The New England Patriots vacated their role as the #1 team in the AFC East this offseason (at least, in theory). The Buffalo Bills are set up to pick up that title and run with it for the near future. They solidified their offense, adding Stefon Diggs and Zack Moss to questionable wide receiver and running back rooms, respectively. Who among the Buffalo Bills’ offensive weaponry is set to be their 2020 fantasy football sleeper, breakout, and bust candidates?
Sleeper – Zack Moss, Running Back (RB49, 152 overall)
This ADP is stupid. You all are stupid for allowing this ADP to occur. Yes, you. Go out and fix this, immediately. Zack Moss and Devin Singletary are set to fight for backfield touches, and the Bills stated they are looking to utilize Moss like they utilized Frank Gore last season. Before Frank Gore showed that he did not deserve to be utilized as they utilized him (weeks one through twelve), he paced out to 212 touches over the course of the entire season. That’s a great place for Zack Moss to start, and being infinitely better than Frank Gore is a great place to end.
Zack Moss and Devin Singletary are destined to split touches in 2020, but Singletary is going as RB22, and Moss as RB49. Zack Moss was a top-six running back (tier two) coming out of the draft for me, and I am hammering him in all drafts where I can get him. Moss is a big honkin’ man who doesn’t allow anyone to tackle him. He has good vision and body control that lets him quickly process lanes and hit them hard. He’s patient and with a great stiff arm, though he lacks top-end speed. He carried one of the highest broken tackle rates in the NCAA last year. Moss is basically free, and you can get him onto all of your rosters in leagues where you don’t play against me.
Breakout – Dawson Knox, Tight End (TE30, 243 overall)
Our resident auction expert, Evan Hoovler, doesn’t like Dawson Knox ($0 in auctions!) but I do. He didn’t do much last year, but rookie tight ends rarely do. Knox had an under-the-radar good first season but is falling behind the draft-stock-based hype trains for T.J. Hockenson and Noah Fant. Here are some cold, hard Dawson Knox facts: he had the third-highest yards per catch in the last half-decade for rookie tight ends. That feels like a lot of qualifiers, but let me put it a different way: one of the most efficient rookie years for tight ends in recent memory. He’s fighting against just Cole Beasley for short-area targets, and Knox is a bigger, stronger target than Beasley has ever presented. His upside is around TE10, but plucking that off the waiver wire is such a sweet, sweet feeling.
Bust – John Brown, Wide Receiver (WR37, 95 overall)
The Buffalo Bills front office did not build the squad to throw the football a lot. Josh Allen threw the ball just 461 times last year, fewer times than guys like Kyle Allen and Mitchell Trubisky. They want to run the football down your throat and back out the other side. That doesn’t make for a lot of deep shot opportunities for players who aren’t the best deep shot player on the team. Since the Buffalo Bills went out and got Stefon Diggs this offseason, that makes him the best deep shot player on the team. About 16% of Josh Allen’s pass attempts went 20+ yards down the field last year, which will mostly go toward Stefon Diggs in 2020.
There’s also the squidgy factor of John Brown in 2020: sickle cell anemia. John Brown has this affliction and has it under control, but that was all before the world ended due to COVID-19 shutting everything down. Sickle cell diseases are on the list of increased risk factors for COVID-19 according to the CDC. There’s a huge chance that you spend a top-100 pick on a wide receiver who then opts out for the season. Luckily, the date to opt-out seems to be August 1, which puts us early enough in the draft season to mitigate this risk. Still, it is something to consider this draft season.
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