Biggest Fantasy Football Falls Of 2023
At Week 18, the 2023 fantasy football season officially ends. While it’s wonderful to recognize players who have helped you win a championship, some people find that there’s no greater catharsis than going over our most disappointing decisions.
The following list of six fantasy football flops, which have nothing to do with injuries, may have helped you secure your spot in 2023 or might have been a major factor in your season’s collapse.
QB, Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs
Patrick Mahomes was either the first or second quarterback taken in the first or second rounds of the draft, depending on the fantasy football league. Despite his remarkable comeback to finish as the overall QB7 after 17 weeks, drafting him so early will likely cost you another elite player, such as CeeDee Lamb.
During the first 17 weeks of the season, he tied for the league-high 29 dropped passes, so it wasn’t entirely his fault. Mahomes recorded career lows with 7.0 yards per throw attempt and 261.4 passing yards per game, in addition to a career-high 2.3% interception rate and a career-low 4.5% touchdown rate. Fortunately, his career-high 389 yards gained on the ground as a rusher helped to make up for his poor passing performance.
In the long run, though, things aren’t all bad for the Chiefs. Because TE Travis Kelce (more on him later) doesn’t appear to be fully healthy, it appears that the organization mostly anticipated that Mahomes would be able to play hero ball with a dearth of wide receiver depth.
However, that expectation was not met. Rashee Rice, a rookie wide receiver who ranked as the overall WR10 from Week 14 on, appears to be Mahomes’ rising star at the position. Rice helped sustain the passing game amid Kelce’s late-season struggles.
RB Tony Pollard of the Dallas Cowboys
After securing the franchise tag while longtime teammate Ezekiel Elliott was being released, Tony Pollard appeared ready for a huge season. One of the NFL’s most potent running backs with a full workload? Put me in! Instead, watch as I repeatedly draft him in the opening round! Additionally, he executed a rather effective bait-and-switch, as seen by his opening-day performance of 82 yards and two touchdowns against the New York Giants.
Though he ended the fantasy season with the sixth-most touches (288) among running backs, things rapidly went south, and his inconsistency proved to be too much for him to overcome. Even worse than his finish as the overall RB18 (half-PPR) was the fact that he averaged just 5.63 fantasy points per game throughout the fantasy football playoffs, letting his teammates down when it counted most.
When Pollard becomes a free agent for the first time in his career in 2024, it will present a difficult situation for him. Due to his recent season-ending stats of career lows in yards per carry (4.0), yards after contact per attempt (2.9), missed forced tackle rate (17%), and explosive run rate (8.75%), securing a starting position in the highly competitive free agency market may prove to be even more challenging.
Nonetheless, it’s possible that switching to a more supportive position after missing a season due to a lower-body injury may help him regain his effectiveness.
RB Bijan Robinson of the Atlanta Falcons
Calling the overall RB11 (half-PPR) for fantasy football a “bust” would be a stretch, but as part of my coping mechanism, I will not be responding to inquiries at this time. With the No. 8 choice in the 2023 NFL Draft, the Atlanta Falcons put Bijan Robinson up for a chance that most believed would guarantee him a spot in the top five in fantasy football and Offensive Rookie of the Year.
Fantasy managers were itching to hit the “DRAFT” button because they had the opportunity to lead a backfield that recently led the league in rush attempts, with quarterback Marcus Mariota, 31-year-old converted wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson, and fifth-round rookie Tyler Allgeier at the core of it all.
We didn’t quite get the ride we expected that season, though. A perfect illustration of how on-field performance does not always convert into fantasy points is Robinson’s first season. In the fantasy season, Robinson was third with 30 rush attempts of 10 yards or more, sixth with 51 forced fumbles, and eleventh with 636 rushing yards after contact, while finishing last in overall rush attempts among running backs.
Not only did Robinson have 75 targets, but he also finished fourth among running backs. Still, although he finished with fewer games inside the top five (1) than the other B. Robinson (Brian, who had two weeks as the overall RB1), it wasn’t enough for fantasy managers to gain a glimpse of the full possibility he had to give.
To cut a long tale short, Arthur Smith is to blame.
WR Stefon Diggs of the Buffalo Bills
“Fantasy MVP” seemed to be in Stefon Diggs‘ grasp at the beginning of the season. Diggs has accumulated 49 catches, 620 receiving yards, and five touchdowns as the WR2 during the first six weeks of play this season. He only averaged 9.36 fantasy points per game (WR41) starting in Week 7, so things soured in the second half of the season.
Several factors appeared to be involved in the drop in output, one of which was the rise of rookie tight end Dalton Kincaid, who assumed a major role in the receiving game. After that, the Bills fired offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey and appointed interim coordinator Joe Brady, who started to rely a lot on James Cook, a second-year back, for both rushing and receiving duties.
WR Gabe Davis and the previously mentioned Dalton Kincaid outperformed Diggs in the red zone from Week 7 onward, which might have added to his reduced ceiling. Diggs headed the club with 87 total targets. Instead of averaging 0.44 fantasy points per snap in the first six weeks of the season, he ended the year with an average of only 0.21.
It is not unexpected that some fantasy managers may be strongly against Diggs in the 2024 season due to recency bias, even if he has a lot of promise.
WR Tee Higgins of the Cincinnati Bengals
Did Tee Higgins disappoint you and end up as the fantasy points per game leader overall (WR40)? Thank you for joining the club. Despite missing four games this season due to injury, his lack of availability wasn’t the issue. The main problem was that, even while he was playing on the pitch, he was tough to trust.
As the fantasy season came to an end, Higgins played in five more games as the WR70, or worse than he did in the top twelve (four). For the season, he averaged a career-high 15.6 yards per reception and 5.6 yards after the catch, although just 18.9% of routes run saw him targeted.
Higgins’ 2023 performance might position fantasy managers to select him as a value selection for the next season, which is excellent news for Higgins’ fantasy asset future. In light of Joe Burrow‘s current deal and the possibly historic deal that teammate Ja’Marr Chase is awaiting, it is doubtful that the Bengals will be able to afford to extend Higgins, who is in the final year of his rookie contract.
Higgins may be the uncontested WR1 for a different offense next season if he is allowed to explore free agency and avoid receiving the franchise tag; increased volume might help him overcome his inconsistent play issues.
TE Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs
Was it worth it for you to use your first-round selection to choose Travis Kelce? If that’s the case, I apologize for the resulting season. After his Week 2 return from a knee injury, all went quite smoothly for him. In fact, he was a top-five fantasy tight end in all but one of his first six games. Following Week 8, things began to progressively stagnate, leading up to the massive blow of underwhelming performances that would demolish fantasy managers come playoff time.
Kelce finished as the overall TE26 in the fantasy playoffs, averaging just 5.1 fantasy points per game. During that time, he scored more points than Broncos TE Lucas Krull, Dolphins TE Durham Smythe, and Cardinals TE Elijah Higgins (who?).
When everything was said and done, fantasy managers could have been more aware of Kelce’s age (he turned 34 in October), if only because his body might not have recovered as quickly from the abrasions he received during the season.
Having battled through a bone bruise that kept him out of action in Week 1, he finally suffered an ankle injury in Week 5 but lost no time due to it. All told he wasn’t quite 100% healthy to start the season.
Though Kelce did disappoint us in 2023, it’s difficult to be upset with him now that he’s past his “Worthy of a First-Round Fantasy Pick” phase. Kelce has provided us with years and years of top-notch output.
