Author: ChrisWolf

NFL Week 15 Preview

Survival of the Fittest

By Steven Van Tassell (@SteveVT33)

We are at the One and Done/Eliminator phase of the fantasy football season now. One loss and your season is Done. Your team is Eliminated. It’s Survival of the Fittest right now. It doesn’t matter if you were the worst team who barely made the playoffs as the #6 seed with a 7-7 record (or worse) or were the best team in your league based on points scored, but somehow lost a couple of close match-ups so your record didn’t reflect those points scored and your team ended up as the #3 seed. If you lose this week, then your team’s Dynasty Owner season is over and unfortunately, you have nothing to show for it.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but for two additional Dynasty Owner teams per league, this is it. It’s the worst feeling to lose this week, especially in cash prize pool leagues as this week’s two losing teams don’t get paid. Your team needs to make it to the league semi-finals next week to recoup your prize pool entry fee.

The reason for your team’s loss this week could be a key injury to one of your main players, like what happened last week to Dynasty Owners who had Justin Herbert ($6,644,689) as their Starting QB and saw him get hurt and leave the game after scoring a mere 1.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. No mulligans in golf. No second chances. No “we’ll get them next week”. If your Dynasty Owner team loses this week, they are eliminated.

If you got a bye and don’t have to play a match-up this week, then Congratulations! You have advanced one week, but still need to win next week and the week after that too if your goal is to win your League Championship. Same principle, it’s all about survival and you need to win to survive. For a select few, the goal is even greater. It’s to become the 2023 Chase for the Ring Champion and to have survived and really be the Fittest Dynasty Owner of them all this year. Since it’s the final Dynasty Owner season, you can’t even fall just a little short and give it another shot next year.

In order to help any Dynasty Owners who might need or want my help in their first playoff match-up, I’ll be giving you 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. Even though fewer Dynasty Owner teams are competing this week, I’ll still use the same criteria as usual and still won’t recommend that you start Josh Allen ($43,005,667) who finished as the top scoring player in the Dynasty Owner regular season. 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 or players drafted to be on your Bench or Practice Squad.

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 December 14th. 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 the first week of the Dynasty Owner playoffs, let’s look at the final week of the regular season (aka Week 14) and announce the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week. We have another first time winner for the season, but he’s definitely not a first time winner at all. In fact, he was the top scorer player in Dynasty Owner during the inaugural 2019 season with 514.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. He hasn’t reached that lofty level since, but still had a Player of the Week victory in each of the past two seasons for a total of five overall. If you were around for the first season of Dynasty Owner, you probably know that the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week is Lamar Jackson.

It was a vintage Lamar Jackson ($52,000,000) performance as he had 316 passing yards, 70 rushing yards, 3 TDs, a 2-pt. conversion and an interception for a total of 43.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. His touchdown pass to Zay Flowers ($3,509,109) with 1:16 left in the fourth quarter put the Ravens ahead of the Rams by a score of 29-28 and then he added two more points with a 2-pt. conversion pass to Flowers to put the Ravens up by a field goal. The Rams tied it to send the game into overtime when the Ravens won on a Tylan Wallace ($1,041,341) punt return TD. Because of Lamar’s salary, the Cost per Point for a Player of the Week was above $1 million for the first time this season.

Week 14 Points: 43.8

2023 Salary: $52,000,000

Cost per Point: $1,187,215

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. It’s been a QB dominated season for Value Player of the Week and this week is more of the same. For the second time this season, we have a QB winning back-to-back awards. The Dynasty Owner Value Player of the Week for the second time in a row is Jake Browning.

Last week, I said that the first Value Player of the Week honor for Jake Browning ($750,000) may not be his last and that he had four more opportunities. With his second win in a row, he has three additional opportunities and he’ll need to win them all to tie Brock Purdy ($934,252) as the most decorated Value Player of the Week in Dynasty Owner history. If Browning wins it again just once more, he’ll tie Puka Nacua ($1,021,244) with three wins this season and if he wins it twice, he’ll tie Purdy with four.

In Week 14, Browning was not quite as prolific as he was the previous week, but he still scored 29.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (275 passing yards, 7 rushing yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT), which is quite good for a player making the NFL minimum salary. While Browning was Value Player of the Week, we almost had our first New England Patriots player win a Dynasty Owner award as Bailey Zappe had 28.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (240 passing yards, 13 rushing yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT) for only $870,000. Zappe might be the first Patriots player to win, while Browning’s win last week made him the first Bengals player to win Value Player of the Week. Congratulations to Jake on his back-to-back great performances and quest to be the first player to win three Player of the Week honors in a row.

Week 14 Points: 29.4

2023 Salary: $750,000

Cost per Point: $25,510

These Guys Should be Starters This Week

Before we get into the weekly recommendations, let’s look at last week’s recommendations and see how they did (Good, Bad or Just Ok). I closed out the Dynasty Owner regular season with one of my best weeks of Starting lineup recommendations. Here’s who I recommended and how they did.

