Jonathan Taylor Wants Out of Indy 🤯

Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve made it. There is a football game being played this week – in just a mere three days 🥳

What’s in store:

• Jonathan Taylor and the Colts at odds 😡 Things got ugly in a hurry, and Taylor could be in some deep doo-doo.

• Want to ace your draft this year? Of course you do. Scroll on down to see Faraz’s top tips going into your draft.

• Time is running out on Underdog’s SZN-Long Pick ‘Ems! Zach rattles of a few of his favorite lines to pick.

• Is Najee Harris trending up in 2023? Tyler thinks that could be the case.

• Jonathan Taylor wants OUT of Indianapolis, and Jim Irsay doesn’t care

  • RB Jonathan Taylor has formally requested a trade out of Indianapolis following an apparently unproductive meeting with Colts owner Jim Irsay. Irsay, who asserted to Taylor that he has no plans to extend the running back, has come out and made it clear that the Colts have no intentions at all of trading Jonathan Taylor in the near future. It’s yet another microcosm of a deflated running back market in the 2023 offseason, and Taylor’s unhappiness with his current situation, paired with the fact that he’ll be playing on a likely bad Colts offense, makes him an exceptionally risky pick early in drafts. It seems unlikely that Taylor is moved at any point before the regular season is underway, but a disgruntled Taylor is not the best news for those drafting or planning on drafting him high in 2023.

• RBs Kenneth Walker, Zach Charbonnet dealing with injuries, blowing Seahawks backfield wide open

  • Walker, who is currently dealing with a groin injury, seems to have suffered the lesser of the two injuries between himself and Charbonnet, who is dealing with a shoulder injury and is “out indefinitely”. Of course, there is little information yet about a potential return timeline for either running back, and with just six short weeks left until the beginning of the regular season, it’s possible that 7th-round rookie Kenny McIntosh could have a chance to see the field early in 2023. That alone should be enough to have McIntosh rostered in most leagues, especially if Charbonnet would miss an extended period of time. McIntosh was an excellent pass catcher at Georgia and could be a very strong 3rd-down back to complement Kenneth Walker in Seattle’s offense.

• Free agent RB Ezekiel Elliott visits with the Patriots this past weekend

  • The ex-Cowboy’s visit was magnified with news of Ty Montgomery’s injury in training camp last week, but it’s yet another show of interest from the Patriots in adding another RB before the season that spells trouble for Rhamondre Stevenson. Elliott, who racked up over 200 attempts last year, has certainly seen better days with less wear and tear, but with the Patriots keen on adding another running back, his visit becomes more consequential. Zeke’s receptions by year have declined every year since his 77-catch campaign in 2018, and he’s well clear of the 1500 touch threshold before RB production tends to fall off a cliff, so his role would likely be exclusively on early downs and short yardage – a role he had in 2022 that was enough to place a glass ceiling on teammate Tony Pollard’s production. The same scenario could play out in New England if he were to join the Patriots for 2023.

• QB Joe Burrow expected to miss a few weeks with calf injury, but Week 1 return “should be realistic”

  • This is best-case scenario for the Bengals and fantasy managers alike. After video surfaced of his non-contact injury in camp, it appeared that Burrow’s 2023 season – or a significant portion of it – was in jeopardy of being lost. However, it now seems that Burrow is trending towards a return in time for Week 1, with reports indicating that him starting the Bengals Week 1 tilt against Cleveland “should be realistic”. While he will certainly miss most, if not all, of training camp and the preseason, plus potentially a week or two to open the season, he should be able to get right to play a majority of the scheduled games in 2023. His ADP should shift very little, if at all, as a result of these reports, and given that Burrow produces most of his fantasy points through the air and not on the ground, fantasy managers should be able to rest assured that a leg injury won’t hurt his prospects once he returns.

• Don’t go into your draft already thinking you know exactly how you’re drafting - I’m taking a RB in the 1st, a WR in the 2nd, I’m taking WRs in the middle rounds - you just never know how the board is going to fall, and if you’re so set in your ways, you’re not even going to realize when a huge value is staring you in the face.

• You have to be flexible, and be prepared to take any player at any point, and be able to adjust on the fly. It’s better that you grab that value that fell to you than sticking with your positional strategy, because your team would be off to a better start than it would’ve with your strategy. This leads into one of our next tips, and that’s understanding where there are positional drop-offs, and one way to do that is to separate by tier.

• So let’s say you’re on the clock or about to be on the clock, and you have Christian Watson, Drake London, Terry McLaurin as choices, and let’s say you have all of them in the same tier of WR - that mid-to-low-end WR2 range. But all of a sudden, Josh Jacobs falls to you, and the next available RB is Travis Etienne. The gap between Jacobs and Etienne is huge, but the gap between those three WRs might not be as big. So Jacobs gives you the positional advantage you’re looking for here, and he should be the pick here.

• Another example later in the draft: Miles Sanders, Dameon Pierce, and Cam Akers are all on the board for you to choose from, but then Calvin Ridley falls to you - the next best WR after Ridley in this particular draft is, let’s say, Chris Godwin - you’re like alright, I have Ridley a lot higher than Godwin, but those RBs are all in a similar tier - and you know what, I’m also near the turn, there’s actually a chance one of those guys makes it back around to me, but there’s almost no chance Ridley makes it back to me - Ridley is the pick there.

• These might seem like obvious examples, but I’m just trying to make a point of how you can approach these types of situations.

