The 2023 Fantasy Football Season is Over!

My plan is to get back to my regular Tuesday newsletter during the offseason, but since I’m on vacation my schedule is thrown off a bit. So here we are, recapping Week 17, aka Championship Week, a little late this time around. I’m sad that the season has come to and end, but I’m also relieved to ease up from the ridiculous amount of writing I have done both here and elsewhere.

Next week we may have a bit of a delay as well, as I’ll be getting back from vacation and dealing with the effects of a long drive and getting back into the swing of daily life. But, don’t worry we’ll be back and consistent soon!

For now, let’s look at some of the storylines from championship week!

I took home the win for the Thursday and Saturday night games largely thanks to my Ford/Njoku/Flacco and CeeDee Lamb/Dak Prescott stacks. Sam LaPorta and Jameson Williams did just enough to rocket me up to 8th in a 237-player contest.

I ended the year of our showdown at 17-8. It was a valiant fight by my wife, and to be fair, despite my winning the majority of our matchups, she probably had the best win between the two of us during the season. If you ask me to recall exactly when and where that happened, I don’t remember but I think it had to do with the Lions at some point.

Recap of the Playoffs and Championship Week

• 🐶 🟠 Joe Flacco was the QB2 in Weeks 13-17, behind only Lamar Jackson, the man who replaced him in Baltimore.

• 🐅 Not to be forgotten, Jake Browning was the QB3 in that span. The fact that to close the season the top three quarterbacks were all from the AFC North is interesting. Browning has at least earned a high-paying backup spot for his performance since taking over for Burrow.

• 🧀 Just for the heck of it, the QB4 in that stretch was another North division quarterback, but it’s not a Steeler (sorry guys), it's the Packers’ Jordan Love. 🟢 

• Patrick Mahomes and Tua Tagovailoa were both outside of QB1 territory during the stretch run.

• 🛩️ Hopefully, you had secured a bye week for Week 15, because that’s when Breece Hall scored only 2.3 fantasy points. If you survived it (which in my main dynasty league I did not), he scored 37.1 and 23.1 points.

• 🇺🇸 Back from the fantasy dead, Ezekiel Eliott was an RB2 or better in four of the last five weeks of the fantasy season. Tony Pollard was an RB2 twice and finished outside of RB3 territory twice. 🤠 

• 💀 Zamir White started for Josh Jacobs in Weeks 15-17. He was the RB8 in half-ppr formats in the fantasy playoffs, averaging 4.8 yards per attempt and 6.4 yards per reception.

• 🐻 It’s unclear what will happen in the Bears backfield going into 2024. Khalil Herbert will be in a contract year and was heavily involved in the final weeks of 2023. But Roschon Johnson’s usage went up as well, catching three passes in each of the past two weeks. More than likely they will continue to use the running backs they have on the roster with their cheap deals unless they draft yet another mid-round running back.

• George Pickens was a WR1 in four games in 2023 and twice in the playoffs. He was outside of WR3 territory ten times. He’s a great best-ball asset but not to be trusted in season-long outside of a WR3 type of play unless Pittsburgh gets a quarterback upgrade.

• 🏹 After the Chiefs’ bye week, from Week 11 on, Rashee Rice was the WR10 overall. I’m not ready to crown him a locked-in WR1 of an offense like Mike Evans, Amon-Ra, Jefferson, Lamb, or even a Metcalf-type of player. But I think his NFL floor is a WR2. There are plenty of WR2s who can finish as fantasy WR1s, so that’s where I’m putting Rice as of now. 🔴 

• 🐏 Now Puka Nacua? He can be a WR1, we’ve seen it from him. Not over the course of a whole year like Rice, but he’s put up ridiculous numbers for a rookie. In fact, he’s a few yards shy from breaking the rookie receiving yards record, and the Rams are likely going to give him a chance to break it. 🔵 

• 🧀 Jayden Reed was impressive in his rookie year. His finishes of WR8, 19, and 4 in his final three games (with a WR52 finish prior to the WR8 week) will make him an interesting point of conversation for 2024. The Packers look like they have their WR1 in Reed with Christian Watson, assuming he can stay healthy, as their WR2.

