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By Steven Van Tassell (@SteveVT33)
The 2022 NFL regular season is nearly over. Eight teams (four per conference) have no hope of making the playoffs and just two games remaining in their seasons. They will be joined over the next two weeks by ten more teams as 14 teams will make the NFL playoffs.
In Dynasty Owner, the season is over for half of our teams and nearly over for the other six teams. There are six teams playing this week with a Championship game, Loser’s Bracket tournament finals game and a third place game. The third place game winner gets an extra $5 million Dynasty Dollars (the winner of the third place game gets $10 million Dynasty Dollars and the loser gets $5 million) and twice as much money in cash prize pool leagues. If your team is in the third place game, you’re disappointed that your team lost last week, but there is still something to play for. After this week, the 2022 Dynasty Owner season will be completely over, the trade freeze will be lifted, and Dynasty Owners can start looking forward to and planning for the 2023 season.
With some NFL teams playing out the season without playoff hopes, we are starting to see some changes that could impact the last game of your Dynasty Owner season. Dynasty Owners with Derek Carr ($25,000,000) may not have been happy with his play this season, but still might have used him as their Bench QB before he was benched and left the team earlier this week. His 2022 season is over, but since your Dynasty Owner team’s season is nearly over, the timing of his benching is unfortunate. Same thing with the injury to Derrick Henry ($12,500,000) that kept him out of the Titans’ game on Thursday night since the game didn’t matter and they wanted him to be healthy for Week 18. Dynasty Owners with Jalen Hurts ($1,506,292) are shaking their heads as they dealt with that problem last week and if they survived and won, they might have to deal with the same problem again this week.
With the Dynasty Owner season nearly over, that means the end of these weekly preview and recommendations articles. They are being combined for this week and disappear completely after that until next September. No more recommendations for your Starting lineup or Bench, so it’s your last opportunity to let me know on Twitter (@SteveVT33) if there’s a player who you think I missed as someone who should be in your Starting lineup or someone you are positive isn’t going to play well and should be on your Bench.
Our undefeated Dynasty Owners teams are just one win away from a perfect 16-0 season. Their seasons are nearly over and probably all of them wish it wasn’t. Then again, maybe not as more games would mean more opportunities to lose and tarnish that perfect season.
For the purposes of this article, all statistics, ADP and Dynasty Owner roster percentages were current as of the morning of Friday, December 30th.
Undefeated Teams Entering the Final Week
Entering the final week of the 2022 Dynasty Owner season, we have a total of five undefeated teams. We had six heading into the semi-finals, but lost one undefeated team (juan blanco). These five remaining undefeated teams still have a chance to do what only three other Dynasty Owner teams (1 in 2019 and 2 in 2021) have done and go undefeated for an entire Dynasty Owner season (regular season and playoffs).
| Team Name | League | Chase Position | Championship Game Opponent |
| Blaze’s Backyard Burners | 28287 | 2nd | Box Score Fact Checker |
| Stayner | 34654 | 3rd | jaxjam |
| The Oracle ? | 71014 | 6th | Mad Rabbit |
| HawkNation | 27465 | 12th | PACKER-H8TER |
| All Outta Bubble Gum | 156854 | 59th | Tick Tock Times Up |
We are left with three teams (Blaze’s Backyard Burners, Stayner and The Oracle ?) in the top 10 of the Chase for the Ring, HawkNation in 12th place and All Outta Bubble Gum in 59th place. Four out of those five undefeated teams were behind heading into Monday Night Football last week and all four of those teams ended up winning by fewer than 20.0 points with two winning by less than 10.0 points. HawkNation had the largest margin of victory as they won by 28.68 points (140.61 to 111.93) over Gold Rush.
That’s the list! The season is nearly over for all of them. Check back next week and find out how many of them finished with an undefeated season. Good luck to all!
These Guys Should be Starters This Week
Let’s check on how my Week 16 recommendations fared (Good, Bad or Just Ok). These four players were the ones who I predicted would have Dynasty Owner Starting lineup worthy performances in the semi-finals of the Dynasty Owner playoffs.
