Noah Fant Is Good—It Might Not Matter for Fantasy in 2020

Noah Fant has (almost) everything going for him, and I can’t see him being more than a fine streaming option in most fantasy leagues this year.

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Noah Fant's 2019 Season

Fant is young (22), absurdly athletic (97th percentile in both speed score and burst score), and ran a good number of pass routes (23.2 per game) in a rookie campaign that wasn’t exactly a statistical horror show (he was the TE16 with a nice if unspectacular 6.9 PPR points per game).

Fant’s rookie year peripherals were fine, bordering on good. He was targeted on a solid 15.9% of his pass routes, and he ran a pass route on 53.5% of his snaps. Not superb. Not bad.

Noah Fant's 2020 Outlook

He’s going in the 11th round of 12-team drafts so it’s not like you have to burn a lot of draft capital to get Fant on your roster. But fantasy managers taking Fant as a locked-in fantasy starter in 10 and 12-team leagues will likely find themselves perusing the local waiver wire sooner rather than later.

Before Fant truthers throw dog feces at my front door, let me explain.

There’s not much indication the Denver offense, with Drew Lock at the helm, can support more than one or two reliable fantasy pass catchers. That is, unless Lock makes a giant second-year leap and becomes a completely different quarterback than he was for five games in 2019.

The Broncos' offense stunk last year. There's no way around it. Denver last season ran 59.6 plays per game, good for 29th in the league. Hardly any offense was worse on a per-play basis, especially during Lock’s five games as the team’s starter, when the Broncos notched 4.6 yards per play (30th).

The speed with which the Broncos' offense operates will have to change dramatically if Fant is going to see an oppotunity spike in 2020. Only seven offenses operated at a slower pace than the Broncos, whose pace didn’t pick up even when trailing by a touchdown or more. Getting the starting gig in a lost season, Lock’s numbers weren’t fantastic. He averaged just 204 passing yards per game with a horrifyingly low 6.57 adjusted yards per attempt. Lock was 26th in QB air yards over the season’s final five weeks.

Look no further than the Broncos’ 43% rush rate—ninth highest in the league—to understand how this offense wants to operate. Denver ran the ball on 50% of their plays while leading—a clear indication of how the offense wanted to conduct itself. Maybe they’ll be a little less conservative with Lock having five starts under his belt, but we can’t expect a major change in offensive philosophy. Remember: they remained relatively run-heavy despite facing negative game script for much of the 2019 season.

With an alpha receiver in Courtland Sutton and target siphons like Jerry Jeudy and Phillip Lindsay, I’m not sure how Fant can carve out a role in a system that will lean on the running game unless and until the Broncos are chasing points late in a ball game.

For a speed merchant who can destroy a secondary down the seam, Fant’s 2019 average depth of target was a measly 7.8, near rock bottom. I didn’t think that number could get much worse until I looked at Fant’s aDOT in the five games Lock started and saw it plummeted to 6.5.

Not great, Bob. Not great at all. Whatever you think of Fant, the Broncos weren’t using him as the kind of weapon he might be in an offense with a better QB and more aggressive play calling.

Fant’s share of the team’s targets also fell with Lock under center. He had seen a 13.7% target share before Lock; with Lock, that dropped to 9.0%. Check out Noah’s splits with and without Lock dropping back for Denver in 2019.

Draft capital and incredible athleticism don’t mean much if a guy isn’t getting opportunity. Meanwhile, Sutton saw an increase in targets during Lock’s five-game run. Small samples and all that, but the drop in Fant’s targets per game with Lock under center has to be at least somewhat concerning for even the most ardent Fant truther.

The Bottom Line

Fant scored single digit fantasy points in all but two of his 2019 games. In one of those games, he caught a 75-yard touchdown, flashing the speed that could one day make him a premier tight end in fantasy football. But this year, in what should be a conservative offense with an untested quarterback and a target hog on the outside, I can’t see the path for Noah to become a set-it-and-forget-it starter in traditional fantasy formats.

Don’t let your dynasty league infatuation with Fant obscure the pitfalls that could make for a rough fantasy campaign in 2020.