The first day of the NFL draft promises to be fun for fantasy purposes.
With that, we will not beat around the bush.
Let’s walk through the fantasy-centric selections and trades from the opening night of the 2024 NFL Draft.
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Bears Make it Official, Select Caleb Williams
No surprises out of the box.
After the Bears officially moved on from Justin Fields earlier this offseason, the selection of Caleb Williams was all but etched in stone.
He exits college with a 97th percentile score in career passing production in my prospect model for all quarterbacks going back to 2000.
For his career, Williams ranks in the 92nd percentile in yards per pass attempt (9.2 Y/A). He averaged over 9.0 yards per pass attempt in all three seasons at college.
He is in the 96th percentile in touchdown to interception ratio (6.6:1) and in the 85th percentile in completion percentage (66.9%).
Known for his ad-libbing and ability to play outside of structure, Williams has drawn comparisons to Patrick Mahomes as a ceiling outcome.
No quarterback in this draft class had more pass attempts outside of the pocket in 2023 than Williams did (88) per Sports Info Solutions.
On those plays outside of the pocket, he averaged 9.4 Y/A (third in the class) with a 12.5% touchdown rate (also third).
He was sacked on just 4.3% of his dropbacks outside of the pocket (third-best in the class) despite having the most dropbacks on the move.
Inside of the pocket, Williams averaged 9.4 Y/A, third in this class.
He also comes with an 88th-percentile career mark in rushing production.
I do not believe Williams will be a rusher to the degree of the top-flight runners in the NFL.
I believe he will be more touchdown-dependent in that regard than an outright scrambler, but he can be used in the read-option game as well as near the goal line.
Paired with his passing profile, Williams could be in the bucket of what we had in early-career Deshaun Watson from a fantasy-lens as an apex outcome.
Williams rushed for 27 touchdowns in college.
With the NFL using their quarterbacks more than ever near the end zone on the ground, Williams led this draft class with seven of his 11 rushing touchdowns in 2023 coming inside of the five-yard line.
Despite being pressured on 36.7% of his red zone dropbacks in 2023, he did not throw a red zone interception. His 79.2% on-target throw rate in the red zone was the best in this draft class.
On third and fourth down passes, Wiliams still led this class with 9.6 Y/A and did not throw an interception despite being pressured on 42.6% of those dropbacks (third highest).
Going to Chicago, Williams is in a more favorable position than many previous quarterbacks selected at No. 1 overall given how Chicago landed the top pick after trading out a year ago.
Williams will be starting his career throwing to D.J. Moore and Keenan Allen.
You can make a strong case that this is the best WR1-WR2 duo that a quarterback selected at No. 1 overall has had as a rookie since Carson Palmer worked with both Chad Johnson and T.J. Houshmandzadeh in their primes.
Palmer also sat his entire rookie season before working with those two.
Chicago has a new play-caller in Shane Waldron to go along with Cole Kmet, D’Andre Swift, and Gerald Everett. Chicago could also still add another playmaker at pick No. 9.
They also currently have the third-easiest projected schedule for this upcoming season.
From a Dynasty perspective, Williams vaults right into mid-QB1 contention.
I do question if we will get enough rushing for Williams to consistently threaten the top scorers at the position every year, but you can make a strong case that he has more overall upside as a combo-fantasy option than what we had in C.J. Stroud a year ago as a prospect.
He should be the No. 1 pick in SuperFlex formats
From a 2024 season-long stance, we should not expect Williams to replicate what Stroud provided out of the box for gamers, but it is hard to push back on his current QB12 pricing in early ADP.
I have him right in that strike zone at QB14 in overall points in early projections, and I tend to be a conservative projector.
