That’s a wrap for the 2022 fantasy football season! Did your pre-season preparation help you or do you need to make changes next year? From reaches to players that you just flat-out avoid, we all made different choices. So which strategy works? 

I’m not going to bullshit you here and say a certain one works. In all honesty, every draft theory works. What it boils down to is that you start the right players every week. There’s not necessarily one strategy that works, it’s just a combination of so many different factors. 

Additionally, did you play the waiver wire correctly and got the max points from that position you needed help in? Did you make any trades? Did you regret any of your trades or even worse, did any of them get vetoed? Finally, did that veto help you? I can say it did in one of my leagues!

Top Quarterbacks Matter

Every year “experts” are telling you to wait on quarterbacks. How did that work out this season? Few and far between many fantasy managers missed on their quarterbacks this year. Look at how many teams made the playoffs with Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Jalen Hurts as their starting quarterbacks. After that, it was a mess. 

Of course, guys like Joe Burrow came at an extreme value so he will be jumping up in 2023 drafts. But what about Justin Herbert? Now that I’ve got your attention, Herbert had a lot of one-touchdown games thanks to Austin Ekeler and his league-leading 18 touchdowns.

Furthermore, Herbert had the majority of the season where he didn’t have Keenan Allen or Mike Williams at his disposal. This furthers my idea of Herbert being a value in 2023 drafts and can be had at a cost similar to what Burrow was.

In this case, Patrick Mahomes was the best quarterback with 416 fantasy points with Josh Allen right behind him with 395 per FantasyData. These two were the best quarterbacks week in and week out. Their upside was the difference-maker at the position and the closest player to them was Jalen Hurts at 378 points. 

The thing I hate the most that fantasy managers look at is just year-end stats. By all means, if you want to just go by that, go for it. The way I look at it is every week’s performance. What do I mean by this? Were there weeks when they won the week for you (Justin Fields, Kirk Cousins, Daniel Jones) followed by a stinker?

 We as fantasy managers need to look at the weekly performances and learn from that. Geno Smith finished as the QB5 on the season. Were you starting him week in and week out? I highly doubt it as he was a waiver wire addition.

Look at the whole picture and not the overall finish, especially when we prepare for our 2023 fantasy drafts. The quality of the quarterback position does matter!

Elite Running Backs Are Few and Far Between

If I told you three of the top five running backs drafted in the first round would finish in the top 5, you wouldn’t be surprised. Those that drafted Najee Harris, Dalvin Cook, D’Andre Swift, or Alvin Kamara all had to feel the weekly pain. Harris was a player we drafted to be an RB1 and he was hard to even play as a flex till about the end of the season. 

Where I’m going with this is the first-round running backs are a dying breed. A point often overlooked is that we want that player who is safe and can get us fantasy points week in and week out and only think it’s running backs. While this is a true look at the teams that drafted Josh Jacobs, the RB1 in fantasy this season. What round were most managers getting him in? If you didn’t guess he was a fifth-round pick. Crazy right?

We all went into our drafts with Jonathan Taylor as the 1.01. Yes, he was injured but look at how we all labeled Christian McCaffrey as “injury prone” just to watch him finish as the RB2. Taylor on the other hand finished as RB36 and had a headache about whether he was playing or not. The injury bug was real this season as we saw running backs pop out of nowhere. Yes, I’m talking about you, Jamaal Williams. 

Finally, the thought of having an RB1 week in and week out is a thing that is starting to be a thing of the past. More and more teams are going running back by committee (RBBC). Only four running backs saw more than 265 attempts this season. That’s my point of elite bell-cow work.

Others, like McCaffrey, made up for it in their efficiency, especially in the receiving game. Touchdowns are fluky and should not be relied upon. When looking at running backs, look at where they were drafted in 2022 and see where they finished the season at. You’ll be amazed at how many new names you see in the top 24 that you wouldn’t have expected to be there. 

Drafting Wide Receivers Early Is The Way To Go

When thinking about safety, we never thought wide receivers would be the safe route to go. Yes, Cooper Kupp was the first receiver, but before he went down in Week 10 he was the WR3. Missing the rest of the season do you know where he finished? WR21 and that was from only appearing in nine games!

 The at-cost value we got in wide receivers was second to none compared to any other position. If you were drafted as a WR1 in the first couple of rounds, you pretty much finished there. Keep in mind, it wasn’t exactly a flawless position. From a round-by-round perspective though it had a higher hit rate than any other position making me a believer in it as a “safe position” this year.

 Sure you missed on it with Deebo Samuel, but everyone was warned that his rushing ability let alone touchdown upside could be and was limited as he finished as WR31 in PPR leagues. Or even with a down year from Diontae Johnson and Courtland Sutton. There were plenty of other wide receivers like rookies Garett Wilson, Chris Olave, and Christian Watson who could have helped you when you needed it the most. 

In other words, look at each position and compare players from where they were drafted to where they finished. More wide receivers finished closer to their draft-day ADP compared to any other player. Don’t be surprised if you see more wide receivers drafted in the first two rounds in 2023 than you ever have before. 

