Dynasty Fantasy Football: Three Players Who Will Lose Value in 2023

Addison Hayes

In case you didn’t know, DLF has a YouTube channel! We post FREE video content over there at least five days a week covering dynasty trades, strategy, and player analysis. For my videos specifically, I write out a script to basically read when I record, but I realized that script could be turned into written content for anyone who doesn’t want to watch YouTube to read too! So, without further ado, here is an “article-ized” version of one of my recent videos covering three players who will lose a ton of value heading into 2023!

Nick Chubb, RB CLE

The first player I expect to lose a significant amount of value this season is Browns running back Chubb and to some of you out there, this might be a hot take. This has nothing to do with Chubb the NFL player or talent, I’m just trying to read the tea leaves here about what he brings to the table for fantasy and how the running back landscape will look next year.

As we all know, Chubb is basically a discounted version of Derrick Henry – he’s a pure and supremely talented rusher, but his role is limited to just that, with very little usage in the passing game. In fact, he’s averaged under 1.4 receptions per game in all but one season so far, and that’s something I don’t expect to change in 2022.

Because of his limited receiving work, his fantasy production is largely dependent on big rushing games and touchdowns. You can see from his fantasy game log last year that while he had six games inside the top ten last year, he had five at RB35 or worse in games where he didn’t score and didn’t catch the ball. A perfect example of this is week four, where Chubb had 22 touches for 105 yards, and that translated to 11.5 PPR points as the RB27 on the week. Great NFL game – below average fantasy game.

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Thankfully, Chubb is a really, really good running back and he’s capable of giving you RB1 production every week, and his spike weeks contributed to him finishing as the RB12 last year. But without that receiving work, that’s also roughly his ceiling unless he hulks out and literally has a Derrick Henry season.

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Looking at his dynasty price from July ADP, Chubb is the RB12, and we just said that RB12 is roughly his production ceiling, so we’re valuing him right around his ceiling. The problem here is there’s really almost nowhere to go but down for Chubb’s value and that’s going to happen really soon for a couple of reasons:

Value Drop #1:

When January 2023 hits and the fantasy season is over, dynasty players are going to see the number 27 next to Chubb’s name as his current age, and that already is going to scare people. There are currently only two players aged 27 or older valued as RB1s right now – Austin Ekeler and Derrick Henry, both of whom have produced multiple top-five, even top-three fantasy seasons, so it makes sense that dynasty managers are willing to sacrifice age for elite production.

There are other current 27-year-olds valued lower as RB2s, like Alvin Kamara, Aaron Jones, Ezekiel Elliott, Leonard Fournette, and James Conner. Every single one of those backs has produced better fantasy seasons at least once, if not multiple times in their careers than anything Chubb has done so far, yet they’re all currently valued as mid-backend RB2s because of age. Should Chubb drop to their level, that’s already nearly two rounds of startup value lost as soon as January.

Value Drop #2:

The second reason is Chubb losing value not immediately because of age, but because other players behind him gain value and bump Chubb down. Looking at ADP again, there are already almost a handful of names that could jump Chubb as early as October once the season gets going, like Travis Etienne, Cam Akers, JK Dobbins, even Kenneth Walker and AJ Dillon. I think you could easily make arguments that all of those guys jump Chubb this season based on age and production.

Value Drop #3:

Then after the NFL season, there are the incoming rookies in the 2023 class, headlined by Bijan Robinson. I really wouldn’t be surprised if two-three rookie running backs next year are immediately valued as top-15 assets at the position, so their additions could also cause Chubb to lose value.

The reality is there will be some combination of all of this that forces Chubb’s dynasty value down, but the main takeaway is that it will go down. This is also assuming that Chubb is still a fantasy RB1 this year. Should anything weird happen that would hurt his production or *knock on wood* he gets hurt and misses a majority of the year, which could cause his value to fall even more than just age and other players producing. Essentially, Chubb is the hot potato that I do not want to be caught holding at the end of the season.

Tyreek Hill, WR MIA

The next player I expect to lose value despite my belief that he will be very good for fantasy this year is Dolphins receiver Hill. As we all know, the situation in Miami is not going to be as fruitful for Hill as it was in Kansas City and this has already led to a decline in value from a top-five dynasty WR in February to the current WR13. There are a couple of reasons that I believe Hill will continue sliding as we head into 2023, similar to Chubb:

Value Drop #1:

Hill is currently 28 years old, turning 29 at the beginning of next year. When dynasty managers see that number 29, the fear will set in and he’ll fall naturally just from that. We actually have a good example of this recently in DeAndre Hopkins.