• And by the way, we’re making these picks regardless of whether our starting lineup is filled or not. I’m drafting the best possible RBs and WRs regardless of whether I need a RB2 - if the value at WR is better at that spot, I’m drafting the WR - they can go into my flex or they can go into my WR3 spot. Same the other way around; and I’m even ok with filling out a bench spot or two if those players are that much better than the starting lineup spot I need to fill on my roster, especially at QB and TE.

• And that brings us to our next point, which is not to reach - but I do think there’s an exception, and I’ll get to that. When I’m picking near the middle of the round, I don’t want to reach several players ahead of ADP because there’s a chance that that player could make his way back to me in the next round. Just that possibility is good enough reason to take another player who’s almost as valuable in your eyes, and have a chance at that player coming back to you in the next round, because you will have just doubled up on the value that you wanted.

• But I will say that if you’re dead set on getting a guy, and you hate all the guys ahead of him… sure, whatever. Go ahead and reach. But if you do take that player, chances are you’re also going to hate the players at the top of the board in the next round, so might as well have picked a better player from your shit list than to get the worst player on that shit list in the next round.

• I think if you’re at the turn, you have some permission to reach. You kind of just get your guys. I’m personally comfortable at the turn - whether that’s at the 1.01 or the 1-2 turn because I have my guys. I know who I want, and I’m fine going and getting them - but if I’m not at the turn, I’m usually trying my best to not reach a whole lot. When I reach a couple of times, I tend to have limited choices a little later in my draft and I’m usually not super happy with my team.

• Bijan Robinson OVER 1099.5 Rush Yards

  • One of the easiest picks for me to make. The Falcons are widely regarded as having one of the top run-blocking offensive lines in the NFL, and they just drafted the most dynamic RB talent since Saquon Barkley at 8th overall. The track record for first round running backs drafted inside the top 25 picks since 2019 is fantastic – Najee Harris, Josh Jacobs, and Saquon Barkley all ran for over 1100 yards in their rookie seasons. There’s an argument to be made for Bijan as the best talent of all of those guys I just mentioned, and he’s walking into arguably the best situation of any of them, as well.

  • Where there are questions at quarterback, there are often running backs with answers, and on a team with a great offensive line in a weak division, I’m slapping the Zach stamp of approval on Bijan going over 1100 rush yards. This one is as guaranteed as any pick on Underdog right now.

• Dalton Schultz OVER 500.5 Receiving Yards

  • Yes, he has a rookie at quarterback, but have we heard a single negative thing about Stroud this entire offseason besides some bad test score? The Texans offense is going to be much better this year with Stroud at the helm than it was last year with Davis Mills, and Dalton Schultz is the veteran security blanket that Stroud is going to use early and often. He’s had over 500 yards in each of the past three seasons in Dallas while competing with far better competition for targets in Amari Cooper and Ceedee Lamb, so carving out a role for himself in an offense devoid of weapons shouldn’t be an issue.

  • And for what it’s worth, Stroud has been compared multiple times to Schultz’s old QB, Dak Prescott – it’ll be a volume game for Schultz, but 500 yards is a low bar to clear for a guy who can realistically catch 60 passes this season. For context, if Schultz catches 60 passes in 2023, he’d have to average just over 8 yards a catch to crack 500 yards. 88 tight ends averaged 8.3 or more yards per reception in 2022, and Schultz himself has averaged at least 9.8 yards per reception in each of the past three seasons.

After a dominant rookie season that saw him total over 1,600 yards and 10 TDs while ranking as the RB3 in fantasy, Najee Harris took a step back, dropping to just over 1,200 yards and ranking as the RB14 in 2022.

There’s a wide variety of explanations for Harris’ massive drop-off in Year 2: between an offseason foot injury that clearly lingered and rookie QB play, it wasn’t an ideal situation for Harris, but the most notable reason for his decrease in production was the departure of Ben Roethlisberger. Roethlisberger’s inability to move forced Harris into 94 targets and 74 catches, which disappeared with a younger and more mobile QB in Kenny Pickett.

We did see a massive turn-around in the second half of the season as Harris became more excluded from his preseason Lisfranc injury and rookie QB Kenny Pickett saw in-season development. He went from the RB23 in the first 8 games to the RB5 in his final 8 games, seeing a 45% increase in production and an 18% increase in per-touch production.

With a completely overhauled offensive line, plus the addition of the 2023 Draft’s top blocking TE, it appears very likely Harris returns to his RB1 ways, even if it’s not quite to the extent that we saw in his rookie season.

Going as a low-end RB1/high-end RB2 option, I am very comfortable with Harris in the late-2nd/early-3rd round as his draft price indicates, especially given the volume he commands on a weekly basis.

Check out more of Tyler’s in-depth player preview articles here!

Even with up and down play from Justin Herbert in 2022, Mike Williams running opposite of him, and Austin Ekeler catching 100+ passes, Keenan Allen has remained as one of the most reliable and highly productive fantasy receivers in the NFL.

Upon his return from injury in Week 11, Allen went on to lead the NFL in receptions (60) in the final eight weeks, as well as ranking 2nd in targets and total PPR points behind only Justin Jefferson in that span. It’s worth noting, as well, that over the back half of the season, Austin Ekeler’s targets per game dropped from 9 between Weeks 1-10 to 5.75 between Weeks 11-18.

That drop in targets coincides with Keenan Allen’s return, and in a pass-first offense with new offensive coordinator Kellen Moore coming over from Dallas, things could be shaping up for Justin Herbert to be throwing the ball downfield much more often than he did in 2022. That’s good news for Allen, who has proven himself to be Herbert’s favorite target – even with Mike Williams and Austin Ekeler on the field.