Arthur Smith is outta here! 🥳

The NFL Playoffs are officially here, and the fantasy football season is officially 100% over. Until next year 🥲

What’s in store:

• Arthur Smith is out of Atlanta… finally! 🎉. Maybe Bijan Robinson, Drake London, and Kyle Pitts will be worthy picks in next year’s drafts.

• Is Shakir’s dynasty stock on the way up? 📈 With Gabe Davis potentially missing time, things could shake out pretty favorably for the second-year pro.

• Zach presents two dynasty stock ups following 2023. One AFC mover, and a bunch of NFC movers in one pick.

• Derek Carr didn’t look like Derek Carr down the stretch. Maybe don’t take the bait on his strong performances this year when you’re drafting next year, though.

• Falcons fire HC and fantasy football’s public enemy No. 1 Arthur Smith overnight Sunday into Monday

  • The nightmare is over, everyone. Arthur Smith was officially canned in the dead of the night just hours after suffering a colossal loss to the Saints, one that ended unceremoniously with Jameis Winston going rogue to do what any good fantasy football fan would have done to Smith had they been in his position. For the past three years, Smith has been the boogeyman of fantasy football thanks to his insistence on forcing the ball to RB Tyler Allgeier and TEs Jonnu Smith and MyCole Pruitt over his three top draft picks in each of the past three years. In that period of time, we’ve watched the fantasy value and productivity of star prospects in Kyle Pitts, Drake London, and Bijan Robinson rot away with no clear explanation as to why, the only link between all three peculiar cases being Arthur Smith. With him happily in the rearview, the team will seek to hire a new head coach – one who hopefully will use the best weapons in the Falcons’ arsenal – while also reckoning with the question mark at quarterback that has hung around since Matt Ryan left in 2020. It’s still a long road ahead, but the first step to getting better is admitting you made a mistake; in the Falcons’ case, that concession is just a year too late, but the future is undoubtedly brighter today for Bijan and co. than it was a few days ago.

• Bills WR Khalil Shakir steps in admirably for WR Gabe Davis in Buffalo’s Week 18 win over Miami

  • Shakir tied a career high in targets and catches in the final game of the regular season against the Dolphins, putting up a more than respectable 6/6/105 line with Gabe Davis exiting the game early with an injury. The early indications are that it’s a PCL sprain for Davis, and while that’s not necessarily a death sentence for his availability in the postseason, it certainly casts doubt on his immediate availability for Buffalo’s super wild card matchup against the Steelers. Davis is slated to become a free agent this spring, and there’s a chance that if he doesn’t return to the team for 2024, the Bills could turn to Shakir as an in-house replacement that’s flashed plenty of potential in his limited action over his first two seasons. If Davis would miss this weekend’s game against Pittsburgh, Shakir could have a golden opportunity to cash in for himself and any dynasty managers that have been stashing him since he entered the league in 2022.

• Lions TE Sam LaPorta has an ‘outside chance’ at playing against the Rams in the first round of the playoffs

  • Is this fantastic news about Laporta’s availability as the Lions seek their first playoff win since 1991? Not at all - but the fact that the Lions haven’t completely closed the door on LaPorta’s availability offers at least a small glimmer of hope for DFS players who are eager to get him into their lineup. At this point, it’s probably safe to assume that Laporta won’t suit up just a week removed from what was a relatively concerning injury on the field that required him to be carted off – but this is the Lions’ first playoff appearance since 2016, and with Dan Campbell as Detroit’s head coach, it wouldn’t come as a total shock to see Laporta gut it out for his team. In terms of his immediate fantasy outlook, it’s likely any playing time he gets if he’s able to go on Sunday is very limited, so those looking to take advantage of DFS and other contests should be weary of adding LaPorta to their entries this super wild card weekend.

• Anthony Richardson, IND

  • He played all of two and a half, maybe three games total over four weeks, so the sample size is small – but his stock is WAY up and should continue to rise compared to what it was coming into the year. I mean, he was one of the biggest question marks in fantasy football from the minute he was drafted, and that had a lot to do with the Jonathan Taylor controversy this offseason and whether his skillset would translate to the NFL level as quickly as we would like it to because he only played a handful of games at Florida – but in the games that he played, he was a total star. It took him a quarter and a half in Week 2 to put up 17 fantasy points off of two rushing touchdowns. He would have finished with 30+ fantasy points in that game at that rate. Week 1 against Jacksonville – 22 points, two touchdowns, one passing and one rushing. Week 4 - damn near 30 fantasy points, three total touchdowns, two passing and one rushing. You get that for anything close to a full regular season, and he’s a guaranteed top-12 quarterback. Obviously getting hurt as early and often as he did was a concern, but it’s one year and Shane Steichen has experience creating extremely fantasy relevant quarterbacks. Richardson’s stock is up and I’m really interested to see where his ADP settles heading into the offseason.

• Jordan Love & Jayden Reed, GB

  • Two players that were just lottery picks at their respective positions coming into the season have flown up the dynasty draft board this season, and honestly it doesn’t stop at just these two guys. Jordan Love playing well means a lot to the pass catchers in this offense – Jayden Reed, obviously, is one of them, but the same goes for Christian Watson, the Dontayvion Wickses of the world, the Tucker Krafts, even – but Jordan Love just played his first full season at quarterback with pass catchers all younger than he is, and he’s 25 years old. Since Week 7, Jayden Reed was the WR14 in PPR points per game. Over the last three weeks of the season, Jordan Love had Jayden Reed as the WR7 in PPR points per game, Dontayvion Wicks as the WR14, and Bo Melton as the WR17! So this whole Packers offense is on the way up in dynasty. Obviously it’d be presumptuous to jump out and say that all of these young WRs are going to make it in the Packers offense – but Romeo Doubs hasn’t been a factor at all. Christian Watson is in and out of the lineup all the time, Clearly these guys have something, and I think Jayden Reed is earmarked at this point as one of players with very high appreciation potential, and Dontayvion Wicks is worth a flier at this point. Romeo Doubs? I don’t know what I want to do with him, but in just his second year in the league, he feels like a relic of times past.

If you listen to our podcast or follow our Instagram content, you have a good idea of how we view Derek Carr at Upper Hand Fantasy. For the entire fantasy regular season, Carr didn’t have a single finish as the weekly QB8 or higher (Weeks 1-14) while throwing for just 2+ touchdowns in four of those 13 games. That left him outside of the top-12 weekly QBs in 10 of his 13 games in that span – essentially unusable in single QB formats and an objectionable start even in superflex and 2QB formats. It was looking like a completely lost season heading into Week 15 - the fantasy playoffs - when things suddenly turned on a dime for Carr.

During the fantasy playoffs (Weeks 15-18), Carr paced the league in touchdowns passes with twelve while throwing just one interception. From completely out of the blue, Carr was a must-start option: his 22.3 fantasy points per game in that four game span ranked behind only Lamar Jackson, Joe Flacco, and Josh Allen. After failing to finish as a weekly top-8 QB once all season, Carr rattled off three top-7 finishes in the final four games of the year.

The problem with the timing of his resurgence is 1) that it took him 14 weeks to finally put himself on the map and 2) because of him taking so long to establish himself, nobody trusted him in their lineups by the time playoffs rolled around. Going into Week 15, he was a quarterback with no upside and a world of risk on a Saints offense that was struggling big time. Even after his strong performance in Week 15, chances are you felt inclined not to trust Carr to have another strong game in Week 16 – and then when he did just that, you might have thrown him into your lineup for the championship if you had him. And guess what? In Week 17, he reverted back to his regular season self, finishing as the QB17 on the week and putting up just under 16 fantasy points.