2021 Fantasy Football Projection Changes

Our running list of changes to our fantasy football projections as we head toward the 2021 NFL season.

2021 Fantasy Football Projections

Darrell Henderson moves into the starting role with Cam Akers' injury (Photo by Bob Kupbens/Icon Sportswire)

We released our initial 2021 fantasy football projections and rankings in May. As we get closer to the season, though, information can change. Players get injured, traded, or released. Depth charts become clearer. So this post serves as a running change log of where we have made adjustments to the initial projections. We’ll list items in reverse chronological order, starting with the most recent.

2021 Fantasy Football Projection Changes

Cam Newton released, Mac Jones to start in New England (8/31)

Big news in New England as the Patriots are going all in on Mac Jones to start the year at quarterback, by releasing veteran Cam Newton. That change caused a shift in our team projections for New England. Initially, we had “split the baby” with a veteran rushing quarterback and a young pocket passer, and our team projection on passing and running split the difference of our projection for each individually as the starter.

Now, with Mac Jones projected to start all year (subject to the typical injury risk for any pocket passer), New England’s passing attempts, completions, and yards increased, and the rush attempts and yards went down.

The net shift is a positive for many NE starters. Mac Jones slots in at QB21 now. Meanwhile, Damien Harris rises to RB23, benefitting by having no Cam Newton at the goal line and projecting for a much higher rush TD share even as the volume went down slightly. James White moves to RB43 with the increase in expected pass volume as the receiving back, and Rhamondre Stevenson is also draft able RB46.

At wide receiver, the top three don’t crack the Top 50 still, but they become more viable as late roster spots and a flyer to see who emerges as Jones’ top target. We now have Nelson Agholor at WR52, Jakobi Meyers at WR58, and Kendrick Bourne at WR65.

The tight ends also benefit from a jump in passing volume and passing touchdowns. Jonnu Smith is at TE11 and Hunter Henry at TE12 in a large tier of possible starting options at the position.

NFL Roster Cuts (8/30)

We will be updating depth charts with any roster cut moves. Most of these will likely only impact depth and not affect the top of the rankings, but we’ll not any prominent ones here.

Irv Smith, Jr. injury (8/29)

Irv Smith, Jr. TE for Minnesota, had meniscus surgery and will miss the start of the season. As a result, we shifted some of his projection and allocated it among the other tight ends on the roster. Smith was at TE10 in our rankings, but drops to TE27 and someone you should either not draft (but monitor) or draft late now.

J.K. Dobbins knee injury (8/28)

Dobbins just suffered a hyperextended knee on a hit directly on it in the preseason game against Washington. It’s unknown at this time if there is ligament damage that would cost him the entire season. We’ll update as we learn more but for now we are downgrading Dobbins 25% of his touches this year on the assumption he could be out at least a month, but feel free to exercise more caution.

UPDATE (8/29): With Dobbins confirmed out for the year, the rushing production in Baltimore has been re-allocated to Gus Edwards, Ty’Son Williams, Justice Hill and Patrick Ricard. Edwards is up to RB22 in PPR and Williams is at RB59.

Jameis Winston named starter (8/27)

Jameis Winston has been named the starting quarterback in New Orleans. While Winston was the favorite here, the outcome was not certain entering the preseason. We still expect Taysom Hill to play some role as a gadget player and goal line QB in this offense, but the move changes the Saints’ projections. We had manually adjusted New Orleans’ stat projections as a team because of the possibility of Hill playing as the starter. Now we dial the pass-run splits back toward some more passing.

We also, as part of the confirmation of Winston at QB, upgraded Marquez Callaway’s percentage of the passing game as a potential deeper threat and option with Michael Thomas out. We also made some adjustments to the depth chart at running back behind Alvin Kamara. There’s plenty of buzz that Tony Jones has been the next best back in camp, and that Latavius Murray or Devonta Freeman could be in trouble when final cuts come. We’ve reduced Murray’s expected share even further to account for this risk for those drafting before final cuts.

Teddy Bridgewater named starter (8/27)

Bridgewater being named the starting quarterback has improved the Denver offensive projection slightly (one of the team similarity inputs is based on whether the quarterback is returning and the quarterback’s age). The attempts went down slightly but the yards per attempt went up, and the team rushing yards also improved slightly.

This didn’t have a huge impact on the rankings, but several of the Denver starting players moved up a couple of slots in their position rankings as a result.

