The 2020 NFL Draft is in the books, and that means it’s time for us to fully turn our attention to the 2020 NFL season and fantasy football. While COVID-19 means we can’t guarantee an NFL season, our league mates want us to be on our heels, unprepared for the season. Never you fear, Football Absurdity is here to cover all of the 78 fantasy football eligible players drafted in the 2020 NFL Draft. Keep in mind, most of these guys won’t get selected in your draft, but you’ll want to know these 2020 NFL draftees when your fantasy football draft comes around. As for undrafted free agents, we will worry about those guys down the line. We covered the Arizona Cardinals yesterday, and continue around the NFC West with the Los Angeles Rams
The Los Angeles Rams spent this offseason trying to clear out a lot of bad contracts from their roster. They cut Todd Gurley and traded Brandin Cooks to the NFC West Helper, Bill O’Brien (send that love to my Niners, Bill). They’re an offense in flux, as we are unsure of the running back situation, and even the personnel groupings. The Rams switched to more two-tight end sets last year after Cooks struggled and Tyler Higbee shot through the stratosphere. It will be interesting to see how Sean McVay adapts to not having the best WR corps in the league for the first time in his career. Will he adapt, and ascend, or falter, and stumble? The Rams took three fantasy football eligible players in the 2020 NFL Draft, to hopefully help Sean McVay soar.
FULL LOS ANGELES RAMS DRAFT RESULTS
| Rd | Pick | Player | Pos | School |
| 2 | 20 | Cam Akers | RB | Florida St |
| 2 | 25 | Van Jefferson | WR | Florida |
| 3 | 20 | Terrell Lewis | OLB | Alabama |
| 3 | 40 | Terrell Burgess | S | Utah |
| 4 | 30 | Brycen Hopkins | TE | Purdue |
Round 2, Pick 20: Cam Akers, Running Back, Florida State (5’10” 217 lbs)
| 40-yd Dash | Bench Press | Vertical Jump | Broad Jump | 3 Cone | 20-yd shuttle | 60-yd shuttle |
| 4.47s (u) | 20 reps | 35.5 in | 122.0 in | — | 4.42s | — |
Courtesy: NFL.com, (u) = unofficial.
Depth Chart:
RB1 Cam Akers
RB2 Darrell Henderson
RB3 Malcolm Brown
RB4 John Kelly
TALENT
Cam Akers stands just behind the top tier of running backs in this class from a pure talent perspective. He has fancy feet, good awareness, and effortless speed and acceleration. He doesn’t burst through piles and gets ankle tackled a bit much, so he needs to work on contact balance. If he breaks an ankle tackle, his acceleration sends him off to the races, but his lack of reliable top-end speed means more 25-yard runs than 75-yard house calls. Akers has good-enough hands to be a pass catcher but is primarily a powerful, instinctive runner than a well-rounded back. His big downsides are pass protection (which might find him off the field more often than we would like) and his propensity to dance behind the line. Speaking of the line, he ran behind a truly terrible one last year, which negatively affected his productivity.
2020 OPPORTUNITY
Cam Akers doesn’t have bell-cow back potential right now, though that might change. He must share the backfield with Darrell Henderson, at least to start, but we saw what Henderson did last year in limited opportunities (it wasn’t much). To start the season, however, Akers will be part of a one-two punch with Darrell Henderson. Try as the fantasy football community did, they never managed to Tinkerbell clap Malcolm Brown or John Kelly into viable commodities.
2020 FANTASY FOOTBALL OUTLOOK
The bottom line is that Cam Akers is the best back on the L.A. Rams roster. He ran behind a terrible line in a questionable offense last year, which made his college tape even more exciting. Akers had to dance a ton to get anything last year, so even if the Rams line falls apart, he’s suited to perform. Given that the Los Angeles Rams offense should be one of the most productive, and given that they dragged a hobbled Todd Gurley, kicking and screaming, to fantasy value last year, Akers should go in the first 5-6 rounds in your fantasy drafts. He will casually cast aside Henderson and Brown, and solidify himself as a weekly starter by the midpoint of the season.
TALENT: 
OPPORTUNITY: 
2020 FANTASY FOOTBALL OUTLOOK:
Round 2, Pick 25: Van Jefferson, Wide Receiver, Florida State (6’1” 200 lbs)
| 40-yd Dash | Bench Press | Vertical Jump | Broad Jump | 3 Cone | 20-yd shuttle | 60-yd shuttle |
| — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
Courtesy: NFL.com, (u) = unofficial.
