2019 NFL Draft Guide: 4th & 5th Round NFL Draft Impact

Well, we’re getting down to the nitty gritty now, my sweet boys and girls. We’re into the fourth and fifth rounds where the shallow league ADPs typically don’t dare venture. Fear not though as we’re here once again to operate the fantasy tugboat that guides you through the deep, dark waters of the later rounds. Fantasy gamers that took the plunge last year on some fourth and fifth round talent might have gotten some valuable starts out of players like Marquez Valdes-Scantling , Chris Herndon , Antonio Callaway , Keke Coutee , or Nyheim Hines while those paying attention may be wary of the potential bright fantasy futures of DaeSean Hamilton , Jaylen Samuels , or Justin Watson .

However deep your league is, we’re here to give you the information you need about the fourth and fifth rounds so that you can draft the guy who ends up being a fantasy darling even though everyone at your draft will ask, “who’s that?” when you take him. We’re going to outline the rookies from these rounds to draft, the ones to avoid, the ones to watch, and then we’ll identify the one guy we think is the biggest stud from the fourth and fifth rounds. Let’s dive in.

Fourth/Fifth-Round Rookies to Draft

Justice Hill – RB BAL

This is realistically the only player from these rounds who is being drafted in most redraft leagues based on his ADP in the 15^th. And despite being the ninth RB draft in the real draft, he’s being drafted in typical fantasy drafts for good reason. Although they’ve made their intentions clear that they would like Lamar Jackson to throw the ball more this year, the Ravens are still going to be a primary running team. You don’t go from leading the league in rush attempts with 547 to being a premier passing offense overnight no matter have many plays you draw up specifically for your new QB. In fact, the realization that it’s probably not smart to run the ball 150 times with your starting QB is going to be a good thing for this Ravens backfield since they will hopefully hand more of that burden off, so to speak.

We can’t be overly excited about Hill as a potential starter out of the gate like some of the first, second, or third round RBs, mainly because the Ravens gave Mark Ingram $6.5 million guaranteed with a contract structure that virtually guarantees he will be on the team this year and next. He will likely be carrying the bulk of the load, especially in short yardage situations given his 215 pound frame. What interests us in Hill is what was vacated from the roster last year. The two backs remaining on the roster from last season, Gus Edwards and Kenneth Dixon , combined for 197 carries, 1,051 yards, and four touchdowns last year in 17 total games yet only combined for eight catches, 71 yards, and no touchdowns. Gus Edwards himself had 137 carries with only two catches, which gives us a bit of insight on how they feel about his hands. The two RBs no longer on the team, Alex Collins and Buck Allen, combined for 50 catches for 301 yards and three touchdowns. That leaves a potential passing down void and we’re hoping that Justice Hill, who caught 44 passes for 258 yards over his last two years despite missing time battling a rib injury his senior year, can carve himself out a role and contribute to fantasy teams. And if something were to happen to Mark Ingram , there is a lot of opportunity to run in this Baltimore offense.

Ryquell Armstead  – RB JAX

Depending on how deep your league is, Armstead could be a decent last round flyer given his 18^th round ADP. He’s got all the right buzz words floating around that you’d like to hear with a young RB. He’s a state champion and three-time all-conference track star. He has a nose for the endzone scoring 19 touchdowns his senior year of high school and 34 more during his time at Temple. And he’s a self-proclaimed “angry runner” as he or John Oehser from Jaguars.com will tell you.

Armstead plays mean and he reportedly brings a serious demeanor that could endear him to an organization who has grown visibly tired of the circus among the RB group last season. The head clown from last year would be Leonard Fournette , who reportedly was “disrespectful and selfish” in sitting on the bench for an entire game last season, as executive vice president Tom Coughlin described it. We don’t typically advise handcuffs but, when we do, it’s behind a guy like Fournette. Here are some quick on field/ team related incidents for Leonard from the past year

• Misses 7 games with an ankle injury
• Gets suspended one game for fighting with Bills Shaq Lawson week 12
• Returns from suspension week 14, promptly tells fan he’s going to “beat his ass” on camera
• Gets called out by Tom Coughlin for sitting on the bench and hardly caring about the last game of the season (TJ Yeldon, who was also called out, was not re-signed in the offseason).

Meanwhile, here’s what Leonard has been up to off the field

• July 2018 – pulled over for doing 80 in a 45, issued a warning for reckless driving, not having his license, and illegal window tint
• November 2018 – Fournette gets speeding ticket, doesn’t pay it
• April 2019 – Fournette gets arrested for speeding again, having illegal tint again, and having a suspended license from not paying his previous ticket

Hakeem Butler– WR ARI

As we said with our third round write up of Andy Isabella, this one will also be short and sweet but for the opposite reason. We said to avoid Andy Isabella as he is likely one year away from serious playing time with Larry Fitzgerald manning the slot for at least another year. Meanwhile, Hakeem Butler has a seemingly clear path to potential playing time this season, despite us not believing he is the better overall football talent than Isabella. And that’s as the Cardinals starting split end.