Sony Michel to Rams (8/26)

Sony Michel was traded to the Rams. Michel was part of a crowded backfield in New England and had fallen out of favor. Los Angeles, meanwhile, had no one on the roster besides Darrell Henderson who had played meaningful snaps in the NFL.

This trade does eat into Henderson’s upside some, but is also an indictment of the Rams’ concerns with their depth after the Cam Akers injury. This move reduces Xavier Jones’ value greatly.

We now project Henderson and Michel to be a committee, with roughly equal rushing production, but Henderson being the far more utilized receiver. Michel has 26 career receptions in three seasons, compared to 535 rush attempts. While he might improve that slightly outside of New England, he’s not going to suddenly become a receiving back at age 26.

This move puts Henderson at RB24 while Michel is at RB39 in PPR Rankings.

Meanwhile, in New England, getting Michel out of the mix improves the projection for all the other backs slightly, and rookie Rhamondre Stevenson now has a path to relevance and is RB51 with the update.

Travis Etienne foot injury (8/24)

Travis Etienne suffered a foot injury in the Jaguars’ Monday Night game against New Orleans. Our projections were already lower on Etienne in the rushing category, where we favored James Robinson. Even before the injury, Robinson and Carlos Hyde both played with the starters before Etienne, and then the injury happened. While we wait on a more concrete timeline for his injury, the assumption is that he will miss at least a month and that Jacksonville will be conservative with him. UPDATE: Etienne is now expected to miss the entire season with a lis franc injury.

Robinson is now up to RB11 in our PPR RB Rankings and Hyde moves to RB62. Prior to this injury, Etienne was going at RB23 and Robinson at RB26 in PPR average draft position data on FantasyPros. We’ll see just how strongly the market adapts to this news but Robinson should push up into the Top 15 with the expected volume increase. While Hyde might take some carries in a quasi-platoon, he has never been a receiving threat and Robinson should get a lot more of the receptions now.

Myles Gaskin down, Salvon Ahmed and Malcolm Brown (8/19)

Based on the Week 1 usage, there are serious indicators that Gaskin is in more of a time share than expected. Malcolm Brown got the majority of first team snaps (granted, finishing with eight yards on nine rushing attempts). Salvon Ahmed looked good as the third back. While our similar player profiles don’t think highly of 28-year-old Brown, and we still project him with the lowest point total of the three backs, there’s no denying at this point that this looks like a committee situation. Gaskin still projects as the best receiving option of the group, and Ahmed has higher upside than Brown even if behind him currently on the depth chart. But we’ve seen coaching staffs who fall in love with veteran backs because of other intangibles, and give them repeated opportunities to put up inefficient numbers. We may be heading there early in the season in Miami.

In PPR, Gaskin is now at RB28, Ahmed at RB48, and Brown at RB54, making the latter two draft-able in an ambiguous committee situation entering the season.

Week 1 NFL Preseason Depth Chart Adjustments (8/16)

We won’t highlight all of the depth chart adjustments in our projections, because the vast majority will have little impact on who you draft in most fantasy leagues. Most are moving a reserve receiver or running back up because of where they played in the depth chart in the first game action. However, here are some more notable ones:

David Johnson down, Philip Lindsay and Mark Ingram up

The Houston Texans released a depth chart last week, and Mark Ingram and Philip Lindsay were listed as co-starters and last year’s starter David Johnson was listed as a backup. Then, in the first preseason game, Ingram did not play (which is actually more of a sign that he is viewed as the starter) and Lindsay got the early reps, followed by Johnson.

As a result, we have downgraded Johnson further and bumped up Lindsay and Ingram. We still have the younger Lindsay higher than the 32-year-old Ingram both for overall production and because he is likely more involved as a receiver. But this has caused Johnson to move down significantly, outside the Top 50.

Ty Johnson (Jets) moves up to RB2 role

Ty Johnson got the early reps with the Jets offense, along with rookie Michael Carter. Tevin Coleman did not play, due to what were described as “personal reasons” and LaMical Perine played with the reserves. As a result, we are bumping Johnson up to the 2nd projected spot behind Carter as a member of a committee, and ahead of the veteran Coleman. That move makes Johnson borderline draft-worthy in deeper leagues at RB55.

Jacksonville WR Order of Laviska Shenault, Marvin Jones, and D.J. Chark

D.J. Chark is out injured right now, and Shenault and Jones were both targeted early and frequently while Trevor Lawrence were at QB. Our similar player projections had the latter two ahead of Chark anyway, but he was projected slightly higher based on the market and ADP. But with Chark’s injury and the early indicators that Shenault and Jones are safe in their roles, we have made slight adjustments, and Shenault is a better value to target as the slot/versatile guy in this offense.

