📈 4 Drastically Improved Teams?

Another day, another video of Baker Mayfield airmailing it against no defense…

In today’s Fantasy Life Newsletter:

• 4 Offensive turnarounds coming?
• What Now! Avoid data vacuums
• Team Preview: Baltimore Ravens
• The race for DeAndre Hopkins is official.
• It's 5/31. Take it away, Dwain McFarland…

Oddsmakers have started to drop lines for every NFL game this season. Yes, I know. It’s not even June yet, but with this data, we can get a head start on our competition.

Using game totals and the spread, we can calculate expected points for each team on the season.

By comparing that data to the 2022 actuals, four teams stand out head-and-shoulders above their peers as squads the oddsmakers expect major improvement from in 2023.

🚀 Jets: Up 5.8 Points Per Game (34%)

Last season the Jets ranked 29th in points per game at 17.3, but the arrival of Aaron Rodgers has oddsmakers expecting a 180 on offense. New York’s odds have them at 23.1 points per game in 2023 — good enough for 11th.

While fantasy drafters are keen on young studs Garrett Wilson (Round 2) and Breece Hall (Round 3), Rodgers isn’t going until Round 10 as the QB15 on Underdog. While QB prices are up this season, the Canton-bound signal caller is in a sweet spot where ADPs are flat compared to last year.

Rodgers has demonstrated high-end QB1 ability as recently as 2020 and 2021, when he averaged 21.0 and 24.5 points per game. Don’t forget the veteran passer in drafts, he is one of a few options late that could help offset the stud QBs.

The Jets don’t have any other high-end target earners after Wilson. However, they have multiple cheaply priced weapons that could outperform ADP if Rodgers goes ham.

• Allen Lazard, WR: Round 10
• Mecole Hardman, WR: Round 17
• Tyler Conklin, TE: Round 16
• Corey Davis, WR: Round 18 (usually undrafted)

🚀 Broncos: Up 5.1 Points Per Game (30%)

You could say that the Broncos have nowhere to go but up after ranking dead last with 16.9 points per game last year. And while that is a factor, the arrival of Sean Payton is definitely impacting how oddsmakers are thinking about the Denver offense in 2023.

Payton’s offenses have finished in the top five in nine of his 15 seasons as head coach.

While getting to coach a great QB like Drew Brees was a PRIMARY DRIVING FACTOR, it wasn’t that long ago that Russell Wilson was considered one of the best QBs in the game.

Denver’s offense ranks 17th in points per game per the oddsmakers, which puts their skill players on the map — especially considering their ADPs:

• Jerry Jeudy, WR: Round 4
• Javonte Williams, RB: Round 8
• Courtland Sutton, WR: Round 8
• Samaje Perine, RB: Round 9
• Russell Wilson, QB: Round 11
• Greg Dulcich, TE: Round 13
• Marvin Mims, WR: Round 14
• Tim Patrick, WR: Round 18

The Broncos are super easy to stack without forcing any picks outside of Jeudy — who flashed WR2-worthy upside in 2023. If Wilson and Payton perform up to their historical standards, we will see multiple Broncos outperform ADP.

🚀 Bears: Up 3.5 Points Per Game (18%)

The Bears’ skill players outside of Justin Fields and D.J. Moore are getting written off in early best-ball drafts. However, oddsmakers have them as the No. 14 point-per-game unit at 22.6 after finishing 23rd (19.2) last year.

It is hard to get too excited about passing-game weapons in a run-first offense that registered a 12-year NFL low in passing yards per game (153). However, being that bad is hard to repeat, even with a rushing QB.

So, keeping our minds open to some Bears exposure could provide a payoff that most aren’t expecting — especially given the low ADPs.

• Justin Fields, QB: Round 4
• D.J. Moore, WR: Round 4
• Khalil Herbert, RB: Round 11
• Darnell Mooney, WR: Round 11
• Cole Kmet, TE: Round 12
• Roschon Johnson, RB: Round 12
• D’Onta Foreman, RB: Round 14
• Chase Claypool, WR: Round 16

This isn’t a team to go all-in on in the passing game, considering how many things would have to go our way for a turnaround. However, the ambiguity around the backfield makes Foreman a solid later-round target. Claypool has flashed WR2 upside in the past and battled injuries last season. He is almost free in Round 16.

🚀 Ravens: Up 3.2 Points Per Game (16%)

The Ravens ranked 19th in points per game last season but were blasted by injuries at key positions.

• Ja’Wuan James, Tackle: missed 16 games
• Rashod Bateman, WR: missed 11 games
• J.K. Dobbins, RB: missed seven games
• Ronnie Stanley, Tackle: missed six games
• Lamar Jackson, QB: missed five games
• Mark Andrews, TE: battled knee and shoulder injuries

James is a free agent, but the rest of this crew should be in much better health to start the season. Plus, Baltimore added WR Zay Flowers in the first round of the NFL Draft and secured the services of Odell Beckham, Jr. in free agency.

With a reloaded offense and highly-respected Todd Monken taking over the play-calling duties, oddsmakers have the Ravens at 23.4 points per game — the eighth-best mark. This should be the best receiving corps Jackson has ever played with, and he is a SMASH pick in the mid-to-late Round 3 of drafts. (Read on for Ian Hartitz’s take on Lamar Jackson’s fantasy value)

Andrews is a great pick in that range as well, given how the WR tier flattens, and the RBs drop off after the mid-third. Pairing the two together isn’t easy, but Flowers and Bateman go in Round 8, while OBJ can be had in Round 10 on Underdog.