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Like Hill, Hopkins was traded from a prolific situation to a more unknown situation at 28 years old. Despite putting up over 1,400 yards and six touchdowns in 2020 as the fantasy WR4, Hopkins’ dynasty value continued to slide because of his age and will never return to his value when he was traded. That same thing will happen to Hill even if he produces an elite fantasy season.

Value Drop #2:

This leads me to my second reason, which is the risk that Hill doesn’t produce an elite fantasy season. Though Hopkins’ value fell because of age, it was cushioned by his WR4 finish in 2020, which allowed him to decline more gradually. If Hill isn’t elite this year and puts up even a WR11 finish, his value will decline because now there isn’t elite production to justify a high ADP at age 29. If Hill were to finish as a fantasy WR2, well… I don’t even want to think about what that would do to his value.

Value Drop #3:

The final reason is another like Chubb’s, where players behind Hill currently might just play well enough to bump him down — players like Diontae Johnson, DJ Moore, Drake London, maybe a Broncos receiver gets in there or a Bucs receiver. I don’t think it would take much for the community to suddenly devalue Hill in favor of younger assets producing similarly in-season.

The community is already distrusting of Tua Tagovailoa and his talents, and then add in the unknowns of a brand-new, first-time head coach Mike McDaniel, plus the target competition in Jaylen Waddle, Mike Gesicki, and the running backs, and you have yourself a fairly risky situation. I am of the belief that Hill will still be 85-90% and still be pretty elite, but as I showcased with Hopkins, that would still mean Hill loses value, just maybe not as much. If I’m wrong on Hill and this Dolphins offense, then he will for sure lose probably significant value in 2023. Either way, he’s going down, but it’s up to you to decide how much you think that is.

Rashod Bateman, WR BAL

The last player I expect to lose value is Ravens wide receiver Bateman and this hurts because I’ve been such a Bateman guy since last draft season, but y’all have raised his value so much that now I’m out on him at his current cost.

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I don’t know if you are aware, but Bateman is currently WR19 in July ADP, ahead of both Buccaneers receivers, both Broncos receivers, both Chargers receivers, both Jets receivers, and both Lions receivers. I get that we’re excited Bateman is going to be the WR1 on the Ravens, but we have already seen what that means for fantasy with Lamar Jackson, and the best it’s been was WR22 on the season.

In three years as the 100%, no-questions-asked WR1 for the Ravens, Marquise Brown has finished as the WR46, WR37, and WR22 on target shares of 16%, 24%, and 24%. Bateman is currently the WR19, and the best Brown ever did in Baltimore was WR22. Brown’s highest ADP with the Ravens was 50th overall in 1QB leagues at WR24. Again, Bateman is WR19 at 41st overall – do you see where I’m going with this?

The Ravens have shown this off-season that they want to return to being a run-first and run-heavy offense like they were in 2019 and 2020. They are not going to throw over 600 times again, and anyone using Brown’s vacated targets as a reason for Bateman’s breakout is kidding themselves. If the Ravens drop to even 500 pass attempts, Bateman’s target share would need to be nearly 30% to maintain the raw target numbers Brown got last year, which would have been third in the league last year behind only Cooper Kupp and Davante Adams – that’s not happening.

Even a very strong target share at 25% would only be 125 targets on 500 pass attempts, and barely over 110 on 450 attempts. Those target numbers are not getting it done for fantasy unless he catches 95 or more of those passes or scores a lot of touchdowns. He could literally be CeeDee Lamb from last year (120-79-1,102-6)… and still finish as the WR20.

Yes, I believe Bateman is a better, more complete receiver than Brown, but you can believe that and still think Bateman is overvalued. I think it’s telling that Bateman is currently the WR27 in Underdog ADP as a signal of what people are expecting from him this season. Putting him at WR19 really minimizes a lot of the upside if Bateman were to produce better than Brown. That’s the kind of ranking I would expect if Bateman had already been a fantasy WR2 in the Ravens offense, not just because of hype that he’s now the WR1.

There is also the fact that Baltimore is going to be a heavily discussed destination for a rookie wide receiver all next spring, so Bateman might not be the for sure WR1 for very long. Capitalize on this value now, and turn Bateman into a much more stable receiver for production, or a similar age and situation player that has way more upside like Jerry Jeudy or Elijah Moore.

 

addison hayes
Dynasty Fantasy Football: Three Players Who Will Lose Value in 2023