Navigating your 2023 fantasy football draft
It’s time to prepare the path to your fantasy league championship. Fortunately, the torrent of hype and hope surrounding each player means that each draft shares an amazing similarity in who goes where. You may not reach the exact player you want at a certain spot, but you can make intelligent decisions about how to pursue the positions that make up your optimal roster.
Kickers and team defenses rightfully belong to the final rounds, but where can you gain advantages in for 2023 draft? Like most years, fantasy teams constantly grab running backs and wideouts, but what will you do at quarterback and tight end? Those positions only provide one fantasy starter. No amount of mixing and matching those position will result in what just one elite player provides all year. And they are highly reliable players at the top.
Quarterbacks – Top quarterbacks score the most of any position in most leagues. And the position is showing up earlier in drafts in recent years. The Top-3 from last year – Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Jalen Hurts – are the first signal callers taken this year. Mahomes and Allen have been Top-10 for the last four years and each have a couple of No. 1 finishes in that time. Hurts is a newcomer to the elite tier and is reasonably expected to remain. Expect all three to be gone by the third round and either Mahomes or Allen may cost a second round.
The next three may not win your league, but they won’t be why you lost it. That includes Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, and Lamar Jackson who have all reached Top-5 in previous years and they’ll go by the fifth or sixth rounds to those looking for at least a small advantage. If you are the sort that waits on the position, at least go for the higher upside of Justin Fields, Daniel Jones, Trevor Lawrence, or Deshaun Watson by the end of the ninth round. And if you’ve historically waited on the position, how’s that worked out for you? Maybe it is expensive, but owning one of the top fantasy scorers in your league is always an advantage.
Running Backs – This is the year of opportunity for running backs. And for tremendous risk. Do you feel lucky? Aside from Christian McCaffrey and Austin Ekeler taken in the first five picks, there’s much less consensus than ever with the position. These NFL players are devalued despite the out-sized contributions to their offense. That’s caused an unprecedented number of holdouts, “hold-ins”, talented free agents, unhappy franchise tags and major question marks in at least half of the backfields. The best rusher from each NFL team can last into the seventh round.
The NFL may be a passing league, but the player with the most touches is always the primary running back. Fantasy leaguers respond to this dilemma by loading up on top wide receivers initially and then sorting through the remaining bin of running backs. You can expect four to six teams owning no more than one running back at the start of the fifth round. In the fourth round, you’ll still reach players like Aaron Jones, Joe Mixon, Kenneth Walker, and Miles Sanders. In most leagues, James Conner, Alvin Kamara, Isaiah Pacheco and Alexander Mattison will finally get drafted by the end of the seventh round.
Given the uncertainty, 2023 is a good season for loading up on the lowest risk options for all positions, and taking your chances with running backs from rounds four to seven. There will be some incredible values in drafts for your backfield once it is all settled and players lock into who they are and where they play. And yet a ton of risk until they do.
Wide Receivers – This is the year of the wideout. While the number taken in the first two rounds isn’t up dramatically, opening the draft with Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase is a new twist for fantasy leagues that historically start with the prior year’s best running backs. But wide receivers command at least half of the picks made in the first two rounds. At least three or four teams start with two wideouts before considering another position and those elite pass catches offer consistent and reliable fantasy points.
Only one of the Top-10 running backs of 2021 repeated that standing last year (Austin Ekeler). All others failed to repeat a difference-making year. For wideouts, about half of them repeated. Jefferson, Tyreek Hill, Davante Adams, and Stefon Diggs all recorded their third straight Top-10 performance.
You can expect at least five wideouts per round to be drafted. There are no big values in the position because they’ve become the new “running backs” in fantasy drafts – highly coveted and stripped of the Top-30 by the end of the sixth round. The top rookies of 2021 are gone by the fourth round – Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave, and Drake London. Receivers are also made more reliable because in those first thirty, only DeAndre Hopkins and Calvin Ridley are playing on different teams this year. If you get rattled and need to make a quick pick, grab the best available wideout.
Tight Ends – Yes, it is the lowest scoring skill position and you need to decide if you want to pay the price for a difference-maker. Travis Kelce’s monster 2021 means that once the Top-3 wide receivers and running backs are taken, he’s usually the next to be drafted. There’s no other fantasy player that dominates his position like Kelce. If receptions points are involved, Kelce is a steal beyond that No. 7 overall pick.
There is still an advantage in owning a top tight end. Consider the rounds where value is drained – Mark Andrews (3), T.J. Hockenson (4), George Kittle (5), Dallas Goedert (6), and Kyle Pitts (6). Beyond that, at least look for upside with Evan Engram, Darren Waller, or David Njoku are all well situated to improve on their 2021 production.
