For the 100th Time: Draft J.K. Dobbins! 📢

Dreading the mini football bye week between the end of the preseason and the beginning of the regular season 😵‍💫

What’s in store:

• Kendre Miller is back… already! That was fast. Good thing the Saints didn’t sign anybody!

• Faraz is pounding the table on J.K. Dobbins! Don’t miss the opportunity to draft him as a massive value.

• Which Browns pass catcher is most in danger of busting? The Browns arsenal is full of weapons, and someone has to be the odd man out.

• Plenty of rookies to watch in tonight’s action! See who Tyler has his eye on in tonight’s games.

• Saints RB Kendre Miller returned to practice Thursday

  • This is good news. After it appeared that Miller had the potential to miss a significant portion of camp and what’s left of the preseason, he’s now back out on the practice field. The Saints’ patience in assessing Miller’s injury is music to the ears of Kendre Miller managers, who is now back on track to be ready for Week 1 and to see a solid amount of work in Alvin Kamara’s absence. New Orleans had every opportunity to swoop in and sign a depth running back to cover their bases after Miller went down, but they didn’t – indicating a high level of trust in their rookie third-rounder to shoulder the load heading into 2023.

• The Athletic’s Mark Kaboly reports that both George Pickens and Calvin Austin have been training camp standouts so far

  • Specifically, Kaboly noted that Pickens has become a “more polished receiver” with an “expanded route tree”, while he labeled Austin’s camp as “probably the most eye-opening” of any Steelers receiver so far. Despite the positive reports, it’s unlikely that Austin unseats either Pickens or Diontae Johnson for either of the starting receiver positions, but his name will be one to monitor as the preseason wears on. Meanwhile, Pickens - who is the yin to Diontae Johnson’s yang in terms of target earning - would benefit from handling more than jump ball work in the Steelers offense, and he’s flashed his playmaking ability a few times in camp already so far. Encouraging reports, to say the least, but we’ll have to see Pickens bump up his target share before we label him as anything higher than an upside WR3.

• Lions receivers Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams dealing with injuries of varying degrees

  • St. Brown is only likely to miss a few days of practice with his ankle injury, while Williams – who will begin serving a six game suspension in Week 1 – is expected to miss the rest of the preseason with a hamstring injury. Getting onto the field has proven to be a tall task for Williams since being taken 12th overall in 2022, and he’ll be unable to rehab his injury with the team while he is suspended to open 2023. Meanwhile, St. Brown’s injury is less serious and shouldn’t worry fantasy managers at all at this point. Barring any serious setbacks, St. Brown should hit the practice field once again in about a week and be cleared with plenty of time to spare for the Lions’ season opener on Thursday night against the Chiefs.

• Oh look at this… JK Dobbins, back at practice? John Harbaugh saying he’s 100% healthy? Oh. Wow. Would you look at that? He’s back, he’s going to get a large workload, and he’s being severely underdrafted in the 5th round right now.

• Dobbins has a chance to shine now that he's a year removed from his ACL+ injury, and now that he's less likely to have an even share with Gus Edwards with a new OC. I'm expecting Dobbins to take a big jump forward this year. There has been chatter about his new OC using him more in the receiving game, too, which would be welcome.

• I think there's a narrative that Gus Edwards will be a part of the rotation the same way he has before, and I think that's the main difference we'll see: the backfield will feature Dobbins this year after the change in OC. If I had to give you my pick for this year's Josh Jacobs, it's Dobbins - I think there's a good chance he sees 250+ carries this year, even on a more balanced offense. And if he gets that type of opportunity, the underrated talent can take over.

• In his 2020 rookie season, he averaged 6 yards/carry and ranked 7th among 47 qualifying RBs in yards after contact/attempt. He was 2nd only to Nick Chubb in percentage of runs going over 15+ yards. Despite not being at full strength last year, he ranked 3rd in that category. He's finally at full strength again with a great offensive line, and a new OC should recognize that he should be THE guy in that backfield. Please take advantage of his low ADP.

• According to David Njoku’s fantasy football history, he’s being drafted right now at his absolute ceiling. He’s never finished higher than the PPR TE9 in his career, and that was all the way back in 2018 during the early days of Baker Mayfield’s tenure with the Browns. He did finish as the TE10 last season, but it doesn’t tell the whole story as he finished with single digit fantasy points 8 times in 14 games played – yikes!

• And that was with lesser target competition in 2022 than he’ll have in 2023! Amari Cooper should be good for 120 targets again as he’s been for his entire career, but the potential danger for Njoku’s volume lies in the offseason addition of Elijah Moore. Word is that Deshaun Watson and Moore have been building strong chemistry, and Moore was a second round pick in the draft just two years ago.

