Allen lived up to his 2020 preseason breakout hype with a monster
season in which he posted career-highs across the board, including
a 69% completion percentage, 4,544 passing yards, and 37 passing
touchdowns. He also continued to be a dominant force on the ground,
with eight rushing touchdowns and 421 rushing yards.
As you would expect, a breakout season of that magnitude catapulted
Allen squarely into top-3 QB contention along with Mahomes and
Kyler Murray. No longer is Allen an upside player you can get
later in drafts. If you want Allen on your team, you are going
to have to pay a premium and forgo other elite players at WR,
RB, and TE in the first five rounds.
Those who predict negative regression for Allen will point to
a significant jump in touchdown efficiency and completion percentage,
with Allen going from a league average of 4.3% in 2019 to 6.5%
in 2020. By comparison, Aaron Rodgers has a career TD rate of
6.3%, with fluctuations from 4.6 in 2019 to 9.1 in 2020. 6.5%
is not impossible to repeat, but he would be in elite company
to do it in back-to-back years.
The fact that the Bills did not bring in an elite free-agent
running back or draft someone who poses a threat to Allen’s
rushing attempts in the red zone is positive regarding Allen’s
rushing outlook. Assuming he does regress somewhat in his touchdown
passing efficiency, the stable rushing production will keep him
within the top-5 at the position.
Singletary saw 621 snaps at running back compared to 403 for
backfield mate Zack Moss in 2020, but he managed to turn that
volume into just 687 rushing yards, 269 receiving yards, and only
two touchdowns.
His yard-per-carry average dropped by nearly a full yard, and
his fantasy points per game fell off about four points. Although
he did technically average .1 more yards per carry than Moss,
his pedestrian touchdown totals and the likely continuation of
Allen working as the primary goal line ball carrier limits the
upside of Singletary.
Another thing to consider before drafting Singletary is the fact
that against the Colts in the Wild Card game, Moss was the primary
back before leaving with an ankle injury. If that trend continues
into 2021, Singletary is likely no more than a flex play in deeper
leagues.
Moss’ rookie season would be described as a disappointing
start mixed in with a few solid games. Nothing about his stats
makes him look like a great running back, with a below-average
yard-per-carry average on a pass-first team with a quarterback
who takes most of the valuable goal line carries.
However, Moss does have some buzz heading into his second season
for two reasons. First, the Bills did not sign a free agent running
back or draft his replacement this spring. If the Buffalo front
office was not happy with their running back stable, they had
more than a few opportunities to upgrade.
Second, Moss saw a sizable increase in work down the stretch
of the 2020 season and was the primary ball carrier against the
Colts before suffering a leg injury. It is a small sample size,
and we have been fooled before with late-season volume changes.
But combined with the lack of change to the running back stable,
this bodes well for Moss.
Like his quarterback, Diggs posted career-highs across the board
in 2020, with personal bests in targets, receptions, and receiving
yards. He emerged as the alpha dog receiving option for a QB who
took a massive step forward in efficiency and production.
Diggs was the best of both worlds for fantasy managers in 2020,
as he delivered monster games at times while also providing top-8
consistency scores according to our Consistency Calculator. As
you might expect, the 5th-round steal from the prior year is now
a fringe first-round pick, depending on format.
No longer a steal, fantasy managers who desire to have Diggs
on their roster will need to pay a mighty premium for his services,
forgoing RBs ranked in the top-12 and elite tight ends like Travis
Kelce.
Allen’s breakout season was so beyond his career averages
that some regression to the mean is likely, especially at his
6.5% TD rate. The regression could eat into the overall production
of the receiving weapons on the team, but Diggs 166 targets and
a league-best 127 are more than enough evidence to believe he
will once again be the main target for Allen and among the top
WRs in the league.
Sanders joins his fifth team this season after signing a one-year,
$6 million with the Bills in the offseason. The 34-year-old veteran
will likely assume the role of the departed John Brown, who signed
with the Raiders after a disappointing second season with Buffalo.
The 34-year-old receiver joins the Bills after an uneventful
single season with New Orleans, in which he posted 61/726/5 in
14 games. Not great, but still serviceable in deeper leagues.
With the Bills, Sanders will likely be the third option in the
passing game behind the alpha dog in Stefon Diggs and an underneath
favorite of Allen in Cole Beasley. Second-year WR Gabriel Davis
also flashed some impressive skills last season and could eat
into the volume opportunity for Sanders.
Sanders will have a few big plays and could finish with a similar
stat line that he delivered last season. But his pecking order
on the team makes him a stretch to get 100 targets, making him
more of a best-ball option.
For the second consecutive season, Cole Beasley topped 100 targets
with the Bills, finishing just inside WR3 territory with 82/967/4.
It was an impressive feat considering the addition of Stefon Diggs
and the 166 targets he garnered from quarterback Josh Allen and
the emergence of rookie Gabriel Davis.
There has been some chatter that Beasley could be a camp-cut
casualty, but if he stays on the team, he should continue to be
a solid PPR flex option for managers looking for some cheap volume
later in drafts. Just don’t expect too much touchdown volume
from a guy who has never posted more than six touchdowns in any
season.
There is a ton to like about Davis as we head into the 2021 season.
After all, it is an impressive feat to catch seven receiving touchdowns
as a rookie, especially on an offense where he was the third or
fourth option. If you just look at his stats, he would be someone
many people were targeting as a young player poised to leap into
top-24 status.
But we do not just draft by stats from the previous season, and
Davis could be fools gold for anyone looking for a sleeper this
season. First, Stefon Diggs posting just eight receiving touchdowns
on 166 receptions is somewhat anomalous; leading us to believe
that he should be closer to 11 based on that amount of volume.
Second, the team brought in veteran Emmanuel Sanders to fill
the void left by John Brown. Sanders is not the player he once
was, but he should eat into the overall target pie, and Davis
is the likely one to have his pie share go down.
Lastly, Allen posted ridiculous increases in both efficiency
and volume, with regression to the mean likely in his future.
This does not mean that Allen will not be a top fantasy QB, but
37 passing touchdowns is hard to repeat.
For these reasons, we recommend not drinking the Kool-Aid on
Davis and waiting to see if there are any changes to the WR corps
before adding him off waivers after he is dropped.
Knox did take an incremental increase in targets per game and
touchdowns scored, but the lack of usage of tight ends in the
Bills passing game makes him a non-factor in all formats.
In addition, there have been rumors that the Eagles will ship
Zach Ertz to the Bills when camp starts later in July. Either
way, Knox is someone you should avoid at all costs.
