The Home Stretch
By Steven Van Tassell (@SteveVT33)
We are heading into the home stretch of the fantasy football and Dynasty Owner regular season. After Week 14, only half of the Dynasty Owners in each league will still be playing for their League Championship, while the rest will be competing in the Loser’s Bracket. Hopefully your team has already clinched a playoff berth or is at least in contention for one.
If your Dynasty Owner leagues are like mine, almost all of you are still in playoff contention. You might have a slim shot, like needing to win both of your final two games and have a couple of teams lose twice, but it’s better than being out of contention already. Only 15% of the teams in my seven Dynasty Owner leagues have no chance of making the playoffs. That’s virtually identical to the number of teams who have clinched a playoff berth already (14%). The overwhelming majority are still battling out in the home stretch of the season.
It’s pretty similar to the NFL where no teams have officially been eliminated from the playoff race. Check out the Conference standings and you’ll see no “e – eliminated from playoffs”. Even the Carolina Panthers at 1-10 could win the NFC South division with a 7-10 record, while the 2-9 New England Patriots and 2-10 Arizona Cardinals are still mathematically alive for the playoffs.
You’ll also see that nobody has officially clinched a playoff berth yet either. The Philadelphia Eagles are 10-1 but only have a two game lead over Dallas for the NFC East title and could lose enough games to fall completely out of the playoff race. They could clinch a playoff berth this week with a win and a bunch of other teams losing, but it seems more realistic that the Eagles will punch their playoff ticket in Week 14. Just like a bunch of Dynasty Owner teams will be doing.
Hopefully you’ve got more teams in contention than out of the running and maybe even have a team that has clinched a playoff berth already. I’m definitely in the playoffs in one league, in the top six in five, at least alive for the playoffs in six, and only officially out in one league. That’s pretty much in line with the overall findings from all of my leagues. Not sure about all of Dynasty Owner though.
If you need some help with your Starting lineup and Bench with six NFL teams on bye this week (Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Las Vegas, Minnesota and New York Giants), you’re reading the correct article. This is the place where you’ll get four recommendations with a player at each position (QB, RB, WR, TE) who you should have as a Starter in your Dynasty Owner lineup, even though they aren’t obvious choices. No recommendation to go ahead and start Jalen Hurts ($1,506,293) who is the overall #2 player in Dynasty Owner but the highest ranked player not on bye this week. Other players who have scored lots of Dynasty Owner fantasy points and are at the top of the overall rankings won’t be mentioned either. Instead, I’m going to recommend you Start players outside the top players at their position, players drafted to be on your Bench or Practice Squad, or players who aren’t on a roster in every Dynasty Owner league.
After that, I’ll name one player per position who should be on your Bench or Practice Squad. For these Bench recommendations, it’s just the opposite. I’ll suggest players doing well so far, drafted early in Dynasty Owner startup drafts to be Starters, and also in the top 12 (QBs and TEs) or top 36 (RBs and WRs) in scoring this year. This section is where you might see some surprising players appear. However, the recommended Bench players shouldn’t be in your Starting lineup for the week based on matchups, past performance against a team or something else.
All stats cited are based on the Standard Dynasty Owner scoring system as outlined in the Dynasty Owner Constitution. Standard Dynasty Owner scoring gives you .1 points for every yard rushing or receiving, .1 point for every 2 yards passing, 1 point per reception, 6 points for a rushing, receiving or passing touchdown and 2 points for a successful 2-point conversion (rushing, receiving, or passing). Interceptions or fumbles lost cost you 3 points, while a fumble that is recovered by the player’s team is a loss of only 1 point. Bonus points are available for 100-199 yards rushing (2 points), 200 yards rushing or receiving (6 points), 300-399 yards passing (1 point) and 400 yards passing (4 points). There is also a 3 point bonus for clutch scoring, which is a score that results in a lead change in the final two minutes of the 4th quarter or overtime. Kickoff and punt return touchdowns are worth 6 points for the player and kickoff and punt returns are worth 1 point for every 40 yards.
Any salaries, ADPs and roster percentages listed were current as of the morning of November 30th. All 2023 contract information is currently what is listed on the Dynasty Owner platform (number of years and salaries) and has been taken from Spotrac (https://www.spotrac.com/).
