😮 MAJOR RB dominoes fall

23 days until the Chiefs-Lions season opener…

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

Two of the biggest names remaining in all of free agency finally found new homes on Monday:

1. Longtime Cowboys RB Ezekiel Elliott has officially taken his talents to the Patriots on a one-year contract worth up to $6 million with incentives that include $4 million guaranteed (per ESPN’s Adam Schefter).

2. Ex-Vikings RB Dalvin Cook inked a one-year deal with the Jets that is reportedly worth up to $8.6 million.

Let’s start with Zeke, who is coming off his worst season as a professional in pretty much any efficiency metric you want to look at … except short-yardage efficiency.

Much like how the last attribute to leave boxers is their power, Zeke’s physicality on the goal line might be his last remaining elite trait that counts for fantasy points (shoutout to his pass-blocking though).

Don’t get it twisted: Stevenson remains the No. 1 RB in New England and is worthy of top-four-round consideration.

Last season he only scored five rushing TDs anyway while trailing Damien Harris (94 vs. 88) in rush attempts when both backs were healthy. The path to high-end success in full-PPR scoring remains through targets, and the rising third-year back is fully expected to remain a featured part of the Patriots’ (hopefully) ascending passing game.

Stevenson's RB9, pick 28.3 ADP seems likely to fall quite a bit, although I would refrain from moving him past Packers RB Aaron Jones (RB16, 51.7) given the difference in age and the former RB’s superior potential to take over a larger share of his backfield’s targets.

Meanwhile, Zeke (RB55, 175.4) will rise up the ranks quite a bit with a rather ideal early-down and short-yardage role suddenly on his plate.

Slightly reduced TD-dependent RB4-level treatment to the aforementioned Harris (RB42, 126.1) and fellow veteran vulture Jamaal Williams (RB41, 125.8) feels warranted.

Back to Mr. Cook, who averaged the 12th-most yards after contact per carry (3.18) with the 16th-best rate of explosive rushes (11.3%) among 42 qualified RBs in 2022.

Yes, other stats like EPA per rush and success rate paint the picture of a much less efficient back.

Also, yes, Cook (28 in August) doesn’t appear to be completely washed if some of his home runs from 2022 are any indication.

This sort of money wasn’t thrown around for no reason: Cook figures to be heavily involved in this offense — especially during the earlier stages of the season when Breece Hall (ACL) could still be operating at less than 100%.

And yet, Hall is far too talented to not receive plenty of touches once back to full health:

• No RB averaged more yards per carry (5.8) or had a better Elusive Rating (100) than the Jets’ rising second-year RB among 55 qualified backs.

• Hall’s CMC-esque 2.0 yards per route run ranked second among 47 qualified RBs. Only Derrick Henry (12.1) averaged more yards per reception (11.5) than Hall.

Hall (currently RB11, pick 33.4) does deserve to tumble down the ranks a bit due to the reality that Cook will be far more involved than either Michael Carter or Zonovan Knight would have been as the offense’s complementary RBs.

But, like Stevenson, I'd refrain from moving him past someone like Aaron Jones (RB16, 51.7), who profiles as a similarly efficient pass-down back without a true every-down role, but in a worse offense.

Ultimately, Cook feels appropriately priced as the RB31 (pick 99.2) that he was before the news, as he's going alongside fellow early-down grinders with questionable pass-down upside like AJ Dillon, Isiah Pacheco and Rashaad Penny already.

You have to love the NFL’s ability to turn a regular August Monday into an absolute spectacle. THIS LEAGUE.

Drafters seldom get the exact draft slot they desire in fantasy football land. But fear not 1.02 crowd: Jonathan has you covered with a multi-round strategy to set your roster up for success from the second pick of the draft.

If you’re fortunate enough to be drafting from the second spot, but not fortunate enough to have Justin Jefferson available, there are a few players you can reasonably consider with this pick.

I’m a big proponent of thinking ahead in drafts and letting future pockets of value help determine selections in the early rounds. In the 2023 draft landscape, I am pretty confident I will be able to get a stud RB that I like around the 2-3 round turn.

That makes it easy to grab the most exciting player on the board with the 1.02.

🐅 No Justin Jefferson? No problem. Draft Ja’Marr Chase

You can make a case for players like Christian McCaffrey, Travis Kelce, or Cooper Kupp here, but Chase is the only player in this group who is still ascending in his career.

The Bengals’ star receiver is just 23 years old, attached to Joe Burrow, and has casually averaged more than 85 yards and 0.7 TDs per game in his young career.

Even more impressive: More than 25% of his regular season games have resulted in a top-five weekly finish in PPR scoring.

That kind of week-winning upside is hard to find and exactly what I want to build my team around at the top of drafts.

And just in case you haven’t been thinking about football all summer long, the great Ian Hartitz has a helpful reminder for you.

⚓ Anchor RB + Elite TE for the win

With an elite WR already locked down, I generally want to grab at least one anchor RB with my set of picks at the next turn. The dream would be for Tony Pollard to fall to the end of the second round, but most likely he’ll be off the board.