Marquez Callaway Moves Up in New Orleans

Callaway has been the most impressive WR in New Orleans with Michael Thomas out, and he had a solid first game of the preseason. Meanwhile, Deonte Harris was dropped from the WR4 after his DUI, and Ty Montgomery is now in the Saints’ receiving depth chart. Callaway is up to WR69 for the full season, and higher than that in the early weeks when Thomas is out, so he is worth a late pick now in deep leagues as an early starting option.

 

Rashod Bateman Injury and Hunter Henry Injury (8/13)

With the news that rookie wide receiver Rashod Bateman had groin surgery and will return “sometime in September,” some of his projected stats have been shifted to Sammy Watkins for the first month of the season, causing Bateman to drop further down the rankings.

In New England, Hunter Henry is expected to miss multiple weeks with a shoulder injury in the preseason. While he should be back for the regular season, that uncertainty and potential for a slow start means we are shifting a small percentage of his catches and yards to Jonnu Smith. Henry was ahead of Smith in our earlier projections, but this basically puts them even in our rankings (at TE17 and TE18 in standard scoring).

Trey Lance Moves Up (8/11)

The early word out of San Francisco is that Lance has been outplaying veteran Jimmy Garoppolo in camp. Lance, the third overall pick in the NFL Draft, should see the field at some point, and these early reports increase the chance that he could even start the year. Our initial projections had about a 50/50 split in pass attempts this year between the two quarterbacks, but we’ve now bumped Lance up to a higher percentage. Given his projected rushing production (even if he is not the full-time starter, Lance will probably see the field in packages that utilize his athleticism), Lance is shooting up the board with that move, now at QB17. If there is further news about his status and projected outlook for Week 1, we will adjust further. If Lance is the Week 1 starter, he’s got top 12 potential because of the rushing.

Betting Market Adjustments (8/10)

Prior to Week 1 of the NFL preseason, we made adjustments based on betting market info in the team win total markets. Previously, we had already adjusted some team projections (see Indianapolis and Green Bay as examples below) based on news. But our initial projections were from May, and incorporated win totals at the time to find the most similar past teams and their performances.

So we did an update to any team projections based on significant movement in the markets since May. For most teams, this had no impact. Here were the biggest movers:

  • Cleveland (up 1.0 wins)
  • Atlanta (up 0.6 wins)
  • New York Jets (down 0.8 wins)

Here is how those win total moves impacted any fantasy projections:

Cleveland: not much impact on the offensive projections, but the defensive projections improved with the win total bump. Slight changes to Cleveland’s points allowed and interception totals caused Cleveland DEF/ST to go from No. 11 to No. 7, making them more of a sneaky-good defensive pickup at a cheaper price than some other starting-caliber defenses.

Atlanta: similar to Cleveland, the win improvement for Atlanta had little impact on the offense and impacted defense and special teams more. However, this doesn’t have much practical impact as the Falcons are still in the bottom 10 in our projected points on defense.

New York Jets: The Jets’ win shift downward did cause the offensive similarity projections for teams like them with rookie quarterbacks to drop some. The passing attempts, yards, and touchdowns all went down slightly, putting New York at the bottom of the league along with Houston and Detroit in projected plays run. That impacted Zach Wilson downward to QB25 and also dropped Corey Davis a bit. However, two ADP adjustments for rookies caused them to rise despite the overall offensive jump (see below).

Rookie ADP Market and Similarity Adjustments (8/10)

Our rookie projections incorporate Average Draft Position (ADP) in two ways. The first is a straight-forward input based on ADP to represent market value, and based on projected average points for players with similar draft positions. That factor is part of our projections for all players, not just rookies.

Additionally, our rookie similarity factor uses ADP as one of the similarity inputs, which is unique to rookies, since we don’t have prior year stats to use. We use NFL Draft position, bio factors like age, height, weight, team factors, and where the fantasy market is drafting players.

Well, when we did this in May, we had to project the ADP for rookies and base it on early draft position data. Plenty of rookies have seen movement, some based on rampant optimism and the hope/upside that rookies bring, and some based on depth chart changes and reports.

So we did a big “scrub” of changes in ADP and made adjustments to several rookies.

We’ll just note some notables ones here.