Dynasty Owner Player of the Week
Before we get into Week 13, let’s look at Week 12 and announce the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week. I’ll give you a hint. For the past few weeks, he’s been mentioned in my weekly preview article by now. That’s a pretty big hint, but if you aren’t reading closely, you may pass over the part where I mention that I’m not going to recommend that you put the overall #1 player in your Starting lineup. Even though he’s been the overall #1 player for a while now, this is the first Dynasty Owner Player of the Week award of the 2023 season for him. That’s right, the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week is Josh Allen.
Josh Allen ($43,005,667) had yet to be named Player of the Week, but he had been very close at least once. Back in Week 4, he had 48.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (320 passing yards, 17 rushing yards, 5 TDs) against Miami, but was beaten out by Christian McCaffrey ($16,015,875) who scored 50.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Other than that week, Allen has been consistently good all season with 11 consecutive weeks of double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points (all but Week 1 when he had just 8.4 points). Including Week 12, he scored more than 20.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in nine weeks and more than 30.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points six times. This week was his best as he had 50.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (339 passing yards, 81 rushing yards, 4 TDs, 1 INT), which included the 3.0 clutch scoring bonus points for the 7-yard TD pass to Gabriel Davis ($998,595) with 1:52 left in the fourth quarter that put Buffalo in front. It was one of four clutch scoring events in the 37-34 victory for the Eagles over the Bills. Allen was one of five players to get the clutch scoring bonus. It wasn’t enough to get the Bills a victory, but he did score enough Dynasty Owner fantasy points to be the Week 12 Dynasty Owner Player of the Week and secure his sixth overall award, but first one for the 2023 season.
Week 12 Points: 50.0
2023 Salary: $43,005,667
Cost per Point: $860,113
Dynasty Owner Value Player of the Week
Because this is Dynasty Owner and we’re all looking for value from the players on our roster, we also have the Value Player of the Week. The Value Player of the Week was almost another player in that high scoring Eagles-Bills game, but Jalen Hurts was beaten out by another player who had fewer Dynasty Owner fantasy points, but a better Cost per Point. The winner is not the first player on his team to be the Value Player of the Week this year, but it is the first Player of the Week honor of his career. The Week 12 Dynasty Owner Value Player of the Week is Kyren Williams.
Kyren Williams ($992,601) came off Injured Reserve this week and promptly put up easily the best game of his short NFL career with 40.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (143 rushing yards, 6 receptions, 61 receiving yards, 2 TDs). After all of the Player of the Week victories by his teammate Puka Nacua ($1,021,244) and 49ers’ QB Brock Purdy ($934,252), Williams came back from injury and put up the best Cost per Point and the most Dynasty Owner fantasy points for a Value Player of the Week for the entire season. Jalen Hurts had 43.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (200 passing yards, 65 rushing yards, 5 TDs, 1 INT, 1 lost fumble). It was Hurts’ 12-yard TD run to win the game in overtime that put him over the top of Williams in points, but Hurts’ Cost per Point was over $10,000 higher at $34,627. It’s the first Value Player of the Week award for Kyren Williams, but likely not the last one if Rams’ coach Sean McVay uses him as much as he did in Week 12.
Week 12 Points: 40.4
2023 Salary: $992,601
Cost per Point: $24,569
These Guys Should be Starters This Week
Before we get into the weekly recommendations, let’s take a look at my previous week’s recommendations and see how they did (Good, Bad or Just Ok). Unfortunately, after having two Good and two Just Ok recommendations in Week 11, I came up short in the home stretch of the Dynasty Owner regular season with my Week 12 recommendations.
QB: Gardner Minshew ($3,500,000) – 15.1 (Bad recommendation)
RB: A.J. Dillon ($1,321,458) – 11.1 (Just Ok recommendation)
WR: Odell Beckham Jr. ($15,000,000) – 6.4 (Bad recommendation)
TE: Hunter Henry ($12,500,000) – 0.0 (Bad recommendation)
The only Just Ok recommendation was A.J. Dillon who finished up the first game of Thanksgiving with 11.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (43 rushing yards, 3 receptions, 38 receiving yards) to be RB25 for the week and a Just Ok recommendation. Unfortunately, that was the best recommendation of the week as the rest were Bad.
