Revisiting Fantasy Football Preseason Bold Predictions for the NFL's West Divisions: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Kyren Williams, Davante Adams and More
Evaluating one preseason prediction made for each team in the AFC and NFC West.
Over the past few days, I’ve been looking back at preseason fantasy football bold predictions I made for each NFL team. You can find similar articles to this one for the East, North, and South divisions at the respective links.
Let’s finish up by revisiting the predictions for the AFC and NFC West teams, the divisions that gave us last year’s two Super Bowl teams (and the repeat Chiefs, who we’ve seen plenty of deep in the playoffs). I’ll lay out why I made each prediction, how it went, and the lesson we can learn.
I used fantasy scores and rankings from FantasyPros and will reference those numbers often. You can find the original bold prediction articles from the preseason below.
AFC West
Denver Broncos: Denver won’t have any players rank as fantasy starters at their position
Reason: Denver’s most notable fantasy player was Courtland Sutton, who had one season in his career with a top-20 fantasy finish: 2019.
I was thoroughly unenthused with the Bo Nix pick last year. I kept saying something along the lines of, “Denver spent the 12th overall pick on the sixth-best quarterback in the draft; that’s not a good use of resources.” I expected a poor season.
Boy, was I wrong. The defense did the heavy lifting for the Broncos, but Nix played like an average quarterback, and his running helped him to a QB7 fantasy finish (3,775 passing yards, 29 touchdowns to 12 interceptions, 430 rushing yards, and four scores on the ground).
Sutton put together his best year since that 2019 campaign with 81 catches, 1,081 yards, and eight touchdowns; he finished as WR10 in standard and WR15 in PPR. He played with Teddy Bridgewater and Russell Wilson between 2021-2023, but those players were just average at the time, leaving Nix close to on par with those passers based on how they played in Denver.
No Bronco tight end was in the top 40 in any format; that’s an easy one. Javonte Williams was their top running back, not a surprise, but he topped out as RB30 in PPR. He was in and out of the lineup a bit, but Williams did play every game, putting up 513 rushing yards on a below-average 3.7 yards per carry. He saw a bump in the passing game, setting career highs in receptions (52) and receiving yards (346).
Lesson: It’s worth believing in Sean Payton. Whether it’s Payton, Nix, or the whole situation, Denver players will be on the fantasy radar in drafts next season, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the team make a major offensive addition in the offseason.
Kansas City Chiefs: The Chiefs will have a top-20 fantasy receiver
Reason: Every receiver on KC was being drafted around 30th or lower among their position, but these guys were all playing with Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid, a recipe for success.
Rashee Rice was a hot name to move into fantasy starter territory, and Marquise Brown was a former first-round pick who was something of a buy-low candidate on a one-year deal. One of the KC receivers could have hit big without a lot of surprise.
Rookie first rounder Xavier Worthy ended up being Kansas City’s top fantasy wide receiver, finishing near 30th. Rice and Brown both missed huge chunks of time, taking them off the fantasy leaderboard. Mid-season trade acquisition DeAndre Hopkins had the second-most receiving yards among the WRs: 437 in 10 games.
No individual ranked high in fantasy at the position, but it didn’t matter. Kansas City won 15 of their first 16 games and walked to a division title, setting their path to another Super Bowl appearance.
Lesson: Travis Kelce is WR1. It’s been that way since Tyreek Hill was traded to Miami before the 2022 season. Kelce has led the team in both receptions and receiving yards in each of the three seasons since then, as the team has found ways to win with complementary play from their wide receivers.
Las Vegas Raiders: Davante Adams will finish outside the top 20 receivers
Reason: The Raiders had a subpar quarterback situation, and Adams had seen a dip in efficiency in 2023. Maybe most importantly, there was talk of disharmony in Vegas, with Adams as a focal point.
Adams missed three games with “injury” as the situation with the Raiders got figured out, and he was eventually sent to the Jets to reunite with Aaron Rodgers in a plot straight out of a cheesy love story.
The receiver showed out when he was on the field, though, and finished as a top-12 WR in both standard and PPR scoring. That might be surprising given how bad the Jets were and the meme-worthy content the whole situation produced, but Adams topped 1,000 yards and scored eight touchdowns.
Lesson: Superstar players don’t just lose it, even if they are more worried about angling their way to a preferred destination. Adams will be seen as a top-20 player at his position again next season, maybe even in the top 10 depending on the QB he is paired with.
