Fantasy Football Draft Takeaways: Justin Jefferson, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Ja’Marr Chase (2024)

With the 2023 fantasy football season disappearing into the rearview mirror, let’s take a look back at some of the weird and quirky choices or stats and facts that shaped how it played out. Below are 10 fun facts from 2023. If you have more suggestions, tag me and FantasyPros on Twitter with them. Here are 10 Fun Facts from the 2023 fantasy football season. Below we dive into a few notable names.

2023 Fantasy Football Fun Facts

JuJu Smith-Schuster Over Jakobi Meyers Was Not a Good Choice

Almost a year ago in free agency, the New England Patriots chose not to re-sign wide receiver Jakobi Meyers, despite him wanting to stay with the team. They let him walk out the door and sign with the Raiders (a three-year, $33 million deal), which was more than Bill Belichick deemed him worth. The Patriots swiftly moved on and signed JuJu Smith-Schuster to an almost identical deal the next day. Meyers would go on to score seven touchdowns, despite the Las Vegas turmoil, compared to Smith-Schuster’s lone score. Meyers would also outperform Smith-Schuster in yards per target (7.4 vs. 5.5), receiving yards (746 vs. 260), and, perhaps most importantly, snaps (89% vs. 64%). Now the Patriots are saddled with a fat contract for a player who looks washed, while Meyers looks like an ideal WR2 for the Raiders.

#Patriots really blew it with Juju Smith-Schuster. They found out Juju was a bad route-runner AFTER he signed the deal ???

AFTER. #ForeverNE pic.twitter.com/sJEeTVlbic

– Roll Pats (@RollPats) January 30, 2024

Justin Jefferson Survived With Poor Quarterback Play; Ja’Marr Chase Didn’t

The first two receivers off the board in 2023 drafts both had difficult circumstances presented to them this year (significant injuries to Kirk Cousins and Joe Burrow). Cousins’ injury, as well as the hamstring issue that caused Jefferson to miss seven games, didn’t prevent Jefferson from topping 1,000 yards for the fourth consecutive year. Jefferson’s fantasy output dropped slightly without Cousins — 22.22 PPG to 18.86, a drop of 15.1%, in part due to the lack of touchdowns the Vikings put up without Cousins. Meanwhile, Chase saw his output drop far more — 18.97 points per game to 12.16, a 35.9% drop, which saw his output compare to the WR35 for the rest of the season.