QB: Baker Mayfield ($4,000,000) – 28.5 (Good recommendation)

RB: Javonte Williams ($2,216,438) – 18.1 (Good recommendation)

WR: Elijah Moore ($2,235,107) – 7.2 (Bad recommendation)

TE: Gerald Everett ($6,000,000) – 8.9 (Just Ok recommendation)

The best of the two Good recommendations was Baker Mayfield as the Buccaneers QB was QB7 for the week with 28.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (144 passing yards, 3 rushing yards, 3 TDs). It was the three touchdowns, including a clutch 11-yard TD pass to Cade Otton ($1,123,486) with 31 seconds left in the game that won it for the Buccaneers and made Mayfield a Good recommendation. Recommending Javonte Williams at RB was also Good as he got his first rushing TD of the 2023 season to go with 66 rushing yards, 3 receptions and 25 receiving yards (18.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points).

In many weeks, the 8.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (5 receptions for 39 receiving yards) scored by Gerald Everett would be enough to be inside the top 12 TEs, but not this week. He was only 1.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points away from the top 12, so it wasn’t really Bad, but Just Ok. Finally, Elijah Moore had just 7.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (3 receptions for 42 receiving yards) on six targets. The six targets were the fewest for Moore since back in Week 9 and as a result, the recommendation to put him in your Starting lineup was Bad.

Overall, it was just the fourth week that I had two Good recommendations. Sadly, there have been no three or four Good recommendation weeks. In honor of the start of the playoffs, I’m going bring my best recommendations for everyone and hopefully at least three of them are Good.

Geno Smith/Drew Lock (QB – SEA): Whichever Seattle QB is the starter this week is my choice here because the Seahawks are playing the Philadelphia Eagles. Despite their 10-3 record, the Eagles are reeling with a two-game losing streak that could have easily been three games. They have given up 109 points in their past three games and two of the three QBs who they have faced were the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week. Josh Allen won in Week 12 with 50.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, while Brock Purdy had 41.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 13. They faced Dak Prescott ($40,000,000) last week and he “only” scored 23.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. That’s an average of 38.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per week. The Eagles defense is just allowing too many passing TDs as they have given up 29 TDs this season and allowed two or more passing TDs in each of the past six games.

I’d be most comfortable with Geno Smith ($25,000,000) at QB for Seattle, but he missed last week’s game against the 49ers after pulling his groin in practice. Before that, he had his best game of the season in Week 13 with 39.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Drew Lock ($4,000,000) held his own against the 49ers in his first start since the final week of the 2021 season with 19.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (269 passing yards, 5 rushing yards, 2 TDs, 2 INTs).

It’s no guarantee that whoever starts at QB for Seattle will throw for two TDs, but with both QBs playing well in their last start and the Eagles defense playing so badly for so long, it seems likely to happen. If it does, that Seattle QB should be in your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup. And if you have Smith (95.79% rostered), but not Lock (18.01%) and are playing this week, it’s time to clear some salary cap room and a roster spot to add Lock in case he’s the one taking the snaps in Week 15 for the Seahawks.

Chuba Hubbard (RB – CAR): Since Frank Reich was fired as head coach of the Carolina Panthers after Week 12, the Panthers have relied on their running game in general and Chuba Hubbard ($1,048,294) in particular. In each of the past two games, Hubbard has gotten 25 touches. He has turned those 25 touches into 24.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (104 rushing yards, 2 TDs) in Week 13 against Tampa Bay and 11.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (87 rushing yards, 2 receptions, 9 receiving yards) in Week 14 against New Orleans. While Carolina has scored just 24 points in those two games, Dynasty Owners don’t need Hubbard to get a TD to have a good enough game to be worth putting in their Starting lineup if he gets that many touches for a third week in a row.

That’s good because the Panthers’ opponent this week, the Atlanta Falcons, have yet to give up a rushing TD to a RB. They have given up 4 receiving TDs to RBs though and an average of 22.2 RB rushing attempts per game for 84.1 rushing yards. Hubbard also had 8.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (60 rushing yards, 2 receptions, 9 receiving yards) in Week 1 versus Atlanta when he was receiving about half as many snaps per game as he is now.

The new Panthers’ offensive philosophy has worked well for Hubbard and his Dynasty Owners, but he’s still RB28 for the 2023 season so he’s not yet entrenched in Dynasty Owner Starting lineups. Based on recent usage, he really should be in there this week.

Demarcus Robinson (WR – LAR): This one is a stretch. Even I’ll admit to that, but please read and find out why Demarcus Robinson ($1,165,000) is here and why Dynasty Owners with a Week 15 playoff matchup should consider going to get him off the Free Agent Auction (15.33%) if he’s there.

In each of the past two weeks, Robinson has scored a TD and had double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Last week, he had 13.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (3 receptions, 46 receiving yards, 1 TD) and in Week 13, he had 15.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (4 receptions, 55 receiving yards, 1 TD). Robinson has taken a majority of the snaps in each of the past three weeks and appeared to have moved ahead of Tutu Atwell ($1,477,175) in the Rams’ WR pecking order even before Atwell suffered a concussion last week.

