Cautionary tales abound warning of the risks involved when dealing with unrequited love. Just turn on any Lifetime movie if you don’t believe me. As a fantasy football player, at times I have found myself to be just as irrational as any scorned lover in a made-for-TV movie. Being too quick to write off an underperforming player, and/or refusing to heed evidence that is contrary to how I feel about a player I no longer believe in has led me to miss out on league-winning plays as recently as last year — specifically Kyren Williams.

As someone who ignored the noise concerning Williams’ lack of athleticism heading into his rookie season, I was bullish about adding him to the back end of rosters in all formats in 2022. After he failed to return value in his rookie season due to injury and mediocre production, I disregarded the positive reports in training camp last summer as nothing more than puff pieces. Even though I did start to add Williams to some of my best ball rosters in the final weeks of draft season, by then it was too late and there was not much I could do but be underweight on the player that would become the best value in all of fantasy in 2023.

Self evaluation and the ability to learn from our mistakes are some of the most valuable traits we can have as human beings, and — while there are many areas in life of much greater importance — the practice should absolutely extend to how we play fantasy football. In Part 1 of this article, we will look at one quarterback and three running backs who we should be willing to put last season’s failings aside and take shots on for the 2024 season. Later this week, Part 2 will feature two wide receivers and two tight ends who fall into the same category. While creating stacks is generally the ideal way to play best ball, all the players that are highlighted in these articles are ones who I believe have enough standalone value to be taken with no other stacking or correlation options on the roster.