AFC and NFC West Fantasy Football Bold Predictions: Kyler Murray, Justin Herbert, Puka Nacua and More
One bold prediction about an individual or group of players for every team in the NFL's West divisions.
Less than two weeks from the NFL season, it’s prime fantasy football draft time. I don’t like early drafts because injuries happen during the preseason, and it’s nice to wait until we have the most information possible. Drafting in early August and losing your top pick before the season even starts is a deflating way to kick things off.
Even if you wait until the day before the season to draft, though, no one knows what is about to happen over the next six months. For all the hours we spend pouring over the numbers and running simulations, everything will change after Week 1 when one or more fantasy stars get injured.
We can prepare for changing circumstances by knowing what to expect in different situations. For example, if you know a player will assume a bell cow running back role if the guy in front of him gets injured, you can grab that backup late in your draft either as a handcuff or lottery ticket. Worst case, you can drop that guy when you need another defense in Week 3.
I’ve been going through each team division by division and making one bold fantasy prediction heading into the season. Each prediction is based on a strong feeling I have about an individual player or group within each team. You can find the previous entries at the links below.
Let’s finish up with the AFC and NFC West, where the Super Bowl champs and runners up reside; they are two of the most likely teams to end up in the big game again at the end of this season.
AFC West
Denver Broncos: Denver will have no fantasy starter-level players
This means no quarterback or tight end in the top 10 and no running back or wide receiver in the top 20 at their position. The Broncos might be the worst team in the league, especially devoid of talent on offense.
The move for Russell Wilson failed miserably, and the team quickly turned around and began the “Bo Nix era.” Speaking of the rookie quarterback, he was named the Week 1 starter and has a little fantasy intrigue if he runs like he did in 2022 (510 yards, 14 touchdowns).
More than likely, Nix won’t be a fantasy option most weeks, and that will extend to his pass catchers. There’s not much at tight end, with Adam Trautman and Greg Dulcich topping the depth chart; it would be more of a surprise if Denver did have a top-10 player at either QB or TE.
If Nix doesn’t become an instant star, top receiver Courtland Sutton will find it tough to beat his recent averages (near 60 receptions and 800 yards). Sutton had 10 touchdowns last season, but that was way out of whack with his receptions-per-touchdown numbers, so he’s likely to fall closer to the four touchdowns he averages per season; that would leave him outside the top 20 receivers.
Starting running back Javonte Williams had 900 yards as a rookie and was primed to take over as the lead back in 2022. He suffered a major injury and missed most of the year, though, returning in 2023 with a lot of the same hope but much less of the production.
Williams averaged just 3.6 yards per carry last season after a middling 4.4 and 4.3 in his first two years. He had 47 receptions for 228 yards, a nice bump in PPR leagues especially, but Williams looked like a middling back last year and will have to show more another year removed from surgery.
None of the players mentioned is likely to finish as a fantasy starter as his position. It would take something out of the ordinary to put one of them in the top 10 or 20 (depending on position).
Kansas City Chiefs: The Chiefs will have a top-20 fantasy receiver
Rashee Rice (32), Xavier Worthy (37) and Marquise Brown (39) are each ranked outside the top 30 in our FantasySP PPR receiver rankings. Travis Kelce has worked more as the top receiver in KC recently with the actual wide receivers filling complementary roles; it has worked out well.
Tyreek Hill generally led the team in targets when he was in Kansas City (not a surprise). Since he was traded to Miami, Kelce has led the team each of the past two seasons (also not a surprise). JuJu Smith-Schuster led Chiefs receivers in 2022 with 101 targets, and Rice topped the group last season at 102.
Rice would be a good bet to lead the team’s receivers again if he wasn’t also in line to possibly miss a few games with suspension due to offseason legal trouble. Worthy was a first-round pick this season after setting the record for fastest 40-yard dash ever at the combine. The fastest receiver matched with the league’s best quarterback? That worked out pretty well when Hill was in town.
Brown is a former first rounder who was traded from Baltimore to Arizona on draft day a few years back and has failed to really make the impact of a first-round receiver. He’s an OK second or third option who also adds more speed. Kadarius Toney, Skyy Moore and others are around, but they’re not going to be fantasy factors.
So, who can find the top 20? Again, Rice would be the guy if it weren’t for the possible missed time. A suspension is like knowing your fantasy player will miss a few games with injury: it lowers his value. A two-game suspension wouldn’t take Rice out of the running to join the top receivers, but it would lower his chances of finishing in the top 20. Anything longer would be a significant blow.
That means it’s between the rookie and the veteran. As a first rounder, Worthy could enter as the team’s top receiver without much surprise. Fast guys can sometimes be over-drafted because of their wheels, plus it’s dangerous to assume any rookie will excel. The upside is juicy with Worthy, though.
Brown has been a fine receiver but topped 1,000 yards just once and played 14 or less games in three of five seasons. If he was joining any team other than the Chiefs, we’d still think of him as a middling receiver, but he’s getting extra buzz because Mahomes is his new quarterback.