The Rams host the Washington Commanders this week and no team has given up more receiving yards (2,580) to WRs than the Commanders and only the Eagles have given up more TDs (23) than the 20 given up by the Commanders. It’s a WR bonanza this week and if Matthew Stafford ($40,000,000) gets tired of throwing to Cooper Kupp ($26,700,000) or Puka Nacua, he can look Robinson’s way. He did it 10 times last week while Kupp was also being targeted 10 times and Nacua was targeted eight times. It’s tough to recommend starting a third Rams WR, but fortune favors the bold and I’m doing it. Go bid on Demarcus Robinson and put him in your Week 15 Dynasty Owner Starting lineup.

Chigoziem Okonkwo (TE – TEN): Remember the Chigoziem Okonkwo ($1,041,085) hype during this past off-season and pre-season? It was so great that he was the 12th TE off the board on average in Dynasty Owner startup drafts with an ADP of 111.6. Back then, Dynasty Owners who drafted him or had him on their team from last year thought they were getting a solid TE1 because of the lack of pass catching options for the Titans outside of DeAndre Hopkins ($13,000,000) and Treylon Burks ($3,592,398). Turns out, it was just a lot of hype as Okonkwo has scored zero TDs this season to go along with only 40 receptions, 359 receiving yards and 6 rushing yards (76.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points). That’s only 5.88 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game and he has zero games with double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points.

However, he has started to turn things around a little bit over the past three weeks and in the seven games that Will Levis ($2,385,542) has started at QB for Tennessee. In the past three weeks, Okonkwo has scored 27.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (9.17 points per game) on 17 targets with at least five targets per game. If you expand to all of the games with Levis as QB, Okonkwo has scored 47.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (6.76 points per games) on 35 targets (5 targets per game). Sure, he’s still behind Nick Westbrooke-Ikhine ($1,260,000) in Dynasty Owner fantasy points for the season, but it’s a start.

The best news for those Dynasty Owners with Okonkwo as one of their TEs is that he gets to play against the Houston Texans twice during the Dynasty Owner playoffs (Week 15 and Week 17). The Texans’ defense has allowed TEs to be targeted 119 times for 88 receptions and 839 receiving yards (6.8 receptions and 64.5 receiving yards per game). Those averages are good enough for double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points and I believe that Okonkwo will break that barrier for the first time this season in Week 15. When he does, you’ll want to have him in your Starting lineup.

These Guys Should Be on the Bench (or Practice Squad) This Week

Now let’s look at how each of my Bench recommendations from Week 14 fared (Good, Bad or Just Ok). It was a fairly typical week with more Good than Bad recommendations. Let’s see which individual recommendations were Good, Bad and Just Ok.

QB: C.J. Stroud ($9,069,811) – 3.5 (Good recommendation)

RB: Jaylen Warren ($857,333) – 8.0 (Good recommendation)

WR: Adam Thielen ($8,333,333) – 11.4 (Just Ok recommendation)

TE: Evan Engram ($13,750,000) – 32.5 (Bad recommendation)

We’ll go with the worst one first. This was the third time that I had recommended Evan Engram as a Bench TE and the first two turned into a Good and Just Ok recommendation. However, I was wrong about just about everything for Engram this week as Trevor Lawrence ($9,198,372) played and the Browns did not shut down Engram like they had every TE not named Mark Andrews ($14,000,000) this season. In fact, they did the opposite and it was the best game of the season for Engram with 32.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (11 receptions, 95 receiving yards, 2 TDs) and even better than Andrews did in Week 4. The recommendation to Bench Engram was Bad.

On the other hand, I had two Good recommendations as C.J. Stroud struggled mightily in the bad weather in New York and was knocked out of the game with a concussion in the fourth quarter after accumulating only 3.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (91 passing yards and a fumble). The New England Patriots defense did indeed hold both Jaylen Warren and Najee Harris ($3,261,862) who was a sort of bonus Bench recommendation down on Thursday night. Warren had only 8.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (11 rushing yards, 4 receptions, 29 receiving yards) and Harris was right behind him with 7.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (29 rushing yards, 3 receptions, 19 receiving yards). Both were close, but not quite worthy of being in the FLEX position, so the recommendations were Good. Finally, Adam Thielen had his best game since Week 11, but still had just 11.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. (5 receptions, 74 receiving yards, 1 fumble). It was just enough to be a low-end FLEX starter so that recommendation was Just Ok.

It wasn’t the perfect week that I was looking for to finish the Dynasty Owner regular season with half Good Bench recommendations, but I still did finish close with 26 Good (46%) vs. 18 Bad (32%) and 12 Just Ok (21%) recommendations. If I have a majority of Good recommendations for the Bench in the playoffs, I can still finish above .500. Here’s the players who I’m recommending for your Dynasty Owner Bench this week to get me there.

