One fool’s-gold fantasy player who should be avoided at each position

Drafting a fantasy team can be a highly stressful ordeal. 

The die-hard aficionados spend hours meticulously studying and researching stats, trends and projections to build a competitive roster, while others prefer to go with the classic “best player available” strategy.

While there’s no magic formula to building a championship-winning fantasy team, sometimes one of the best strategies is avoiding players with red flags. Here is one player at every position who may seem like a fantasy stud, but could end up exposed as a fraud.

Quarterback: Anthony Richardson, Indianapolis Colts

Richardson was a sexy breakout pick among NFL analysts before training camp started, and it’s easy to understand why. At 6-foot-4 and 244 pounds, Richardson has the size, athleticism and agility of a running back plus a canon for an arm. 

But he did not have a good showing in the preseason or in many camp practices, and there are just too many red flags around him right now. Many fantasy owners may want to gamble big on Richardson’s upside, and to be fair, there’s plenty of it, but he’s essentially doing his rookie year over again and coming off a major injury to boot. 

Richardson is still a raw prospect, and it’s clear he’s still learning how to read NFL defenses and make adjustments on the fly.

Running back: David Montgomery, Detroit Lions

Many fantasy owners were pleasantly surprised last season when Montgomery rushed for 1,015 yards and 13 touchdowns as the Lions’ lead back for much of the year. But Jahmyr Gibbs is no longer a rookie, and the team seems primed to take off the reins and let him do his thing.

Though Montgomery dominated the carry load 43.8 percent to 36.4 percent over Gibbs, it's unlikely (barring injury) that he does so again this season. Head coach Dan Campbell has made it sound like Detroit’s offensive game plan this year will revolve heavily around getting Gibbs the ball as much as possible, which could drop Montgomery from 219 carries into the 150 range. And he might get fewer scoring opportunities inside the red zone as well.

Wide receiver: Keenan Allen, Chicago Bears

Considering Allen’s breakout 2023 season in which he caught 108 passes for 1,243 yards and seven touchdowns, it might be awfully tough to pass him up in the Round 5-8 range. But it’s much more likely Allen comes down to earth in 2024 given the role he will likely play on the Bears. 

Chicago already has D.J. Moore, a top-15 receiver in his own right, plus talented rookie Rome Odunze, who seems to have developed a solid rapport with rookie QB Caleb Williams during camp. Allen was force-fed targets last season out of necessity (Mike Williams missed most of the year and Joshua Palmer and Quentin Johnston were ineffective at getting open), and he had a much more experienced QB in Justin Herbert throwing him the ball. 

Williams will likely suffer some rookie growing pains and Allen has much more competition for targets with Moore, Odunze and tight end Cole Kmet in the fold. Allen won’t fall completely off the face of the earth, but the fantasy owners shouldn’t expect him to be the point-scoring beast he was last season.

Tight end: Dalton Schultz, Houston Texans

Schultz had a breakout season last year working with C.J. Stroud, hauling in 59 of his 88 targets for 635 yards and five touchdowns, and while it might be tempting to pick Schultz as TEs start flying off the board, the 28-year-old should definitely come with a “buyer beware” tag. 

Schultz ranked 12th among TEs in targets and receptions last season, and that was before Houston added Stefon Diggs in an offseason trade with the Buffalo Bills. Diggs has had less than 149 targets just once over the last six years, and with Nico Collins and Tank Dell in the mix too, Schultz’s target share could drop significantly. 

Defense: Carolina Panthers

After finishing with the No. 4-ranked defense in the NFL last season, one might be tempted to grab the Panthers defense early once most of the top skill players are off the board, but there are plenty of other great defenses that should come first.

Carolina lost a lot of talent on that side of the ball including linebacker and leading tackler Frankie Luvu, edge-rushers Brian Burns and Yetur Gross-Matos, cornerbacks Donte Jackson and C.J. Henderson and safeties Vonn Bell and Jeremy Chinn.

Accounting for just those seven players, the Panthers are losing 408 tackles, 86 pressures, 42 hurries, 41 tackles for loss, 20 sacks, 17 passes defensed, 17 forced incompletions, four forced fumbles, one fumble recovery and an interception.