I expect Worthy to be the high fantasy scorer among KC receivers. He will get a chance to show off his speed under a creative offensive play caller, maybe taking many of the screens, handoffs and jet plays that Toney couldn’t capitalize on.
Las Vegas Raiders: Davante Adams will finish outside the top 20 receivers
Adams has been locked in as a yearly top-10 fantasy receivers for more than a half-decade now. Even when moving from Aaron Rodgers to Derek Carr at quarterback, he held his elite status. Jimmy Garoppolo and Aidan O'Connell took over last year, and Adams responded by dropping just to WR14 in standard and WR10 in PPR.
It doesn’t get much more consistent than that, but there’s reason to think he could drop to a more menial level this season. First, the quarterback play is going to be among the worst in the league. Gardner Minshew and O’Connell engaged in a training camp battle that ensured that no one with a rooting interest in the Raiders would come out a winner.
Minshew won the starting job, and while he has had some success at times, Minshew tops out around the cut-off of bottom starters/top backups. There’s nothing wrong with having a player like that on the roster, but it doesn’t set up the top pass catchers to excel.
O’Connell was forced into action as a fourth-round rookie after Jimmy G was benched for financial reasons. He showed competence, but O’Connell was below the level of an NFL quarterback. The real hope for a competitive Raiders season was Minshew winning the job while O’Connell played the backup role.
That’s the initial result, but things could change if the team starts with a losing record. The younger O’Connell taking over later in the season would lower Adams’ ceiling, and the wear of another wasted season might be enough to sour the veteran receiver on Vegas, leading to missed games or a negative attitude on the field.
It seems like a season in which everything could go wrong in Las Vegas, and that is scaring me away from all their fantasy players. If you’re going to grab one Raiders receiver, the value on Jakobi Meyers is far better than Adams.
Los Angeles Chargers: Justin Herbert will be a top-10 fantasy quarterback
Garbage time matters just as much as crunch time. Every yard counts the same. Middling quarterbacks on subpar teams have been grinding out yards for years, allowing backdoor wins for fantasy teams along the way. Volume is king in fantasy football.
The Chargers are likely to lose more games than they win; Vegas has their total at 8.5, right in the middle. Herbert is still under center, and Jim Harbaugh took over as head coach, so LA has two important positions figured out. The rest of the roster has shed talent over the past few seasons, though, leaving them with a less seasoned roster than at any time in the recent past.
New starters at running back, wide receiver and tight end along with a new offensive coordinator adds up to a lot of change, mostly with worse players than were in place in 2023. With Pro-Bowl level players replaced by middling, injured and inexperienced guys, a lot must go right for this team to sustain a consistent offense.
I’m counting on Los Angeles being a below-average team and playing to catch up in the second half. A talented quarterback in Herbert will get plenty of chances to throw the ball, even as the coaches have said they want to build the offense around the run game.
It might not be pretty, and you will be biting your nails if Herbert has 83 yards in the first half of Week 1, but it could play out better for Herbert in the long run. Even if he doesn’t reach the top 10, Herbert has a good chance of outplaying his fantasy draft status between QB16 and QB20.
NFC West
Arizona Cardinals: Kyler Murray will contend for the top five among quarterbacks
Murray was regularly drafted as a top-five quarterback until last season. His 2022 ended early because of a major knee injury, causing Murray to miss the first chunk of 2023 as well. He played eight games last season, showing some of his old form but also rust after a year off.
So, what can we expect from Murray entering 2024? He’s being drafted around QB10, seen as a low-level starter rather than the fantasy star he was previously. The injury is the biggest reason why his value has fallen, something that makes sense for a player who relies on his speed and athleticism.
I’m guessing Murray will return to something close to his old form which would give him great value based on his draft status. Running the ball is a big part of Murray’s game and has put him among the fantasy elite QBs. When he came back last year, he showed a lot of the same skill he was flashing pre-injury:
- 2024 per-game rushing: 5.5 attempts, 30.5 yards, 5.5 yards per carry, one touchdown every 2.7 games
- Career per-game rushing: 6.5 attempts, 37.7 yards, 5.8 yards per carry, one touchdown every 2.5 games
Those numbers are very similar; his career numbers are a little better, but Murray performed close to his old self on the ground in his short 2023 stint. I don’t see a reason to expect anything less this year when he’s further away from his injury and surgery. Oh, and his new top weapon, Marvin Harrison Jr., will probably help too.
Los Angeles Rams: Kyren Williams and Puka Nacua will greatly outplay Blake Corum and Cooper Kupp
By greatly outplay, I mean the former two will finish at least 30 spots higher than their teammate among players at the same position. Both Williams and Nacua are ranked noticeably higher, but there is buzz around Kupp regaining his old form and/or Corum stealing carries after joining the team as a third-round pick.
Let’s start at running back: Williams finished as RB4 in standard and RB7 in PPR despite missing five games last year. He scored more fantasy points per week than any back other than Christian McCaffrey. The Rams have shown they can run the ball with a lot of different guys, but Williams was a fantasy star last season.
