Five Biggest Questions:
1. Will Josh Allen remain elite without Stefon Diggs?
2. Is James Cook a top-12 RB?
3. Can Keon Coleman become Allen's new alpha WR?
4. Will Curtis Samuel or Khalil Shakir offer streaming value?
5. Is Dalton Kincaid a reliably near-elite TE?
Will this core Buffalo unit ever win a Super Bowl? They've been great for years, and now there has to be growing concern among fans that Josh Allen & company won't claim their fifth consecutive division title, and that they might not even reach the playoffs for the first time since Allen's forgettable rookie campaign in 2018.
And yet, Allen is top 3 in QB ADP for the fourth straight summer, and for the second time he's listed as #1. Is that too ambitious? Yeah, I think it is. The team hopes, in part, that the addition of a second-round rookie WR and veteran journeyman WRs can make up for the loss of Stefon Diggs. But a lot has to go right for Allen to net 390+ fantasy points for an incredible fifth straight year. 36% of his production last season came on the ground, including an insane 15 rushing scores. Since he became elite in 2020, Allen's highest rushing points percentage was 30%.
In other words, he leaned more heavily than usual in 2023 on the ground, and that's probably not sustainable. He'll need to be that much more productive through the air, which could be difficult without his customary alpha, not to mention the occasionally blistering Gabe Davis. And for a while his coaching staff has claimed (and he's sometimes agreed) that he needs to run less to protect his body and prolong his career. Now 28 years old, he's about three or four seasons away from when dual-threat QBs typically (and dramatically) break down.
He's my QB4, and I wish I had the guts to drop him to around QB6. Aside from Khalil Shakir and a powerful TE duo, Allen's receiving corps looks entirely different. We'll see if he can remain elite. I'm wary.
That WR group is fascinating from a fantasy perspective. No clear #1, though the market believes rookie Keon Coleman (WR46 ADP) has the inside track. He and Curtis Samuel (WR50 ADP) and Khalil Shakir (WR57 ADP) are packed together for obvious reasons. Marquez Valdes-Scantling (WR108 ADP) or Chase Claypool (WR116 ADP) will try to play the spoiler. I'm reserving judgment until we see more next month. Someone probably will finish in the top 45, making him a draft-day bargain. But which one?
Conversely--and because of the WR situation--I'm leaning into Dalton Kincaid (TE5 ADP) and am neutral about Dawson Knox (TE29 ADP). A beat reporter recently suggested "those expecting Kincaid to usurp the full-time role from Dawson Knox this year and push the veteran tight end into a backup may have their hopes dashed." I respectfully (and perhaps naively) disagree. While Knox's restructured contract makes it harder for the Bills to cut him, that doesn't mean he won't be traded, and it also doesn't mean he's guaranteed an equal (or greater) share of TE duties.
This franchise invested a first-round pick on Kincaid despite having Knox, whose targets dropped from 4.3 per game in 2022 to 3.0 per game last year. In the 11 games they appeared in together, Kincaid out-targeted Knox 54-30. How in the world would Kincaid struggle to remain atop the depth chart? 100+ targets for the future phenom seems realistic. He'll be more than fine.
Meanwhile, I was bullish on James Cook last summer, ranking him as the RB13 compared to an RB27 ADP. He finished as the RB12, though it was a "soft" RB12, as he was the RB19 in points per game. Should we be cautious about his RB14 ADP this year? Not at all. He is a fundamentally impressive running back who happened cede most of the rushing TDs to Allen, finishing with merely two. The only top-36 RB with the same or fewer rushing TDs was Tennessee's glorified backup Tyjae Spears. There's room for Cook to pop, and I'm taking him a round early. Ray Davis (RB55 ADP) is a must-roster handcuff in most leagues, of course, but shouldn't keep Cook from again netting a healthy 260-280 touches.
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