Travis Kelce and Then Everyone Else At Tight End

Seriously, this is no lie. Not only did Travis Kelce finish as the TE1, but he was also the TE1 by 100 with 316 fantasy points. T.J. Hockenson was TE2 with 215 points. In comparison, Kelce would have finished as the WR5 between Stefon Diggs and CeeDee Lamb. His value as an early second-round pick was at a cost compared to the rest of the position.

Remember when we were all debating Travis Kelce or Mark Andrews as the TE1 over the summer? We can put that to rest as Kelce almost doubled Andrews overall points. Hell, I even wrote that Kelce would break the tight-end records with Tyreek Hill being traded to Miami. He came so close too, but there is always next year.

As of right now, it’s truly Travis Kelce and then everyone else. He averaged 18.6 PPR points per game which was six points, that’s right, SIX POINTS better than T.J. Hockenson. How many other players can you say average a touchdown worth more points than the No.2 ranked player? Kelce is a one-of-a-kind difference maker and will be a mid to late-first-round pick in all drafts because of the positional upside he carries. 

Kickers Matter… To an Extent

The position we all hate served a purpose. If you were able to draft Justin Tucker or Daniel Carlson, you felt pretty good. But if you were one to reach out and draft Evan McPherson as the K2, well you just wasted a pick. When it comes to kickers, I stress this a lot, even in my drafts and that’s don’t reach or spend more than the minimum for a kicker.

What do I mean by that? Take a kicker no earlier than your second to last pick in drafts, and spend the bare minimum to get one in auctions. Oh, there are bonus points for kickers? How did that work out for Harrison Butker? Or Matt Gay and the red-hot Los Angeles Rams… Sorry, too soon?

The way I play kicker is I take what is left as the scraps. No matter the league size, the difference between K1 and K12 is 31 points or 1.8 points per week. I have to go all the way to K32 (Randy Bullock) before I find a kicker that has about half the points of Justin Tucker.

All in all, when playing kickers, you want to play matchups. Did anyone in your league draft Harrison Butker? Of course, they did and they also dropped him and added other kickers like Brett Maher and bragged about his 22-point game against the Minnesota Vikings. 

Given these points above, don’t overreact to any one kicker. If you knew how many times I had drafted kickers 9-12, to drop them for someone ranked 13th-plus would blow your mind. Go into your draft with the mindset of not getting the best kicker because all in all, it doesn’t matter. Find that kicker once the season starts who starts getting eight-plus points a week and add them to your fantasy team.

I drafted Nick Folk and ended up dropping him for Brett Maher. Did it make a difference? Only in Week 11 when he put up that massive game. Outside of that, it was just a couple of points here and there. Not enough for me to regret it.

So for next season, wait at long as possible for a kicker! Take more valuable bench depth at running back and wide receiver. Never ever reach for a kicker! Ever!

DST Is a Weekly Position

That’s it. No really. Looking over the landscape of how fantasy DST’s finished the season, the Jacksonville Jaguars finished 6th (139) in points while the Tampa Bay and the Los Angeles Rams  (102) finished tied for 21st in fantasy points. The Buffalo Bills were the first DST drafted in the majority of leagues and finished as the fifth (150 points) best DST.

It is important to realize that Buffalo was a great DST and started the season hot, looking like the pick was justified. But per FantasyPros ADP, you were drafting the Bills DST in the 10th round. Passing up on players like DeVonta Smith, Tyler Lockett, and Christian Kirk in PPR to take a DST looks bad. These wide receivers that you passed up on had at least 70 more points than the defense.

Do you know who finished as the top DST? The New England Patriots. They were being drafted as the 12th DST as the final pick(180’s) in the majority of drafts. What did the Patriots and the Bills have in common though? They had up and down weeks.

The majority if not all defenses are not weekly must-starts or difference-makers. There were many weeks where these defenses scored single-digit games and the analyst’s on television would tell you “you have to start them based on where you drafted them”. Then watch them score four fantasy points. Sounds stupid if you ask me.

So what’s the best method?

If you haven’t guessed, it’s just waiting on a DST in the final round of your drafts. I was fortunate to draft New England in a league but also dropped them for Dallas and the Jaguars throughout the season. There is no defense out there that is Elite week in and week out. You play the matchups and hope for the best.

No DST is a weekly must-start. Sure there are hot streaks, but they can also follow it up with a dud or multiple duds. Ask those managers who started the 49ers defense in their Week 17 championships and see how they felt. I bet they didn’t see that coming. 

To Conclude

These are some of the biggest things I took away from my drafts and season decisions. There are dozens more things that can be talked about but each year I love looking back to the draft season and the season as a whole to help improve for the following season. In order to keep getting better, you have to reflect on the year prior. Look at your drafts, see how things flowed and who got the steals off the waiver wire.

Patterns like these articulated above can help you become a better fantasy player, trust me. Always look at your leagues from draft day all the way to season end and see what you need to improve on. Take notes and prepare to be a better drafter and fantasy manager for 2023!

Trending Now

All of our 2023 Rookie Content:

• ADP (1QB)
• ADP (SF/2QB)
• Rankings
• 2023 Class Preview
• Top 10 Quarterbacks
• Running Backs
• Wide Receivers
• Way Too Early Mock Draft

New to Underdog Fantasy? If you are a new user and make your first-time deposit, get a 100% deposit match of up to $100. Take advantage of this terrific offer here.