• There’s no way Moore’s lost the talent that saw him average nine targets a game in his rookie season over a five week span before he was injured. Watson will be the best QB he’s played with yet in his career, and we can’t forget about Donovan Peoples Jones, either, who averaged 6 targets a game and 13.8 yards per reception. There’s plenty of talent around Njoku now – as much as there’s ever been in his career, actually, – so the odds of him leading Browns pass catchers in targets any given week is quite low.

• And if that’s not enough, here’s the kicker – in Deshaun Watson’s three prime fantasy years between 2018 and 2020, no Texans tight end finished higher than the TE17 in any of those seasons – and even that high of a finish was a TD-dependent anomaly of a year that saw Darren Fells score 7 touchdowns. Njoku realistically could slide all the way down to the TE18-20 range, which is half as high a finish as he’s currently being drafted. He’s a bust waiting to happen, and it’s officially a crime that he’s going ahead of Pat Freiermuth.

August 18th (Preseason Week 2)

Bryce Young (QB - Carolina Panthers) - vs NYG, 7:00 PM on NFL Network

• Young saw his first action in an NFL uniform last week against the Jets and showed pretty much what we would come to expect out of the Panthers' offense in 2023.

• In 3 series of action with the starts (minus Miles Sanders), Young went a solid 4/6, but for just 21 yards and just 1 first down. It was limited action but a lot of 'dink and dunk' passing while taking some big hits. We'd anticipate more extensive action this week from the 1st overall pick and with it, a bit more of an expanded playbook for the passing attack.

• I'm watching to see how much the Panthers are looking to trust Young heading into this year. If it's more of the same 'game manager' work, there wouldn't appear to be much upside for the QB in 2023, but if he's being presented the opportunity to air it out, there could be some potential.

Bijan Robinson (RB - Atlanta Falcons) - vs CIN, 7:30 PM

• The rookie 1st-round pick sat out the preseason opener last week, alongside fellow RBs Cordarrelle Patterson and Tyler Allegeier, ultimately not giving us a look into the backfield situation that raised some questions upon Robinson being listed as the third-string back to open up the preseason.

• Robinson will reportedly see his debut tonight against Cincinnati, but won't see extensive work, per Head Coach Arthur Smith. It's less a situation that I care about how he performs and how much he plays than one of when he plays, especially relative to the other Falcons' RBs. Patterson will sit due to injury, which could cede early-season work to Robinson, but my focus will be on Tyler Allegeier tonight.

• Who takes the opening snaps at RB? What does the split look like at RB? Is Bijan truly behind Allegeier as the depth chart indicates?

• Those three questions should be answered, or at least have an indication of an answer, in tonight's game and will have a rather notable impact on how highly the rookie RB is drafted in fantasy.

Jalin Hyatt (WR - New York Giants) - vs CAR, 7:00 PM on NFL Network

• There were some pros to Hyatt's preseason debut last week, even despite the glaring negative of just 1 catch (1 target) for -4 yards on the stat sheet.

• Hyatt, the Giants' third-round pick out of Tennessee, saw work with the starters (minus Daniel Jones, Saquon Barkley) and was able to uncover himself from the defense several times where a more established QB would likely find him.

• After an electric training camp, it'll be worth keeping an eye on Hyatt if that will translate to more involvement in the second preseason game. His blazing speed and potential starting role could leave him an enticing late-round option in fantasy given the relative lack of competition for targets in the Giants' receiving corps.

When quarterbacks check the ball down at a high rate, it’s often the running backs that get fed – we saw this happen early in the season in Weeks 1 through 5, when Baker Mayfield had the 6th-highest checkdown rate in the league and Christian McCaffrey simultaneously had the most receptions. Not all quarterbacks are Baker Mayfield, though (thankfully) – and pushing the ball downfield will limit the number of targets to RBs on a team.

Among QBs to start 10 or more games, the bottom 5 in checkdown rate are pictured. Notice anything interesting?

If you said that Trevor Lawrence’s checkdown rate was the lowest in the league last year – and by a whole three percentage points – you’ve got a good eye! Lawrence was a statistical outlier last year, checking the ball down at easily the lowest rate in the NFL – and not surprisingly, Lawrence also attempted the 9th-most deep passes among all QBs to start 10 or more games last year.

So on an offense that just added Calvin Ridley and that has an ascending star QB that pushes the ball downfield at one of the highest rates in the league, how much room realistically is there going to be for simple checkdown passes to running backs? Rookie RB Tank Bigsby has been praised for his ability in the receiving game, and that raises serious questions for Travis Etienne’s receiving upside this season.

Etienne is currently the RB14 off the board, though! Obviously, not all of Etienne’s targets were dump offs and checkdowns - but those add up to fantasy value if you can get enough of them. Just ask CMC and Austin Ekeler. The bottom line is, if Etienne might see lessened workload on an offense that’s pass first with a QB that’s coming off a season where he threw the fewest checkdowns in the league – is he going to be able to return on investment?