Warning: This is a Gabriel Davis hype piece.
It's the biggest fantasy draft month of the year, and plenty of Buffalo Bills fans will be searching for the best way to get a player from the Bills on their team.
Sometimes, as an obsessive fantasy football player, you can easily forget about the casual fantasy players that just want another reason to root for players around the league and on their own NFL squads.
For Bills fans, it's going to be incredibly difficult to get your hands on Josh Allen or Stefon Diggs.
Allen is being drafted as QB2, only following Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. You're going to need to draft him in the second round to ensure you get your hands on him. You'll be lucky in a Buffalo-based league to get Allen in the third round. Expensive.
Diggs is going as WR3 in drafts after Green Bay Packers wideout Davante Adams and Chiefs receiver Tyreek Hill. His average draft position (ADP) is 13th. Very expensive.
Then there's the Bills backfield. My advice to fantasy players would be to not go near a Bills running back with a 10-foot pole.
The Bills use the running back position less than any team in NFL history. They hand the ball to running backs less than almost anyone in the league. Allen's check-down rate to backs is the lowest in the NFL, and Allen serves as the Bills' goal line back.
With Zack Moss, Devin Singletary, and Matt Breida, you don't get rushing volume, rushing touchdowns, or targets in the pass game.
There are Moss-truthers that see upside in his touchdown potential. If the Bills want to limit the amount of rushes Allen receives in a tight field near the goal line, Moss could score a lot.
But that's the only path towards fantasy relevancy in the Bills backfield, and I don't see any signs of it taking hold.
Want to know where to draft your Bills player? Throw a dart at the team's WR2.
The Bills throw a ton, but not to backs or tight ends. The WR2 can be a 100-target player in the Bills offense, as evidenced by Cole Beasley's 213 targets over the last two seasons.
So, who do you throw the dart at?
Cole Beasley
ADP: WR55 (136th overall)
Beasley is the incumbent WR2. As previously mentioned, Beasley had 106 targets in 2019 and 107 targets in 2020. In those two seasons, he finished as WR21 and WR27.
That's his upside - a good, consistent FLEX option, but he'll never be someone's league winner.
Beasley is 32-years-old and is coming off a broken fibula that he amazingly played through in the playoffs, but injuries can happen to anyone. I'm not moving Beasely down my board due to health concerns.
Gabriel Davis
ADP: WR65 (184th overall)
Davis is the upside play in the Bills offense. Allen and Diggs will both be elite scorers at their positions, but the only other player I see with that sort of potential, as unlikely as it may be, is Davis.
Davis was second on the Bills in air yards for 2020 (total receiving yards intended, including both complete and incomplete air targets) with 945. That was 110 more air yards than Beasley, despite being targeted 45 fewer times in total.
The Bills used Davis as a downfield threat, as he led the team in receptions of 25-plus yards. Davis also led the Bills in end zone targets in 2020, which pushed his touchdown total to seven.
Who gets the valuable targets in the Bills offense? Even more-so than Diggs, it is Davis. Big plays and touchdowns. If the volume comes along with it, the sky is the limit.
The hesitation with Davis is if the volume will come. Davis did play 73% of snaps last season, but played a much higher percentage during John Brown's injury.
Will he be a part-time player if Diggs, Beasley, and Emmanuel Sanders are all healthy?
I believe in Davis' talent to take over as Allen's No. 2 target. He has the speed to beat corners deep, a 6-foot-2 frame to be a weapon in the end zone, and sure hands that constantly reel in tough catches.
I don't know what the major flaw in Davis' game is supposed to be. He strikes me as a perfectly well-rounded NFL wide receiver.
Emmanuel Sanders
ADP: WR67 (193th overall)
Taking the dart throw at Sanders is taking the dart throw at Brandon Beane's investment. Beane and head coach Sean McDermott said this offseason that the team has looked into trying to acquire Sanders for years.
Even though he is 34-years-old, he is still an efficient separator in the NFL. If he is going to replace Brown, he would be replacing a guy who had 115 targets two years ago, and a guy who was on pace for just under 100 targets again in 2020.
My worry with Sanders would be, do the Bills want to save him for the playoffs? Would they rather play a 22-year-old, up-and-coming player like Davis over him?
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It doesn't matter who you pick. Find your guy between Beasley, Davis, and Sanders and pray they become Allen's second look. If you hit on it, you'll get incredible value on their ADP.
My guy is Davis.
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