🏅 6 Veterans Who Won The NFL Draft

What do normal humans do after the NFL Draft? Asking for a friend…

In today’s Fantasy Life Newsletter presented by Fantasy Life’s Discord Server:

NFL rosters are more or less set at this point.

Yes, there will inevitably be some trades and teams will have to cut their rosters down to 53 players by the start of the season.

Also yes, free agency and the NFL Draft have come and gone; all 32 teams have already performed the bulk of their offseason roster management.

Spending every February, March and April analyzing the NFL Draft is both fun AND necessary to ruin the dreams of our fantasy football rivals, but sometimes this focus distracts from the veteran players who simply spent their offseason (hopefully) getting better.

The following six players saw their fantasy stock improve in a meaningful way over the past week thanks to their employer declining to add meaningful competition to their position room.

🐦 Arizona Cardinals: RB James Conner

• Underdog ADP: RB29 (100.7)

The Cardinals didn’t draft a single RB with their nine picks, leaving Conner’s only real competition as 2022 sixth-round pick Keaontay Ingram and journeyman Corey Clement. No. 6 overall pick Paris Johnson also figures to help PFF’s reigning 24th-ranked offensive line.

Only Austin Ekeler (38) has more total TD than Conner (26) over the past two seasons. The corresponding fantasy production has been borderline erotic.

While Conner’s new coaching staff might not hand out the same sort of every-down role that head coach Kliff Kingsbury gave him, the veteran RB certainly profiles as someone who will be ranked far higher in Week 1 than his offseason ADP.

🐅 Cincinnati Bengals: RB Joe Mixon and TE Irv Smith Jr.

• Underdog ADP: Mixon: RB21 (76.7). Smith: TE28 (221.3)

There was a lot of smoke to the fire that Mixon could be a post-June 1 release due to the reality that the Bengals have some pricey bills incoming in the form of Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins.

And yet, Cincy only added fifth-round RB Chase Brown as competition, making the backfield depth awfully soft with long-time backup RB Samaje Perine now residing in Denver.

Keep an eye on Mixon’s ongoing legal situation, but the reigning RB2 in expected PPR points per game (again) projects as the featured back inside of one of the game’s best offenses.

Smith’s starting job also appears fairly safe after the Bengals didn’t devote a single pick to their TE room. It’s not a given that the ex-Vikings talent completely takes over Hayden Hurst’s previous starting role, but making it through the draft without any newfound added competition remains a massive W for the 24-year-old talent.

🐴 Denver Broncos: RB Samaje Perine

• Underdog ADP: RB37 (126.4)

Fantasy Life’s Kendall Valenzuela recently tabbed Perine as a veteran set to take a leap in 2023 on The Fantasy Life Podcast.

The reasoning is fairly simple:

1. Perine has proven three-down ability and signed with the Broncos thanks to head coach Sean Payton’s history of using multiple RBs.

2. Javonte Williams’ health is incredibly uncertain as he continues to recover from tearing his ACL, LCL and PCL.

At a minimum, Denver’s decision to not add another RB with one of their five draft picks cements Perine as the clear-cut No. 2 back behind Williams — and the upside could be a lot more than that should the rising third-year back fail to get healthy by September.

🐏 Los Angeles Rams: RB Cam Akers

• Underdog ADP: RB24 (82.1)

Maybe sixth-round RB Zach Evans turns out to be a dog.

Or maybe Akers is (again) trusted as head coach Sean McVay’s featured back.

Friends don’t let friends forget that Akers worked as the overall PPR RB4 during the final six weeks of 2022:

• Week 13: 17-60-2 rushing, 1-0-0 receiving, 72% snaps

• Week 14: 12-42-1 rushing, 1-1-0 receiving, 42%

• Week 15: 12-65-0 rushing, 3-35-0 receiving, 76%

• Week 16: 23-118-3 rushing, 2-29-0 receiving, 75%

• Week 17: 19-123-0 rushing, 1-10-0 receiving, 78%

• Week 18: 21-104-0 rushing, 3-24-0 receiving, 100%

🏴‍☠️ Tampa Bay Buccaneers: RB Rachaad White

• Underdog ADP: RB26 (94.5)

White posted 14-64-0 rushing and 9-45-0 receiving lines on an absurd 90% snap rate in his only game without current free agent Leonard Fournette last season. His rushing efficiency left a lot to be desired, but then again PFF’s reigning 25th-ranked offensive line in run-blocking grade didn’t do him any favors

True every-down backs are nearly extinct in the year 2023; the Buccaneers’ rising second-year talent has a chance to boom into the position’s top-15 fantasy options based on volume alone after the front office declined to draft a single RB last week.

