NFL
5 NFL Players Going Way Too High in Early Fantasy Drafts
You're still thinking about Jamaal Charles at No. 4 overall? Read this first.

You already conducted your fantasy football draft? Look at you, you overachiever. I bet you flambeed a steak and built a scenic patio out the third-story of your LEED-certified mansion right after. But for the rest of us mere mortals, we're waiting for things like "preseason" and "inevitable injuries" and "how DeSean Jackson will put his foot in his mouth next".

Oh, and preseason mock draft lobbies. Those are important too. I like to do a couple before my actual draft to see the lay of the land, know what people are thinking. Especially because, the majority of the time, what people are thinking is so, so wrong. That's why we're here to help the smart ones like you.

There are always a couple of players who go way too early, especially if you have an early drafting date before consensus picks are truly set. These are those guys. If you're drafting from now until the start of preseason, I'd just wait on these five guys and let your opponents inherit the terrible value instead.

1. Jamaal Charles

Average Draft Position: #4 Overall, #4 RB
numberFire Ranking: #8 Overall, #8 RB

It feels a bit odd having to do an about face; I spent all last preseason defending Average Draft Position: #28 Overall, #19 RB
numberFire Ranking: #51 Overall, #28 RB

Average Draft Position: #29 Overall, #7 WR
numberFire Ranking: #53 Overall, #16 WR

This is the one Average Draft Position: #31 Overall, #8 WR
numberFire Ranking: #48 Overall, #14 WR

Come on, you know better than to trust a Packers receiver, right? Especially one who came out of nowhere like Average Draft Position: #62 Overall, #4 TE
numberFire Ranking: #93 Overall, #8 TE

There's the end of the regular season Davis, which saw him wondering through Narnia while everybody else was playing football, and then there's the playoffs Davis, who was a legitimate Super Bowl MVP candidate had the Niners won. So which one will show up this season?

We're tending towards the former. Lost in the shuffle of Kaepernick-mania is that Vernon Davis wasn't too much more efficient catching the ball with the new QB than he was during the Alex Smith era. Even including playoffs, Vernon Davis caught just 28 of the 43 targets thrown his way from Kaepernick, a 65 percent catch rate. That's solid, but with Smith, his catch rate was actually higher at around 69 percent. He also only gained 0.75 expected points per reception last season, a low total for a tight end whose main role is to stretch the field.

While Davis is serviceable, he's certainly not worth a fifth or sixth round selection with his up-and-down stats. Our main man Tony Gonzalez (maybe people will actually listen when we call him our third-best tight end again) and Greg Olsen each projected to score at least 15 more fantasy points in a standard league, but both have a lower ADP. Especially with Anquan Boldin in the fold as well, Davis's upside is limited.

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