2024 Fantasy Football Sleepers & Busts: Undervalued, Overvalued Players

The goal in picking sleepers and busts is to identify players whose average draft position (ADP) makes them undervalued or overvalued. We asked some of our football writers for their favorite undervalued and overvalued players for the 2024 season. In addition to the writeups below, be sure to watch quick videos from Nick Whalen and Jim Coventry.

Remember, calling a player overvalued does not mean he will be awful this year. It simply means his risk outweighs the likelihood he returns his ADP value. We limited "busts" to an ADP top-12 QB/TE or top-36 RB/WR.

Disagree with any of the picks? Got a favorite sleeper or bust player? Let us know in the comments.

UNDERVALUED

James Conner, RB, Cardinals
ADP: RB19

Conner's ADP implies that people either expect a huge decline in his per-game scoring or don't know that they're allowed to put another player in his lineup spot when he's out with an injury. A guy who averages 15 fantasy points in 12 games is much more valuable than one who averages 12 in 15. Once this is understood, Conner is an ideal RB2 for anyone confident in their ability to build a decent bench and/or play waivers. He averaged at least 15.5 PPR points per game in each of his first three seasons with the Cardinals, and he's coming off his best season as a rusher. For now, Trey Benson is just a handcuff, not competition.

DeMario Douglas, WR, Patriots
ADP: WR72

Douglas is short, not small, having run a 4.44 40 at last year's combine at 5-foot-8, 192. That's a faster time than Tank Dell or Josh Downs, both of whom are an inch taller and more than 20 pounds lighter than Douglas. That's not to say Douglas is better than them, but he's certainly better than his ADP suggests, following a rookie year in which he was targeted on 22.1 percent of his routes and produced 7.1 YPT in an offense that averaged 6.1 YPA. He'll run a lot more routes this year, and QBs Jacoby Brissett and Drake Maye should lift New England's offense back into the normal range of "bad" after being one of the worst units of the past decade last year. 

— Jerry Donabedian

Joshua Palmer, WR, LAC
ADP: WR59

Although he probably won't be any more than a WR3 in fantasy, it's still easy to get Palmer at something more like a WR5 price — and that's for a player with a realistic chance of finishing 2024 as the WR1 with the Chargers. Second-round pick Ladd McConkey projects as the eventual WR1 between himself, Palmer and DJ Chark, but McConkey missed a bit of training camp with leg tweaks and Justin Herbert has missed most of training camp with his foot injury. Herbert already knows and trusts Palmer, while McConkey and Herbert will have catching up to do once they're both healthy — all while they try to learn a new offensive system. Palmer has shown to be an at least average starting wide receiver in the NFL, and if Herbert needs a security blanket it seems like it will be him.

Ray Davis, RB, Bills
ADP: RB55

At 5-8, 211, Davis is far from an imposing figure, yet compared to James Cook (5-11, 190) Davis is actually somewhat burly. Cook is clearly the Buffalo starter and a standout in-space running back, but if the Bills ever want to get serious about running between the tackles they'll need to call on someone other than Cook. Davis is three inches shorter yet 20 pounds heavier — even if Davis is small in his own right, he's still much better built than Cook to set anchor between the tackles and grind through the teeth of the defense. Cook is at his best on tosses, sweeps, draws, screens, etc., but asking him to run a halfback dive is begging for him to get clotheslined, because Cook is built much higher but with much less mass. Davis can handle a heavy workload and is probably about as good of a receiver as Cook, so an even a timeshare between could occur at some point this year.

— Mario Puig

Ja'Lynn Polk, WR, Patriots
ADP: WR64

Polk should have plenty of opportunity this season in a New England receiving corps that lacks a clear No. 1 target. Top wideout Kendrick Bourne is coming off an ACL injury suffered Week 8 last year and is still on the PUP list. Even if he's ready for Week 1, he won't dominate targets. And slot receiver DeMario Douglas doesn't have the size (5-8, 192) to play on the outside where Polk will compete for targets. A second-round pick, Polk was overshadowed by Rome Odunze at Washington last season. He shouldn't be overshadowed by anyone on the Patriots this year.

Tyrone Tracy, RB, Giants
ADP: RB54

A wide receiver at Iowa, Tracy converted to running back for his final two years at Purdue. Without Saquon Barkley, coach Brian Daboll's passing scheme has to target somebody besides fellow rookie Malik Nabers. Barkley had 60 targets in 14 games last season and new starter Devin Singletary isn't much of a receiver. Tracy is more explosive and elusive than Singletary and was known in college for making would-be tacklers miss. He won't necessarily overtake Singletary as the lead back (but, who knows?), but he could carve out a useful role. At RB54, he's worth a late-round flyer.

