Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hall-of-Famer Bob Harris and Gary Davenport have well over 40 years of experience as fantasy football analysts and three Football Writer of the Year Awards between them. They know their stuff—or at least that’s what they tell themselves.
Each week during the 2024 season, Harris and Davenport are going to come together here at Footballguys to discuss some of that week’s most polarizing fantasy options.
We’re one week into the 2024 fantasy campaign, and while some things went according to plan in Week 1, for every player who didn’t surprise there were two that did—for better or worse.
It’s those surprising players who are the focus of this week’s conversation. Can last week’s surprise stars keep it up? Will the disappointments turn things around?
Can Davenport make it through a column without complaining about Deshaun Watson?
Baker’s Dozen
As everyone expected, Baker Mayfield of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was the NFC’s highest-scoring fantasy quarterback in Week 1. Can Mayfield remain a viable top-12 fantasy quarterback the rest of the season, and if so which underperforming Week 1 signal-caller would you consider dropping him for?
Harris: Mayfield hit the ground running, leading the Bucs on five consecutive scoring drives to open last week's win over the Commanders. It was an impressive showing against a Commanders defense that was notoriously generous against the pass last year. Nonetheless, he fully exploited the plus matchup.
As NFL.com explained, "The best word to describe Mayfield at this time is comfortable. Comfortable in his skin. Comfortable in Tampa. Comfortable in Liam Cohen's offense. Comfortable in the pocket. Comfortable dropping dimes to Mike Evans. Comfortable threading the needle to Chris Godwin on third down. Comfortable escaping sacks and turning negatives into positives."
While I'm not expecting Mayfield to top the QB list every week, a top-12 finish is absolutely in play after a QB11 campaign in 2023. The quarterbacks I'd be willing to move on from include Kirk Cousins and Aaron Rodgers.
Davenport: As a Browns fan, watching Mayfield shine while Deshaun Watson, um, does not is more than a little painful. But the reality is that he probably doesn’t do this in Cleveland. It took the divorce from the Browns and the year with Carolina and the Rams to lead him to Tampa—where he apparently belongs.
However he got here, Week 1 was no fluke—after all, Mayfield threw for almost 350 yards and three scores in last year’s postseason loss to the Detroit Lions (although he also threw two interceptions in that game). He’s comfortable in Tampa. He’s leading that offense. He has an excellent duo of wideouts in Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. If the Buccaneers can even halfway run the ball, this has the makings of a dangerous offense.
Mayfield is absolutely a viable low-end fantasy QB1—and I might add Justin Herbert of the Los Angeles Chargers and Trevor Lawrence of the Jacksonville Jaguars to the list of quarterbacks I’d consider rostering Mayfield over.