👨‍🏫 Talk to An Industry Leader...Today!

Widely regarded as one of the top best ball minds in the Fantasy Football industry, Peter Overzet wants to help YOU win...

Perfecting the art of best ball is a time-consuming endeavor. Lucky for you, we know how to save you time.

Insert Peter Overzet.

Join his office hours in the Fantasy Life Discord at 3:30 PM ET TODAY and get your biggest questions answered directly by Pete...

• How do I draft the Eagles backfield now?!

• Where are you drafting Anthony Richardson?

• Will Bijan Robinson throw TDs to Kyle Pitts????

…and anything else that may be on your mind.

It's not often you get direct one-on-one access to an expert (for FREE!), so make sure to join the Fantasy Life Discord and take advantage while you can.

The biggest season-long tournament of all time dropped on Saturday night and Pete Overzet is here to get you caught up to speed so you can dive into drafting…

Hot best ball summer is officially underway thanks to our friends over at Underdog Fantasy dropping the fourth installment of their flagship best ball contest, Best Ball Mania.

Best Ball Mania IV features a mouth-watering $15,000,000 total prize pool and a $3,000,000 top prize, so we’ll be spilling a lot of ink around here this summer to help you compete for that life-changing top prize.

If you’re new to best ball, check out this piece to get up to speed.

Here’s everything you need to know about this behemoth of a contest before you dive in…

💪 This is a Massive Tournament

When all is said and done, there will be 677,376 entries in this contest and 56,448 total drafts.

Each entry costs $25 (although if you use promo code LIFE when you sign up, Underdog will match your deposit up to $100 dollars and you’ll get essentially eight total entries for the price of four).

$10,000,000 of the prize pool will be distributed to the top teams in the fantasy playoffs (Week 17), while $5,000,000 will be distributed to the top teams in the regular season (Weeks 1-14).

Takeaway: This tournament will likely take the entire summer to fill, so be sure to pace yourself. There are advantages and disadvantages to drafting both early and late, so I personally prefer to sprinkle my entries evenly over the course of the entire summer.

The advantage to drafting early is that you can lock in players (often rookies) at very nice prices before their ADP inevitably climbs throughout the offseason. For example, Texans RB Dameon Pierce vaulted from a 12th-round pick to a 7th-round pick last summer. It’s no surprise that the team that won the regular season prize in BBM3 selected Pierce in the 12th round, Kenneth Walker in the 10th, and Garrett Wilson in the 9th.

The disadvantage to drafting early is that a lot of changes between now and September 7, and you’re likely to whiff on a lot of picks and fall on some injury landmines.

👀 The Regular Season Now Matters

In Best Ball Mania III, 90% of the total prize pool went to the top teams in the fantasy playoffs and 10% ($1,000,000) went to one single entry in the regular season, which is how we arrived at the conclusion, “Week 17 is all that matters.”

Last year, many great regular season teams walked away empty-handed after getting bounced in the first round of the fantasy playoffs. This year that will not be the case as Underdog clearly made an effort to make the regular season matter for BBM4:

33% of the prize pool will go to 10,000 teams in the regular season.

The top 1,000 teams in BBM4 will receive prizes on a sliding scale (from $500,000 to first to $1,000 to 1,000th place) and the rest of the 10,000 teams will all receive $250–a 10x on their initial $25 entry fee.

Takeaway: I’m very excited about the re-balancing of the prize pool to make drafters really consider what they are optimizing for in each draft. Last year, you were drafting sub-optimally if you weren’t drafting with Week 17 in mind. Now, each room could feature some drafters optimizing for the regular season (more 3QB and 3TE builds, fewer rookies/injured players, etc.) while others still optimize for the top playoff prizes (Week 17 game stacks).

Still, it’s important to remember that even though the regular season now matters, you’ll still need to have a team in the Top 1.5% of the entire field to 10x your entry fee. That’s a difficult thing to optimize for, so I will personally continue to focus on playoff optimization with my builds. We’ll have more strategy pieces in subsequent weeks about how you can do that.

📺 Find someone who loves you like America loves football. NFL Draft viewership numbers are in.