— Jason Thornbury

OVERVALUED

Evan Engram, TE, Jaguars
ADP: TE8

Engram is someone you pick if you're playing not to lose rather than playing to win. Unfortunately, he's not even a good selection from the wimpy perspective, as his consistent failure to produce big plays or block effectively comes with hidden risk of a drop off in routes and/or targets even if the TE depth chart behind him is weak in Jacksonville. How easily we forget that Engram averaged 47.6 yards without a single TD through 11 games last year before Christian Kirk's season-ending injury led to 61 targets, 439 yards and four TDs in the final six games. Engram getting huge volume is something that happens when an offense is failing, not something for which any coach should ever plan. Last year was his perfect storm, with Kirk and Zay Jones injured and the O-line failing to create holes for Travis Etienne.

James Cook, RB, Bills
ADP: RB14

I'm not exactly sure "bust" is the right term, but I do know there are a lot of running backs drafted after Cook I'd rather have. While perhaps not the riskiest pick, Cook has little chance of outperforming his ADP by a significant margin, which is worse than a boom/bust selection in most cases. The lack of goal-line carries figures to persist as long as Josh Allen does, forcing Cook to rely on long runs or receptions to get his touchdowns. There's also some risk of a reduced rushing workload in general after the Bills brought in a much sturdier back, fourth-round pick Ray Davis (see above).

— Jerry Donabedian

Kyren Williams, RB, Rams
ADP: RB7

Williams is clearly an excellent fit in the Rams' scheme, and just as important he has the unyielding trust of coach Sean McVay. The issue is that at roughly 5-9, 195, he's the slowest starting running back in the league, and both smaller and slower than nearly all NFL running backs. Even if Williams is a great scheme fit for the Rams, third-round pick Blake Corum is basically the same player but bigger (5-8, 205) and faster (his 4.53-second 40 clears Willliams by more than 0.1 seconds). That, and the Rams might need to use Corum to give Williams durability rest, especially given Williams' injury troubles. Williams is not yet to 265 career carries yet has already suffered a broken foot, two severe high-ankle sprains and a separate, second unspecified foot injury that bothered him this spring.

Davante Adams, WR, Raiders
ADP: WR10

Few of even the greatest wide receivers reach peaks as memorable as Adams' from 2020 to 2021, and even now he remains a clearly good starting NFL receiver, including for fantasy. It's still asking a lot to pay a second-round price for Adams, however, because the Raiders' passing game is stagnant and unambitious yet surprisingly crowded. The pie will be small and there will be more players stabbing at it than in 2023 — and Adams turning 32 in December doesn't help. Adams was overexposed on his 2023 target volume, moreover, because the team baseline (65.5 percent completed, 6.9 YPT) cleared Adams' own numbers (58.9 percent caught, 6.5 YPT). Rather than the near-33 percent target share he had last year, expect Adams to be a step slower while drawing something more like 28 percent of targets, with 13th overall pick Brock Bowers stealing the difference.

— Mario Puig

Tank Dell, WR, Texans
ADP: WR26

Dell was having a fantastic rookie season for the Texans before breaking his leg in Week 13 last year. A third-round pick, he rose from the No. 3 WR job among a thin receiving corps to lead the team in targets by his season-ending game. The addition of Stefon Diggs this offseason, however, relegates Dell to WR3 once again. Few third wideouts are worth a top-30 pick at the position, but Dell, at WR26, is being drafted as if the passing game is still just him and Nico Collins. Unless the Texans split targets almost evenly between their top-3 WRs, Dell is not likely to return the profit of other wide receivers in that range.

George Pickens, WR, Steelers
ADP: WR27

Pickens finished WR23 in fantasy last season, but he didn't do a lot to help fantasy teams. His last 11 games, he turned in two great outings — in Weeks 16 and 17, mind you — and nine duds. Pittsburgh's significant offseason changes didn't necessarily improve his situation. The Steelers ranked 29th in pass attempts last season only to hire run-heavy offensive coordinator Arthur Smith this season. And while the QB play can only get better, new signal callers Russell Wilson and Justin Fields have both been known to be erratic. Pickens' ADP is reasonable, but others in that range have both higher floors and higher ceilings. 

— Jason Thornbury

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