From best Bad recommendation to worst, I’ll start with Gardner Minshew who had 15.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (251 passing yards, 6 rushing yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, 1 fumble) to finish as QB17 in Dynasty Owner. He was just outside of the top half, but definitely not in the top 12 QBs. Odell Beckham Jr. had just 6.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (3 receptions for 34 receiving yards) to snap a streak of three consecutive games with double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points. However, the worst recommendation was Hunter Henry who had a Blutarsky (0.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points) on zero targets despite playing 46 snaps for the Patriots in Week 12. It was the fourth time this season that one of my Starting lineup TE recommendations has put up a Blutarsky, which is probably some sort of record for futility.
My season-long recommendations record is 48% Bad, 27% Good and 25% Just Ok so I need to do better in the home stretch to avoid having half or a majority Bad recommendations for the 2023 season. With that said, here goes with the Starting lineup recommendations for Week 13.
Kenny Pickett (QB – PIT): It’s only been one game without Matt Canada as his offensive coordinator, so the sample size is ridiculously small, and he didn’t even throw a TD pass. However, Kenny Pickett ($3,516,976) did have the second most passing yards in a game for his career (24 games). Pickett threw for 278 passing yards last week against Cincinnati and the only time that he threw for more was back in Week 5 of last year when he had 327 passing yards against Buffalo. Even with that said, this is an incredibly risky pick especially with me needing to have a lot of Good recommendations in the home stretch of the Dynasty Owner regular season.
How risky? Well, here are three stats to show you how below average Pickett has been in his 24 game NFL career.
- Number of 20.0 or more Dynasty Owner fantasy points games this year: 1
- Number of career games with 2+ TD passes: 1
- Number of TD passes since the Steelers Week 6 bye: 1
Pickett has as many career games with zero TD passes as one or more TD passes (12 each). He has more games with fewer than 200 passing yards than 200 or more passing yards (14 vs. 10). And he’s not gaining you any Dynasty Owner fantasy points on the ground either with just 51 rushing yards plus one rushing TD so far this season.
The bar to be a top 12 QB in Dynasty Owner is usually around 20.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and I already mentioned that Pickett has only hit that mark once in his NFL career. However, I’m confident think he’ll do it for the second time this week against Arizona in his second game with new offensive coordinator Eddie Faulkner. The Cardinals’ defense is probably pretty tired as one of only two NFL teams (Washington is the other one) who hasn’t been on bye yet and it shows as in each of the past four weeks, they have given up more than 20.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points to the opposition QB. For the season, they are allowing an average of 23.08 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game and three times, they have allowed the opposing QB to have his best week of the season.
With five pretty bad QBs in line to start this week out of 26 teams playing, a new offensive coordinator and going up against a tired and poor defense nearly out of playoff contention and probably looking forward to their Week 14 bye, it’s the perfect storm for Kenny Pickett to be worth putting in your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup. It’s your best chance to do it all season, so take advantage!
Tyler Allgeier (RB – ATL): After all of the complaining on Twitter/X about the lack of usage of Bijan Robinson ($5,489,634) by too many people to count, you’d think Tyler Allgeier ($998,474) was the RB7 in Dynasty Owner and not Bijan. Allgeier is actually way back at RB36 and even with bye weeks and injuries ruling out seven RBs ahead of him, he’s still not in the top 24 RBs this week. Amazing that the usually rational people on Twitter/X have overhyped something to an obscene level when the facts show something completely different. See also RB11 Jahmyr Gibbs ($4,461,283) for further examples of Twitter/X ranting.
Back to Allgeier who did rush for 1,035 yards during his 2022 rookie season and is on pace for 720 rushing yards this year with 466 rushing yards in 11 games played (42.4 yards per game). He’s averaging 12.3 carries per game, but only 3.45 yards per carry so he’s not very been very effective compared to last year when his yards per carry average was 4.93. He did better last week against the Saints with 64 rushing yards on 10 carries. The Jets are the Falcons’ opponent in Week 12, and they have allowed RBs to rush for over 4.0 yards per carry this season. Teams also run more against the Jets because their pass defense is much better than their run defense.
Falcons coach Arthur Smith loves to run the ball! The Falcons are third in carries per game at 32.0, have averaged 36.7 carries in the past three games and ran the ball 41 times last week. Much to the chagrin of those Twitter/X folks, Bijan didn’t get all of the carries last week and won’t get them all this week either. With Desmond Ridder ($1,340,740) struggling to throw the ball at QB, a solid running game plus a chance to make the playoffs if the Falcons can win a few games down the stretch, running the ball a lot against the Jets would seem to be a good game plan for the Falcons.
