2021 Justin Herbert Fantasy Football Player Profile

It’s that time of year once again! Football Absurdity will bring you a breakdown of every notable fantasy football-relevant player throughout June, July, and August. We start off with the quarterbacks. I continue my portion of the rundown of the position with a QB who burst onto the scene because a team doctor collapsed Tyrod Taylor’s lung. Can the sophomore quarterback build on his 2020, or is some regression in order?

2021 Justin Herbert ADP & AAV:

Average Draft Position: QB7, Pick 61
Average Auction Value: $25.2 (T-QB7)

Justin Herbert Statistics

aDOT+ is the quarterback’s average depth of target compared to the league average

2021 Justin Herbert Fantasy Football Overview:

Justin Herbert will have to learn a new offense after the Los Angeles Chargers cleaned house this offseason. Honestly, that’s my only quibble with the sophomore. If he had played 16 games, he would have broke rookie passing yardage and touchdown records. As it stands, he just has to be content with 31 touchdowns and only that record. To give you an idea of his rarified air, he passed for 4,336 yards last season. Only three other rookie quarterbacks passed that mark, and only ten other rookie quarterbacks even got to 3,500 yards. Among the 3,500 yard-havers, Herbert has the second-highest touchdown rate (to Baker Mayfield), second-lowest interception rate (to Dak Prescott), and the second-highest average net yards per pass attempt (again, to Dak).

All told, he had an exceptional rookie campaign; one of the best ever, in fact. If you look a bit deeper, he did struggle down the stretch. But, his “struggles” in his last six games amounted to 273 passing yards, 1.5 touchdowns, and 0.7 interceptions. A lot of quarterbacks in this league would pay good money to struggle like that. Prior to that point, however, he was on a 4,800 yard, 39 touchdown pace, so the publicity about him faltering a bit was well-earned.

Still, Herbert is one of the premier young talents in the NFL. He has Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, and Austin Ekeler as his core weapons, with good ancillary pieces like Jalen Guyton and Jared Cook. He’s set up for success and has the best chance of the second-tier guys to end up inside the top-five. This could be Herbert’s coming out party. He needs to rush a little bit more to reach the top echelon of fantasy football quarterbacks, but his 234 rushing yards and five touchdowns are nothing to sneeze at.

2021 Justin Herbert Fantasy Football Draft Strategy:

Justin Herbert Auction Value: $8
Draft Ranking: Want rankings tailored to your league settings in a Beersheet? (coming early July)

2021 Justin Herbert is, unfortunately, a little rich for my blood. He’s the #50 pick off the board (QB7), going around guys like CeeDee Lamb, Mark Andrews, Robert Woods, and Kareem Hunt. These are all players I would prefer to Herbert. If I’m looking strictly at his draft price, he’s going too high for his tier. I probably won’t have much Herbert at this price. But, should he slip a couple of rounds, I am going to be all over him.

It’s not that I don’t like Herbert, I just like other players going in his range more. I’m more likely to get Herbert in a salary cap draft, where I don’t have to choose between Herbert and CeeDee Lamb, for example. I can just get both.

Best Case Scenario:

Herbert shows Trevor Lawrence what it’s like to be a young upstart QB with beautiful locks. He adds a consistent rushing aspect to his game and fully maximizes Mike Williams and the rest of his weapons. He finishes around QB3 on the season.

Worst Case Scenario:

He cuts his hair and looks like Bobby Hill again. He plays the part, yelling “THAT’S MY PURSE I DON’T KNOW YOU” before squarely kicking his fantasy owners in the crotch.

Check out all our 2021 player profiles as we publish them, here. 

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[Statistics are sourced from pro-football-reference.com, airyards.com, and ftnfantasy.com]