Rookie drafts may be winding down, but it’s important to not completely switch off from your dynasty league in the offseason. Now is a perfect time to take an honest appraisal of your dynasty team and consider its strengths and weaknesses ahead of the season. In this series of division-by-division Dynasty Primer, we’ll look at how each actual NFL team stacks up and what buying and selling opportunities might be appropriate.
The AFC North looks set to be one of the most interesting divisions in football in 2023, with the Ravens set to run out a new offense, the Steelers expecting a second-year leap from Kenny Pickett, the Browns will be hoping for more from Deshaun Watson and the Bengals are always entertaining.
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Let’s take a look at our breakdown of the AFC North.
Baltimore Ravens
Signing Lamar Jackson to an extension was an important part of the offseason, but the move that will have the most impact is likely the change from Greg Roman’s tight end and run-heavy offense, to that of Todd Monken who has overseen many versatile and fantasy-relevant offenses. Jackson will likely have less designed runs in this offense, but his ability to scramble with the ball is still at the very best among quarterbacks and we can still expect 700-800 yards on the ground. Jackson’s value has slipped in dynasty after two consecutive seasons where he wasn’t available to end the year and by our Trade Value Chart Jackson is the QB8, which looks like he could be a tantalizing buy for managers ready to challenge.
Jackson is even more of a buy when you factor in that he now has the best weapons of his NFL career, with the team adding Odell Beckham and Nelson Agholor, drafting Zay Flowers and set to get a healthy Rashod Bateman and JK Dobbins to start the season, not to mention the elite tight end, Mark Andrews. Despite the offensive scheme changing, Andrews will likely continue to be Jackson’s main target due to the strong connection they’ve built over the last five years. After Andrews, it gets murky with Bateman, Beckham and Flowers competing for targets. Throughout Jackson’s career, he’s leaned into the receivers he has the best connections with so it seems fair to expect Bateman to out-target Flowers in the immediacy while Beckham could be more of a situational player like he was with the L.A. Rams when they leaned on him in the red zone and for important plays. Bateman is available for a mid-second-round pick currently, which feels like a nice speculative price for a player who looked electric when healthy in 2022 and could be worth more in 2024 if Beckham moves on after his one-year contract.
At running back the Ravens brought back the trio of JK Dobbins, Gus Edwards and Justice Hill, and with all three healthy for the first time in two years the results should be much more impressive in 2023. Dobbins is the clear lead back and while he is unlikely to ever catch more than 40 receptions in a year, under Todd Monken we’ll likely see more running-back targets than we have previously. Dobbins will be two years removed from an ACL injury by the time the season starts and is entering a contract year, which could help him have his best season as a pro.
John Harbaugh spoke after the hiring of Todd Monken about wanting the team to play with more pace moving forward. Teams that play quicker tend to score more points and Jackson and the Ravens have typically been very efficient in recent years. There is a chance that this Baltimore offense could light up the NFL in 2023.
Cincinnati Bengals
The Bengals’ Super Bowl aspirations hang on not what they’re doing on offense, but whether their defense can hold it together and continue to play above expectations. For fantasy purposes it’s no bad thing that the Bengals lost Von Bell and Jessie Bates, because if the defense is more porous then the offense might find themselves in more shootouts, benefiting all of their players.
Joe Burrow finished as the QB4 in 2022 and the QB10 in 2021 in points per game. It’s likely that Burrow fluctuates between those points in the coming years, and if the Bengals are unable to pay all their elite options maybe things will regress slightly. Still, it seems likely that we can pencil him in for over 4,000 yards and 35 or more passing touchdowns per year, particularly if the Bengals can finally put together a solid offensive line, which with the addition of Orlando Brown Jr. looks more likely. Burrow has thrown for two or more touchdowns in 70% of his games over the last two years. That kind of safe floor along with his high ceiling makes him one of the most reliable quarterbacks in the NFL and one of the safest bets in dynasty leagues.