Tua Tagovailoa (QB – MIA): Picking the QB facing the Jets would seem to be a good idea plenty of weeks, but the first time I did it was last week with C.J. Stroud. Since it worked so well last week, I’m doubling up and picking Tua Tagovailoa ($7,568,859) this week. Back in Week 12, Tua and the Dolphins faced off against the Jets and he was held to a season-low 9.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (243 passing yards, 1 rushing yard, 1 TD, 2 INTs, 1 lost fumble). He had Tyreek Hill ($30,000,000) playing that week, but might be without his leading receiver for this game as Hill injured his ankle in last week’s game, played intermittently after doing so and hasn’t practiced yet this week.

I made the decision to pick Tua and then looked at his QB ranking. I was shocked to see that he has fallen down to QB10 for the season after two games with over 40.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in the first three weeks of the season. It’s truly been a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde season for the Dolphins QB. He has been better at home and averaging 26.13 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game, while scoring 19.47 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game on the road. However, against the Titans last week at home, Tua only managed 9.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (240 passing yards, 15 rushing yards, 2 fumbles – 1 lost).

I’ve had good “luck” with Tua as a Bench recommendation as it turned out Good the two previous times that I recommended Dynasty Owner Bench him. It’s Survival of the Fittest this week and Dynasty Owners can’t afford to lose so be careful putting Tua out there against one of the top two passing defenses in the NFL. While the pattern for Tua this season has generally been good game then bad game, then repeat, I think he’ll put up another bad game and shouldn’t be in your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup.

James Cook (RB – BUF): All good streaks must come to an end. After all, Amon-Ra St. Brown ($1,066,313) had a streak of 20 consecutive games with double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points end last week against the Bears when he scored just 5.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (3 receptions for 21 receiving yards) despite being targeted nine times. James Cook ($1,458,014) has been on a streak of four consecutive games with 100 yards or more of total offense and double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points, but I think that streak ends this week at the hands of the Dallas Cowboys. In the three games with Joe Brady as his offensive coordinator, Cook has averaged 20.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. However, none of the defenses that he has faced (Jets, Eagles and Chiefs) are as good as stopping RBs as the Cowboys.

While Cook has been performing better with his new offensive coordinator, his snap percentage has actually gone down and in none of those games has he been on the field for a majority of the Bills’ snaps on offense. In the first ten weeks, he was on the field a majority of the snaps seven times. Veteran RBs Latavius Murray ($1,317,500) and Ty Johnson ($1,080,000) have been cutting into Cook’s playing time and while it hasn’t affected Cook’s performance yet, it should against a very good Cowboys’ defense that has allowed only 7 TDs to RBs all season and averages of 75.5 rushing yards, 3.5 receptions and 24.9 receiving yards per game. That equates to 14.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (without a TD) and 20.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (with a TD) combined for the three Bills’ RBs.

Even with Cook getting less than half of the snaps, he has scored about 60% of the Dynasty Owner fantasy points for Bills’ RBs over the past three games. However, that would mean between 8.0 and 12.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, which is at best a low-end RB2 for a make-or-break game for Dynasty Owners. Hopefully Dynasty Owners with Cook have a better RB or one with a more favorable match-up to use this week so they can leave him on their Bench.

Drake London (WR – ATL): One great week does not make me believe in Drake London ($5,383,617) any more than I have for most of the 2023 Dynasty Owner season. I thought that he was overdrafted and back in August I said Dynasty Owners were too hot to trot for him with his mid-to-late third round Dynasty Owner startup ADP at 29.2 at that point. He finished with an ADP of 29.9 but is just WR35 on the season. That’s even after his career best 29.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (10 receptions, 172 receiving yards, 1 2-pt. conversion). It’s true that WR35 makes him barely a FLEX starter, but with his performance last week fresh in Dynasty Owners’ minds and almost all of them probably having overdrafted him at some point with his 2022 startup draft ADP being 49.8 (early fifth round), it makes it likely that they might put London in their Starting lineup as their WR2 or FLEX and hope for a repeat performance. Also, several WRs ahead of him are out for this week which moves him up the rankings.

Those Dynasty Owners hopefully remember that back in Week 1, London had one target and a Blutarsky (0.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points) against the same Carolina Panthers who they will face off against this week. Am I saying that London will have another Blutarsky? No, I’m not. But I do think that he’s more likely to be closer to that than his Week 14 performance. Carolina is actually a good team against WRs. Mostly because WRs have been targeted only 213 times all season (16.4 targets per game), which is second lowest in the NFL. We all know that Falcons head coach Arthur Smith would rather run the ball than pass it and I don’t need to cite the stats for that again. With a chance to go 7-7, get another conference and division win (always important for playoff tiebreakers) and maybe get into first place in the NFC South, do you think Smith is going to trust Bijan Robinson ($5,489,634) and Tyler Allgeier ($998,474) more or Desmond Ridder ($1,340,740)?

If you think it’s Ridder then go ahead and put London in your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup. If you agree with me that it’ll be Robinson, Allgeier and the Falcons’ running game, then do what I’d do if I had Drake London on a Dynasty Owner team and leave him on the Bench.

George Kittle (TE – SF): Fortunately for me, the non-Dynasty Owner league in which I have George Kittle ($15,000,000) on my roster is also one in which I earned a first round bye, so I don’t have to follow my advice here because it would be really difficult to Bench him. It was a tough choice and the most obvious players at the bottom of the top 12 are questionable to play and it didn’t feel right to take one of them.

