DraftKings End of Year NFL Awards

The miraculous year that was the 2020 NFL regular season is over, but there’s still one game left to be played and plenty of hours to go until that game commences. As we wait the two long weeks until Super Bowl Sunday, there’s some exciting season-recapping to do to pass the time. Today we’ll be revealing the 2020 Fantasy Football Awards, which will look at this season’s top-performing players through multiple fantasy football perspectives.

Fantasy All-Pro: Players who led with most fantasy points by position:

QB: Josh Allen, Bills 436.1 pts

RB1: Alvin Kamara, Saints 383.8 pts

RB2: Derrick Henry, Titans 365.1 pts

WR1: Davante Adams, Packers 380.4 pts

WR2: Stefon Diggs, Bills 349.6 pts

WR3: Tyreek Hill, Chiefs 337.9 pts

TE: Travis Kelce, Chiefs 331.8 pts

FLEX: Dalvin Cook, Vikings 364.8 pts

DST: Los Angeles Rams 151.0 pts

The Fantasy All-Pro Team in 2020 actually consists of players whose teams generally were highly successful in 2020. That isn’t always the case, but with the exception of Dalvin Cook, each player here made it past the first round of the NFL Playoffs and most of them made it all the way to Championship Weekend. At running back, Derrick Henry was his usual dominant self, but Alvin Kamara finished the year as the highest-scoring running back despite playing one less game, thanks in large part to his 6-TD performance on Christmas. At receiver, Davante Adams made up for two missed games with an 18-TD season, and at tight end, Travis Kelce continued to dominate as he does year after year.

---

Best Value Play: Awarded to the player who recorded the most points above value in the 2020 season

Winner: Travis Fulgham – 34.2 FPTS / $3,000 Week 5 at Pittsburgh (11.4x value)

10 REC (10 FPTS) + 152 REC YDS (15.2 FPTS) + 1 TD (6 FPTS) + 100YD Bonus (3 FPTS) = 34.2 DKFP

By the middle of the 2020 season, Travis Fulgham had become a household name, but his Week 5 performance was totally out of nowhere. The second-year receiver played three games for the Lions in 2019 without catching a pass, and made his season debut with the Eagles in Week 4 of 2020, catching two passes for 57 yards. Fulgham exploded in Week 5 with a 10-catch, 152-yard showing, and paid off massively for anyone who had the foresight to roster this unproven receiver who was still priced at the flat-minimum.

---

Biggest Fantasy Play: Awarded to the player who scored the most fantasy points in one play during the 2020 season

Winner: Jerry Jeudy – 92 YD REC TD, Week 17 vs. LV = 19.20 FPTS

1 REC (1 FPT) + 92 REC YDS (9.2 FPTS) + 1 TD (6 FPTS) + 100YD Bonus (3 FPTS) = 19.2 DKFP

Jeudy didn’t have the rookie season he was probably hoping for, particularly in the second half of the year with the Broncos going through all of their quarterback turmoil. Jeudy had one great game in Week 8 against the Falcons with 125 yards and a touchdown, but that was really his only major highlight through the first 16 weeks of the season. In Week 17, it was shaping up to be yet another modest game for Jeudy, until the fourth quarter when he made the biggest play of his rookie season. With the Broncos tied 24-24 against the Raiders, and facing a 3rd and 10 from their own 8-yard line with under seven minutes left, Jeudy caught a pass over the middle and ran past the entire Raiders defense for a 92-yard touchdown. Not only was it by far the best play of Jeudy’s career, but it also was the single best fantasy football play of the 2020 season.

---

Best Single-Game Performance: Tyreek Hill (60.90 FPTS @ TB – Week 12)

No one put on more of a clinic than Hill did when the Chiefs played the Buccaneers in Tampa. Seeing a massive 15 targets, Hill made 13 catches for 269 (!) yards and three touchdowns. Amazingly, of those targets, only one came in the red zone. Hill would average a ridiculous 20.7 YPR in this game, which handsomely rewarded everyone who paid the $7,800 for him in this game. Hill was covered by four different Tampa Bay corners in this game, but no one was burned more than CB Carlton Davis. In coverage, Hill caught all nine targets against Davis, totaling 211 of the 269 yards. One of those catches included a 75-yard touchdown reception, which his first of the day.

The 236 yards allowed to Hill in this game ended up being 24% of the total yards Davis allowed during the entire regular season. It was a horrific two-week stretch for the otherwise reliable Davis, as in total, he was targeted against 23 times by the Chiefs and Rams, and gave up 18 receptions for 338 total yards. Alvin Kamara came extremely close to surpassing the fantasy total by Hill, as he scored 59.2 DKFP in Week 16 against the Vikings.

That was the game in which he scored six touchdowns to go with 155 rushing and 17 receiving yards. The fact that Hill still managed to reign supreme with a performance like that is remarkable. Hill has surpassed 200 receiving yards twice in his career to this point, doing so first back in 2018 in Week 11 against the Rams, making 10 receptions for 215.

---

Best Defense: Los Angeles Rams (151 FPTS, 9.4 FPPG)

When you have someone as impactful as Aaron Donald on your side, you’re bound to be one of the higher scoring defenses in the league. That’s exactly what happened with the Rams during the 2020 NFL season, as they finished with 151 fantasy points and averaged 9.4 per game. D/ST is always a fickle position but the Rams ended with double-digit fantasy points in seven of their 17 regular-season games, including 20 DKFP in Week 17 against the Cardinals, in which they logged four sacks, a defensive touchdown, a safety and an interception.

Donald accounted for 15 total sacks on the season, which tied with the Steelers T.J. Watt for most in the league. To put that into perspective, the Bengals had 17 TOTAL sacks on the season. The Rams were second in the league overall with 53 sacks, trailing the Steelers at 56. While “hurries” aren’t factored into fantasy scoring, Donald also led the league with 69, which certainly helped keep the scoring down by opposing teams and thus, helping maintain their fantasy scoring.

---

Rookie of the Year: Awarded to the top-performing rookie from the 2020 class, as voted on by our players and experts.

Winner: Justin Jefferson (295.2 FPTS, 18.5 DKFP)

Justin Jefferson may not win the NFL’s Rookie of the Year Award, but perhaps more importantly, he’s been named your 2020 Fantasy Football Rookie of the Year instead. Jefferson started a bit slow with two underwhelming games to begin his career, but he broke out in Week 3 against the Titans and never looked back from there.

Jefferson quite impressively seemed to overtake Adam Thielen as the Vikings’ leading receiving option, and he’s quickly turned into one of the best wide receivers in the NFL. Jefferson is still probably a tier below the receivers who made the Fantasy All-Pro Team (Adams, Diggs, and Hill) but by this time next year, we could be looking at his name in that group as well.

---

MVP: Awarded to the player who was a near-lock for lineups and a consistently high fantasy producer throughout the 2020 season.

Winner: Josh Allen (436.1 FPTS, 27.3 FPPG)

After merely showing flashes of brilliance in the 2019 season, Josh Allen put it all together in 2020 and had by far the best season of his NFL career. Allen improved his completion percentage from 59% to 69%, his yards per attempt from 6.7 to 7.9, and increased his touchdown total from 20 to 37 while maintaining a low interception rate. Allen continued his success on the ground as well, and all of it came together to make him the clearcut choice for Fantasy MVP.

Not only was Allen the leading fantasy scorer for the year, but he also had very few bad games, with just one mildly tough stretch in late October-early November. Overall, it was an utterly dominant 2020 season that saw him at the top of the leaderboards almost every single week.