QB: Aaron Rodgers (GB – $33,500,000) – 15.7 (Just Ok recommendation)
RB: Deon Jackson (IND – $825,000) – 3.9 (Bad recommendation)
WR: Darius Slayton (NYG – $688,497) – 11.9 (Just Ok recommendation)
TE: Cade Otton (TB – $1,123,486) – 3.2 (Bad recommendation)
I picked a terrible time to have one of my worst weeks of recommendations for the 2022 season. For just the third time and the first time since Week 3, I didn’t have a Good recommendation. The 12 week streak with at least one Good recommendation is over. The Good percentage went down slightly, with the Bad percentage remaining steady (33% Good, 55% Bad and 11% Just Ok).
All of these players weren’t playing in adverse weather conditions and had favorable match-ups so I thought that they would play well. There’s a reason why all of them are either only starting for their NFL teams due to injuries or not playing well enough to be ranked high enough to be in your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup. Aaron Rodgers had a favorable Dynasty Owner playoff schedule, but failed to produce again with his fourth consecutive game with less than 20.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. His 15.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (238 passing yards, 18 rushing yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, 1 fumble) were Just Ok as many other QBs in worse conditions or backup QBs pressed into action who were worse. Darius Slayton had 11.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (4 receptions for 79 receiving yards), which was Just Ok. However, he was the third best WR for the Giants and I should have recommended either Isaiah Hodgins ($787,500) who had 22.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (8 receptions, 89 receiving yards, 1 TD) or Richie James ($1,065,000) who had 17.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (8 receptions, 90 receiving yards, 8 return yards). Neither Deon Jackson nor Cade Otton did much this week, and both of those recommendations were Bad.
Even if I have no Bad recommendations, my percentage will still be above 50%. It’s like I didn’t make the playoffs and am playing out the season in a consolation bracket for fun. Either so, I always want to win, do well and maybe help people out with a Starting lineup recommendations for those of you in the finals of your Dynasty Owner league or fighting for that extra 1.13 rookie draft pick in the Loser’s Bracket tournament. With that in mind, here are four players to have in your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup this week.
Desmond Ridder (ATL – $1,340,740): Not picking Aaron Rodgers despite the fact that the Packers are playing the porous Vikings pass defense. If you are in the Championship game, you’re likely not putting Desmond Ridder in your Starting lineup as you should have a better QB on your Dynasty Owner roster. However, if you’re in the finals of the Loser’s Bracket tournament and need someone to put in your Starting lineup, then Ridder is a good choice. He has improved over his two starts, going from 8.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 15 to 10.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 16. He hasn’t thrown an interception in 59 pass attempts and also hasn’t shown off his running ability with just 46 rushing yards in those two games. He also hasn’t thrown a TD pass, but that should end in Week 17 against Arizona, which is the worst pass defense he has faced so far. They have given up 26 passing TDs, so he should get his first passing TD this week, likely to fellow rookie Drake London ($5,383,617). Arizona hasn’t faced many running QBs with the best one likely Geno Smith ($3,500,000) who had 86 rushing yards in two games against them. That should give Ridder a nice rushing floor of about 40 yards and if he adds on a TD and 200 yards passing, that’s 20.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. I think he’ll get more rushing and passing yards than that and be worth having in your Starting lineup.
Chuba Hubbard (CAR – $1,048,294): Since Carolina’s bye week, Hubbard has scored a total of 43.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points with only one TD. He has rushed for 209 yards and caught 6 passes for 82 receiving yards. Last week, Arizona RB James Conner ($7,000,000) had 25.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (79 rushing yards, 7 receptions, 41 receiving yards, 1 TD) against Tampa Bay’s defense. Carolina is running the ball more with Steve Wilks as their head coach and averaging 35 rushing attempts per game since the bye week. Hubbard and D’Onta Foreman ($2,000,000) could both do well but since Hubbard is RB55 and Foreman is RB35, I have to go with Hubbard here. Both Panthers RB have had bad games and Raheem Blackshear ($705,000) has picked up two TDs in the past three weeks to take some Dynasty Owner fantasy points away from Hubbard and Foreman. With a playoff berth on the line for Carolina, they should stick with the running game over trusting Sam Darnold ($18,858,000) to lead them to victory. Hubbard will perform well enough this week to be worthy of a spot in your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup.