To put it bluntly for you, Chad Williams was bad last year. He started the first game at split end playing 94% of the snaps and didn’t catch a ball. In fact, he played 84 snaps over the first two weeks without catching anything. Over the first five weeks, he played 219 snaps, was targeted 19 times and caught four passes. It seems Chad’s main job was to put his foot on the line of scrimmage and get jammed into oblivion so that Larry Fitz at the slot and Christian Kirk at the flanker could play a step back off the line and run free of the jam. Well at 6’5”, 227 pounds, Hakeem Butler is a prime candidate to be the punching bag that lines up as the X receiver while Larry and Kirk run wild this season. And with that could come a large snap share and an opportunity for Hakeem Butler to become one of rookie quarterback Kyler Murray ’s best, good friends. And if he doesn’t earn the job or he catches four passes on 200 snaps like his predecessor?  You can just drop him – his ADP is in the 20^th round.

Fourth/Fifth-Round Rookies to Avoid

Benny Snell Jr.– RB PIT

There aren’t many guys getting drafted in these rounds so it’s not very difficult to avoid them but roster spots are a precious and scarce commodity so we’re going to let you know now where not to use them. Exhibit A – Benny Snell going in the 21^st round. There is a clear early down back on the roster in James Conner (I don’t need to explain why he’s locked in to this role, just pull up his game log). There is a clear passing down back in Jaylen Samuels who caught nearly every ball thrown his way last year (26-of-29) and caught an absurd 201 passes in college, 195 of which came in only three seasons. At the combine Snell himself ran a 4.66 which was good for fifth to last among RBs who participated. There’s a reason PlayerProfiler.com has a picture of a snail on their profile page and there’s a reason he’s not worth rostering unless James Conner gets hurt. And even then I would rather own Jaylen Samuels .

Bryce Love– RB WAS

Bryce Love is a guy we’re rooting for. He’s a tremendous talent and another cautionary tale of a player who stayed at school too long and suffered a brutal injury. After being a candidate for the Heisman Trophy in 2017, he slogged through a difficult 2018 before tearing his ACL deep in the season in December. Not only did he miss most of spring but he will likely miss a good chunk of camp too and possibly end up on the PUP list to start the season. When he does return he will be behind Adrian Peterson , who was a better runner than people remember last season, Chris Thompson , who is a tremendous pass catcher when healthy, and Derrius Guice , who should be a solid all around back if he can recover from a similar injury of his own. We just don’t see a path to touches for Love this year but, like we said, he’s an easy guy to root for in seasons to come.

Fourth/Fifth-Round Rookies to Watch

Tony Pollard – RB DAL

Going off in the 21^st round, you aren’t likely going to need to draft Pollard though he could be worth a last round stash – especially if you are drafting early in the season. We say that because there is still an outside chance that Zeke gets suspended for his altercation with a security guard at Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas in May of this year.

The NFL hasn’t announced that their review is complete and, coupled with his past run-ins with the league and the law as well as the altercation being on tape, I certainly wouldn’t call him out of the woods yet. And if we are marking Fournette as a guy to watch as a recently suspended player who could face stiffer penalties with the next issue, that goes double for Zeke. So put Pollard on your watch list, your taxi squad, heck, drop your kicker for him if you have to – just make sure you are there and ready to rock if the hammer ever does come down.

Gary Jennings, WR SEA

We are getting deep here folks. At ADP 389, which would be your standard 32^nd round pick in redraft leagues, the radar that Gary Jennings is currently on would probably look something like the Arecibo Radar in Puerto Rico.

That in mind, we are still talking about a 4^th round NFL draft pick as a top 120 player off the board which certainly puts him in the mix for fantasy relevance. He’s 6’1’, 214 pounds so he certainly looks the part and he has upper percentile speed. The Seahawks just paid their quarterback a bazillion dollars, guaranteed, so you can expect them to throw at least a little bit more often than they have in the past given the size of their investment. And, as of now, Tyler Lockett is the only real lock for targets in that offense. DK Metcalf, David Moore , Jaron Brown , and maybe even Jennings are all going to battle it out for the rest of the looks. Even if DK locks up the split end spot, that still leaves one spot for someone to rotate at slot and flanker with Lockett. Throw Jennings on the watch list and, if it looks like he could earn that third spot, he could be worth an add in an offense that threw 35 touchdown passes last year and has a vacuum of targets left by Doug Baldwin .

Fourth/Fifth-Round Stud

Justice Hill – RB BAL

At this deep part of the draft it’s hard to identify someone as a “stud” since there is a reason most guys slipped this far and there is a reason their ADPs are all outside of the top 15 rounds. But the guy who has the clearest path to touching the football a bunch has to be Justice Hill. The reality is that Lamar Jackson has only played eight games in an offense that was mainly designed for Joe Flacco . We don’t know what this offense’s final form will be or even what it wants to be. Unlike some teams where everything has already been hammered out, the steel is still molten in the smelting pot of M&T Bank Stadium. This training camp, Justice Hill might be able to mold himself into a nice weapon for Lamar Jackson and our advice to you is to strike while the iron is hot in the 13^th or 14th round when everyone is picking their longshots.