If they run as much as they want to and should, both Bijan and Allgeier should be worth having in your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup. Bijan is obviously in it as RB7 with an average of 14.59 Dynasty Owner fantasy points scored per week and 10.0 or more Dynasty Owner fantasy points in nine out of 11 games so far this season. However, Allgeier normally wouldn’t be, but I’m recommending that you do it this week.
Greg Dortch (WR – ARI): Another seemingly risky recommendation as Greg Dortch ($1,010,000) is WR111 for the season and has far more return yards (354) than receiving yards (105). However, in 12 games over the past two seasons with Kyler Murray ($46,100,000) at QB, Dortch has scored 91.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (7.63 points per game). He has hit double digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points in five of those games, including the past two weeks in a row in which he’s been targeted a combined 17 times. With rookie Michael Wilson ($1,334,866) questionable again with a shoulder injury, not practicing on Wednesday, having missed the past two weeks and the Cardinals on bye in Week 14, it seems likely he won’t play again this week against the Steelers. Marquise “Hollywood” Brown ($13,413,000) is also questionable and didn’t practice on Wednesday, but he didn’t practice much prior to Week 12 and still played, so he’s more likely to suit up.
Regardless, I like how many times that Dortch has been targeted by Murray in the past two games with Wilson out. When Dortch gets a lot of targets, he tends to produce games with a lot of Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Plenty of you are saying “who doesn’t?” but it’s not easy to find guys outside of the top WRs who get targeted as much as Dortch does at times. Last year, Dortch had three weeks in a row at the beginning of the season with Murray at QB with double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Dortch and Murray are streaky like that so I’m going to ride the streak and recommend that Dynasty Owners who have Greg Dortch on their roster get him into their Starting lineup.
Tanner Hudson (TE – CIN): I’m bullish on Tanner Hudson ($940,000) for the rest of the season with Jake Browning ($750,000) as the Bengals QB. Hudson seems to have taken over as the Bengals top receiving TE despite playing less than Irv Smith Jr. ($1,750,000) every week since Hudson emerged in Week 9. He has also played fewer snaps than Drew Sample ($1,232,500) in three of those four weeks. Sample has scored more Dynasty Owner fantasy points than Smith (31.2 for Sample vs. 28.7 for Smith), while Hudson has 41.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points despite playing in only six games (6.87 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game).
Hudson is TE34 for the season, but would still only be TE23 if he had played in all 11 Bengals games at his current scoring pace. However, he has been targeted 21 times over the past four weeks. Tee Higgins ($2,171,696) has missed three of those four games and “might” play on Monday night against Jacksonville.
Overall, I like Hudson’s connection with Browning as Hudson was tied for second in targets last week for the Bengals with five. Jacksonville is a below average defense against TEs as well with helps Hudson’s case for being in your Starting lineup this week. While it gives me pause to pick Hudson because the Jaguars held both Dalton Schultz ($6,250,000) and Chigoziem Okonkwo ($1,041,085) to a single reception in each of the past two weeks and Schultz to just one reception in Week 3 as well, I’m going to look past that and hope Hudson gets more targets than both of them got against the Jaguars. With so many good TEs out on bye this week (more on that later), someone could sneak into the top 12 TEs with less than 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points this week. I think it’ll be Hudson so feel free to add his to your roster if he’s still available (56.32% rostered) and put him in your Starting lineup.
These Guys Should Be on the Bench (or Practice Squad) This Week
Now it’s the time to look at how each of my Bench recommendations from Week 12 fared (Good, Bad or Just Ok). Like most of the time, they were better than the Starting lineup recommendations. Let’s look and see how much better they were this week.
QB: Sam Howell ($1,005,400) – 20.3 (Bad recommendation)
RB: Saquon Barkley ($10,091,000) – 6.2 (Good recommendation)
WR: Davante Adams ($28,000,000) – 12.3 (Just Ok recommendation)
TE: Sam LaPorta ($2,366,498) – 17.7 (Bad recommendation)
There was only one Good recommendation, but at least there was one. As predicted, the Patriots defense bottled up Saquon Barkley and held him to just 6.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (46 rushing yards, 1 reception, 6 receiving yards). He had 15 opportunities (12 carries and 3 targets), so it wasn’t for lack of trying by the Giants. There was also one Just Ok recommendation as Davante Adams had 5 receptions for 73 receiving yards (12.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points). He was a low-end FLEX starter for your Dynasty Owner team, so barely qualifying for a Starting lineup spot.
