I think Mahomes is a buy low. No one can question his talent. He has a QB1 season left in him
Agreed. At the very least you get a top 3 player in real life, which occasionally comes through in fantasy. He’s looking a lot like Tom Brady right now, who was rarely a top guy in fantasy but you could just plug him in every year and he’d occasionally get there. I wouldn’t Trade for Mahomes if I’m building but if I want to lock up the position and not sweat it, he’s one of the guys you can do that with.
The challenge with Mahomes - and honestly the most frustrating part - is that he’s absolutely *capable* of a 50 TD / 5K yard season.
And he has the weapons to achieve a 50 TD / 5K yard season.
But the Chiefs have a mostly young & talented defense. Karlaftis is developing into an elite pass rusher, and the Chiefs don’t get into the shootouts they did in Mahomes early career.
They also like to run the ball, and they’re good at it.
Mahomes just doesn’t have to throw 300+ / 5 TD a game any more because they’re a more balanced offense. And with that defense they are rarely playing from behind enough to abandon the run.
Early in his career the chiefs defense was raggedy & they had Tyreek Hill. It was such a different situation.
As for buying low, I’m skeptical that owners are selling low - most are still optimistic that he’ll return to the ranks of the FF elite production-wise.
IMO he’s far more likely to continue to put up 26-30 TD / 3500-4K seasons than he is to get back to 41-50 TD seasons.
I just sold him last offseason coming off a 27 TD season and got back Herbert + Nico, with a 1st on top.
I can’t imagine anyone selling lower than that since there’s still a lot of optimism that he’s going to return to the glory days of 2018-2021
I mean, it could happen. I’m just skeptical that it will. But hey, if the owners in your leagues are selling low, I don’t mind buying - he might not give you top 3 QB numbers, but his consistency is very valuable. I just see him more as a high floor QB than high ceiling.
It’ll also be interesting to see how losing Kelce will impact him. Don’t know when that’ll be but it can’t be more than a year or two.