Jahan Dotson (WAS – $3,762,090): Some people are worried about Dotson and the Washington passing game with Carson Wentz ($32,000,000) back at QB. While I’m not thrilled about Wentz under center, Jahan Dotson did play very well for his Dynasty Owners when Wentz was the QB at the start of the season. Dotson played in the first four games of the season before suffering a hamstring injury and missing five games. He came back and didn’t do well until Week 13 against the Giants when he had 16.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (5 receptions, 54 receiving yards, 1 TD). He has continued to perform since the Commanders’ bye week with 20.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (4 receptions, 105 receiving yards, 1 TD) against the Giants (again) in Week 15 and 19.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (6 receptions, 76 receiving yards, 1 TD) last week versus the 49ers. Dotson had 55.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in the first four games of the season with Wentz at QB for an average of 13.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game. Dotson has six games with double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points and only four games with fewer points. I trust that Dotson can get enough Dynasty Owner fantasy points this week with Wentz throwing him the ball, so Dynasty Owners should feel comfortable with Dotson in their Starting lineup.
Jordan Akins (HOU – $1,035,000): It’s time to play “Predict Which Bench TE Will Score a TD This Week”. We have several nominees including all of the Falcons’ TEs since they are playing Arizona and both Tyler Conklin ($6,750,000) and C.J. Uzomah ($8,000,000) from the Jets as they are facing Seattle. However, the recommendation is Jordan Akins from Houston who is facing a Jacksonville defense which doesn’t get the attention that the Arizona and Seattle defenses get for their inability to stop TEs, but are fifth in yardage allowed to TEs (897 yards). They have given up TDs to Chigoziem Okonkwo ($1,041,085) and Peyton Hendershot ($858,333) in recent weeks. Even Austin Hooper ($6,000,000) had 11.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points against them without a TD in Week 14. While I’d personally prefer the Texans to utilize Brevin Jordan ($958,046) more, it’s probably Akins who gets the TD for the Texans this week since he is averaging more targets per game (3.3 for Akins vs. 2.8 for Jordan) and has 9 targets in the past two weeks compared to just 3 for Jordan. If you need a TE this week, Akins is rostered in just over half (54.04%) of Dynasty Owner leagues, meaning that he might be available in the Free Agent Auction and can be inserted directly into your Starting lineup.
These Guys Should Be on the Bench (or Practice Squad) This Week
Now it’s time to review my Week 16 Bench recommendations and see if they were Good, Bad or Just Ok. I’ve done better with the Bench recommendations than the Starting lineup recommendations for pretty much the entire season. It won’t take much to do better in the semi-finals of the Dynasty Owner playoffs, but let’s see if I was able to accomplish that task.
QB: Geno Smith (SEA – $3,500,000) – 15.3 (Just Ok recommendation)
RB: Devin Singletary (BUF – $974,500) – 22.5 (Bad recommendation)
WR: DeAndre Hopkins (ARI – $27,250,000) – 1.4 (Good recommendation)
TE: David Njoku (CLE – $13,687,500) – 3.4 (Good recommendation)
A week with two Good Bench recommendations, one Just Ok recommendation and one Bad recommendation was better than my Starting lineup recommendations. It also brings me closer to having more Good than Bad recommendations for the season as my record currently stands at 45% Good, 42% Bad and 13% Just Ok.
The only Bad recommendation was Devin Singletary who had his first 100 yard rushing game of the season and 22.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (106 rushing yards, 2 receptions, 19 receiving yards, 1 TD). It was his best week since way back in Week 3. Only scoring 15.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points made Geno Smith a Just Ok recommendation, even though he didn’t score as many points as are usually required to be Just Ok. Neither DeAndre Hopkins nor David Njoku scored many Dynasty Owner fantasy points and were easily Good recommendations.
It’s fitting that I have a goal to reach with these Bench recommendations with the Dynasty Owner season nearly over. If I can pull off at least one Good recommendation and two or fewer Bad recommendations, then I’ll have more Good than Bad recommendations for the season. Here are four players who I think won’t play well enough to be in your Starting lineup this week.
Geno Smith (SEA – $3,500,000): It’s been two below average weeks in a row for Geno Smith, which is not a good thing for his Dynasty Owners. In Week 15, he had 18.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points against San Francisco and in Week 16, he had 15.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points against Kansas City. Kansas City had given up 30 passing TDs in 14 games (2.14 TDs per game), but Smith only had one TD. In contrast, San Francisco is a good pass defense, just like Seattle’s opponent this week in the New York Jets. The Jets have given up only 13 TDs in 15 games and allow 212.7 yards passing by QBs per game. If Smith gets 212 passing yards, 1 TD and his average of 20 rushing yards per game, that’s less than 20.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points even if he doesn’t turn the ball over. While he was QB16 with those 15.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, it was a low scoring week for QBs and usually less than 20.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points makes you not worth a Starting lineup position. Since it’s likely to happen for a third straight week, I’d leave Smith on your Dynasty Owner Bench.