• 💿️ 🐑 Tyreek Hill had the edge in points per game, but games played is a stat that counts. You have to be available for fantasy teams to benefit. And because of that, CeeDee Lamb was this year’s WR1. It was a rough start, from Weeks 1-6 he was all the way down at WR13. Sense the sarcasm? After the Cowboy’s Week 7 bye? Well, obviously, he was the WR1. And it wasn’t particularly close. He scored 80.6 more points than the WR2, which was Mike Evans. He had nearly 5 more points per game than the next WR, which was Deebo Samuel. It was an absolute tear by the ‘Boys star.

• 🐶 🟠 After a rough start, from Week 7 on, David Njoku finished outside of TE1 territory *checks notes* once. I get it, it’s the tight end position, you don’t have to work hard to be a tight end 1, but ONCE in ELEVEN games!

• 🦁 In half-PPR formats, Sam LaPorta finished the year as the TE1. That’s right, a rookie tight end finished as the overall TE1. He skyrocketed up my dynasty rankings, he’s going to be TE1 or TE2 when it’s all said and done.

Looking at Impending Free Agent Wide Receivers

This section is brought to you by DSmittySports on Twitter, whom many of you know from Discord. He graciously offered to take some of the load for me this week while I’m on vacation.

1. Michael Pittman Jr.

   All 4 of these guys are entering FA after this season - the only one I think will likely stay with their current team is Pittman. It makes a lot of sense to keep him paired with Anthony Richardson going forward, and they have the money to spend. The other 2 starters, Downs and Pierce, are on cheap rookie deals. I like the idea of targeting Pittman regardless of whether or not you think he’s staying. However, his price is high, where it should be. You will have to pay fair value for that one.

2. Tee Higgins

   Higgins is obviously the big splash FA WR of the offseason. Over the last few years, he’s proven he is more than capable of being a WR1 for a team, and the Bengals almost certainly can’t afford to pay him like one alongside Chase, who will be getting absurd money here soon. Higgins is extremely talented, very large, has great hands, and is elite at and truly dominates the point of catch. He’s a big-bodied X-type that will be a huge asset for ANY QB. There is a good chance he ends up the WR1 somewhere next season and becomes a clear fantasy WR1 along the way. With the last few seasons being injury-plagued and this year being underwhelming due to Cincy's offensive struggles as a whole, his price is lower than it should be. It has recovered quite a bit from where it was mid-season, but I still think it’ll be a lot lot higher come summer.

3. Hollywood Brown

   Man, what a disappointing season. It actually started off great, and us owners thought we lucked into a pretty cheap WR2. Then things began falling apart - lack of targets, dropped passes, and bad offense in general. Then Kyler was close to coming back, and we all got excited that Hollywood would vault back to WR2 territory with Kyler playing. But, he didn’t, and since then he’s either been hurt or plain bad. Now, there’s a very real possibility that AZ will keep Kyler and draft MHJ. If that’s the plan, I think there’s virtually no chance they keep Brown. However, I still believe Hollywood is talented, is better at earning targets than he is given credit for, and always has the potential for huge plays. If he goes to a high-volume passing attack with a decent QB somewhere as the WR1 or the WR2 and is able to stay mostly healthy, I think he could still be a solid fantasy asset and one you can likely get very cheap right now.

4. Curtis Samuel 

   The most under-the-radar of the 4, Curtis Samuel is quite a talented slot WR whose production has been hampered in WSH by poor QB play as well as being on a team with McLaurin and now Dotson. I think he is very underrated, and if he ends up somewhere he can get some more consistent volume, he could provide great value for his price in fantasy.

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That’s all for this week! There is a lot more that could be said about this season and a lot I didn’t get to mention about the playoffs. But we’ll have plenty of time to dive into it all this offseason as we recap the 2023 season and look forward to the 2024 NFL Draft! See you soon!