Puka Nacua, WR, Los Angeles Rams
Overall: 7, WR4
Puka Nacua and Malik Nabers are two players going in the first rounds with sky-high ceilings. These two are certainly the picks you make with a “if you’re not first, you’re last” mentality. While I can respect that, I’m far too worried about both to sink first-round capital into them. At least with Nabers, you understand what you’re signing up for by drafting a Giant, but the Rams have legit championship aspirations.
We know that Nacua already has some of his own health questions, but that doesn’t worry me as much since anyone at any time can get hurt, and players like Christian McCaffrey are still going in a similar spot. What worries me more is that Matthew Stafford has yet to practice in camp, just three weeks away from kick-off. We’ve seen the Rams get off to slow starts before, and being unable to practice with your starting quarterback will certainly cause similar issues. They start the season with the Texans, Titans, and Eagles, two defenses projected to be excellent and another potentially sneaky one.
Not only will that possibly put you in the hole at the beginning of the season, but the headache of worrying about Stafford and Nacua’s health won’t go away. We saw this same thing happen in 2022, where Cooper Kupp did get fed for the first half of the season when he was healthy, but the Rams quickly fell off the map once Stafford couldn’t stay on the field.
Now Davante Adams is involved. He is 32, but his play has yet to drop off like Cooper Kupp’s did last year. Even then, Kupp and Nacua had similar total targets, 100 vs. 106, throughout the season in the same number of games started (11). If Adams proves to be a healthy and reliable target, I believe he’ll be open often enough to take command in this passing game. That doesn’t mean Nacua will ride the pine, but it does mean he may not be the reliable WR1 you drafted him to be.
It would be a different story if he were a redzone monster, but in his incredible rookie season, he still only hauled in six scores on 160 targets. He was on pace for the same or fewer last year, finishing with three in 11 games. Despite his play style, the Rams don’t lean on him in the red zone, whereas I think they could with Adams alongside Kyren Williams.
The upside of Nacua isn’t in question, but his average draft position (ADP) increased after an injured year, and that left me far more nervous than excited to draft him. There feel like far too many pitfalls to comfortably select him in the first round.
Bo Nix, QB, Denver Broncos
Overall 79, QB8
While this applies to redraft as well, this is especially true of superflex leagues. I love Bo Nix. Last year, I pounded the table for anyone to draft Nix at his ADP, where all he had to do was play every game to return value. This year feels like his value rubber banded a little too far, and thus I’m getting almost no shares of him.
I still understand where the hype is coming from. Everyone decided to write off Sean Payton and were reminded he’s an incredible offensive mind, and now, going into year two with some reasonable improvements, they could take off together. Nix’s finish last year, considering his first four weeks were horrific, was very promising, as is the offensive line and his rushing ability on top. That all adds up in a big way, and managers are betting on him returning that value.
Thats the end of Bo Nix’s night in San Francisco after a half of football.
6/11
31 Passing Yards🔥
12 Air Yards🔥
3 Points scored against niners practice squad🔥
1 Safety🔥HAVE A DAY, BO NIX🔥💯💯💯💯🙏🏾 pic.twitter.com/niiQGDQcbQ
— kj (@JCMjukes) August 10, 2025
I believe Nix still has the tools and situation to be a top-10 fantasy QB, but it would require a lot to go right for him to exceed his ADP, setting him up to be a bust at his value. For starters, his stats take a hit when you remove his 321-yard, four-touchdown game in week 18 against the Chiefs’ backups. That brings his totals to 25 passing touchdowns, 3,450 passing yards, and just under 400 rushing yards. There’s a real chance that week offsets his bad first four weeks, but it still doesn’t do true justice to his totals.
Next, the Broncos had no running game last year. Nix’s four rushing touchdowns inside the five last year tied with Jayden Daniels and were only behind Jalen Hurts and Josh Allen, and his 51.9 fantasy points in that area were 7th in the league. That felt a lot more like a necessity than a luxury. Not that all of those points will go away, but running backs on the Broncos only scored eight touchdowns last year. The investment into JK Dobbins and RJ Harvey, alongside an excellent offensive line, should let the Broncos run far more aggressively near the goal line.
Outside of Courtland Sutton, Marvin Mims, Troy Franklin, and Devaughn Vele don’t project as excellent red zone threats. Their third-round rookie, Pat Bryant, does, but has an unknown role in a crowded room. Even Evan Engram is more of a chains mover than a scoring threat.
