Fantasy Football Strategy Mailbag: Parker Washington Headlines Most-Drafted Players

We love best ball and dynasty fantasy football, and how they get our minds thinking fantasy year-round as we barrel toward the August/September redraft season. Kendall Valenzuela has her ear to the ground, as she received questions from her SiriusXm audience as well as through social media on different strategies she's employing as well as players she's targeting.

Weekly Fantasy Football Mailbag

It's early, but are there any players you want to draft more of?

OF COURSE! Starting at the running back position, I have not taken Kyle Monangai much yet. Not necessarily a big name, but it was a committee in the Bears backfield last season between him and D'Andre Swift. He's already someone you can start in deeper formats. But if Swift went down with an injury we would be looking at a huge role for Monangai. Last season Monangai turned 29 touches into 198 total yards in his only game without Swift, and he averaged 13.7 opportunities per game across Chicago's final 10 games. With an eighth-round price tag I need to prioritize him.

If you've been watching the Fantasy Life Show, you know I've been talked into Zay Flowers. My only trepidation is the lack of touchdowns—he had 1 touchdown through the first 14 weeks of the season last year and we've never seen him find the end zone more than 5 times in any season during his career. Flowers posted the ninth-best target share of any wide receiver at 30% last season, but he ranked 40th in air yards with 69.7 yards per game. Still, there is immense upside with a healthy Lamar Jackson and a new offensive coordinator in town.

Another name is Parker Washington. Yes, this Jaguars team looks like it's going to spread things around, but I don't think Washington's success last season was just a flash in the pan. After Travis Hunter went down with his injury, Washington took over the WR3 duties in Week 8. In nine healthy games, he averaged 17.1 points per game with a 25% target share and was a huge part of this offense. I'm not too worried about Hunter coming back and taking over that role again, and if Brian Thomas Jr. doesn't look better than last season I believe he could be traded by the deadline. A sixth-round price tag feels like a fair tradeoff for Washington's talents in a (hopefully) ascending offense.

Who are some of your "make or break" players right now?

To be clear, this is not a knock on Omarion Hampton's talents, more so the price. He currently has an ADP of 15.4. Last season he had a fractured ankle that cost him seven games and on top of that the Chargers had offensive line issues that never seemed to go away, which means we rarely saw any momentum for Hampton. But there was still a lot of good to take away—Hampton averaged 14.9 points per game, and in five games with 55% or more of the rushing attempts, that average jumped up to 19 points per game.

You're not getting any kind of discount with Hampton this season. The arrival of new OC Mike McDaniel has everyone giddy about what this Chargers team could look like. Under McDaniel over the last five years, running backs have seen no less than 21.1% of the early-down pass attempts. We can never predict injuries, but that's where the potential bear case lies. It's dependent on Hampton staying healthy and him demanding a three-down workload next to Kimani Vidal and Keaton Mitchell. He feels like an easier click if you can stomach the cost.

I have gone on record these past few weeks saying I like drafting Rashee Rice at his current cost, but the risk cannot be ignored. He's going at pick 28 and was released from a Dallas County jail last week. Also, he had surgery about a week before he was sentenced (all really bad). The question with Rice is not about his play, but if he will be able to get through a full season without any off-the-field issues. Will he draw another suspension before the season begins? Will he do something absolutely stupid during the season? All valid questions, but his current draft status is right in the middle of the third round on Underdog.

Unless the Chiefs bring in another receiver—they did not address the position much this offseason—it gives Rice an out to still be a target monster. Over his last 17 full games, he's locked down 163 targets, 120 receptions, 1,377 yards and 10 receiving touchdowns. Are you willing to take on the risk with a wild card player? The reward could be there or we can all look back at this writeup and laugh … whatever!

How have you been approaching tight ends in your drafts?

I've taken the Peter Overzet Method (trademark pending) and really started to deploy a first-or-last mentality with tight ends. If I can't have the more elite guys then I will wait until the end of the draft to scoop up three tight ends outside of the top 100. I try to get Colston Loveland every chance I can, and I will go as far as Tucker Kraft in the seventh round, but if I can't get one of Brock Bowers, Trey McBride, Tyler Warren, Kraft or Loveland, then I find myself waiting.

When I checked my exposures I actually have very little Warren right now. His production is obviously going to be tied to a healthy Daniel Jones … that in and of itself seems risky. This isn't a knock on Warren's talents, but more so everything going on around him. Jones was really damn good to start the season—according to ESPN, through the first seven games, he led the league in dropback success rate (56.1%) and EPA per dropback (0.30) and a 71.0% completion percentage. Then the Achilles injury happened in Week 14.

In 12 games when Jones was healthy, we saw Warren score 5 touchdowns and averaged 13.1 fantasy points per game. In five games without Jones, Warren fell to 6.3 points per game and didn't score. Warren and Jonathan Taylor will be the focal points of this offense, but just how well will it run?

You've heard me say it a lot, but my favorite range to draft tight ends is the 10th and 11th rounds where you have guys like George Kittle, Isaiah Likely and Chig Okonkwo going.