Concerns in recent weeks over Jonathan Taylor’s contract status and health have caused his ADP to dip to this range, but whether that is still the case in a few weeks when home league drafts are in full swing is unknown.

Assuming no great ADP value, my favorite option up until the time of writing would have been Rhamondre Stevenson. I’m still really in on Rhamondre despite the Zeke signing, but I want to see how far his ADP falls before recommending him.

If Pollard, Taylor, and Derrick Henry are all gone, Josh Jacobs becomes the most compelling anchor RB option.

I plan to take plenty of WRs but I also know that I want to grab an elite TE and will need to do so within my next few picks.

I have a handful of targets who should be in play when I am on the clock at each of the next three turns in the draft:

• Early 3rd: Mark Andrews

• Late 4th/Early 5th: T.J. Hockenson or George Kittle

• Late 6th/Early 7th: Darren Waller

If there is no great value on the board I’m happy to grab Mark Andrews in the early third and then look to hammer WR in the middle rounds.

If there is a WR or RB I really like at that spot instead, I know I have multiple shots to get another elite TE when the draft comes back to me at the end of the fourth round.

The key is to remain flexible so that you can take advantage of great ADP values while building toward a cohesive roster.

🏆 The Fantasy Life Team is growing! A QB1, his WR1, and an NBA GOAT walk into a bar…

😃 The Cardinals are getting one of their key offensive starters back sooner than expected. Comeback szn is in the air.

😢 Wild update to “The Blind Side.” Absolute madness, if true.

💸 Jalen Hurts isn’t done making money this offseason. Imagine this logo with the Eagles’ Kelly Green.

👀 Fantasy Life’s most-drafted QB was just named starter. Wheels up, baby.

📈 Matthew Berry’s immediate thoughts on the Zeke signing. Adjust the ranks.

🚨 We’re giving away copies of Madden 24! Enter here.

🦶 One of the NFL’s very best RBs remains on the PUP, but returned to practice on Monday. Hurt not injured.

👀 The holdout is over. The Kevin Nash wheelchair GIF has never been more appropriate.

🚀 Encouraging injury update for the Saints. My best ball shares sure are happy.

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Fantasy football is a game built around scoring as many points as possible, so we need to take stands on players at cost in order to fulfill the goal of taking home first place.

What follows are 12 players who Ian has ranked higher than consensus ahead of 2023 and accordingly has made a major habit of drafting all offseason long. All scoring referenced is full point-per-reception (PPR) unless otherwise noted.

As always: It’s a great day to be great.

💪 Darren Waller, TE - Giants

The ex-Raiders veteran finds himself inside of a passing game in dire need of a true alpha receiver considering their current starting trio is tentatively expected to feature Isaiah Hodgins, Darius Slayton and Parris Campbell.

Maybe Waller won’t have the same chemistry with Daniel Jones as he did with Derek Carr, but offensive coordinator Mike Kafka certainly learned a thing or two about featuring his TE in the passing game during his time as the Chiefs QB coach and passing game coordinator from 2018 to 2021.

Betting on Waller is betting on the soon-to-be 31-year-old TE keeping on keeping on as one of the position’s single-best producers.

Early Fantasy Life Projections have Waller leading the Giants in targets and it’s not particularly close.

I believe Waller is fully deserving to join Mark Andrews, T.J. Hockenson, Kyle Pitts, Dallas Goedert and George Kittle in a big upside TE1 tier after Kelce – his status as often the cheapest option of the group has him sitting pretty as one of my favorite players to draft of the offseason.

👀 Diontae Johnson, WR - Steelers

You might have heard Johnson didn’t score a single TD in 2022. His 147 scoreless targets are 38 more than the next-closest tally since the metric began being tracked in 1992.

Attempting to discern whether Johnson’s 2022 was simply terribly unlucky, or more so the result of him simply not being a great football player, is one of the more important questions of the offseason.

A few pieces of evidence that scholars (me) have compiled in an effort to prove that Johnson is in fact good at football:

• Johnson’s scoreless 2022 campaign didn’t provide high-end counting stats, but his first read target share and overall WR score (ESPN) put him in the company of guys like Stefon Diggs, Tyler Lockett and Tee Higgins.

• One only needs to go back 12 months to find a rather awesome 107-1161-8 campaign (WR8 in PPR points per game) that featured plenty of borderline erotic route-running ability.

• The Steelers signed up to pay Johnson $18.355 million per year – more than all but 13 players at the position.

There are plenty of similar upside WRs in this range who I wouldn’t have a huge problem with others preferring.

Either way: Failure to draft at least four (ideally five) WRs by the end of Round 9 leaves the squad awfully short on upside at a position that requires three starters in plenty of high-stakes formats.

Credit to George Pickens for his dope preseason TD, but it was Johnson who caught three passes on Kenny Pickett’s only drive – reminding everyone who the undisputed No. 1 pass-game option really is in this (hopefully) ascending offense.