🤑 3 Players Hunting Bonuses In Week 18

Why shouldn’t the Bills sign Dalvin? Too many Cooks in the kitchen…

In today's Fantasy Life Newsletter presented by LMNT:

Week 18 is always the weirdest week of the NFL season.

Fantasy championships are finalized (pending stat corrections!) and a lot of NFL teams don’t have much to play for (check out Ian’s piece from yesterday on Week 18 motivations).

But if you’re like me, you aren’t going to let a precious NFL week slip by without playing some fantasy football.

And if you’re willing to put in the work, there are lots of edges to be had. In addition to many back-up players stepping into big roles (hello, Eli Mitchell), a handful of players have specific incentives they are playing for in the final week of the regular season.

Of course, we don’t want to put too much stock into these, but they are fun tiebreakers when trying to figure out which players won’t be phoning it in this week.

Here are a couple of the interesting ones to be aware of…

🤯 A Nuk Game?

DeAndre Hopkins can earn an extra $500,000 in bonuses if he gets 7+ receptions and 40+ yards. He can also earn another $250,000 on top of that with 2 more TDs.

The Titans (5-11) have nothing to play for in Week 18, but you know Hopkins will be screaming for the ball all game vs. the Jaguars.

👨‍🍳 Baker Gonna Cook?

Not only are the Bucs fighting for a playoff spot at 8-8, but their QB Baker Mayfield has a ton to play for on Sunday in Carolina.

He’s already earned $1 million in playing time incentives, and those will double if the Bucs make the playoffs.

🚀 Unleashed Odell?

The Ravens might be saving Odell Beckham for the playoffs, but he’ll be begging for the ball on Saturday afternoon vs. the Steelers.

• $250k bonus for 40 receptions – currently at 35 receptions

• $250k bonus for 5 touchdowns – currently at 3 touchdowns

This is a tricky one because the Ravens have already locked up the bye and don’t have anything to play for, but John Harbaugh hasn’t committed to resting the starters yet.

The TD one will be tough to get, but 5 receptions isn’t an outlandish bar to clear.

For a full rundown of other incentives, check out this list.

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Week 17 is in the books, so it’s time to hand out some hardware to the NFL players who crushed for our fantasy teams in 2023. Take it away, Ian…

The 2023 fantasy football season has come and gone. We occasionally laughed, definitely cried, and hopefully brought home some championship hardware for our efforts.

Of course, earning that first-place prize wouldn’t be possible without championship-level performances from the actual NFL players involved. Kudos to you, a scholar, on making some great start/sit decisions this season – but let’s not forget the Jims and Joes have a bit more to do with the outcome than any X’s and O’s.

Today, Fantasy Life honors the 2023 season’s best fantasy performers with awards spanning across seven different categories. More than ever: It’s a great day to be great.

🏆️ Fantasy Football MVP: Christian McCaffrey, RB - 49ers

Checking your lineup to see if you were matched up against McCaffrey during any given week was downright terrifying. Holding him to something around 20 fantasy points almost felt like a win considering the guy went for 40-plus PPR points on multiple occasions this season.

Overall, nobody scored more total PPR points than McCaffrey (391.3) regardless of position. He scored 122.6 more PPR points than any other RB in fantasy football.

This disparity simply isn’t even close compared to the top two scorers at other positions.

The RB1 in all-time PPR points per game has always been an absolute superstar in fantasy land, but his 2,023 total yards and 21 TDs this season came as the engine of the game’s third-ranked scoring offense and maybe the single-best team in the league. A calf injury limited CMC to “just” 19 combined carries and targets on a 54% snap rate last week, resulting in a season-low … 13.1 PPR points.

While I won’t argue with anyone who wants to focus more so on the “valuable” part of the award, this is more of a “Who was the BEST fantasy player” selection for me – and nobody was more productive on a week-to-week basis than CMC.