Out of the two Bad recommendations, the closest being Just Ok was Sam Howell who had 20.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (300 passing yards, 13 rushing yards, 1 TD, 1 INT) on Thanksgiving. He got a bonus point for 300 or more yards passing and finished as QB11 for the week in Dynasty Owner scoring. Even though he was barely in the top 12, that’s still a Bad recommendation when all 32 NFL teams were playing. Finally, in a breaking news alert, you can’t trust everything you read on Twitter/X. I’m sure that’s where I saw the stat about Sam LaPorta from my Week 12 article, but whoever mentioned it steered me and by extension, Dynasty Owners, in the wrong direction and LaPorta had 17.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (5 receptions, 47 receiving yards, 1 TD) and was TE3 despite the presence of both Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery ($6,000,000) in the Lions lineup.
The Good Bench recommendations are still running ahead of the Bad ones by a margin of 44% to 35% with 21% Just Ok. With Dynasty Owners in the home stretch of the season, here are four Bench recommendations for Week 13.
Russell Wilson (QB – DEN): Russell Wilson’s ($48,517,647) roster percentage is still low at 12.26% now and he’s just QB13 for the season, but gets bumped up to QB11 with Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson ($52,000,000) on bye. Still, I need reasons other than him not being as good as in the past to put him here. Especially to convince those Dynasty Owners who have kept him on their rosters to Bench him this week with six teams on bye.
In seven out of his 11 games played this week, Russell Wilson has thrown for less than 200 yards. So how has he scored double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points ten times and averaged 21.85 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per week?
It’s all about the touchdowns as he has thrown a TD pass every week so far this season. In contrast, the Houston Texans have only allowed 11 TD passes all season, which is tied for third best in the NFL. They have allowed a lot more passing yards than those other teams, but remember that Wilson isn’t throwing for a lot of yards. While Wilson is throwing at least one TD per week, Denver is also attempting a lot of field goals. Denver kicker Will Lutz ($4,050,000) has attempted 26 field goals this season including 11 in the past three weeks alone.
If the Texans can stop Wilson from throwing a TD for the first time this season and hold him under 200 yards, he would need over 40 yards rushing and a rushing TD to get to 20.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. He’s only rushed for 40 yards twice and scored just one rushing TD. Both are unlikely so I think he’ll have a difficult time getting that many points and should be left on your Dynasty Owner Bench this week.
D’Andre Swift (RB – PHI): After basically not being used in Week 1 and scoring a mere 1.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, D’Andre Swift ($2,134,729) went off in Week 2 for 29.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. He followed that up with six straight more games with double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points and is RB8 in Dynasty Owner heading into Week 13. However, he has scored fewer than 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in two of the past three games. He is also on an 8-game streak with fewer than 100 rushing yards per game and only twice in that time has he exceeded 100 yards of total offense in a game.
Rushing attempts and yards will be difficult to come for Swift against the Eagles’ Week 13 opponent, the San Francisco 49ers. The 49ers have allowed the second fewest RB rushing yards by an opponent (658), which is just under 60 rushing yards per game. They have been more middle-of-the-road against RBs catching passes out of the backfield, but Swift’s work in the passing game has dried up almost completely with five consecutive games of three or fewer targets and a combined 86 receiving yards.
The game between the 49ers and the Eagles is looking like a NFC Conference Championship preview. Enjoy watching the game, but don’t be relying on D’Andre Swift to be providing many highlights. He’ll have a below average game and should be on your Dynasty Owner Bench.
Tyler Lockett (WR – SEA): After a 2022 season in which he was consistently putting up double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points, Tyler Lockett ($17,250,000) is back to being inconsistent and hit or miss on a weekly basis. Last year, he only had three games with fewer than 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. This year, he already has twice as many of them with six more games to play including this week against the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday Night Football.