It’s not so much that Nix is overpriced, but his value is in a strange spot. There are a clear top-five quarterbacks for fantasy, and it becomes a bit of a free fall after that. Patrick Mahomes, Baker Mayfield, and Nix typically make that next range, but all come with questions around them. Whether it’s redraft or superflex, I don’t want to be the one who’s kicking off that run on quarterbacks when there are great values afterwards. Nix will be a fine pick, but I don’t believe he’s a league winner, and there’s better value and upside later in the draft.
Tyreek Hill, WR, Miami Dolphins
Overall 28, WR12
Managers everywhere are weary of Tyreek Hill after his disappointing 2024. The problem now is that his ADP, top of the 3rd round, now looks like a value for his name and upside. I agree, looking down Hill as your WR2 or WR1 after stacking RBs or grabbing Brock Bowers is going to look very good as you wait for the season to start. Don’t bite.
Tyreek Hill was really, really bad last year. 17 games, 123 targets, 81 receptions, 959 yards, and six touchdowns. For comparison, Tee Higgins had 48 fewer yards in five fewer games and eight fewer starts. Jauan Jennings wasn’t a starter at the beginning of the season, missed two games in the middle of the year, and produced nearly identical stats. Hill’s per-17 stats after Tua came back from his concussion: 88 receptions, 1,027 yards, 7.7 touchdowns.
Tyreek Hill in 2024:
906 snaps, 959 yards.Tyreek Hill in 2023:
695 snaps, 1,799 yards.He played 211 more snaps… and had 840 fewer yards.
What happened?
— Jason Moore (@jasonffl) April 9, 2025
His supposed issue stemmed from a wrist injury he suffered prior to the season, which was then re-aggravated from his run-in with the police and subsequent cuffing. It’s entirely possible that that issue alone did cause his fall off, but it’s worth noting that that issue started well before the combine that March, and that he’s played through injuries that didn’t affect him nearly as much in prior seasons.
He’s currently dealing with an oblique injury of undisclosed severity, and those issues only persist beyond his personal issues. He demanded a trade immediately after the season, and head coach Mike McDaniel does not seem pleased to be dealing with him. Hill may start the season strong if all goes well, but the Dolphins seemed destined to implode.
I liken Hill to last year’s Davante Adams, but whereas the situation was poor for Adams to start, switching teams mid-year wasn’t beneficial enough to save him as a fantasy prospect. If the Dolphins don’t get off to a strong start, I can’t imagine Hill will make things easy for them. That depends on Hill and Tua staying healthy, while everything around them goes well enough.
The upside is tempting, as his 1,800-yard season happened so recently. But for my money, there are too many variables for this to go wrong, both on Hill’s end and the Dolphins.
James Cook, RB, Buffalo Bills
Overall 33, RB13
I’ll always advocate for taking a young, high-upside running back tied to a great offense in the middle rounds of the draft. That paid off exceptionally well last year if you invested in Cook, who ran for 16 touchdowns with an additional two through the air. That accounted for half of the Bills’ league-leading 32 rushing touchdowns, three more than the Eagles.
This may be a case of lightning striking the right place at the right time. Nothing changed for Josh Allen, who scored 72 and 75 fantasy points within the five-yard line over the past two seasons. It was Cook who found a bump in red zone and goal line work, but his touchdown rate from that area spiked from just one in 2023 to 11 in 2024. While that usage is what you want, touchdown dependency is not a sticky stat.
Mind you, Cook did not suddenly become a better runner in year three; he just finished with over 1,000 yards rushing, whereas his success rate fell by about 2.6% on 30 fewer carries from 2023. The opportunity is ideal, but the usage is not. He was 15th in red zone carries, 22nd in red zone targets, 20th in rushing attempts, and tied for 32nd in RB targets with J.K. Dobbins and David Montgomery.
What that all boils down to is that Cooks had an extraordinarily efficient season considering his below-average workload and opportunity. Playing on the Bills, he’ll continue to see excellent looks and scoring opportunities, but you’re betting on him continuing insane redzone efficiency.
His current cost isn’t a bad price for the situation, but if you take him, you must know that he doesn’t have the floor or rushing upside to survive non-scoring weeks. In 2024, of the four weeks he didn’t score, his highest finish was as RB28. That’s not highly irregular, but it makes him an incredibly risky regression bet with not nearly enough volume to provide a sound floor.