Tee Higgins looks set to be with the team for 2023 at least as the Bengals try to tie him down to an extension, but it’s fair to ask if Higgins’ dynasty value has already peaked. In 2022 Higgins was the WR12, with over 100 targets and over 1000 receiving yards. Higgins had five games over 15 half-PPR points and four weekly finishes inside the top six wide receivers and only four games outside the top 40 wide receivers. Part of taking Tee Higgins is the knowledge that if anything happens to Ja’Marr Chase then you’ve potentially got a top-five wide receiver. In the four games that Chase missed in 2022, Higgins’s points per game jumped by 50% to 18. Along with seeing his receiving yards jump from 52 to 92. That is a huge difference.
Unfortunately for Higgins, when Chase did return from injury, Chase dominated the Bengals’ target share with 31% compared to Tee’s 14% between Weeks 14-17. That reduced slightly as the sample size got bigger through the playoffs, but Chase still dominated with 26% to Higgins’s 16%. Higgins’ current trade value is the equivalent of the 1.03 in 2023 rookie drafts, which looks appealing if you’re managing a roster that needs a quarterback. Chase is the dynasty WR2 and there is no reason to think he can’t put up a WR1 overall season in the coming years. Tyler Boyd’s production slipped dramatically in 2022, setting five-year lows in receptions and yardage, along with PFF receiving grade. Boyd’s value is equivalent to an early third-round pick and if you’re rostering him you have to be cognizant of his value only going south from here.
Joe Mixon seems to be secure on the roster for now, but pending legal troubles could see the Bengals bring in another veteran after losing Samaje Perine in free agency. Mixon set career-highs in routes per game and targets (69), which should be sustainable in 2023 as long as Mixon is on the field. With a current value of an early to mid-second-round pick, Mixon is a buy-low candidate for win-now rosters.
At tight end, the Bengals lost Hayden Hurst to the Panthers and didn’t draft a tight end in a stacked draft class, which leaves them depending on Irv Smith Jr., who has never been able to earn targets in an offense, ranking 58th in targets per route run in 2019 and 59th in 2020. The Bengals aren’t a tight end-driven offense, thanks to their elite wide receivers and above-average production from running backs. In 2022 Joe Burrow targeted tight ends 94 times, which was the ninth-lowest amount of any offense in the league. Hurst averaged 7.1 PPR points in games without a touchdown and had only two touchdowns all season. Two-thirds of Hurst’s games resulted in single-digit fantasy returns and it requires quite the leap to imagine Smith Jr. doing any better than this.
Cleveland Browns
2022 was a disaster for the Browns, who likely never envisaged Deshaun Watson looking quite so awful when they sold their souls to sign a quarterback with such a troubled past. Looking forward, however, it’s hard to imagine how Watson doesn’t take a step forward in 2023 with an offseason where he won’t be in a courtroom or dealing with a suspension. Watson’s average of 16 completions per game ranked 40th among quarterbacks, and he had a worse QB rating than Desmond Ridder and Russell Wilson, so any improvement to the offense will have to start firmly with Watson. The Browns have talked about this offense being pass-heavier moving forward, and if that’s the case and Watson can rediscover the kind of form we haven’t seen since 2020 then his trade value of the 1.04 might look like a bargain.
At wide receiver, the Browns are blessed with plenty of options with Amari Cooper the clear WR1, coming off a season where he almost broke his career-high in receiving yards, finishing with 1160 yards and nine touchdowns. Cooper will be 29 years old when the season starts, which is by no means a warning sign for wide receivers, and if this offense does veer pass-heavy Cooper could be set for a good year and is currently available for an early second-round pick.
Elijah Moore is looking to rehab his career after his trade from the Jets, and the Browns could use a consistent slot receiver, with Cooper and Donovan Peoples-Jones better suited to the outside. Moore is valued as a mid-to-late second-round pick and could easily see a spike in his value if he returns to the scintillating form we saw in his rookie year. Peoples-Jones had 50 or more receiving yards in eight of his first 10 games and finished inside the top 36 wide receivers 10 times, including four with Watson at quarterback. If the Browns hadn’t added other receivers, his outlook would be much sunnier, but his production will likely dip in 2023 and it might be best to package him as part of a trade before his value dips below the early third-round pick you can get for him currently. Cedric Tillman is an interesting rookie, but with a boom-or-bust profile that might make it better to keep him on your Taxi squad for 2023.
