Taylor Fails to Escape Indianapolis 🫤

Catch a break from the firestorm of player transaction news with the daily Upper Hand Fantasy Newsletter. You’re welcome.

What’s in store:

• Faraz’s preseason notebook: Week 3. See Faraz’s final thoughts and takeaways on the 2023 preseason.

• Jonathan Taylor is stuck between a rock and a hard place in Indy. 🪨 Not only does he remain with the Colts, but he’ll also be forced to miss the first four games of the season.

• 2023 My Guys: Zach’s TE Target! See which NFC West player Zach’s been targeting heavily in drafts.

• Could Nick Chubb actually UNDERperform? At his current price, Tyler thinks that’s a real possibility.

• No trade occurs for RB Jonathan Taylor, will remain on PUP and miss first four weeks of 2023

  • A disastrous non-development for Jonathan Taylor and his fantasy managers, the “resolution” will send shockwaves through the fantasy community – especially for those who have already drafted. A trade can still happen, but regardless of where he lands, Taylor will be required to miss the first four games of 2023 as part of his designation on the PUP list. With Taylor out, the onus will fall on some combination of Deon Jackson, Evan Hull, and Zack Moss to pick up the slack left by the All-Pro RB. Anthony Richardson could also see increased usage in the ground game and will now surely handle a significant amount of work at the goal line.

• Despite dealing with a hamstring injury, Panthers WR D.J. Chark remains optimistic that he’ll be ready for Week 1

  • Chark has become a favorite target of Bryce Young’s throughout camp and faced uncertainty as to whether or not he would be available in the Panthers 2023 debut matchup. While nothing is set in stone, it’s still good to hear that the injury does not appear to be serious and that he has a chance to suit up in Week 1 opposite Adam Thielen. Chark has been a deep threat for most of his career, but less-than exciting competition in the Carolina receiver room has Chark slated to enjoy the most opportunity he’s had in quite some time.

• Broncos WR Jerry Jeudy, Seahawks WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba avoid short term PUP list to open season

  • This is excellent news for both pass catchers, as it indicates that they are far enough along in their recoveries from their respective injuries that they won’t need to miss four weeks to begin the season. Smith-Njigba, who suffered a wrist injury in the Seahawks second preseason game, will likely still have a late regular season debut, but he could potentially miss only one or two games. Meanwhile, Jeudy is recovering from a hamstring injury that he sustained in practice this past week. Also a situation where he might be returning in Week 3 or 4, but it leaves the door open for him to miss as few games as possible in what will be a still very young 2023 season when he returns.

Jaylen Warren

Once again, Jaylen Warren continues to eat in Najee Harris’ early down workload, and impresses while doing so. Najee played 63% of snaps with the first team on Thursday, and it wasn’t just passing down snaps for Warren.

Seahawks Backfield

Don’t expect Zach Charbonnet to be the passing down back when Kenneth Walker returns to action. Without Walker, DeeJay Dallas has been taking Charbonnet off the field on passing downs. We could see a 3-man RB rotation in Seattle.

Bears Backfield

Roschon Johnson started the game on Saturday as the passing down back, but both Khalil Herbert and D’onta Foreman got early down work with the starters. This could be a 3-man backfield to start the year.

Bills Backfield

We got a look with Damien Harris back in the lineup for the Bills. With the first team, James Cook logged 69% of snaps (nice), and ran a route on 57% of Josh Allen’s dropbacks. As expected, Harris is the goal line back. Cook is still a solid RB2 candidate.

Colts Backfield

Deon Jackson seems like the Colts starter for now - he started the last two weeks of the preseason, but things can change. Probably will be a timeshare either way, but Evan Hull doesn’t seem too far behind him.

Dalton Schultz

Dalton Schultz only ran a route on 50% of dropbacks with the first team on Sunday, and played on less than 50% of snaps. That’s not ideal if you’re considering him your starting fantasy TE this season.

Jaguars Backfield

Tank Bigsby’s role has grown, with the split moving to 64/32 in Travis Etienne’s favor. Etienne had only a 57% rushing share with Tank getting only 2 less carries than him with Trevor Lawrence and the first team.

Garrett Wilson & Aaron Rodgers

Garrett Wilson was targeted on 37.5% of Aaron Rodgers’ throws, including a TD, in their first game action on Saturday. No one else had more than 1 target. Expecting a funnel passing game to Wilson, similar to what we saw in Green Bay with Davante Adams.

