The NFL season is underway, which means you’ve likely started your fantasy football season as well.
Fantasy football is a unique game that allows anyone to play the role of general manager.
It has become immensely popular over the years and even had a TV show based around it with FX creating “The League.” The show lasted over five seasons, and it gave you a glimpse as to what a league can look like.
The premise is relatively simple. You build your own team, and that team will score points based on how the players perform.
How rosters are built can vary based on league preference, but for the most part, standard leagues are run with one quarterback, two running backs, two receivers, one tight end, a flex player, a team’s defense and a kicker.
The flex player can vary based on leagues as well. Some leagues allow for it to be a running back, receiver or tight end. Some leagues do not allow tight ends to be flex players. Either way, it’s another skill position player to add to your lineup.
Scoring in each league can be different, but standard leagues allow for six points for touchdowns for skill players, four points for a quarterback’s touchdown passes.
Team building is a tad different in the fantasy world as opposed to reality.
If a fantasy draft were to take place today with all of the teams’ rosters wiped clean and a draft order randomized, quarterbacks would likely occupy the majority of the first round, if not all of it.
Fantasy football doesn’t work that way.
The best players are typically ones who are going to catch or run the ball. Running backs are typically more scarce, making them more valuable.
There are a lot of receivers in the league, but the truly elite ones are more valuable than the very good.
As a result, quarterbacks can typically be drafted later for fantasy purposes.
Conversely, the last two picks should be defenses and kickers. Rarely are they the difference between winning and losing in a matchup. There are a plethora of strategies when it comes to those ancillary parts of the roster.
When it comes to the Packers, they have typically been a bit of a fantasy nightmare. When Aaron Rodgers was the quarterback, having him on your team was a great thing.
The players around him, however, were always a bit of a mystery. Outside of Jordy Nelson in the mid 2010s, and, of course, Davante Adams in the 2020s, the Packers rarely had a go-to guy.
Their offenses were productive in real life, but fantasy wise, they struggled.
They are similar to that in the modern day, with one big exception.
With that in mind, here are the top five Packers players you’d want to target for your league, along with one deep sleeper.
1. Josh Jacobs – Green Bay’s offense went through a noticeable shift last year. Gone were the days of the aerial assault on the rest of the NFL. As the passing game struggled, the Packers took to the ground. Jacobs ran for more than 1,300 yards on more than 300 touches a season ago.
More importantly for fantasy purposes, he scored 15 touchdowns on the ground and added one more through the air. Jacobs has talked about wanting to be more involved in the passing game, and the Packers did make an effort at times a season ago to get him involved there. Regardless of the situation in Green Bay, you can count on Jacobs getting his touches every week; you cannot say the same for most of the other players.
2. Tucker Kraft – If you’ve listened to anything the coaches have said this offseason, you’d know that they want to do more things to involve Kraft in the offense. Kraft is an easy person to get the ball to, and he’ll create offense when the team is in a bit of a rut. He’s a monster with the ball in his hands and difficult to bring down.
With Green Bay’s focus in training camp being on using more two tight end sets, that would come with the idea that they want to free up Kraft. Kraft was the team’s third leading receiver a year ago, despite the coaching staff lamenting not getting him enough opportunities. That won’t be the case this year.
3. Jordan Love – The Packers know it, and I think the rest of the world does to. If the team is going to get back to Super Bowl contention, they need Love to be a central figure in the offense. He was not for the second half of last year, giving way to a more run-centric approach.
When Love was healthy, he looked great in training camp. His rapport with his receivers looked ahead of where it was a season ago, and he has more high-end options in the passing game.
4. Matthew Golden – Green Bay may not have a true top receiver, which is more fantasy football fodder than it is for real life, but if one has a chance to emerge this season, it’s Golden. Golden has looked the part from the day he stepped into training camp. He has a speed element to Green Bay’s offense that has been missing, but he’s not a one-trick pony like some of the speed receivers of years past.
Golden will make explosive plays down the field, like his 39-yard reception in the team’s preseason finale against the Seattle Seahawks. He’ll also be used in the short and intermediate passing game, like he was in the preseason opener against the New York Jets. There’s an outside chance he leads the team in targets by the end of the year.
5. Romeo Doubs – If there were ever a word to describe Doubs, it would be steady. He may not have some gaudy stat lines on a weekly basis, but he should be a big target for Love in the end zone. When the chips are down, Love is looking for Doubs. That level of trust is something that is hard to find, but Doubs has earned it over two seasons. If he’s healthy, the Packers and Love will likely be looking his way, which could make him a high-touchdown scorer.
Sleeper. Luke Musgrave – Musgrave could be someone that you take late in the draft, but he’s also someone who could have a breakout season.
As mentioned with the point under Kraft, the Packers will likely use more two tight end sets this season. Musgrave is the other tight end in those packages. He was also the unquestioned starter as a rookie before getting injured, paving the way for Kraft’s emergence.
Kraft’s play style is that of a human car crash, which could make him susceptible to injuries.
If Musgrave has some better injury luck, he finished training camp on a high note. He could be someone that makes a big impact as a tight end.
