I wish more fantasy sports apps would track performance like Yahoo! does. Draft grades are instantly sent to my email to remind me that someone else’s rankings fly right in the face of mine. End-of-season standings contribute to a player rating. I reached diamond level a couple of times a few years ago. Apparently, that’s the highest level and coincides with winning multiple leagues in one season. ESPN, Sleeper and the like might have brighter colors or a more friendly user interface. They won’t let you boast about how good you are at fantasy football with empirical data.
There are league winners at each position every season. Some come with less than a single raised eyebrow, like Justin Jefferson last year. Others arrive on the scene from the later rounds (or even the waiver wire) to catapult a good roster into glory and gloating. Diamond status. It’s what we’re all after. Selecting the most valuable players implies a cost-adjusted bonanza of points. This is even more heavily weighted toward players who come through during the fantasy playoffs between Weeks 15-17. Not only can you feasibly draft all four of the players below to the same fantasy team, but you definitely should. You need a telescope to see more stars anyway.
- Snake Draft Pick Strategy: Early | Middle | Late
- Draft Targets for Every Round: Early | Middle | Late
- Fantasy Football Draft Strategy
- 2023 Fantasy Football Draft Kit
Who Will Be the Fantasy MVPs in 2023?
Lamar Jackson (QB – BAL)
All signs point to a return to MVP form for Lamar Jackson. The Ravens signed him to the coveted long-term extension. They finally invested in the receiving corps and hired an offensive coordinator who isn’t stuck in the era where the goalposts were actually in the end zone.
Jackson scored more than 420 fantasy points in 2019 and led the league in passing touchdowns. He now has a healthy Rashod Bateman and JK Dobbins. Mark Andrews is still here as Lamar’s weapon of choice. The team signed Odell Beckham Jr. and drafted electric rookie Zay Flowers in the first round. Todd Monken’s offense gives Lamar the keys to the Ferrari and straps him into the driver’s seat. The Ravens offense is looking utterly unstoppable as long as Jackson can stay on the field.
James Cook (RB – BUF)
Dalvin Cook‘s kid brother is a baller, too. Buffalo hasn’t had an RB like James Cook since Shady McCoy. That’s right, I think that highly of the second-year pro from Georgia. His ability to move in space and create mismatches in the receiving game, along with showing better-than-expected toughness between the tackles, reminds me of McCoy when he was still green behind the ears in Philly. Josh Allen‘s offense is going to score a lot of points again this season. Every indication is that Cook is going to see a lot more work this year, and that’s very exciting. To be able to get him in the sixth or seventh round will pay huge dividends.
Jahan Dotson (WR – WAS)
My good friend Scott Simpson coined the #WR2Theory a few years ago. The idea was that there wasn’t quite as big of a gap between certain teams’ top WR and their second WR, as was seen in ADP data. Oftentimes, that “WR2” even outscored the WR1 in fantasy. One of the guys he highlighted in this year’s column (at my behest) was Commanders’ second-year WR Jahan Dotson from Penn State.
Dotson wins matchups and gets open from all three WR positions versus man and zone coverage alike. Washington’s top receiver, Terry McLaurin, normally mans the X-position and is expected to lead the team again. I was drafting a lot more Dotson than McLaurin this summer, even before Scary Terry suffered a turf toe injury in his last preseason game. That, unfortunately, has added some coal to the Dotson fire, and he’s a bit more pricey in drafts now. It’s still worth getting him. He has the chops to go completely nuclear this season, and I want that for my teams.
Kyle Pitts (TE – ATL)
I’m not unhappy at all that The Unicorn is going three to four rounds later in drafts than he did last season. His per-game and per-route numbers before injury last season were sensational. He cracked 1,000 yards receiving as a 20-year-old rookie TE. He would have obliterated his rookie numbers last season had he stuck around long enough to catch passes from Desmond Ridder. Barely half of Pitts’ targets were deemed catchable last season. Marcus Mariota couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. Even if Ridder is five percent better, Pitts is going berserk as the team’s main field stretcher and costar in the paint with Drake London. Seeing a 1,000-yard receiver available in the sixth or seventh round is awesome. For him to also have TE eligibility is icing on the cake.
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