Last year, this would have been a laughable choice as Arizona was one of the worst defense against TEs and Kittle torched them for two TDs in both games. However, Arizona’s defense against TEs has improved significantly under new head coach Jonathan Gannon and they held Kittle to 1.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (1 reception for 9 receiving yards) in a Week 4 matchup in which Kittle had only one target while playing 53 out of 55 snaps. Christian McCaffrey ($16,015,875) was the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week that week with 50.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (106 rushing yards, 7 receptions, 71 receiving yards, 4 TDs). Something tells me that 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan might use McCaffrey a lot this week again.

That’s good news for Dynasty Owners with McCaffrey, but not so great news for those with Kittle since it’s a must-win week. Hopefully those Dynasty Owners have another TE who they can put in Kittle’s place and leave him on their Bench.

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.

We are down to three undefeated Dynasty Owner teams who finished the 2023 regular season with a perfect 14-0 record. It’s quite an accomplishment to finish an entire fantasy football season undefeated and all three of them should be proud of doing it. We had six undefeated teams in the 2022 regular season and two back in 2021, so it’s not a very common occurrence.

You may have noticed (or not) that the order of the Undefeated Dynasty Owner Teams and Chase for the Ring Leaderboard flipped this week. The reason why is because all three of the undefeated teams finished in the top 4 on the Regular Season Leaderboard of the 2023 Chase for the Ring.

Team Name	League	Dynasty Owner Fantasy Points	Chase Position
The Road Warriors	27449	2453.5	1st
Komodo Dragons	174404	2322.4	2nd
WANNABEES	36564	2292.2	4th

The other two undefeated teams from last week, Footy Football in League #68694 and Box Score Facts Checker in League #28287, both lost and finished the regular season with a 13-1 record. A great accomplishment to go that long without a loss. Both of them still earned a first round bye for Week 15 and automatic advancement to the final four of their league’s playoffs.

Good luck to all three undefeated teams in scoring a lot of points in Week 15 and maintaining their spot on the 2023 Chase for the Ring Championship Contenders leaderboard!

Chase for the Ring Leaderboard

As just mentioned, the 2023 Dynasty Owner regular season is finished, and the Regular Season Leaderboard will stay static. As predicted last week, it ends with The Road Warriors at the top. They expanded their lead slightly over the second place Komodo Dragons and start the playoffs with a 131.1 point advantage. The question remains whether or not they will win their League and capture the Ring, but The Road Warriors are the 2023 Regular Season Champion!

The Road Warriors also expanded their lead slightly over the third place team (Footy Football from League #76061). The undefeated WANNABEES from League #36564 are now in fourth place, up from fifth place last week, and they did close the points gap between themselves and The Road Warriors by 21.3 points. Unless one of those teams or someone from further back can move ahead of The Road Warriors in points, all of them are trying to survive without losing and hoping The Road Warriors don’t.

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. Only the Championship Contenders will change once the Week 15 NFL games start. The Championship Contenders tab will continue to update and only have the teams remaining in the playoffs until the end of the final Dynasty Owner playoffs (NFL Week 17).

Conclusion

Hopefully your Dynasty Owner team has what it takes to survive this week and advance in the playoffs. If not, thanks for being a part of Dynasty Owner and good luck in the rest of your leagues this year, next year and beyond. Your team may not have survived to the end of this season, but I appreciate that you survived reading this article to the end, and also that you played and supported Dynasty Owner.

You may have noticed that there was no weekly Free Agent Auction targets article from Jay Pounds on Tuesday and thus, no more updates on the percentage increase for the players included in that article. There were a couple of suggestions in the Starting lineup recommendations as both Drew Lock and Demarcus Robinson could have been in Jay’s article. Hopefully those recommendations turn out well if anyone takes them or has already picked up those players. If you are still alive in the Dynasty Owner playoffs and made any bids on Lock, Robinson or another player, I hope that you won the bid and got who you wanted.

If you did make and win a Free Agent Auction bid who’s going in your lineup this week, go ahead and post about it on Twitter/X and tag me and Dynasty Owner. You can even post your comment when this article is published there or post on Facebook or Instagram. As always, we appreciate the feedback from our fellow Dynasty Owners.

No Dynasty Owner Livestream this week, but you can still view the video that Tim and I recorded last week on the Dynasty Owner YouTube channel. Hopefully we have more videos or even a Livestream before the playoffs finish.

Thanks for reading this week and have a great day!

Steven Van Tassell is the Head of Content for Dynasty Owner

NFL Week 14 Preview

Finale

By Steven Van Tassell (@SteveVT33)

Originally, the title of this weekly preview article was going to be “Regular Season Finale” (or something like that), but things have changed. As everyone should have seen by now in the email sent out on Monday afternoon or the message that pops up when you log into your Dynasty Owner account or change teams (for those of you in multiple Dynasty Owner leagues), this is the final season of Dynasty Owner. The final week of the regular season of the final season. It’s a true finale.