Of course, don’t forget Isaiah Likely in Round 18 in best-ball land if you draft Jackson.

Be sure to check out Ian’s team preview below on the Ravens for the complete breakdown of their productive offseason.

Welcome, degenerates. We don’t unplug just because the NFL does. You’re reading this newsletter because you’re here for the long haul. “What now, Cooter?” Each week I’ll break down ways to survive the off-season.

Survival Tip #11: Don’t Consume Data in a Vacuum

As summer heats up, so do the tiers, predictions, and plantings of flags. While each of these is an important piece to the championship-winning puzzle, it’s important to remember the age-old adage: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Context matters, in every facet of analysis.

While it’s fun to cling on to a good recency bias or small sample size, stripping data from its context and viewing it in a vacuum is a dangerously slippery slope.

Remember when Baker Mayfield was going to turn things around for the Rams last season after a few good plays? Remember when Jamaal Williams went from 3 TDs in 2021 to 17 TDs in 2022 and everyone started wanting a piece? 

Need I say more? Okay, fine. I’ll say more.

You could look at Williams’ TDs in a vacuum and easily find yourself getting excited for his production in 2023. You could probably even extrapolate those TDs and try to manifest an outlandishly juicer stat line for next season.

But if we don’t look at the overall picture, if we don’t step outside the vacuum, we miss the 1-yard wide elephant in the room.

🐘 The elephant: The majority of Williams' TDs in 2023 came off of a 1-yard gain.

Adding context doesn’t mean that Williams isn’t a good running back. It also doesn’t mean that he won’t replicate a fun, high-scoring season ever again. But what it does give us is a new lens to view his stats through. By looking at the data outside of a vacuum, it gives us a more educated guess on how we might want to value Williams’ potential ceiling as we prepare to draft.

As we approach normie draft season, those of us who have stayed plugged in throughout the desolate winters of the off-season lull are itching for any signals that might bring a spark of new life to the news circuit. But with the excitement that comes with literally any NFL news also comes the inevitable pull of the vacuum.

So make your predictions and plant your flags. But when you feel those butterflies in your stomach… You know, when you feel that “can’t eat, can’t sleep, reach for the stars, over the fence, World Series kind of stuff” about a player, make sure you’re not just caught up in the whirlwind of the vacuum.

🏎 The race for D-Hop is on. Buffalo fading? Chiefs the front runners? Or is there a reunion in the works?

🛫 More Air mail from Baker. Keep watching, he does finally connect.

⬆️ It’s only OTAs. But this rookie WR has positive vibes.

🐊 Cheetas and gators? Watch out, Chubbs ended his career that way…

🎶 The Jets to win the Super Bowl? Speak now.

🤯 No one reached 15-plus miles per hour more. Not fair, he plays QB.

🥳️ He was a surprise last season. Picking up where he left off?

🎰 This rookie played outside in college. Slot duties to start in the NFL?

Fantasy Life senior analyst Ian Hartitz is breaking down all 32 teams. Let’s take a look at the Ravens, who could make a huge leap forward in 2023…

👽 QB

• Lamar Jackson (Ian’s QB4)
• Tyler Huntley (QB44)

Yes, Jackson has only managed to play 12 games in each of the past two seasons, including zero in the fantasy playoffs.

Also yes, the 2019 league MVP has continued to provide top-shelf fantasy production whenever healthy enough to suit up:

• 2022: 19.7 fantasy points per game (QB6)
• 2021: 20 (QB9)
• 2020: 22.2 (QB8)
• 2019: 27.7 (QB1)

The 2019 mark remains the single-season record for fantasy points per game at the position.

The best version of Lamar Jackson is the best fantasy football QB … ever. His 10.84 fantasy points per game from purely rushing production in 2019 remains the gold standard at the position, and oh yeah he also led the NFL in passing scores the very same year!

Only Justin Fields (10.8) and Jalen Hurts (10.3) averaged more fantasy points per game from rushing than Jackson (7.9) last season. While the passing production has slipped a bit in recent years, Jackson has still averaged more passing scores per game (1.66) than pure pocket passer types like Jared Goff (1.56), Tua Tagovailoa (1.53) and Derek Carr (1.43) since 2018.

The photoshop of Patrick Mahomes handing off to Jackson is objectively hilarious – just realize the general slander around the Ravens’ franchise QB being an RB is ridiculous at this point. Maybe Jackson doesn’t deploy Peyton Manning-esque smoothness in the pocket, but make no mistake about it: The man can sling the rock.

It’d make sense if Monken’s new offense relies less on wheel routes to 300-pound FB Patrick Ricard moving forward.

There’s also the reality that the team’s additions at WR quite easily give Jackson the most complete passing-game arsenal of his career. Per Over The Cap, Baltimore ranks 31st in non-QB spending since drafting Jackson in 2018 … and has still managed to score the league’s fifth-most points during that stretch.

Ultimately, the only QBs I have ranked ahead of Jackson have either demonstrated similar levels of rushing upside and exist in far more reliable passing games (Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen) or might very well be the greatest signal-caller to play the game (Patrick Mahomes).

QBs do tend to run less as they get older, but I’m willing to bet that possibly the greatest rushing talent to EVER play the position has a few more good years left in the tank in that department.

Paying up for Jackson in the fourth round isn’t cheap in fantasy land; just realize his dual-threat skill-set gives him the sort of alien-level upside that very few other players offer at the position.

What About Lamar’s Weapons!?!?

PS, you can watch Ian & Dwain debate the Ravens here.

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