For the Jets, rookie RB Michael Carter saw an increased projection in touches based on his ADP rise, where he is all the way up to RB34 and currently looks like the starter in New York. Fourth round picks like Carter don’t typically come in as starters, so his earlier projections were based on players with lower ADP. WR Elijah Moore has also been impressive to start camp and has seen a slight bump as well as his ADP has improved, mostly at the expense of second-year wide receiver Denzel Mims.

RB Trey Sermon is another that has seen an upward climb in ADP and now projects better. Back in May, the depth chart was far more muddled, and Sermon’s role less certain, but Jeff Wilson suffered an injury and Sermon now projects as a likely contributor in a committee with Raheem Mostert to start the year.

RB Najee Harris is an interesting one, because he, along with several others we highlight here, show that ADP doesn’t always correlate with improvement when it comes to rookies. We initially projected Harris as RB20 by ADP based on similar players, draft position, and his role atop the depth chart. He has climbed all the way to RB10 now. However, when we use that ADP adjustment as one of his inputs, his projected points based on similar players actually goes down slightly. Basically, fantasy football drafters haven’t been all that great at distinguishing which rookies should be going 10th or 20th at the position. Just last year, we saw Clyde Edwards-Helaire’s ADP go on a surge to where many were suggesting he was a top five option. Just as with Edwards-Helaire, our projections on Harris have gone from being more optimistic than the market before the run, to being below market in August.

RB Javonte Williams and RB Travis Etienne have also seen their ADPs rise with rookie optimism, and seen small bumps (though now, the market has again surpassed our projections.)

At wide receiver, we see a similar pattern. Past fantasy football drafters haven’t been particularly good at identifying which rookies are breakout candidates. Last year was a very good year for rookies, but Justin Jefferson was going well behind lots of other rookies. So for WR DeVonta Smith, he’s going much earlier than our projected ADP in May, now in the Top 35 at the position. But his comps based on ADP do not project any better. Any slight move upward is result of only adjusting for the market factor. WR Jaylen Waddle‘s comps actually improved by his ADP being lower now than we projected in May. What does this mean? When it comes to receivers, you should probably shop for value late and pick up guys based on cost, because the market optimism on rookie wide receivers has been all over the place relative to performance. Some of the best rookie wide receivers in recent years weren’t going very high relative to their real NFL Draft position.

QB Carson Wentz’ foot injury (8/2)

With news that Carson Wentz has undergone foot surgery, and a very wide range of 5-12 weeks for recovery, there is a lot of uncertainty around the Colts. The win totals were pulled on the news, though some books have re-opened it at nine wins, about one full win below where it was previously. We have adjusted our team projections based on that win total drop, since our team similarity projections do take into account the betting market info to find similar teams. We had made some manual adjustments because of concerns over Wentz’ productivity, so some of the new similarity data moves in the direction that we had manually adjusted.

Still, we have lowered both the pass attempt and rush attempts by 10 each anticipating a slower pace with any backup quarterback games, and also lowered the efficiency downward slightly. Scoring dropped by about 1.4 points per game, distributed across pass/rush/field goals. So the net effects of this move are:

  • Wentz moves down into undrafted range in most seasonal leagues;
  • Jonathan Taylor drops to RB8 with more downside potential because of reduced team scoring;
  • Michael Pittman (WR48) and T.Y. Hilton (WR57) are now in borderline draft range in seasonal leagues;
  • Rodrigo Blankenship goes from inside our Top 10 at kicker to now down at No. 19, pushing him to a non-target at kicker early in the season.

QB Aaron Rodgers reports, slight team adjustment to stats (7/29)

With Aaron Rodgers reporting to camp and sports books re-releasing the Vegas over/under win totals in the aftermath, where Green Bay is back at 10.0 wins, we updated our team projections based on similar. There weren’t any drastic changes here, as our projections mostly assumed that Rodgers would be the QB, but it did make some slight shifts to the rushing attempts and yards upward for the team (since teams with more projected wins run more with the lead) and also an additional 1.6 touchdowns scored, distributed between rushing and passing.

Rodgers moved just around Jalen Hurts and into QB8 with that slight upward scoring adjustment, but basically stays in the same tier. Davante Adams stayed at WR2 overall. Aaron Jones moved just in front of Jonathan Taylor as RB5 in our PPR Rankings though he is further back in non-PPR formats. A.J. Dillon stayed at RB35 stayed in the same rank but moved up a tier, a lot closer to the five running backs just in front of him and this solidifies his outlook as a flex/RB3 option with upside. We were already above market on both Green Bay running backs, as the market seemed to react with a lot less risk tolerance on all the breathless Rodgers coverage this offseason. Jones has been at RB10 in PPR and Dillon at RB40, and it will be interesting to see if those slowly move toward our positions over time now that it appears Rodgers will be under center again with the Packers.

