The 2023 fantasy football season officially comes to a close in Week 18, and while the positivity of celebrating the players who won you a championship is great, for some it may not be better than the catharsis of expiring the picks that matter most to us. have been let down.
Here are six of the biggest non-injury-related fantasy football failures you may have had to overcome to secure your ship in 2023 — or that helped tank your season.
Patrick Mahomes, QB, Kansas City Chiefs
In most fantasy football leagues, Patrick Mahomes was the first or second quarterback off the board, likely in the first or second round of drafts. While he still managed to finish as the overall QB7 after 17 weeks, drafting him so early likely meant missing out on another top asset like a CeeDee Lamb. It wasn’t all his fault as he tied the score with 29 dropped passes through the first 17 weeks of the season. Mahomes posted a career low 4.5% touchdown rate and a career low 2.3% interception rate, and also posted career lows with 7.0 yards per pass attempt and 261.4 passing yards per game. Fortunately, some production as a runner helped mitigate the lack of efficiency as a passer, as he posted a career-high 389 yards on the ground.
However, it’s not all bleak for the Chiefs looking forward. It seems like the team largely expected Mahomes to be able to continue playing hero ball with a lack of depth at wide receiver as long as TE Travis Kelce (more on him later) remained in the mix, but with Kelce not exactly looking healthy. , it just didn’t translate. Fortunately, it appears Mahomes has a burgeoning star at wide receiver in rookie Rashee Rice, who kept the passing game alive during Kelce’s late-season inefficiencies and was ranked an overall WR10 as of Week 14.
Tony Pollard, RB, Dallas Cowboys
Tony Pollard looked primed for a potentially monster season after signing the franchise tag when former teammate Ezekiel Elliott was released. A full workload for one of the most explosive running backs in the NFL? Sign me up! Or, better yet, watch me draft him in the first round over and over again! He also drew a pretty good bait and switch on the year with a performance against the New York Giants of 82 yards and two touchdowns in the season opener.
Things went south quickly, though, and despite finishing the fantasy season with the sixth-most touches among running backs (288), his inefficiency was too much to overcome. He finished as the overall RB18 (half PPR), but even worse was the fact that he averaged just 5.63 fantasy points per game during the fantasy football playoffs – and failed to step up in the most crucial moments.
Pollard will find himself in a challenging position in 2024, hitting free agency with unfortunate timing for the first time in his career. He is coming off a season in which he averages career lows in yards per carry (4.0), yards after contact per attempt (2.9), missed tackles (17%) and explosive run rate ( 8.75%), which could make it all. harder to earn a starting role in a competitive free agency period. But perhaps being demoted to a more complementary role, another season removed from a season-ending lower-body injury, is exactly what he needs to bounce back in terms of efficiency.
Bijan Robinson, RB, Atlanta Falcons
It may be an attempt to call the overall RB11 (half-PPR) for fantasy football a “failure,” but I won’t answer any questions at this time; it is part of the coping process. After the Atlanta Falcons selected Bijan Robinson with the No. 8 pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, he was given an opportunity that most were almost certain would earn him a top-five fantasy finish and Offensive Rookie of the Year honors could yield. . The chance to lead a backfield that just led the league with the trio of fifth-round rookie Tyler Allgeier, 31-year-old converted wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson and quarterback Marcus Mariota at the center of it all , made fantasy managers salivate. their keyboards to click the “DRAFT” button.
However, that season wasn’t quite the ride we got.
Robinson’s rookie season was a prime example of where playing on the field doesn’t necessarily always translate into fantasy points. Despite ranking 18th in total rush attempts among running backs in fantasy season, Robinson ranked third with 30 rush attempts of 10 or more yards, sixth with 51 missed forced tackles, and 11th with 636 rushing yards after contact . In fact, Robinson ranked fourth among running backs with 75 targets. But still… it wasn’t enough for fantasy managers to take a look at the overall upside he had to offer, as he finished in the top five (1) with fewer games than the other B. Robinson (Brian, those two weeks as the overall RB1).
Long story short: we can blame Arthur Smith.
Stefon Diggs, WR, Buffalo Bills
Stefon Diggs started the season like he had “fantasy MVP” in the bag. Through the first six weeks of the year, Diggs totaled 49 receptions, 620 receiving yards, and five touchdowns as the WR2 during that span. Things remained quiet in the second half of the season, however, as he averaged just 9.36 fantasy points per game (WR41) starting in Week 7. Several circumstances seemed to contribute to that drop in production, including the emergence of rookie tight end Dalton Kincaid, who took on a major role in the receiving game. The Bills then fired former offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey and replaced him with interim OC Joe Brady, who began relying heavily on second-year running back James Cook as both a runner and receiver.
As of Week 7, Diggs led the team with 87 total targets, but he took a backseat to both WR Gabe Davis and the aforementioned Dalton Kincaid in terms of red zone usage, which may have contributed to his lower ceiling. To end the year, he averaged just 0.21 fantasy points per snap during that span, compared to 0.44 through the first six weeks of the season.
Don’t be surprised if the recency bias could turn some fantasy managers firmly on Diggs in the 2024 season, despite his upside.
Tee Higgins, WR, Cincinnati Bengals
Did Tee Higgins burn you and finish as the overall WR40 in fantasy points per game? Welcome to the club. The problem wasn’t his lack of availability, even though he had missed four games this year due to injury. The biggest problem was that he was impossible to trust on a weekly basis, even when he was on the pitch. Higgins finished the fantasy season with more games as a WR70 or worse (five) than as a top-12 fantasy wide receiver (four). Despite averaging 15.6 yards per reception and 5.6 yards after the catch per reception, he was targeted on a career-low 18.9% of routes run.
The good news for Higgins’ future as a fantasy asset is that his performance in 2023 could make fantasy managers a potential value pick next season. Higgins is playing in the final year of his rookie contract, and it seems unlikely the Bengals can afford an extension given the contract for Joe Burrow and a potentially record-breaking extension for teammate Ja’Marr Chase. Should he be given the opportunity to explore free agency and avoid the franchise tag, Higgins could very well be the unquestioned WR1 for a new offense next season, with more volume being a potential remedy for his inconsistency issues.
Travis Kelce, TE, Kansas City Chiefs
Have you finally made the leap to draft Travis Kelce with your first-round pick? If so, I’m sorry for the season that followed. Things started well when he returned from a knee injury in Week 2 — well, more than well — as he finished as a top-five fantasy tight end in all but one of his first six games. Things started to stagnate a bit starting in Week 8, before the gigantic hammer of lack of production that would hit fantasy managers over the head in the postseason.
During the fantasy playoffs, Kelce averaged just 5.1 fantasy points per game after being the overall TE26 during that span and scoring fewer points than Cardinals TE Elijah Higgins, Dolphins TE Durham Smythe and Broncos TE Lucas Krull (who ?).
All things considered, perhaps fantasy managers should have been more wary of Kelce’s age (he turned 34 in October), if only because his body might not respond as well to the bumps and bruises he suffered throughout the season. He started the year at less than 100% health to begin with, having entered the season with a bone bruise that forced him to miss Week 1 before ultimately suffering an ankle injury in Week 5, though he missed no time. before.
Even if he lets us down in 2023, Kelce has given us top production for years, so it’s hard to stay mad at him even though he’s no longer in his era of Worthy of a First-Round Fantasy Pick ‘. .