I’m still hoping that it’s a TV show season-ending cliffhanger, or that everything goes back to normal like when Bobby Ewing “died” at the end of the one season of the 1980s TV show Dallas, but then came back at the end of the next season. They passed it off as a dream then continued on with the show like it was before. That’s like my dream. Dynasty Owner continues after a short break; I get to continue working and writing and maybe win a League Championship and the Chase for the Ring sometime in the future. If it’s a dream, then hey, I might as well dream big!

Back to reality and the Dynasty Owner regular season ends after Week 14 of the NFL season, then it’s the 3-week playoffs culminating in the League Championship match-ups (and third place games) in Week 17. Third place is still in play as noted in the email and posted announcement message.

Stake Kings (formerly Team Stake) will still pay out all cash prize leagues to all eligible finalists (1st – 4th places).

We will also still have a Chase for the Ring Champion for 2023. More on how that’s going later on. Hopefully all of you are still in contention for the playoffs with your Dynasty Owner team and if you have multiple teams, may more of them be in playoff contention than out.

It’s been a great five year run and I’m happy to have been part of it for the entire time. I appreciate the friendships that I’ve made through Dynasty Owner and the opportunity that Paul and Tim have afforded me to work for them. Finally, I appreciate everyone who is reading this article or read any of my articles over the years for that matter, has looked at any of my posts about Dynasty Owner on Twitter/X, watched even part of a Livestream or listened to part of a Dynasty Owner podcast with myself and Jay Pounds in the past. Thank you for all of your support!

For the final time in Dynasty Owner regular season, I’ll be giving you 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. Even after his Week 13 bye, Josh Allen ($43,005,667) is still the top scoring player in Dynasty Owner so no recommendation to go ahead and start him. 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.

Any salaries, ADPs and roster percentages listed were current as of the morning of December 7th. 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 the final week, let’s look at Week 13 and announce the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week. For the third time this season, we have a Player of the Week who was also the best value in Dynasty Owner with the lowest Cost per Point for the week. Previously, De’Von Achane ($1,359,362) did it in Week 3 and Sam Howell ($1,005,400) duplicated the feat in Week 8. Since he was the only player with four TDs last week, you’ve probably figured it out already, but let me officially announce that the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week is Brock Purdy.

It was pretty close, but the Dynasty Owner scoring system catapulted Brock Purdy ($934,252) ahead of a six-pack of top WRs who all had at least 100 receiving yards and a TD. Purdy finished Week 13 with a career-high 41.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (314 passing yards, 9 rushing yards, 4 TDs) and was the only player with over 40.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Purdy has moved up to QB6 for the 2023 season and seemingly put aside those questions about him that started bubbling up during the 49ers three-game losing streak in the middle of the season before their Week 9 bye. In the four weeks since then, it’s been three games of 30.0 or more Dynasty Owner fantasy points and two Value Player of the Week awards. Finally, he has reached the pinnacle and been named the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week while also having the lowest Cost per Point for any player in any game this season. Congratulations Brock!

Week 13 Points: 41.6

2023 Salary: $934,252

Cost per Point: $22,458

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. While Brock Purdy was winning the Player of the Week award, another low salary QB was having himself quite the week and ended up winning the first Value Player of the Week award of his career. The Week 13 Dynasty Owner Value Player of the Week is Jake Browning.

While this was the first Value Player of the Week honor for Jake Browning ($750,000), it may not be his last as he has four more opportunities and a NFL minimum salary working in his favor. Browning had 33.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (354 passing yards, 22 rushing yards, 2 TDs) in just his second career NFL start. He was close to having a lower Cost per Point than Purdy as they were only separated by $132. If Browning had scored just 0.2 more Dynasty Owner fantasy points (an extra 4 passing yards or 2 rushing yards) or maybe lost two fewer yards on that pass from Ja’Marr Chase ($7,704,910) in the second quarter, he would have had a lower Cost per Point. I’m sure that Browning, the Bengals, Bengals’ fans and all of the Dynasty Owners who picked up Browning over the past two weeks were thrilled with his performance regardless.

Week 13 Points: 33.2

2023 Salary: $750,000

Cost per Point: $22,590

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). It’s been a bad run of Starting lineup recommendations and just got worse in Week 13.

QB: Kenny Pickett ($3,516,976) – 2.8 (Bad recommendation)

RB: Tyler Allgeier ($998,474) – 2.6 (Bad recommendation)

WR: Greg Dortch ($1,010,000) – 4.1 (Bad recommendation)

TE: Tanner Hudson ($940,000) – 7.5 (Bad recommendation)

All total, those four players put up fewer Dynasty Owner fantasy points than any four recommended players this season (and likely in any week in past seasons too). All four recommendations were Bad for the first time this season and comes on the heels of Week 12 in which I had three Bad recommendations and only one Just Ok recommendation. Let’s recap it then forget about it.