WR Anthony Miller traded from Chicago to Houston (7/28)

The Chicago Bears traded fourth-year WR Anthony Miller to the Houston Texans, in a deal that is also reportedly part of a larger series of moves that will also involve the Texans sending veteran receiver Randall Cobb back to Green Bay to be reunited with QB Aaron Rodgers. We’ll wait to incorporate any changes for Cobb once that transaction becomes official, but for now, we made adjustments to the Bears and Texans, and removed Cobb from our Texans’ projections.

Anthony Miller sees a modest upgrade, though that still likely doesn’t make him draft-worthy. He was at WR97 as the clear #3 WR in Chicago, and is now WR83 and in a virtually dead heat as the potential #2 option in Houston along with Keke Coutee and rookie Nico Collins, behind Brandin Cooks.

The biggest beneficiary might be second-year WR Darnell Mooney. Mooney had a promising rookie campaign with 61 catches for 631 yards, and this trade solidifies his role as the other starting wide receiver in Chicago along with Allen Robinson. Shifting some more production from Miller’s projection in Chicago results in Mooney going from WR49 to WR45 in PPR formats. While that may not seem like a big jump, it cements him as someone who should probably be rostered in most leagues, as a viable fourth wide receiver and matchup start with some upside entering his second year.

 

WR Michael Thomas likely to miss first month of season after ankle surgery (7/23)

Michael Thomas was at No. 19 in our PPR WR Rankings before news came out on Friday that Thomas had ankle surgery in June and is expected to miss the start of the season. Our ranking was already well below market, where he was the No. 9 WR in PPR ADP. The market will now move toward our ranking, which was a downgrade in part based on what similar players who missed time like Thomas did the next year, but our projection is also now lowered.

We made slight adjustments to the pass/run ratio for New Orleans as a team, though we already had them with a near-even pass-run split before, with the change in quarterback and potential for some Taysom Hill games. We reduced Thomas’ share of the passing production by about 25% on the risk of missing the start of the season and working back slowly. Given that he battled the same injury last year, this is a concern.

The end results, in our PPR Rankings, are:

  • WR Michael Thomas from WR19 to WR43
  • WR Tre’quan Smith from WR73 to WR55
  • WR Marquez Callaway from WR93 to WR88
  • TE Adam Trautman from TE27 to TE21

We are likely to still be low on Thomas relative to the market, but let others take that risk. There were enough risk factors around Thomas before this news. He’s now 28 years old and is again battling the same injury that cost him nine games a year ago. Here’s another recent star wide receiver that went from all-pro performances to massive drop due to injury at age 27, and never recovered.

Smith and Trautman should be the biggest beneficiaries from a target share perspective, and both now become restorable options due to the opportunities at the start of the season.

 

RB Cam Akers out for the year (7/20)

Rams’ second-year running back Cam Akers tore his Achilles and will miss the entire 2021 season. Akers had closed last year in impressive fashion, with 221 rushing yards in the two playoff games. He was expected to be the lead back and was going in the late first round in many early drafts. His injury means Darrell Henderson is the only RB on the roster who had a rushing attempt last year, as veteran Malcolm Brown went to Miami this offseason.

Team adjustments

With the injury, we made the following adjustments to the team projections: slight shift in rush attempts downward (-20) and pass attempts upward (+15), but slight 0.2 YPA shift down with the loss of the lead back. Rushing touchdowns and field goals made reduced by one each, which is a -10 point downward adjustment, just over 0.5 point per game.

Because of the offset of the yards per attempt with the increased passing, there was not much impact on the passing game players on the Rams.

Player Impact

Henderson is the biggest riser. Our similar player projections had Akers and Henderson about even coming into the year. The projection differences between the two was entirely driven by the market (ADP) and role-based factors. With Akers out now, and Henderson having a similar player projection close to Akers as a third-year back who averaged 4.5 yards per carry a year ago, Henderson sees a big jump.

Akers was 11th at running back in our standard rankings before this injury. Henderson is now RB14 (from RB43) and has a very similar stat projection to Akers did, even though we did make some downward adjustments to the rush attempts and rushing TD projections for the team.

Xavier Jones is the new projected second running back, and Raymond Calais the third back up in our projections. Those are very fluid, though, as none of those players have a career rush attempt, and the team could add a veteran backup. Jones is now RB55 and Calais RB82 after the adjustments, in standard scoring.