Even though the game is on Thursday, it’s not a short week for either team as both of them played on Thanksgiving. However, it is against the Cowboys who sport one of the best pass defenses in the NFL and are allowing opposition WRs to average 9.7 receptions for 117.9 receiving yards per game. That’s all of the team’s WRs so Lockett will have to split those receptions and receiving yards with DK Metcalf ($24,000,000) and Jaxon Smith-Njigba ($3,604,327) as well. It doesn’t seem like a lot of passes will be coming any of the Seahawks WRs way this week.
Since Metcalf is more of a steady presence, it’s safer to say Bench Lockett. I’d lower my expectations for Metcalf as well, but am not ready to say he should be on your Dynasty Owner Bench. I am ready to say it about Lockett and recommend you put him on your Bench this week.
Logan Thomas (TE – WAS): This is the tough week for Dynasty Owners at TE with three of the top 10 TEs on bye in T.J. Hockenson ($9,392,000), Cole Kmet ($1,894,445) and Dalton Kincaid ($3,356,756) plus the double whammy of Mark Andrews ($14,000,000) being TE5 but on Injured Reserve and the Ravens being on the bye. Because of that, TEs who have scored fewer than 100.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points for the season are among the top 12 TEs this week and I can choose one of them in this spot.
Logan Thomas ($8,021,667) is barely below the 100.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy point mark with 99.6 points in 11 games played (9.05 points per game). However, he only has three games with 10.0 or more Dynasty Owner fantasy points and five games with fewer than 8.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, which is more likely to be the bottom of the top 12 TEs this week.
The Commanders are playing the Miami Dolphins who held Travis Kelce ($14,312,500) to just 4.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (3 receptions for 14 receiving yards) just a few weeks ago. They haven’t allowed a TE to score double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points in a game since Dallas Goedert ($14,250,000) did it back in Week 7. They were bad in the first two games of the season, allowing a TE to catch a TD pass in both games, but have only given up one (Goedert in Week 7) since then. It’ll be tough for Thomas to do enough to be worth having in your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup, so find someone else to put there if you can and leave him on your Bench.
Free Agent Auction Targets Update
Now it’s time to recap the players recommended in Jay’s weekly Free Agent Auction targets article and see how much their Dynasty Owner roster percentage has increased since the start of Week 13. I thought we had seen the last of Tommy DeVito ($901,667) in Jay’s articles, but he brought him back again this week even though he had exceeded the 80% rostered threshold. In fact, it was a repeat week for everyone as all five players had appeared in Jay’s article in one of the past two weeks and DeVito had been listed in both weeks.
Once again, there have been two Free Agent Auction runs already this week – Wednesday at 5 AM (Eastern) and Thursday at 5 AM (Eastern), so some Dynasty Owners have had two chances to go pick up these guys in the Free Agent Auction. Hope you bid enough if you wanted to get them!
| Player | Position | Team | Salary | Week 13 Roster % | Current Roster % | Change |
| Jake Browning | QB | CIN | $750,000 | 73.56% | 88.12% | 14.56% |
| Tommy DeVito | QB | NYG | $901,667 | 82.76% | 83.52% | 0.76% |
| Greg Dortch | WR | ARI | $1,010,000 | 70.50% | 75.48% | 4.98% |
| Royce Freeman | RB | LAR | $1,080,000 | 73.95% | 76.25% | 2.30% |
| Tyler Conklin | TE | NYJ | $6,750,000 | 58.62% | 60.54% | 1.92% |
Both QBs on the list are now rostered in over 80% of Dynasty Owner leagues with Browning increasing his roster percentage by nearly 15 percentage points after scoring 14.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (227 passing yards, 9 rushing yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, 1 fumble) against the Steelers in Week 12. Must have been the glowing write-up that Jay had about him (along with six teams being on bye) that pushed Browning to nearly be rostered in 90% of Dynasty Owner leagues now. DeVito had just 12.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (191 passing yards, 6 rushing yards, 1 TD, 2 fumbles – 1 lost), but because of six teams being on bye and Dynasty Owners needing QBs, he was still picked up in a few additional leagues.
