Both Alvin Kamara of the New Orleans Saints and Joe Mixon of the Houston Texans enter the 2024 season with some questions that fantasy managers will undoubtedly want answered.
Can Kamara’s solid, but not spectacular, 2023 season be duplicated? Or is this the season he finally shows his age?
And can Mixon be a productive fantasy player on a new team that appears loaded with weapons on offense?
Here are the fantasy outlooks for Kamara and Mixon heading into Week 1.
Week 1 Fantasy Outlook for Alvin Kamara
Kamara enters this season No. 18 RB in Pro Football Network’s consensus fantasy football rankings.
Quick, who can name the player who was third among running backs in fantasy points per game average last season after Christian McCaffrey and Kyren Williams?
Spoiler alert: it was Alvin Kamara.
The veteran running back, who missed the first three games of last season as part of an NFL suspension, was a force after he returned. He has at least 17 fantasy points in each of his first five games, including three games with 20 or more fantasy points.
But his overall numbers may be telling fantasy managers that he is beginning to slow down. Kamara averaged 53.4 rush yards a game, his lowest average since his rookie season of 2017 (45.5). And while he once again was a premiere pass catcher for a running back, with 75 receptions, those produced not just a career-low 6.2 yards a reception, but he finished with only one touchdown catch, tying his fewest in a season.
Week 1 Fantasy Outlook for Joe Mixon
Mixon is the RB17 in PFN’s consensus rankings. After seven consistently productive seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals, Mixon begins season number eight with the Houston Texans.
And while Mixon has the good fortune to go from having Joe Burrow as his quarterback to C.J. Stroud, from a fantasy standpoint, there are fair questions as to whether or not he can be as productive as he was with the Bengals.
Last season, Mixon averaged 15.1 fantasy points a game, the sixth straight season he has averaged at least 14 fantasy PPG. He also topped 1,000 rushing yards for the fourth time in his career (1,034), and while he may not be at the same level as Kamara as a pass catcher, Mixon did have 52 receptions, the second straight season with at least 50 catches.
But now he joins a Texans team that not only has a star at quarterback in Stroud but also possesses perhaps the finest trio of wide receivers in the league in Stefon Diggs, Nico Collins, and Tank Dell.
The glass is half-full fantasy manager could easily point out that Mixon was a productive fantasy player who played alongside Burrow and wide receivers Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and Tyler Boyd.
The glass-half-empty fantasy manager is likely asking just how much more value Mixon will be able to provide this season than in years past.
Who Should I Start in Week 1?
According to Pro Football Network’s Fantasy Football Start/Sit Optimizer, Kamara is the slightly better choice of the two for fantasy managers to start. Kamara is projected to finish with 12.6 points, with 46 rushing yards, three receptions, and 26 receiving yards.
That slightly outperforms Mixon’s projections: 11.9 fantasy points, 46 rush yards, 2 receptions, and 17 receiving yards.
I agree with the optimizer in this matchup. Kamara will likely be out to show he’s not through being an impactful player, while Mixon is one of a handful of offensive weapons for the Texans to put on display in Week 1.
Kamara also has been excellent in getting a season off to a good start. In five of his last six seasons, Kamara produced at least 18 fantasy points in his first game, including four games with at least 20 fantasy points.
Kyle Soppe’s Fantasy Outlook for Kamara and Mixon in Week 1
Alvin Kamara: I’m largely out on Kamara this season. He’s pretty clearly past the peak of his powers, and while the pass-catching is still an asset, his ability to do anything else has me worried from a consistency perspective.
READ MORE: Soppe’s Fantasy Football RB Busts for 2024
Yards per carry (carries per rushing TD):
- 2017: 6.1 YPC (TD every 15 carries)
- 2018: 4.6 YPC (TD every 13.9 carries)
- 2019: 4.7 YPC (TD every 34.2 carries)
- 2020: 5.0 YPC (TD every 11.7 carries)
- 2021: 3.7 YPC (TD every 60 carries)
- 2022: 4.0 YPC (TD every 111.5 carries)
- 2023: 3.9 YPC (TD every 36 carries)
That said, I’m fine with deploying him in this spot, and maybe using a big game as an excuse to move on from him. The Panthers allowed a touchdown on just under 5% of running back carries a season ago, easily the highest rate in the league. It’s a number so high that it could prevent Kamara’s seemingly inevitable regression.
Carolina also blitzed at the fifth-highest rate last season, and we all know that Carr doesn’t need an excuse to use his safety valve.
Kamara was unable to exploit this matchup last season, but I’m not worried about the predictive powers of that. I have him ranked as a starter in all spots this week.
Joe Mixon: We know who Mixon is as a player, and while the lack of upside is a pain, the reasonable stability to open the season slots him into fantasy lineups across the board.
Let the record show that I was lower on him than most coming into the season, and I stand by that (Houston saw their close-game run rate fall from 47.7% through eight weeks to 39.3% for the remainder of the fantasy season as Stroud’s star ascended), but I have him as RB16 this week against a Colts defense that allowed a touchdown once every 27.3 running back carries (fourth-highest).
Efficiency has never been Mixon’s calling card, and I worry about his work in the passing game when it comes to sustaining upside. It’s getting a little cute to get this far ahead of the trade market, but the Texans should score over 100 points on the field in September (Colts, Bears, Vikings, and Jaguars), potentially being a tide that lifts all boats in the short term.
Be careful. A late bye (Week 14), a tough finale (Chiefs and Ravens in Weeks 16-17), and the AFC East gauntlet on the schedule all create a worrisome floor. There’s a world in which Mixon is an RB1 heading into October and creates a selling window to better your chances of winning a title; you heard it here first.