile from the slot (3.01). While he has spent just 27.3% of his snaps out wide in the NFL, he'll need to stay on the field in different personnel packages as more than just a slot receiver to break out — which isn’t an impossible task, considering his ability. Also, taking into account the current injury status of Curtis Samuel and the lack of other starting options to fill those outside roles, Shakir’s workload has the potential to increase this season making for a great value based on his current ADP.
TE Zach Ertz, Washington Commanders
- Sleeper ADP: 258.2
Ertz is coming off a season-ending injury in 2023 but appears ready for the 2024 season as he joins a new team in Washington. He reunites with offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, who he had some success with at the end of 2021 and into 2022 when he averaged 10.6 and 11.6 points per game, respectively. While 2023 was not Ertz’s best showing with 7.4 points per game, he was still earning targets at a decent rate, even if that started to tail off before his injury and Trey McBride began to emerge. Ertz’s 22.6% target rate was a top-five mark among tight ends through the first seven games of the year last year, highlighting that he can still be a key part of an offense, especially one in need of secondary pass-catchers.
Ertz isn’t likely to even get drafted in most leagues, but for those deeper leagues or two-tight-end formats, he offers a relatively safe floor while in the lineup, with the potential upside of the second-best passing target in this offense. With Jahan Dotson getting traded and a lot of unproven options outside of Terry McLaurin at wide receiver, Ertz could end up starting this season as a bigger part of the offense than more are expecting, even if he can’t maintain that role for an entire season. There is still a lot of free value with him right now that fantasy drafters should take advantage of in those deeper leagues.
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