After Further Review – What We Thought We Knew Heading Into 2023

Fantasy football is full of surprises. Ironic how we try to forget the bad surprises.

It may be fitting that we start with the QB position.

Aaron Rodgers left America’s Dairyland for the Big Apple. After only 4 plays, Rodgers was done for the season.

The Justin Fields hype train was full throttle. A 32-ranked scoring offense from 2022 was no deterrent for owners taking Fields 7th on average.

Owners were tripping over themselves to draft Mahomes, Hurts, Allen and Burrow before anyone else. The only QB from this group to be close to his 2022 stats was Josh Allen.

If you missed out on any of these QB and had to “settle” for Goff, Prescott, Purdy or Stroud, you were rewarded with more consistent play from the QB position.

Remember when RB was important enough to fill most of the first round? In redrafts last year, there was a lot of WR being taken above RB. Maybe for good reason? McCaffrey, Ekeler, Bijan Robinson, Nick Chubb and Barkley by most accounts were nabbed in the first round. McCaffrey was a stud. And Bijan gets an honorable mention, even though his fantasy owners will say he fell below expectations. Trust me – a lot of RB fell below expectations.

If you picked up Breece Hall, James Cook, Rachaad White and Travis Etienne, you were probably gloating.

So what about those WR that just had to be taken before any RB?

Justin Jefferson, Ja’Marr Chase, Cooper Kupp, Stefon Diggs…  At the end of the season, you’d have to scroll past 12 other WR before you hit one of these names as a top performer in 2023. (Chase, followed closely by Diggs.)

Some sleepers (and I use that term only in relation to the 2022 redraft rankings) included D.J. Moore, Aiyuk, Collins, Amari Cooper and Keenan Allen. Not to mention the waiver wire find of the century – Puca Nacua.

Which brings us to the TE position. Travis Kelce was a first round pick. He has been a monster logging 7 consecutive 1000-yard seasons. Who pays attention to the unkind NFL history when it comes to TE’s over age 34?

Kelce’s run came to a screeching halt. Rookie LaPorta had almost as many yards and twice as many TD. Plus, the likes of Kittle, Engram, Hockenson and Njoku were very nice mid-to-late round consolation prizes for fantasy owners who, for the most part, kept pace with (or did better than) Taylor Swift’s boyfriend.