🐃 A long-time veteran RB finds a new home. He’s basically Millennial Frank Gore at this point.

🐎 Fifth-year option szn is in the air. This Broncos WR isn’t going anywhere.

🎱 D’Andre Swift to the moon? Signs point to maybe.

⚽ Future HOF DL J.J. Watt is un-retiring. Not really, but this is still cool.

👨‍🦰 Guess who will start under center at the Panthers’ first OTA practice later this month? Hint: Not Bryce Young.

⚡ QBs typically struggle to put up big-time fantasy numbers in Year 1. But there are exceptions.

💘 Babe, wake up: It’s Love/Hate day.

✍️ The Chiefs didn’t draft a single RB. But they are re-signing an old friend.

✈️ First look at the Jets’ new QB1 to WR1 connection. It’s so pretty.

💣 Not so fast my friend: Nuk trade update.

The Fantasy Life crew participated in a rookie Superflex draft on Monday morning. Today we focus on picks 1-6, and on Thursday we’ll dive into picks 7-12.

* Law and Order music*

These are their stories...

1.01: Bijan Robinson, RB, Falcons

Bijan Robinson is the best RB prospect we have seen in the Rookie Super Model dating back to the 2017 class, grading out in the 100th percentile.

We have seen 83% of backs that eclipsed the 90th percentile register at least one top-six season – making Robinson a slam dunk as the No. 1 option, even in Superflex formats. He is an explosive every-down back with 350-touch upside in a run-first offense in Atlanta that could make him the RB1 overall as soon as 2023.

- Dwain McFarland 

1.02: Anthony Richardson, QB, Colts

Anthony Richardson (literally) leaps into the fringe-QB1 discussion with top-five overall draft capital spent on him and no established vet to challenge him for starter reps.

If Shane Steichen could help put Jalen Hurts into the MVP conversation, we can forgive Richardson’s inaccuracies as a passer and swing for the fences with his ground game. With a 35.4% explosive run rate in his final season, NFL defenses will need to account for the Colts’ new signal caller and their new WR Josh Downs who pairs well with Michael Pittman Jr. as a high-end separator.

Accompanied by a healthy offensive line, Richardson has spike-week potential as soon as Week 1.

- Chris Allen

1.03: Bryce Young, QB, Carolina Panthers

Snagging the 1st overall pick at the 1.03 seems like a steal, but it’s hard to argue with the first two selections.

According to PFF, Bryce Young finished last season with a 93.0 passer grade, which places him at the top of the rankings among 169 FBS QBs with at least 250 dropbacks over the last two seasons.

Year 1 could be a struggle in Carolina, but he has all the tools to succeed in the NFL.

- Sam Wallace

1.04: C.J. Stroud, QB, Houston Texans

C.J. Stroud has the draft capital and college production to warrant a top-four pick in superflex.

There’s concern that the surrounding talent in Houston will be a big step down from his supporting cast at Ohio State, but with some development, Stroud can be a strong fantasy QB2 with QB1 upside at the NFL level.

And while he’s not a runner, Stroud is mobile enough to buy time and scramble here and there.

- Meng Song

1.05: Jahmyr Gibbs, RB, Detroit Lions

With Robinson and the big three QBs off the board, we’re in the territory of taking the best player available. For me, that means selecting the 12th overall pick, Lions RB Jahmyr Gibbs.

The controversial draft capital investment of Gibbs at 12 has since been mitigated following the D’Andre Swift trade. David Montgomery could potentially be out after 2024 as well, offering Gibbs a favorable two-year increased opportunity ramp-up.

If the Lions’ stout offensive line can get Gibbs past first contact and into open space, he’ll begin his career no worse than fantasy RB2 and on a notable upward trajectory.

- Rob Waziak

1.06: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, WR, Seahawks

Let’s be honest, Jaxon Smith-Njigba did not end up in a great fantasy landing spot. He’ll now be sharing time with DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett but has been described as a player who is more shifty than speedy and that is something that the Seahawks have lacked.

Per PFF data, Smith-Njigba delivered a 15-plus yard reception on 34% of his plays, which ranks in the 92nd percentile since 2017. The Seahawks were ninth in points per game in 2022 (23.9) and have now created a three-headed monster with JSN.

Overtaking Metcalf or Lockett likely isn’t in the cards unless an injury or clear dropoff happens, but I’ll take his potential upside over everything else.

- Kendall Valenzuela