Ja’Marr Chase is the coverboy on this year’s magazine. But does that mean we should all try to pick him? Or avoid him?
The history of previous players on the cover of the magazine, after all, has been, er, iffy.
In this century, 24 other players have graced our cover. None of them finished as the highest scorer at their position.
LaDainian Tomlinson has been our most successful cover player in this century; he finished 2nd among running backs in 2007 (that’s using PPR scoring). Five others have ranked 3rd in scoring at their position: 2002 Terrell Owens, 2011 Arian Foster, 2014 Peyton Manning, 2016 LeVeon Bell and 2018 Todd Gurley. I’ve got those players tagged with black dots.
But there have been way more misses than hits. Only half of the last 24 have ranked higher than 10th at their position.
Injuries have been a factor, with half of the 24 players missing at least five games.
But Chase is our guy for this year. Though not, let it be noted, the top wide receiver on our board. We like CeeDee Lamb more, but we couldn’t find a Lamb photo that we were excited about putting on the cover.
So it’s Chase, and definitely with fingers crossed.
FANTASY INDEX COVER JINX | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Year | Player | Tm | Missed G | Rk |
2000 | Kurt Warner | St.L. | 5 | 13th |
2001 | Daunte Culpepper | Min. | 5 | 15th |
2002 | • Terrell Owens | S.F. | 2 | 3rd |
2003 | Ricky Williams | Mia. | 0 | 9th |
2004 | Priest Holmes | K.C. | 8 | 18th |
2005 | Tatum Bell | Den. | 1 | 24th |
2006 | Shaun Alexander | Sea. | 6 | 33rd |
2007 | • LaDainian Tomlinson | S.D. | 0 | 2nd |
2008 | Tom Brady | N.E. | 15 | 61st |
2009 | Larry Fitzgerald | Ari. | 0 | 5th |
2010 | Chris Johnson | Ten. | 0 | 6th |
2011 | • Arian Foster | Hou. | 3 | 3rd |
2012 | Rob Gronkowski | N.E. | 5 | 5th |
2013 | Adrian Peterson | Min. | 2 | 10th |
2014 | • Peyton Manning | Den. | 0 | 3rd |
2015 | Andrew Luck | Ind. | 9 | 27th |
2016 | • LeVeon Bell | Pitt. | 4 | 3rd |
2017 | Ezekiel Elliott | Dall. | 6 | 12th |
2018 | • Todd Gurley | LAR | 2 | 3rd |
2019 | Saquon Barkley | NYG | 3 | 11th |
2020 | Christian McCaffrey | Car. | 13 | 54th |
2021 | Patrick Mahomes | K.C. | 0 | 4th |
2022 | Jonathan Taylor | Ind. | 6 | 33rd |
2023 | Justin Jefferson | Min. | 7 | 32nd |
2024 | Ja'Marr Chase | Cin. | ? | ? |
—Ian Allan