2021 Bounce Back Players

Carson Wentz, QB

Will you hear me out, dude? This guy dude he’s a stud dude but he had a bad year dude so what I’m saying is dude he will have a better year this year than last year dude. Carson Wentz’s foot injury is definitely a major concern and I expect him to miss a week or two, however with the new 18 week season and being on what is, without question, just overall a better team, there is no reason Wentz can’t find himself back in the QB1 discussion. I’ve been on the record of being a Wentz fan for the last handful of years, and my outlook for 2021 still isn’t changing. He doesn’t have the most dynamic pass catchers but he never really did in Philly either, and he turned out some good fantasy seasons, most notably in 2017 when he was QB5 with Frank Reich as his coach. His injury history leaves a lot to be desired, but I love the value you can get on Wentz in drafts this year. His ADP has plummeted after the foot injury and he is looking to be available in 13th rounds or in some cases even going undrafted. This is a QB who has performed at the NFL level and rejoins his old OC who made him an MVP candidate. For a guy who is two years removed from being QB11, going that late or undrafted makes for the perfect bounce-back-wait-on-QB-fantasy-pick we love to see. Book it that Wentz finds his way towards a low end QB1/high end QB2, outperforming his current selection of QB25 to come off the board.

Miles Sanders, RB

RB23 (half PPR) is not what we expected to see out of Miles Sanders in 2020. Blame the QB issues, blame the offense as a whole, blame JJ Arcega-Whiteside for injuring his own RB’s leg, blame Doug Pederson….the list goes on but I don’t care. It’s a new season, with a new head coach and a new QB. Wipe the slate clean and get back to work. Sanders has the opportunity to be a top 12 RB in the league (so a RB1 in fantasy). He and Hurts should work a TON of read option plays this season, and he should get back to his role of catching more than 28 balls on 52 targets for less than 200 yards (197 to be exact). I know they still have Boston Scott there, and I know they drafted Kenneth Gainwell, and in all honesty I expect those guys to have some fantasy value this year. But I project Sanders to return to what we thought he could be coming out of 2019, and that’s a lead dog in a good backfield. Let’s not forget, the Philly O-Line was riddled with injuries, their preeminent TE in Zach Ertz was not effective and they kept trotting him out there, and the tumultuous QB situation was doing no one any favors. Now the team should be settled in and back to work, and this stability should serve to benefit Sanders and the whole offense, particularly on the ground. They also have the good fortune of playing in the NFC East, which outside Washington, has some of the weaker run defenses in the league. So again, I would tell you to look for Sanders as a Bounce Back of the Year candidate, as he should make a strong bid to return to the top tier of fantasy football RBs in 2021.

Courtland Sutton, WR

Flash back to 2020 for a second… oh whoops sorry don’t do that… Ummm Just think about the hyped players going into the 2020 NFL preseason and very few were talked about more than Courtland Sutton. He was a sleeper candidate for no one, but a breakout candidate for almost everyone. He was a raw, athletic, big WR coming into the league and showed us what the early days looked like for a Terrell Owens or a Dez Bryant type of WR. I’m not backing down from that statement and I think Sutton absolutely has the potential to be a stud in this league, and a knee injury isn’t going to stop him and neither will Drew Lock. Sutton has caught passes from the likes of Case Keenum, Brandon Allen, an old Joe Flacco, and recently Drew Lock. In 2018 he showed up with 704 yards on 42 catches (almost 16.8 YPC) with Keenum. In 2019 he topped 1,100 yards on 72 receptions (over 15.4 YPC). Then 2020 happened and now Sutton is being drafted at the end of the 7th round. He’s putting up crazy numbers with nobody throwing to him anyway, and realistically Drew Lock is having a good camp. Drew Lock has the arm strength to put it up there for the big guy and is almost a perfect style fit for him. Don’t worry about Juedy or Hamler taking targets, the guy put up 182 points with 72 catches. He’s a dog, he’s a stud, he’s going to prove all the doubters wrong and be a top WR in 2021 and years to come.

Tyler Higbee, TE

I feel dirty. Last year all I did was tell the world not to draft Tyler Higbee and I made him my bust. I hit on that bust as Higbee was being drafted as the TE 7 last year and finished as the TE 18 (TE 21 on PPG basis). My biggest reason last year to avoid him was that the Rams still had Gerald Everett, and he is more of a pass catching TE, while Higbee is more known to be a solid blocker. When Everett was injured at the end of 2019, Higbee tore it up and was a league winner for teams. With Everett now in Seattle, Higbee has that TE role by himself, regardless of who else is on the depth chart at the TE position. Let’s not forget that Matthew Stafford is under center instead of noodle arm Jared Goff. With the team now having a legit QB and a season ending injury to Cam Akers, they will likely pass more often than last season. All of this is positive for Higbee and the offense. I’m not saying he will be as good as he was at the end of 2019, but if you’re punting the position, he is a guy you can take very late in drafts and should easily finish as a top 12 TE in 2021.