Adam Thielen

Adam Thielen led the Panthers with a 50% target share from Bryce Young on Friday with DJ Chark dealing with an injury. Thielen seems to be a solid startable WR you can draft late.

• I’d like to see anyone try and put up the kind of numbers Kittle did last year while competing with Brandon Aiyuk, Deebo Samuel, AND Christian McCaffrey. He’s still one of the most talented tight ends in the league at 29 years old, and he’s one of the best creators after the catch on an offense that’s designed to rely on that a ton.

• Kittle checked all of the boxes last year on a season-long basis, scoring a 75+% route participation (78%). His 24.5% air yards share was 3rd among all TEs with 50+ targets in 2023, and his 17.8% target share was 7th among those same TEs. He was also essentially 1st in yards after contact per reception with 2.87, finishing behind both Jordan Akins and Foster Moreau - they both barely made the cut by having exactly 50 targets apiece. Kittle was also 2nd in points per game with 13.4 – and all of this despite playing with three different quarterbacks.

• But it’s his numbers with the quarterback he’ll be playing with this year that I want to really focus on. In the six games that Brock Purdy started in 2022 between Weeks 13-18, he was among the best in the league in nearly every metric.

  • 27.9% Air yards share (5th among all TEs in that span)

  • 19.8% Target Share (tied with McCaffrey during that time frame)

  • 2.09 yards per route run (4th), and most importantly,

  • 16.3 PPR points per game (1st)

• That’s a monster TE1 on an offense that already features three other great fantasy weapons. Kittle benefits from playing on a very good, balanced offense, so there will be plenty of scoring opportunities for him this season.

• And before you start with the “his stats were inflated by touchdowns argument”, let’s just take away four of his touchdowns and yardage equivalent to his average yards per reception between Weeks 13-18 multiplied by four receptions. Take away those points, and you go from the TE1 in FPPG (16.3) to just the TE7 on the season (11.4 PPG)!

• Kittle has a very safe floor as long as he stays healthy and Brock Purdy remains at quarterback.

Chubb is coming off his best season in the NFL, both for reality and fantasy, tallying over 1750 total yards and 13 TDs en route to the highest finish in his career as the RB6 in PPR scoring.

Before 2022, Chubb had always been good, but not great for fantasy – finishing inside the top-12 in points all but his rookie season (RB18), but he was never able to establish himself among the top-end RBs with just one top-10 finish (RB8). 2023 changed that narrative with career-highs in every rushing category (attempts, yards, and TDs) that saw a career-best in points and rank.

Unfortunately, it was a tale of two seasons for Chubb, revolving around the QB under center. With Brissett at QB, Chubb was elite, going for nearly 1,200 yards and 12 TDs in 11 games – ranking as the RB5. With Watson at QB, Chubb struggled, especially to find redzone work, registering 573 yards and 1 TD in 6 games.

The offense should improve and the workload will still be there (especially with the departure of Kareem Hunt), but the struggles with Watson under center, combined with a re-vamped receiving corps, raises major concerns for me, especially with Chubb’s heavy reliance on TDs for production (27.7%, 9th-worst).

I don’t mind him as a low-end RB1, only when paired with a safe RB2, but I would certainly prefer him as an elite RB2 option in the 2nd round. At his current draft price as the RB4 off the board at the 1-2 turn, I am likely passing, but if I can get him in the mid-2nd round range, I am all for the upside with Chubb.

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

Former Eagles RB Miles Sanders joined the Panthers via free agency this offseason on a 4-year deal. He earned that big payday with a very strong 2022 performance, finishing with over 1300 scrimmage yards and 11 touchdowns behind an excellent Eagles offensive line. While Sanders was able to dominate on the ground last year, a closer look at a few advanced stats paints a clearer picture of the path he took to get there, and newsflash: it wasn’t all Sanders.

Sanders enjoyed 2.3 yards before contact per attempt in 2022, which led the league among RBs to handle 150 or more attempts. That was in Philadelphia behind arguably the league’s best offensive line – he now lands in Carolina where (not including Christian McCaffrey, who left after Week 7) the only RB to have over 150 touches, D’Onta Foreman, had just 1.3 yards before contact per attempt in 2022.

Not only that, but among those same 150 running backs, Sanders also ranked 30th out of 33 running backs in yards after contact per attempt. It seems like Sanders could be in for a heavy workload in the ground game this season, but there’s also a chance that with increased volume could come lower efficiency. And with an offensive line that’s objectively worse than the one he played behind in Philly, that lower efficiency could come in spades.