🏅 Honorable mention:

• Rams RB Kyren Williams

• Dolphins WR Tyreek Hill

• Dolphins RB Raheem Mostert

🏆️ Fantasy Playoffs MVP: Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown

The Sun God was technically third in overall PPR points during the final three weeks of the season, but it was the consistency with which he dominated down the stretch that undoubtedly helped earn many of his fantasy managers some cold hard cash.

Overall, St. Brown was the only non-QB to score at least 20 PPR points in all three weeks of the fantasy playoffs this season.

Hell, only Jalen Hurts also managed to achieve this even when including signal-callers. Amon-Ra’s managers were undoubtedly getting at least a little bit concerned after back-to-back relative duds (WR26, WR60) before him racking up three consecutive top-seven PPR finishes when it mattered most.

The Lions’ undisputed No. 1 WR carried a mid-round two ADP before this season, but I fully expect him to be a top-eight pick in many fantasy leagues ahead of 2024.

After all, Matthew Berry’s Ride-or-Die joined CeeDee Lamb and Tyreek Hill as the only WRs with at least 300 PPR points during the first 17 weeks of 2023. Not too shabby for the same guy who fell to the 112th overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.

🏅 Honorable mention:

• Cowboys WR CeeDee Lamb

• 49ers RB Christian McCaffrey

• Rams RB Kyren Williams

• Browns WR Amari Cooper

• Jets RB Breece Hall

• Cardinals RB James Conner

• Steelers WR George Pickens

• Browns QB Joe Flacco

• Browns TE David Njoku

📈 Could Jaylen Warren be a future RB1? Every utilization takeaway you NEED from Week 17.

🤔 Maybe the Bills shouldn’t have fired their OC? Not a great look.

📺 Primetime unders, anytime TD trends, and more. Lessons from the 2023 betting season.

🤣 The best memes from 2023. Cooterdoodle doing the Lord’s work.

🐻 Will the Bears keep Justin Fields? Many are wondering.

🗺️ Week 18 is WIDE OPEN. You love to see it.

🎨 Brock Purdy to Brandon Aiyuk is art. On the same page.

💪 Top fantasy fullbacks for 2023? We all needed to know this.

Just because we are in our fantasy football playoffs era doesn’t mean we can’t talk Buying & Selling. With the fantasy season over, Cooterdoodle shares some tips on how to wrap things up before heading into the offseason…

🛒 BUY

🙏 Thank Your Commissioners

If you’ve ever commissioned a league, I’m preaching to the choir. But if you haven’t, trust me when I say that your fearless leader was dealing with chaotic side chats, logistical dilemmas, and suspicious drama behind the scenes.

Someone “forgot” to move a player into their starting lineup. Someone else “forgot” that waivers don’t run on Saturdays. Another someone messaged your commish privately because they felt suspicious and/or collusive activities were unraveling.

No league is perfect, but a good commissioner is trying their best to make the year as fair and fun as possible. 

Plus, just yesterday they had to chase down the last guy who never paid his dues. That pain-in-the-ass experience alone was worthy of an act of public appreciation. 

So for all that you do in front of and behind the scenes: Thanks, commish. <3

🛍️ SELL

❌ “Never Again!”

You’ve been burnt this year, haven’t you? Whether your first-round pick didn’t quite perform to the caliber you anticipated or injuries decimated your team into a sinkhole of despair that you just couldn’t quite escape from… it hurt. A Lot.

It was only four and a half months ago when you were drafting and rosterbating over your championship-level team. This was supposed to be your year! Remember?

But now that it’s over and the dust is settling on your losses, don’t let this season’s results scare you or leave you scarred.

Don’t yell threats of “never again!” into the void.

Don’t be the guy who blames waivers or his hyperactive leaguemate’s daily acquisitions. (Someone else making free-agent moves isn’t the reason your team couldn’t break 100 points each week.)

So don’t threaten to leave the league. Don’t blame the scoring system. Don’t say you’ll never draft Austin Ekeler ever again. Everything can change come August. We have an entire fantasy offseason filled with hope lying ahead!