High-Priced Targets for Salary Cap Drafts

Photo: Charles LeClaire, USA Today Sports

Drafting a championship-caliber salary cap roster requires finding some deals somewhere during your draft. If you pay market price for everyone, you will have a decent team that may compete but won’t have the punch to win a title. So, it is important to think about who might come at a discount in your salary cap rooms and why.

Usually, players end up being good candidates to be a target because they either underperformed last year for a reason beyond their control, their situation has markedly improved this year, or they were playing hurt last year. In some cases, the market doesn’t properly adjust after a down year, and the effect in a salary cap room is bigger than in a serpentine draft.

When looking at the top tiers of players for targets, the paradigm has to be slightly different than it is for the lower-tier players. Getting a deal on a top guy may mean only getting a few bucks off the market price, but that is still important to try to find. Managers aren’t going to let you get Patrick Mahomes II for $22 (when he usually goes for more than $30), but if they let you have him for $28, that’s still considered to be a good deal for a high-priced player. In future articles in the series, you can take a look at some players from lower tiers. But for now, who should you be looking at near the top of the draft sheet?

QUARTERBACKS

For this article, you want to focus on the Top 7 quarterbacks as there is a clear delineation in price between those guys and Trevor Lawrence checking at QB8. The top three guys (Patrick Mahomes II, Jalen Hurts, and Josh Allen) are not great targets as they are too popular. Between the next three guys (Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, and Justin Fields), there is usually someone in the room that likes these guys enough to take them into the low-to-mid $20s. If they fall below $20, then you should be there to bid or price enforce until they get over that mark. Otherwise, there is only one guy in the Top 7 that qualifies as a target, and that is Justin Herbert.

Making a case for Herbert in fantasy football is easy, so you don’t need to be bored with all the details. He can lead the league in passing yards, he has one of the best offenses in the league, and his pass rate always comes close to leading the league. All of these things mean Herbert can challenge for the Top 3 at the position by year’s end, and he can do so with a QB7 price.

The reason he’s a target in salary cap rooms is his poor 2022 as compared to expectations. He lost his star left tackle early in the season, plus his top two receivers, and then was injured himself. This has left a bad taste in people’s mouths, and this summer, it is reasonable to think Herbert can be had for about $17, sometimes even a few dollars less. Compared to the Top 6 quarterbacks, who all will cost more than $20, there is clear value in Herbert, and he’s the only high-priced quarterback target if you’re looking for a discount.

RUNNING BACKS

In years past, it has been hard to find value at this position, but that is changing. The top running backs are now cheaper than the top receivers. Does this mean there is value there? Not automatically, no. Value is relative to the points they’ll score and the value of other players of similar rank on your draft sheet. But the depressed running back prices do make for some tantalizing targets.

What is considered high-priced for this article? It makes sense to set that mark right around the end of Round 4, which is where Dameon Pierce checks in at RB18. This lines up nicely as he is a middling RB2 and, below that line, gets into mid-priced players that will be included in the next article in the series. Here are some targets to consider.

Saquon Barkley – Despite finishing the year as a rock-solid producer and the PPR RB5, Barkley still slips below guys like Nick Chubb and Bijan Robinson in drafts. Barkley’s 76 targets are easily repeatable, and now he’s playing motivated on a 1-year deal to try and land a nice contract next year. But the general feeling around Barkley is lukewarm enough that he’s slipped below $40 in some salary cap drafts, and even if he breaks $40, he’s rarely going more than a few dollars over that. Barkley has the overall RB1 in his range of outcomes, and if he’s coming at a discount from the guys ahead of him, it makes him a guy to watch in your draft rooms.