Michael Gallup, WR

Finishing the season in 2020 as a WR3 should speak volumes about how good it will be to have Dak Prescott back for this year. In 2019, he broke out and finished as a back end WR2, recording his first 1000 yard season with 6TDs. But the absence of Dak in 2020 killed his fantasy stock, yet he still finished with 843 receiving yards and 5 TDs. The general consensus is that Gallup plays third fiddle to CeeDee and Cooper. I agree with this sentiment, however I don’t agree that he should be the 50th WR off the board. Gallup has all the physical tools to perform as a functioning 3rd WR on a team and produce big fantasy numbers. The low risk/high reward with Gallup in 2021 is so crazily obvious, yet it is so mind blowing how we forget about him. It’s obvious that the Cowboys are moving towards a team that wants to throw the ball 550-600 times a year, but it’s laughable that many don’t understand what that means. We’ve seen the Steelers do this with JuJu, Diontae, and Claypool in 2020 where all 3 WRs were WR2/3s to finish the season, but we forget the WR talent in the Dallas Trio is much much better and led by a better QB. Gallup undoubtedly builds on his 2019 campaign as opposed to regresses from his 2020 season. Don’t forget, 550-600 passing attempts suggests that 3 players should be receiving over 110 targets, and with no other real receiving threats, this gives Gallup the inside track of having a bounce back year in 2021 that resembles 2019.

Julio Jones, WR

Typing “Julio Jones, WR Tennessee Titans” is going to take some time to get used to. But I think the bounce back season he is about to have should make it a little more palatable. After finishing last year as WR53 (half PPR) and being given his walking papers by Atlanta, he is certainly out with something to prove in 2021. He joins a Titans team that has been effective through the air the past couple seasons, with Ryan Tannehill at the helm, but they haven’t been what I would call prolific. AJ Brown has gotten his numbers, but beyond that the numbers haven’t been truly staggering. Julio will aim to help change that this year. When on the field, he has still been a monster, even in the Atlanta offense where he started to give a lot of ground to breakout stud Calvin Ridley. We saw Julio and Ridley both be top WR options in the past, and we saw AJ Brown co-exist with Corey Davis, but it will be interesting to see if Tannehill can support both Brown and Julio in the same offense with Derrick Henry still commanding a massive amount of touches. Maybe this is an indication that they don’t want to put as much on Henry’s shoulders? Nah I don’t think so. Henry has shown no issues carrying the bulk of Tennessee’s offense, so why tinker with something that already works. I think truly you see AJ Brown take a half tick down and Julio finish as a top 24 receiver (WR2). There should be plenty of work to go around, we just saw Corey Davis haul in 65 catches on 92 targets alongside Brown’s 70 on 106. And they lost a few other receiving targets and only really brought in Josh Reynolds to replace them. All of this leads me to believe a low end WR1/high end WR2 season is in store for Brown while Julio should safely finish as WR20-23.

Chris Godwin, WR

What the hell happened to Chris Godwin last year? He was just one year removed from finishing as the WR 2 in all of Fantasy Football and somehow just barely finished as a WR3. Last year he was being drafted easily in the 2nd round and was all but a shoe-in for another WR1 finish, so again, what happened? Tom Brady happened, and that’s not saying Tom Brady did bad, Tom Brady just spreads the ball around. He hardly ever had a consistent WR1 in New England, and if your name wasn’t Julian Edelman you were hardly drafted in Fantasy Football. People didn’t know what to think when Brady got to town, who was his number 1 going to be? Turns out it was no one. He would pass it to Mike Evans for 2 attempts and 2 TDs at times and then give Godwin his day, but never locked on to one guy. Well that’s all about to change. Chris Godwin is playing on the Franchise Tag and holds many cards for the future of the TB Offense. Money talks, and Arians/the TB front office will want to get the ball in the hands of Godwin more often this year in hopes to keep him happy. He is not going to take a paycut no matter what, so why not try to show him TB is the place to be. Brady isn’t going to get away with another year passing to his best friends as they face an even tougher schedule this year across the board. Don’t expect Godwin to be one of the lost boys, his talent will surely get him back in the right fantasy direction.

Cooper Kupp, WR

In 2019, Cooper Kupp finished as a top 6 WR in fantasy and his ADP was very high in 2020. After having a down year with bad QB play from Jared Goff, Kupp ended up finishing in the WR3 range. You can say he was one of the bigger busts in 2020, and as a Kupp owner last season it was frustrating, to say the least, as he was a guy you couldn’t really bench because of the upside he offered on a weekly basis, but it rarely seemed to pay off if he made his way into your lineup. In the offseason, the Rams traded Jared Goff to the Lions for Matthew Stafford. Say what you want about Stafford, but he is a massive upgrade for the Rams over what they had last season with Goff. Having a guy under center that knows how to move the ball and has a history of putting up great fantasy numbers, this can only be seen as a huge bump for Kupp. Let’s not forget that Cam Akers is out for the entire 2021 season. With this, you can expect the team to lean more on the passing game than they initially wanted to, as I don’t think the team will lean mightily on Darrell Henderson to carry the workload. Of course, Robert Woods is still there, and he finished as the WR13 last season, but this could be a team who can have both WRs inside of the top 15 at year’s end. With only 3 TDs last season, I expect Kupp to more than double that total. This should be a team who passes plenty and puts up plenty of scores, so I want shares of this offense, especially Kupp. After finishing as a WR3 last season, you can expect him to finish as a high WR 2, and I would not be surprised if he finds his way back inside the top 10.