Aging NFL Players: How do Aaron Rodgers, Austin Ekeler, Mike Evans and Travis Kelce Stack Up in Fantasy Football?
Looking at four guys who are getting old but still have name recognition and possible fantasy football value.
My physics teacher in high school often repeated a good axiom: Everything is relative. Is 25 miles per hour fast? If you’re talking about a human running, then yes, but a car driving? Not so much. He meant it in physics terms, but it’s true of everything, including sports.
Contracts are a big part of this. When we say that a guy is underpaid while making $20 million a year, that’s just not true in the grand scheme of things. You can use numbers to make any argument you want, but let’s be real: most people are struggling to feed their kids and pay their rent, and sports analysts who are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to be wrong most of the time are arguing about how many tens of millions these guys should be making.
Relative to everything else? Screw that guy who says he needs $50 million a year instead of $40 million. And screw everyone on ESPN who wastes our time talking about it. Everything is relative, and some guy making more every year than you’ll see in your entire life doesn’t need your sympathy.
Age is another relative factor, and that’s what I’m here to talk about today. “Old” means something different in sports than it does in real life. A 30-year-old running back may as well be in the retirement home, while that same guy being promoted to CEO of a company would be the youngest person in his position.
Wide receiver is similar. Teams rightly are leery of giving multi-year guarantees to receivers on the wrong side of 30, and we’ve seen countless examples of players falling off out of nowhere, whether due to injuries, wear and tear, or a combination of those factors. The elder receiver excelling is the exception, not the rule.
Mike Evans is the guy who first got me thinking about this. He was about to play the entirety of 2023 at 30 years old and was taking a dip from Tom Brady to Baker Mayfield at quarterback, so we essentially decided his days as a top-end receiver were over. Well, he had 79 receptions for 1,255 yards (both third most of his career) and tied for the league lead with 13 receiving touchdowns.
Let’s look at some “older” players who have been productive up to the last few years and try to see if there are any clues about what to expect this year. A lot of this is projection and guessing; the past helps us in the future, but every person and every situation is different.
WR Mike Evans, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Continuing with Evans, he has played 10 years in the league and topped 1,000 yards in each of them, never falling below 67 receptions. His 2023 season was a statement for all the doubters; I won’t be making the same mistake this year when looking for the best fantasy performers.
Evans will be close to a top-10 receiver off the board in fantasy drafts, and there’s not much reason to doubt his ability to excel again. The Bucs certainly believe in Evans, as they re-signed him before free agency started for two years at around $20 million per year.
QB Aaron Rodgers, New York Jets
With Rodgers, age isn’t necessarily the main issue; that’s odd being that he will play most of the season at 40 years old before hitting 41 in December. Coming off a torn Achilles, though, it’s about his ability to recover at such an advanced age to a point where he can play quarterback at a high level.
Rodgers was saying he could have returned last season, so it’s reasonable to think he’ll be ready to go. Let’s also be real about one thing: Rodgers is a BS’er who loves being in the spotlight and talking about anything and everything. There was no downside to him saying he could return because it was never going to happen.
We won’t really know until Week 1. Standing and throwing is great. Going through drills in training camp is necessary to test his injury. If he plays in the preseason at all, we’ll get a glimpse. Nothing matters until Week 1, though.
When Rodgers won back-to-back MVPs in 2020 and 2021, he averaged 4,207 yards with a completion percentage near 70% and threw 85 total touchdowns to just nine interceptions. His quarterback ratings were 121.5 and 111.9, and his QBRs were 79.8 and 74.1. That’s a phenomenal two-year run.
His last season in Green Bay in 2022 was a steep decline: 3,695 yards on 64.6% passing, 26 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, a quarterback rating of 91.1, and a QBR of 41.3. Those are starting quarterback numbers, but they are far from “Aaron Rodgers heights.” He lost an entire yard per attempt between ’21 and ’22 (7.8 to 6.8).
We didn’t get to see how he would have bounced back in 2023, but I’m betting against Rodgers finding the fountain of youth after a major injury. There were times in his career that his numbers ebbed and flowed from year to year, but Father Time is undefeated, as they say, and all the odds are against a return to form.
Rodgers will likely have fantasy value in some weeks as a streamer. When facing a tougher defense, like the 49ers in Week 1, Rodgers won’t be on the fantasy radar unless he proves he can reach the performance we expect based on his name recognition.
RB Austin Ekeler, Washington Commanders
Ekeler’s career is the perfect encapsulation of the current running back market. When he was an undrafted player making less than $700,000 in 2019 while carrying the ball 132 times, catching 92 passes, and scoring 11 total touchdowns, he was a tremendously valuable player.
In 2023 when he was making over $6 million, complaining about a new contract, and dealing with injuries, he was wildly disappointing and not a valuable player. It’s just the way it is, both in the running back market and the NFL as a whole. The Chargers didn’t re-up his contract, a decision that worked out great for the team; everyone else should take note.
Playing this season at 29 years old, Ekeler is an elder statesman among running backs. He can still be valuable as a pass catcher and rotational player, but he’s not going to touch the ball 250-300 times like he did in his prime.
Ekeler was one of the top two RBs taken in most fantasy drafts last year. He’s currently ranked 31st among backs by ESPN’s PPR rankings, six spots behind teammate Brian Robinson Jr. Things change that fast in sports, particularly in the running back market.
It’s likely that Robinson takes the majority of the handoffs while Ekeler spells his younger teammate and works more on third downs and/or even as a slot receiver at times. I loved Robinson as a fantasy option heading into 2023; I still see him as Washington’s best fantasy back and Ekeler as a secondary option. The latter will likely be a streaming/flex option on the right weeks and nothing more.
TE Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs
Let’s finish up with a guy who is still among the best at his position but has fallen on the full spectrum of fantasy football. Not only was Kelce the unquestioned top tight end heading into 2023, but he was also a top-10 player who was being drafted in the first round of some fantasy drafts.
He is fighting for the top TE spot with Sam LaPorta right now in many rankings, and he is around 20th in overall rankings. I wrote a piece last preseason about the strategy of taking Kelce in the first round and building around him, seeing value because he was so far above every other tight end.
It seemed like a good strategy, but his fall back toward the pack and the number of young stars available (particularly at wide receiver) makes that an untenable path this season. Taking him as a third-round pick is fine; anything higher than that probably results in leaving value on the table given the number of receivers and backs available at the same time.
Kelce had at least 1,100 yards in seven of the eight previous seasons before 2023 and at least eight touchdowns in six of those years. Finishing with 984 yards and five touchdowns isn’t exactly a disappointment, but it’s far below the dominating season many expected when drafting him in the first round.
Most concerning might be his 10.6 yards per catch. Kelce had never been below 12.2 yards per reception in any previous season. Shorter receptions mean less yards (to make an obvious statement), and a guy who will turn 35 in October is likely to do less running moving forward, especially during the regular season.
Kelce will still be one of the top tight ends as long as he stays healthy, which hasn’t been an issue much in his career. He probably isn’t going to be a top fantasy player, though, and age has a lot to do with that.
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