The final three guys on the target list all had solid Week 12 performances, but since all of them were already rostered in a majority of Dynasty Owner leagues, their roster percentages didn’t increase by much. Freeman had the most Dynasty Owner fantasy points with 13.7, but apparently no Dynasty Owners in about a quarter of leagues (23.75%) have no use for him even at a salary of just over $1 million. Greg Dortch had his second impressive game in a row with 11.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (3 receptions, 27 receiving yards, 1 TD) and that was enough to increase his roster percentage by almost five percentage points. Maybe my Starting lineup recommendation will increase it even more. Tyler Conklin has steadily moved up the TE rankings and increased his roster percentage at the same time. He is finally over 60% rostered after last week’s performance of 7.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (4 receptions for 33 receiving yards).
Happy bidding and hope everyone got who they wanted in the Free Agent Auction already for Week 13 as well as the rest of the home stretch of the Dynasty Owner regular season.
Chase for the Ring Leaderboard
It still seems to be a two-team race in the Chase for the Ring. Back in Week 11, the teams outside of the top two were all over 150.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points out of first place and that remains the same heading into Week 13. The Road Warriors are still in first place with 2,173.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and expanded their lead slightly to 92.2 points over Bastedos who are in second place with 2,081.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. At this point, everyone else is just rooting for both of those teams to lose in the Dynasty Owner playoffs to have a chance to win the Ring.
If you want to check out the Chase for the Ring Leaderboard, it can be accessed at any time by going to https://app.dynastyowner.com/chase-for-the-ring. It’s a live leaderboard and can change while games are in progress.
Undefeated Dynasty Owner Teams
It’s time for our weekly check in on the undefeated Dynasty Owner teams for the 2023 season. I’m only looking at teams currently inside the top 100 of the Chase for the Ring as those are the only records that I can see besides from teams in my own leagues. If you have an undefeated team outside of the Chase for the Ring leaderboard, please share it with me and your fellow Dynasty Owners on Twitter/X and I’ll be sure to add it here next week.
Right now, we have seven undefeated Dynasty Owner teams with an 12-0 record compared to nine at this point in 2022. Two teams who were undefeated and in the top 30 last week (Luna Llers in League #54160 and The Tubthumpers in League #27466) ended up losing their Week 12 match-up and dropping off this list.
| Team Name | League | Dynasty Owner Fantasy Points | Chase Position |
| The Road Warriors | 27449 | 2175.3 | 1st |
| Komodo Dragons | 174404 | 2016.9 | 3rd |
| WANNABEES | 36564 | 1917.0 | 10th |
| Box Score Facts Checker | 28287 | 1832.4 | 36th |
| Bastedos | 34662 | 1826.6 | 41st |
| Footy Football | 68694 | 1789.1 | 83rd |
| FantasyGoat | 27454 | 1779.8 | 95th |
While most of these undefeated teams stayed in relatively the same place on the Chase for the Ring Leaderboard, Box Score Facts Checker did move up 27 spots. They moved ahead of Bastedos, while Footy Football jumped 9 spots and are now ahead of FantasyGoat who dropped 13 spots.
Good luck to all seven teams on their quest to be undefeated for an entire Dynasty Owner season!
Conclusion
It turns out that “And down the stretch they come!” was trademarked by legendary announcer and “Voice of the Triple Crown” Dave Johnson so I won’t post a link here. If you follow horse racing, I’m sure that you’ve heard it before.
That doesn’t change the fact that we have more weeks of Dynasty Owner playoffs than regular season games left (3 vs. 2). If you have a Dynasty Owner team out of the playoff hunt already, then just two more weeks to go for that team. Hopefully you have teams who are in it to win it and will be playing all five remaining weeks of the fantasy football season. Out of all of my “many” leagues, none use Week 18 and Dynasty Owner doesn’t either.
If you are still paying close attention to your Dynasty Owner team(s) and read this article for a potential recommendation, then Thank You! It would be great if you could like and comment on Twitter/X and tag me and Dynasty Owner. You can even like this post or comment on it on Facebook or Instagram. Positive comments preferred, but anything ok as we appreciate the feedback from our fellow Dynasty Owners.
The Week 13 Free Agent Auction targets article was published on Tuesday and Jay Pounds will be back every Tuesday during the 2023 season with a list of at least five widely available players in Dynasty Owner to help everyone with their Free Agent Auction bids for the first Auction run of the week on Wednesday at 5 AM (Eastern). Thanks for reading and have a great day!
Steven Van Tassell is the Head of Content for Dynasty Owner
Follow us on Twitter/X: @SteveVT33 and @Dynasty_Owner