For Corum to come in and steal a lot of touches doesn’t add up. If health is the issue, that’s a different story: Williams played just 10 games as a rookie and 12 games last season. If he misses time again, Corum will be the benefactor.
I see analysis arguing Corum as the better player, though, and taking the job by force as much as anything else (this isn’t the most popular opinion: Williams is rated way higher in fantasy). Also, Corum was drafted in the third round. It’s not like he was a hot commodity that the Rams were able to luck into; Corum was drafted as if he’ll become an average back.
There are similarities to Travis Etienne and Tank Bigsby in Jacksonville last season. Bigsby was the hot name in the preseason who was going to vulture touchdowns and steal rushes, but instead Etienne dominated the work the way we should have expected. Williams will likely be the bell cow, dominating the touches while Corum is in a true backup role.
Kupp has played just nine and 12 games over the last two seasons. Now 31 years old, it’s reasonable to expect Kupp to miss a few games again. Even when he was on the field, Kupp’s performance suffered versus his past work.
In the 21 games he has played over the past two seasons, Kupp had less receptions, yards and touchdowns than he had in his Offensive Player of the Year campaign in 2021. An aging, injured receiver isn’t a good bet to rebound when there’s another guy on the team who can fill his WR1 role.
Nacua burst onto the scene as a rookie, setting new records seemingly every week and helping the team forget that Kupp missed any time. Even though he was a fifth-round pick, there was buzz that Nacua could make an impact as a rookie; turns out that buzz was more than just a few bees.
Nacua had close to twice as many catches and yards as Kupp, but he scored just six times. With as often as he caught the ball, Puka should score more touchdowns moving forward; that means big fantasy numbers.
If the trends from last year continue, Nacua will be a top fantasy receiver while Kupp has a few good weeks but middling year-long totals.
San Francisco 49ers: Brandon Aiyuk stays with the team and is the top fantasy receiver for the 49ers
Aiyuk wants to be paid. I can understand that. The 49ers want to win the Super Bowl. I can understand that. The best way for San Francisco to win the Super Bowl this year is to have Aiyuk on the team. The best way for them to win the big game in the future might NOT be to pay Aiyuk big money, though.
The salary cap makes it more complicated than pure dollars, causing teams to choose between guys they want to keep. Someone is going to get squeezed out, especially when the quarterback is getting paid.
Brock Purdy will be eligible for an extension after this season, and if he performs as well as he did in 2023, that contract will be for $50+ million per year. That means other guys who also command a high salary might not be able to fit on the same team.
In this case, Purdy would be making $55 million or so while receiver Deebo Samuel Sr. is over $20 million. Devoting so much to one group restricts the resources everywhere else, and the team would likely suffer losses on the defense and offensive line if Aiyuk were retained for close to $30 million per year. San Fran must decide which combination keeps them most competitive and where they can most easily rebuild the roster.
The first-round selection of receiver Ricky Pearsall might have sealed Aiyuk’s fate, but the veteran fits into this year’s salary cap and might be the best receiver on the team. This team went to overtime in the Super Bowl last season; they are THIS close. Trading Aiyuk this year means subtracting one of their best players in one of the last seasons before their quarterback's salary blows up.
Assuming he stays, nothing appears to be different from last season in San Francisco’s offense (left tackle Trent Williams is holding out, but I expect him to be in the lineup Week 1). Aiyuk led the team in targets, receptions and receiving yards in both 2022 and 2023. He was in the top 20 among fantasy receivers in both standard and PPR in each of those seasons.
With a new contract (either with San Francisco or another team) on the line as a pending free agent, Aiyuk has every reason to try to put together a career year. I’m treating Aiyuk as a top-20 lock with top-10 upside, especially in PPR.
Seattle Seahawks: Jaxon Smith-Njigba will take over the WR2 spot from Tyler Lockett early and contend for the WR1 role with DK Metcalf certain weeks
Smith-Njigba won’t be Seattle’s top receiver, but I’m predicting there will be weeks in which he looks like the first-round stud who had a phenomenal 2021 college season. It’s not exactly bold to say that a young potential star could bypass a receiver who will turn 32 in September (Lockett). Sniffing the top spot is where JSN can make an unexpected leap, though.
Metcalf is a true WR1. He has played at least 16 games in all five of his seasons, hitting at least 58 receptions, 900 yards and six touchdowns in each. He is a physical monster and has shown dominance at times by simply out muscling his opponent. Metcalf will stay the top option for now.
Smith-Njigba’s ceiling will be capped by Metcalf’s presence, but Lockett and Metcalf both were top-20 fantasy receivers every season from 2020 through 2023. A guy as talented as Smith-Njigba will likely find his way to high-level fantasy production, maybe sniffing the top 20 but not quite reaching that mark this year.
If Lockett drops further in production, JSN could pick up the slack and jump to fantasy WR3 status.
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