Los Angeles Chargers: Justin Herbert will be a top-10 fantasy quarterback
Reason: Herbert was a top-11 QB every year from 2020-2022 before missing four games in 2023 and falling down the leaderboard. He was being drafted outside of the starting fantasy QB group and even going undrafted in some smaller leagues.
Herbert finished as QB12, 20 points behind Kyler Murray for 10th. The Chargers controlled the ball with the run, leading to Herbert throwing his fewest passes per game and racking up less yards and touchdowns than in any year in which he played at least 15 games.
Herbert really helped his team by throwing only three interceptions in 504 attempts. That’s an unsustainable rate that will regress the other way next season. His luck already started turning in LA’s playoff game, as Herbert threw four picks against Houston, more than he had all season.
Lesson: Herbert is one of the most talented quarterbacks in the league and always relevant in fantasy. The team will probably focus on the run under coach Jim Harbaugh, capping Herbert’s ceiling, but he is someone to consider every week.
NFC West
Arizona Cardinals: Kyler Murray will contend for the top five among quarterbacks
Reason: Murray missed essentially an entire season between the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023, knocking his value down a bit, but he was still a great runner with a supposed new star at receiver in rookie Marvin Harrison Jr.
As mentioned above, Murray finished as QB10, close to 50 points behind Jayden Daniels at QB5. He was less than 30 points from Jared Goff at QB6, but Murray didn’t hit my lofty prediction.
Murray had a good year, reaching his second-highest total in both passing yards and rushing yards, falling short of only 2020 in both categories, when he finished as QB2. More than Murray falling back, this is probably about the advancement of other quarterbacks, particularly those who use their legs.
Murray was average as a passer, very close to his career efficiency numbers. His fantasy value is tied to his legs, but again, more QBs are entering the league with that same profile, making it harder to stand out as a fantasy player.
Lesson: We know what Murray is at this point: He’s fine throwing the ball, and his ability as a runner bumps him up a notch. Murray probably fits in well in the QB7-QB12 region, a guy to always consider.
Los Angeles Rams: Kyren Williams and Puka Nacua will greatly outplay Blake Corum and Cooper Kupp
Reason: While the latter two had intrigue, the former two players seemed primed to be stars at their position, leaving their counterparts behind from a fantasy perspective.
I labeled “greatly outplay” as Williams and Nacua finishing 30 spots above Corum and Kupp among their respective positions. Williams was a top-10 running back; Corum was near 80th in both formats. That was the easy part, though.
Kupp is a former star who has seen regression among several injuries. Nacua burst onto the scene as one of the best fantasy receivers, particularly in PPR leagues. Nacua missed six full games and Kupp five, so that threw off some of the calculus here. Nacua finished close to 10 spots higher than Kupp, not reaching this major threshold.
Lesson: Star running backs don’t usually give up many carries. Corum was a third-round pick, a player without the type of investment that would necessitate throwing him into the rotation right away. As far as the receivers? Injuries screw up fantasy: you know that already.
San Francisco 49ers: Brandon Aiyuk stays with the team and is the top fantasy receiver for the 49ers
Reason: Aiyuk was angling for a new contract, and there were a lot of rumors that he was going to be traded before the season.
Aiyuk did indeed stay with the 49ers, but he suffered a major knee injury in Week 7 and missed the rest of the season. That took him out of the running for the top receiver on the team, but focusing only on Weeks 1-7, he was still behind both Jauan Jennings and Deebo Samuel Sr., who each missed an entire game during that stretch.
Aiyuk had more than five standard points only once and didn’t score a touchdown. Maybe he would have shown out in the second half of the season, but Aiyuk wasn’t a good fantasy option for most of the time he was on the field.
Lesson: Injuries suck? That seems to be the answer a lot, but I don’t have a lot else here. Aiyuk was a star the previous two seasons before starting 2024 slow. We don’t know what a full season would have looked like if he had the chance to put together the latter half while his team was hit by injuries.
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
Reason: Smith-Njigba was a star in college but was hurt during his final season, affecting his draft stock a bit and letting him slide to the 20th pick. Entering his second year in the NFL, he was primed to show his ceiling.
Lockett turned 32 early in the season, making it realistic that he would begin slowing down. He played every game but still saw his volume stats drop across the board. Metcalf missed two games.
And Smith-Njigba led the team in catches, yards, touchdowns, and fantasy points in both formats. Smith-Njigba was WR14 in standard and WR9 in PPR (he had 100 catches). He didn’t just make his push for the top spot; JSN went out and took it.
