Teams who draft strong flex options tend to have strong win records. So how do you know who to target?
Your flex targets largely depend on your draft strategy, which in turn is influenced by your position in the draft. It's good to have a basic formula for how your plan will adapt if you have the second pick versus the eleventh. Another factor is whether you have drafted a QB or TE in the first four rounds, because if you are waiting on those positions, you are generally taking your flex in the fifth round (picks 49-60 in a 12-team) where you have a much larger talent pool to choose from. For the sake of this article we are assuming you have taken a non-flex position in addition to 2 RBs and 2 WRs, so in the sixth round you are in the market to take a guy you hope will lead your team to victory from one of the more inconsistent spots on your roster.
Before we get into which specific players I think we should be targeting in the flex rounds, let's take a look at why flex players are so important to the success of a fantasy team. First of all, players in the mid rounds generally fall to that range because there are some extraneous factors that may prevent them from achieving success. Usually this means age (young and old), injury history, bad offenses, or an uncertain target share. Every year, there are players in this range that end up finishing in the top 12 at their position, because those negative factors never came to fruition; however, a vast majority end up having decent totals on the year but they don't exceed their mid-round point expectations. In order to truly capitalize on your flex player, you want someone who has the best chance to rise above the factors that are causing him to fall out of the range of fantasy "starters". Ideally you want your flex player to outperform the second starter at his position on your roster, thus meaning you not only have a breakout flex player, but you also have insulation against bye weeks and injury. It's also very rare to hit on all four of your starting positional players, so having a solid flex or two is valuable if your WR2 ends up performing more like a bench player. That's why it's important to hit on multiple flex players as well: without fail, many of the highest-drafted players in fantasy will not achieve their draft value because they get hurt, and when that happens you want plug-and-play replacements your bench without having to trade for them or settle for lackluster waiver pickups.
Here are my top five mid-round targets that have the greatest chance to exceed their point expectations in 2021, available in rounds 6-8.
1. Ronald Jones II, RB Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Ronald Jones, or "RoJo" as he has become known, has never quite lived up to the hype. Even in 2020, when Jones was expected to get the full-time job, the Bucs brought in Leonard Fournette to split the carries with him. Fournette came on late last year and is largely remembered for his huge success in the post-season, but we must remember that Fournette only had four fantasy-relevant games last year (only two in standard formats), and two of them were the weeks Jones was hurt. Jones is the workhorse on the team, and while he isn't used much in the passing game, we can expect the addition of Gio Bernard to hurt Fournette's field time rather than RoJo's. Another reason I like him as a flex target is that he is a running back, and running backs get thin quickly in fantasy drafts. He is also a running back who gets the majority of the snaps on a Tom Brady-led offense that plans to spend a lot of its time in the red zone. Jones nearly had 1000 yards on only 192 carries last year (there was that 98-yard TD that helped his YPC average top 5.1), and if he can see the end zone more than the seven times he did in 2020 you could be drafting a top-12 RB in the 6th or 7th round.
2. Tee Higgins, WR Cincinnati Bengals
Tee Higgins is shooting up draft boards, so by the time you do your draft he may not be a sixth round option anymore. Regardless, I am a huge fan of Higgins this year. He checks all the boxes for a mid-round breakout: second year player, very successful rookie campaign, familiarity with his talented QB, bad defense meaning lots of throwing...the negatives for Higgins is a general uneasiness about Joe Burrow, and mainly the drafting of Burrow's LSU receiver Jamar Chase, further crowding a room already filled with the talented veteran Tyler Boyd. My pushback there is that even if Chase has an amazing rookie year, that doesn't mean Higgins can't still have an even better year. Boyd will end up being the odd man out, and even that may take til mid-season before we see the rookie take over the veteran's target share. Last year, in the seven full games Higgins played with Burrow, he was the WR11. That's a fantasy WR1 in a 12-team league. Don't miss on Higgins, I like him as a surefire WR2 on your team that currently has an ADP of 62, right inside the 6th round.
3. Javonte Williams, RB Denver Broncos
Javonte Williams checks a lot of negative boxes on why he is available down in the mid rounds: he is a rookie, on a perceived bad offense, with another talented RB in his backfield. There are a lot of reasons to love Williams though. Many rookie RBs break out because, while the plan was to share the load, their talent is too great to contain and they end up quickly getting a majority of the meaningful carries. Veteran RB Melvin Gordon III is aging, and quickly becoming the spell-back in the Denver offense that by all indications is clicking on cylinders it hasn't in years. I think it's possible we see a shared workload as far as about mid-season, but as I said before, I believe Williams will be getting the "meaningful" carries all season long and those are the ones that mean fantasy points. The Denver back looked pretty amazing in the small sample we saw in the preseason opener, breaking tackles and showing the burst and vision you expect from highly-drafted players. His draft stock, like Higgins, is rising as more people start to pay attention to preseason, so he may not even be a flex option by the time we get to September, but if he is you could have a league winner on your hands.
4. Antonio Brown, WR Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Antonio Brown is one of my target players for 2021 and his current draft value (ADP 103, WR39) is crazy if I'm correct. After a pedestrian start with the team, getting on the field finally in week 9 (blame CoVid protocols, lack of practice, rustiness, etc), Brown showed promise but really only became a favorite target of Tom Brady down the stretch, when he scored four touchdowns in the final three weeks of the season. His success continued in the playoffs, all the way to a Super Bowl victory and showing us that Brady can trust AB in key moments. This connection is something that I think we see grow even more. Brady has always been in Brown's corner, and AB certainly wouldn't be in Tampa without Brady pulling for him. Combine Brown's new-found discipline with his incredible talent and Brady's arm, and you have fantasy magic. The Bucs have Chris Godwin as the clear WR1, but Mike Evans is a player that I think we see fall to the WR3 on the team as far as fantasy goes. Both Godwin and Evans have had struggles with health, and since Brown took about a decade off, his body should be in prime shape to really explode should one of those guys miss significant time. If Godwin were to go down, there would be people making arguments that Brown is a must start WR1, so I don't know why you wouldn't want him as your flex that you can take in the later rounds after you drafted that tight end way too high.
5. Michael Carter, RB
New York Jets
Don't sleep on Michael Carter. Okay, I know it's ironic that I have both rookie UNC running backs on the list, but they are being drafted close together in fantasy and they will probably have similar rookie years. I just think those will both be good years. Carter has Tevin Coleman in the backfield with him, but it's pretty clear Carter is the plan at running back in New York. He also has something that historically means good things for rookie running backs: he has a little bit of uncertainly at the QB position, and he has a pretty solid offensive line. The Jets are going to try to pound the rock as much as possible in 2021, because relying on rookie Zach Wilson to win with his arm is a good way to break the young QB's spirit (as they have done to so, so many poor young QBs in New York). Carter can also catch the ball out of the backfield, making him a true three-down back for when Coleman inevitably gets hurt. How productive the Jets offense can be in 2021 is up for speculation, but we do know that Carter will see a high percentage of the snap share, and more time on the field equals more opportunities to score fantasy points than say...Raheem Mostert, Jamar Chase, or James Robinson who are being drafted in the same region.
On The Radar:
(Pictured above)
Travis Ettienne, RB Jacksonville
Trey Sermon, RB San Francisco
Chase Claypool, WR Pittsburgh
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