Tight end David Njoku didn’t seem to be on the same page with Deshaun Watson at times, averaging 7.8 points in games the two played together, which was a noticeable dip from 10.8 with Jacoby Brissett. Njoku’s 5.8 targets per game were ninth most among tight ends and he can be penciled in as a TE1 until we see otherwise, but his ceiling might not be as high as some hoped. For the price of a late second, Njoku is the kind of player we can acquire instead of rookie tight ends who are unlikely to deliver in their first season.
At running back, Nick Chubb looks primed for potentially the biggest fantasy points haul of his career. Kareem Hunt was not retained by the Browns and in a deep running back draft the Browns made no additions to a running back room headlined by Chubb and Jerome Ford. Ford is an interesting speculative add for the cost of a late third, and if anything were to happen to Chubb, Ford could see huge volume in the ground game. Chubb hasn’t ever been a slick route runner, but he has safe hands and should surpass his three-year average of 24 targets per season. Acquiring Chubb for a late first-round pick is a win-now-only move, but it’s also a great sell window for teams looking to move on a running back who will turn 27 soon.
Pittsburgh Steelers
2022 was a poor year for the Steelers who wasted time with Mitch Trubisky starting games before finally turning over the starter job to Kenny Pickett in the midst of a tough run of games, facing the Jets, Bills, Buccanneers, Dolphins, Eagles, Saints and Bengals in his first seven games. This stretch against good defenses yielded three passing touchdowns and eight interceptions. Pickett went on to throw a total of six touchdowns across the entirety of his 12 games in the fantasy season, never managing more than one touchdown in a single game. Pickett’s low touchdown rate of 1.7% was the 660th lowest rate among quarterbacks to start 10 games or more since the year 2000 from a total sample size of 679. NFL average TD Rate over the last three seasons among quarterbacks starting 10 games or more has been 4.53%, and while we shouldn’t automatically assume Pickett can leap to that number, it shouldn’t be surprising to see him reach double his 1.7% and end up throwing over 20 touchdowns in 2023. Pickett’s value is currently a late first-round pick, which could look like a bargain in a year’s time.
If Pickett can throw more touchdowns then it seems impossible that Diontae Johnson won’t benefit. After scoring 20 touchdowns in the three seasons before 2022 he somehow managed zero, despite being sixth in targets among wide receivers. Johnson does need to become more efficient though, as he ranked 26th in receiving yards. Currently valued at an early second-round pick, it would be understandable if managers sought to move off him, with George Pickens expected to make a second-year leap. Pickens had a boom-or-bust type start to his NFL career with six games over 14 PPR points, and none over 19. The plays were spectacular but it was a case of big plays rather than big point returns. If you believe in Pickens then it’s noteworthy that his value is currently around the 1.09, which is an area many people are looking to trade out of rookie drafts. If you’re on the clock and not inspired by the options, send out some offers to the teams with Pickens and see what they say.
Najee Harris crashed down to Earth after an impressive rookie campaign where his 94 targets saw him be incredibly valuable, and the 53 he saw in 2022 might be more representative now he no longer has the ghost of Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback. Harris’s injuries and below-average play opened the door for the impressive undrafted rookie, Jaylen Warren, to carve out a role and it’s hard to see Harris ever regaining the 85% snap rate he had in his rookie year. Harris’s inability to break away for long runs makes him more volume and touchdown dependant than other running backs worthy of a first-round pick. Warren had 4.8 yards per carry, which is a full yard more than Harris, along with a better catch rate of 86% to Harris’s 76% and while he might not surpass Harris in touches anytime soon, he will be a worthwhile handcuff going forward and can be acquired for a mid-third round pick.
At tight end Pat Friermuth saw only two touchdowns as the Steelers offense plodded along, a notable dip from the seven he scored in 2021. Friermuth was eighth in targets per game among tight ends with 4.3, and sixth in total yards with 732. If we’re betting on this offense to take a step forward then Friermuth likely benefits, but at the cost of a late first, or early second, he’s very pricy to trade for.
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