The best of the recommendations was Tanner Hudson who had 7.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (4 receptions for 35 receiving yards). He fell short of being a top 12 TE in Dynasty Owner but not too far short. However, it wasn’t close enough, so the recommendation was Bad. Greg Dortch needed more than three targets as he was doing well when he was targeted more often. His three targets led to just one reception for 19 yards and combined with his 48 return yards, he scored just 4.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. That’s a Bad recommendation. Tyler Allgeier didn’t do much on his 8 carries as he had just 26 rushing yards (2.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points). The Jets held the Falcons to under 3.0 yards per rushing attempt and helped to make my recommendation of Allgeier for your Starting lineup a Bad one. Finally, Kenny Pickett injured his ankle in the second quarter and left the game after scoring only 2.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (70 passing yards, 3 rushing yards, 1 fumble). No excuses as injuries are a part of the game and honestly, he probably would have been a Bad recommendation even if he played the entire game.

For the final set of regular season weekly Starting lineup recommendations I’m going to do my best to finish on a high note and offer up these players for your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup.

Baker Mayfield (QB – TB): Very quietly, Baker Mayfield ($4,000,000) has been lurking close to the top 12 QBs in Dynasty Owner. He’s the overall QB15 at the moment. He hasn’t been great and lacks a highlight reel game as his top scoring game was in Week 4 with 30.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (246 passing yards, 31 rushing yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT). He has only thrown for over 300 yards once as well, back in Week 2 versus Cincinnati when he had 317 passing yards.

What he has done well is play in every game and nearly every snap as his backup Kyle Trask ($1,383,834) has taken just three snaps all season. He has also limited turnovers with just 8 interceptions and 2 lost fumbles (7 overall) in 12 games. That’s less than one turnover a game. On the other hand, he’s throwing an average of 1.5 TDs per game and 232.5 yards per game.

He’s also played well in domed stadiums with four games against Minnesota, New Orleans, Houston and Indianapolis so far this season. In those four dome games, he has averaged 24.25 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game. In case you didn’t know, this week’s game against Atlanta will be at the domed Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

With all of the QB injuries and backup starting across the league, I’m sure many Dynasty Owners are using their second or third options at the position right now. While it doesn’t sound great to be saying Dynasty Owners should be using Baker Mayfield in their Starting lineups, but that’s where we are at this stage of the 2023 season.

Javonte Williams (RB – DEN): Believe it or not, but Javonte Williams ($2,216,438) is RB30 for the 2023 season and averaging barely double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points per week (10.63 points per game). However, a lot of that is a remnant from the start of the season when he had five consecutive games with less than 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points plus a missed game in Week 5 against the Jets. At that point, he had a total of just 37.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in five games played (7.42 points per game). In five of the past six games, he has gotten a majority of the RB snaps (and the one game he was below a majority, he was on the field for 49%) and results have improved with five double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy point games and a per game average of 13.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points.

The Chargers are a middle-of-the-pack defense against the run allowing 113.8 rushing yards per game with 86.8 of those yards by RBs. In addition, they are one of the worst defenses against RBs who catch passes out of the backfield and have allowed RBs to average 6.25 receptions and 48.4 receiving yards per game. Williams will likely split those receptions with Samaje Perine ($3,750,000) and Jaleel McLaughlin ($903,333) to a lesser extent, but should still benefit some and that’ll just add to his fantasy production.

Go ahead and put Javonte Williams in your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup. A lot of you will be doing it anyways, but if you’re on the fence about him in your RB2 or FLEX spot then look closely, and you’ll likely agree with me that he belongs there.

Elijah Moore (WR – CLE): In the past three games without Deshaun Watson at QB for the Browns, Elijah Moore ($2,235,107) has seen 28 targets (9.33 per game), including a dozen last week with Joe Flacco ($3,500,000) at QB. That’s a target increase for Moore, but surprisingly not by much as he has averaged 7.1 targets per game for the entire season. Even with all of those targets, he finds himself as the WR52 in Dynasty Owner with 98.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (8.23 points per game). Part of that is because he has only scored 1 TD all season.

The Browns’ opponent this week, the Jacksonville Jaguars, have given up 14 TDs to WRs this season and eight overall in the four weeks since their Week 9 bye. Even Will Levis ($2,385,542) threw two TDs against the Jaguars’ defense. While it’s not a guarantee that Moore will get into the end zone, the combination of the Jaguars’ pass defense and likely high target rate for Moore gives him a great opportunity to do so.

Even with only one TD, Moore has gotten double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points in three out of his last four games. With all of the QB difficulties in Cleveland this season, it’s pretty remarkable that he’s been able to keep getting targeted and producing in the low double digits for his Dynasty Owners.

It seems like most of the top WRs have good match-ups this week and only two teams are on bye, thus limiting the possibility that a lower rated WR like Moore will step up and be worth a Starting lineup spot. It won’t be an explosion, but Moore will probably do enough to be worth having in the FLEX position of your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup.

Gerald Everett (TE – LAC): In two games since returning from a chest injury, Gerald Everett ($6,000,000) has scored 22.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (8 receptions, 87 receiving yards, 1 TD) on nine targets. And that was against two of the better defenses against TEs in Baltimore and New England. Imagine what he’s going to do against the Denver Broncos who have allowed the second most receiving yards (852) to TEs this season. That’s only 86 fewer yards than the Ravens and Patriots combined.

