Fantasy Football 2020: Christian McCaffrey and Safest Players to Draft No. 1

There's a time and place for risk-taking during your fantasy draft.

It's not with the first overall pick.

That selection spot is a gift—the entire pool of players is there for the taking—but it can be a curse if mismanaged. Blow the pick, and you have almost assuredly sabotaged your season before it started.

Let's not allow that to happen, OK? Instead, we'll point you to the safest options almost guaranteed to return value as the No. 1 investment in your fantasy league.

Christian McCaffrey, RB, Carolina Panthers

While we'll point out three safe choices here, this conversation could frankly start and stop with McCaffrey.

He is video-game production come to life. Actually, if gamers were on the receiving end of his statistics, there would be a lot more broken monitors out there. He has played all 48 possible games over his first three seasons, and his average output includes 113.4 scrimmage yards and 0.8 touchdowns. Basically, you can pencil in a three-digit yardage and usually a score whenever he takes the field.

"McCaffrey is far and away the safest first-round pick, due to insane receiving prowess (career average of 101 catches per year) that ensures he will be among the most productive backs even without putting up a notable rushing total," Yahoo Sports' Fred Zinkie wrote.

McCaffrey delivered his first 1,000-yard rushing effort last season. He reached 1,000 receiving yards for the first time, too. Tack on his NFL-best 19 rushing and receiving scores, and he nearly had a 50-point cushion for the No. 1 scoring spot in point-per-reception leagues (471.2, Lamar Jackson ranked second at 421.7).

Ezekiel Elliott, RB, Dallas Cowboys

As a legitimate bell-cow running back, Elliott almost feels like a relic from football's past. While other teams keep their rushers on tight pitch counts (only seven players had over 250 carries in 2019), the Cowboys have proved time and again that if Elliott is healthy, he's handling 300-plus rushing attempts.

He can be a bulldozer, but he's also equipped with breakaway burst. While the workload might make him seem like a rushing specialist, he actually has 131 receptions for 987 yards and five scores to show for the past two seasons. His average campaign through four years in the NFL features a dozen rushing and receiving scores.

He might be the closest thing this position has to guaranteed production in the non-McCaffrey division.

"Elliott may well be the safest pick in the top five this season," B/R's Gary Davenport wrote. "In the three seasons in which Elliott has played at least 15 games, he has topped 1,750 yards from scrimmage and finished as a top-five PPR running back all three times. Elliott has never finished outside the top five in PPR points per game."

Michael Thomas, WR, New Orleans Saints

Wide receiver statistics should have some inherent variance.

After all, there are a lot of factors that go into a successful passing play, and so many of them are outside of the wideout's control. Plus, each aerial play typically has at least a few different places to throw the football, so you'd think the numbers game would work against even the best pass-catchers.

But Thomas is different. As the unquestioned favorite target of the uber-accurate Drew Brees, Thomas has taken variance off the table almost entirely. The only question seems to be whether he's about to have a huge performance or a historic one.

Want to know his worst season to date? His rookie year, when he "only" caught 92 passes for 1,137 yards and nine touchdowns. Want to know how many players hit each of those marks this past season? One—Thomas, who snared a record-setting 149 catches for 1,725 yards and nine touchdowns. If a wide receiver was ever worth the No. 1 pick, this would be the one.