Fantasy Football: 4 Atlanta Falcons being undervalued in 2023

Tampa Bay Buccaneers v Atlanta Falcons
Tampa Bay Buccaneers v Atlanta Falcons / Alex Slitz/GettyImages
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2. Drake London, WR, Atlanta Falcons

NFL.com Fantasy Ranking: 26 out of 80 WRs

Drake London is coming off of a great rookie season for the Atlanta Falcons, all things considered. He was stuck in a run-heavy offense with a subpar quarterback for most of the season and still managed to haul in 72 passes for 866 yards and four touchdowns.

Desmond Ridder is also a huge factor in this. One thing was apparent when Ridder took over for the final four weeks—he likes Drake London, a lot. Ridder looked London's way on virtually every snap and targeted him a lot.

In the 13 games that Marcus Mariota was the Falcons' quarterback, here are the percentages of his targets, completions, and yards that Drake London accounted for:

  • 27% of Mariota's targets
  • 25% of Mariota's completions
  • 26% of Mariota's passing yards

And here are the same stats but with Desmond Ridder as his QB:

  • 31% of Ridder's targets
  • 34% of Ridder's completions
  • 49% of Ridder's passing yards

So, when Ridder took over at quarterback, London was targeted on 4% more passing attempts, accounted for 9% more of the QB's completions, and was responsible for 23% more of the QB's passing yards. And while Ridder never completed a touchdown to London, that will certainly change in 2023.

That is a huge uptick in opportunity/production for Drake London, and now he will have a full offseason and, hopefully, a full season with Desmond Ridder. I don't know that he will have top-ten production, but there won't be 25 receivers who score more points than the second-year wide receiver.