Josh Jacobs (LV – $2,983,350): Ever since his Player of the Week performance with 57.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 12, Jacobs has been on a downward track. He had 22.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 13, then 19.4 in Week 14, 12.0 in Week 15 and all the way down to just 6.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 16. It was the worst week of the season for him and with a change in QB coming with Jarrett Stidham ($788,423) replacing Derek Carr for the Raiders’ game against the 49ers. The 49ers are allowing RBs to get the fewest rushing yards per game (59.0) and with the ability to focus on stopping Jacobs, it could be a bad game for him. Even though he is the RB2 for the season, it’s possible that Jacobs may cede work to other RBs who will actually be on the Raiders’ next season. If it happened to Carr, it could happen to Jacobs too. For those reasons, it seems like a bad week to have Jacobs in your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup.
Christian Kirk (JAC – $18,000,000): The worst game of Christian Kirk’s first season in Jacksonville came back in Week 5 against Houston when he only scored 2.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (1 reception for 11 yards). He was also only targeted three times. All of those are his worst statistics in a game for the Jaguars. The Texans are a pretty good pass defense and have allowed just 5 TDs to WRs this season. It’s mostly because they are so easy to run on, but it doesn’t matter why they are holding down opposing WRs from scoring Dynasty Owner fantasy points, just that they are doing it. Will things be different in Week 17 with Trevor Lawrence ($9,198,372) playing better now than he was back then?
Maybe, but nothing is riding on this game for Jacksonville, and they should want to preserve their best players for the Week 18 clash with Tennessee for the AFC South title. A combination of a tough pass defense that has held him down before and nothing to play for could limit Kirk’s playing time and opportunities. Leave him on your Dynasty Owner Bench this week.
Tyler Higbee (LAR – $7,250,000): All it takes is one monster game to move a TE into the top 12 for the season. Three weeks ago, Evan Engram ($9,000,000) jumped it after a 39.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy point performance and two weeks ago, it was Juwan Johnson ($895,000) and Dawson Knox ($880,400) doing it with 22.7 and 21.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy point performances respectively.
Last week, it was Tyler Higbee’s turn, and he moved up to TE7 by scoring 30.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (9 receptions. 94 receiving yards, 7 return yards, 2 TDs) against Denver on Christmas Day. Higbee has 3 TDs in the past two weeks after scoring none during the Dynasty Owner regular season. It remains to be seen if Higbee can connect successfully with QB Baker Mayfield ($18,858,000) for another week or if the Chargers’ defense will focus on Higbee and let Mayfield beat them in another way. Not sure I have confidence in another performance even close to that for Higbee this week, so I’d leave him on your Dynasty Owner Bench.
Dynasty Owner Match-ups of the Week
There are two main contenders in the Chase for the Ring. Our first place team, Dynasty|Trade|School (D|T|S), had a 30.4 point lead over the second place team (Blaze’s Backyard Burners). In turn, Blaze’s Backyard Burners had a 54.9 point lead over Stayner who is in third place. If the top two teams win, they are the only ones with a realistic chance of being the 2022 Chase for the Ring Champion. Everyone else needs both of them to lose to have a chance. Therefore, those teams are the only ones featured as the Match-ups of the Week.
League #27458 – Dynasty|Trade|School (D|T|S) vs. pit of misery
Dynasty|Trade|School (D|T|S) finished their season at 13-1 in their league and won their semi-final match-up by a score of 170.63 to 130.93 over Magic Skol Bus. Their opponents are pit of misery who finished second in the league with a 10-4 record and won their semi-final match-up by a score of 122.22 to 79.77 over OU DNA. They are currently in 346th place in the Chase for the Ring. Dynasty|Trade|School (D|T|S) had 640.0 more points in the regular season than pit of misery.
If this playoff finals match-up is anything like the regular season match-up then Rudy should start figuring out his ring size and making travel plans to Ohio. Dynasty|Trade|School (D|T|S) smashed pit of misery 217.4 to 99.83 in Week 9 of the regular season. That was the last loss for pit of misery as they come into the finals on a six-game winning streak and looking to win the League #27458 for themselves for the first time.