Van Jefferson missed the NFL Combine testing with a Jones fracture in his foot, found at the NFL Combine physical. This sidelined him for 6-8 weeks.
Depth Chart:
WR1 Cooper Kupp
WR2 Robert Woods
WR3 Van Jefferson
WR4 Josh Reynolds
TALENT
The second-best WR named Jefferson in this class, Van Jefferson turned a strong Senior Bowl showing into a top-sixty pick in the NFL Draft. He’s a receiver who is shiftier than he should be given his height. He’s a monster at the line of scrimmage, even juking his defender into the ground in the short area. He has a good frame, strong hands, and is fast but not super fast in his routes. He’s incredibly fast and shifty with the ball in his hands and demonstrates incredibly strong hands to get the ball into his hands.
His routes are impeccable, and anything you can coach into a wide receiver, he has. That’s probably because of his WR Coach, and thirteen-year NFL veteran father. Jefferson was the twelfth wide receiver off the board, but that speaks more to the depth of the draft than anything else. Unfortunately for his breakout potential, he will be 24 when the season starts if we have a 2020 season, and 25 if we don’t see football until 2021.
2020 OPPORTUNITY
The Rams traded Brandin Cooks for a second-rounder and used a second-rounder on Van Jefferson. The straight-across opportunity should be obvious. However, the Rams finally turned their offense back on last season by eschewing three-wide receiver sets for two-tight end sets, bringing Tyler Higbee to the offensive party. Jared Goff threw for a career-high 626 pass attempts last year, which should make for plenty of space for Jefferson. Unfortunately for Jefferson, the Rams turned heavily towards tight ends at the end of the year. If they carried their 29.01% TE target rate in weeks 12 through 17 last year over the course of all season, they would have had 181 targets to the position. Those 181 targets would rank second in the league, to the Eagles.
2020 FANTASY FOOTBALL OUTLOOK
Jefferson’s best bet is for the Los Angeles Rams to return to their 2017 and 2018 offenses, which would vault him into the fantasy stratosphere. I’m not keen on this happening, though I don’t count it out. Still, since that possibility looms, Jefferson is a valid backend pick in a deeper three-WR PPR league. To be honest? It’s probably for someone else unless he falls completely into my lap.
TALENT:
OPPORTUNITY: 
2020 FANTASY FOOTBALL OUTLOOK:
Round 4, Pick 30: Brycen Hopkins, Tight End, Purdue (6’5” 245 lbs)
| 40-yd Dash | Bench Press | Vertical Jump | Broad Jump | 3 Cone | 20-yd shuttle | 60-yd shuttle |
| 4.66s (u) | 21 reps | 33.5 in | 116.0 in | 7.25s | 4.28s | — |
Courtesy: NFL.com, (u) = unofficial.
Depth Chart:
TE1 Tyler Higbee
TE2 Gerald Everett
TE3 Brycen Hopkins
TALENT
Hopkins is a fast and athletic tight end who does well to find the ball quickly when thrown to him. He settles down into zone coverage well but struggles with focus drops when a DB is coming to lay the wood. He also has trouble shaking defenders in man coverage. Take it or leave it, and decide what this means to you, but he’s Vance McDonald 2.0. Can they fix the drops? That will be the difference between Hopkins becoming useful in fantasy football and Hopkins becoming a fantasy football afterthought.
2020 OPPORTUNITY
Brycen Hopkins is the third tight end in the room and the Rams’ final pick. He is the TE3 for a team that has a chance to go away from its 3WR roots and might put two tight ends on the field. When that happened last year, at least two-thirds of the TE targets went to one guy. It started as Everett, but became Higbee. There’s nothing there for Hopkins this year. Even if he gets snaps…
2020 FANTASY FOOTBALL OUTLOOK
Rookie tight ends rarely have sustained success in their rookie year. And by rarely, I mean rarely. I’m finding new and fun ways to point this out. Here’s a new and fun way: in 2019, the #12 tight end in half-PPR scored 6.4 fantasy points per game. Since 2010, only six tight ends have done that in at least eight games in a season. Remember T.J. Hockenson? Remember how you gloated that he broke the mold? Wrong. Punt on rookie tight ends entirely.
TALENT:
OPPORTUNITY: 
2020 FANTASY FOOTBALL OUTLOOK:
For more 2020 NFL Draft coverage, check out these:
Arizona Cardinals Rookie Roundup
Fantasy Football Fallout: 2020 NFL Draft Round One
Football Absurdity Podcast: First Round Recap
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