Dynasty|Trade|School (D|T|S) is favored to win over pit of misery by 45.07 points. The match-up has already started as pit of misery got 9.0 points from Dallas kicker Brett Maher ($965,000) on Thursday Night Football. The match-up will definitely go all the way until the end of Monday Night Football as Dynasty|Trade|School (D|T|S) has Joe Burrow ($9,047,534) as their Bench QB, and pit of misery has Stefon Diggs ($14,400,000) as one of their Starting WRs.
While pit of misery has a good team, they are only projected to outscore Dynasty|Trade|School (D|T|S) at one position (RB2). Dynasty|Trade|School (D|T|S) has Nick Chubb ($12,200,000) projected to score 14.66 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, while pit of misery has Josh Jacobs projected to score 16.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Dynasty|Trade|School (D|T|S) is led by the Chiefs QB-TE stack of Patrick Mahomes ($45,000,000) and Travis Kelce ($14,312,500) who are projected to score a combined 52.52 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and outscore Kirk Cousins ($33,000,000) and Mark Andrews ($14,000,000), the QB-TE combination for pit of misery, by 16.41 Dynasty Owner fantasy points.
League #28287 – Blaze’s Backyard Burners vs. Box Score Fact Checker
Blaze’s Backyard Burners, our second place team, finished their season at 14-0 in League #28287 and won their semi-final match-up by a closer than anticipated score of 136.02 to 117.23 over Rohndre3000. Their opponents are Box Score Fact Checker who finished second in the league with a 11-3 record and outscored Blaze’s Backyard Burners last week. They won their semi-final match-up victory over Average Joes by a score of 147.28 to 104.73. Box Score Fact Checker is definitely no pushover as they finished the regular season in 31st place on the Chase for the Ring Regular Season Leaderboard and currently sit in 24th place in the Championship Contenders standings.
These teams faced off twice in the regular season with Blaze’s Backyard Burners winning 163.25 to 150.03 in Week 1 and by exactly 40.0 points (187.95 to 147.95) in the Week 12 rematch. The only other defeat for Box Score Fact Checker came in Week 7 by a 129.88 to 128.04 score to Rohndre3000.
Blaze’s Backyard Burners is favored to win over Box Score Fact Checker by 19.16 points (174.52 to 153.36). Blaze’s Backyard Burners has already scored 7.98 points from having Hassan Haskins ($1,088,055) and Dalton Schultz ($10,931,000) on their Bench. Haskins scored 7.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and Schultz had 24.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points.
Box Score Fact Checker has the Bengals QB-WR stack of Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase ($7,704,910) going for them on Monday Night Football while Blaze’s Backyard Burners counter with Stefon Diggs in their Starting lineup and Bengals kicker Evan McPherson ($955,928) on their Bench. The biggest projected advantage for Blaze’s Backyard Burners is at TE as they have Travis Kelce projected to score 20.42 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and Box Score Fact Checker countering with Pat Freiermuth ($1,507,045) who is projected to score 8.97 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. That difference of 11.45 points is over half of the projected final score margin of victory for Blaze’s Backyard Burners.
Conclusion
The Dynasty Owner season is nearly over, and it seems to have gone faster than ever this season. Hopefully it was a great season for all of my readers and that these previews and recommendations were helpful to you at some point during the season.
We had less Dynasty Owner content this week because of the Christmas and New Year’s Day holidays and the in-season content is nearly over. We will transition to off-season content starting next week (after the Week 17 recap article). All four of the Dynasty Owner team (myself, Jay Pounds, Matt Morrison – The Jerk and Nate Christian) will be producing content on an every other week basis. Jay and I will still be doing the Dynasty Owner podcast, but it may not be produced every week.
We will have our usual Dynasty Owner Livestream this Wednesday on the Dynasty Owner YouTube channel. We started last week at Noon (Eastern), and it’ll be around lunchtime, either Noon or 12:30 PM, this week as well. We should have our Chase for the Ring winner on as a special guest to congratulate him on winning the Ring. If you can’t watch it live, then go there when you can and watch the recording. Finally, don’t forget to follow Dynasty Owner on Twitter as well. Thanks for reading and have a great day!
Steven Van Tassell is the Head of Content for Dynasty Owner
Follow us on Twitter: @SteveVT33 and @Dynasty_Owner