The Broncos pass defense against TEs has gotten better but their best week against TEs was still way back in Week 3 against Miami when Durham Smythe ($3,500,000) only scored 2.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (1 reception for 15 receiving yards) while the rest of the Dolphins were running all over the Broncos defense and scoring 70 points. Only four times has the Denver defense held the opposition top TE to under 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. That’s not a great track record at all.

Just to let Dynasty Owners know, Everett and the Chargers have yet to face the Broncos this season. They are scheduled to also play in Week 17 so hopefully you are still in the playoffs and can use Everett in your Starting lineup again that week along with this week.

These Guys Should Be on the Bench (or Practice Squad) This Week

Now let’s look at how each of my Bench recommendations from Week 13 fared (Good, Bad or Just Ok). It wasn’t difficult, but once again and like most of the time, they were better than the Starting lineup recommendations.

QB: Russell Wilson ($48,517,647) – 16.7 (Good recommendation)

RB: D’Andre Swift ($2,134,729) – 4.0 (Good recommendation)

WR: Tyler Lockett ($17,250,000) – 9.7 (Just Ok recommendation)

TE: Logan Thomas ($8,021,667) – 2.0 (Good recommendation)

Three Good recommendations and a Just Ok recommendation that was pretty close. Tyler Lockett was less than a point from being a FLEX starter for your Dynasty Owner team with 9.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (5 receptions for 47 receiving yards) and the recommendation earns the Just Ok designation. The other close one was Russell Wilson who scored 16.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (186 passing yards, 44 rushing yards, 2 TDs, 3 INTs) to finish as QB15 in Dynasty Owner. Since six teams were on bye, that wasn’t enough to make him a Starter and thus, the recommendation to leave him on your Bench was Good.

The final two recommendations were unquestionably Good. D’Andre Swift had 12 opportunities (6 rushing attempts and 6 targets) but only put together 4.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (13 rushing yards, 2 receptions, 7 receiving yards). I didn’t have the 49ers stopping Swift quite that much, but they did, and I’ll take the Good recommendation. Logan Thomas was an easy Good recommendation as he only reeled in a successful 2-pt. conversion in Week 13 for 2.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points.

A perfect Week 14 and half of my 2023 Dynasty Owner regular season Bench recommendations will have been Good. That’s the goal and here is the final set of them.

C.J. Stroud (QB – HOU): Don’t forget that C.J. Stroud ($9,069,811) is still a rookie, even though he is QB4 in Dynasty Owner right now. Rookie stumble and play badly now and again, and Stroud hasn’t really had a truly awful week yet. His worst performance was back in Week 1 versus Baltimore with 12.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (242 passing yards, 20 rushing yards, 1 reception, 1 lost fumble) and he has only thrown for less than 200 yards twice.

The Ravens were the best pass defense that Stroud has seen this season and in terms of rankings, the Jets will be the second best. Warning for the future that Stroud and the Texans play the Browns in Week 16, and their defense is really good as well. Those teams are the top three in fewest net passing yards allowed per game. While Stroud is young and mobile, he doesn’t rush for many yards with only 143 rushing yards for the season so far and only one game with more than 20 rushing yards (Week 12 versus Jacksonville when he had 47 rushing yards and a rushing TD).

Stroud will also be without the services of one of his top receivers in fellow rookie Tank Dell ($1,244,382) who broke his left fibula last week and is out for the rest of the season. He was without Dalton Schultz ($6,250,000) last week as well and a depleted set of receivers is not optimal when facing the Jets’ pass defense. For those reasons, I’m recommending that you put Stroud on your Dynasty Owner Bench for Week 14 and find another QB to be in your Starting lineup. Hopefully you have a better option, even with all of the QB injuries this season.

Jaylen Warren (RB – PIT): While I’m listing Jaylen Warren ($857,333) here, the same goes for Najee Harris ($3,261,862). Warren just gets the nod because he is RB24 versus RB29 for Harris since Warren has scored more Dynasty Owner fantasy points this season (140.4 vs. 123.1 for Harris). Harris is expected to play on Thursday Night Football against the Patriots, but still listed as questionable and a non-participant in the Steelers’ practices on Tuesday and Wednesday.

If both are active, they will likely split the snaps and opportunities pretty evenly as they have done all season. Harris has gotten more red zone snaps (21 vs. 13 for Warren), while Warren leads in targets (48 vs. 30 for Harris). Whoever plays will find it difficult to run against the Patriots defense as they are ranked third in fewest rushing yards allowed per game (88.7 yards) and points have been hard to come by for most of the season with the team allowing an average of just 21.2 points per game. Despite losing their last three games, they have only allowed 26 points and just two TDs in that time and haven’t given up more than 20 points since Week 8 against Miami. The Pittsburgh offense isn’t close to as good as the Dolphins and so the likelihood is low that they will score much.

Put Warren in a Bench spot and Harris too if you have him and find someone else for your Week 14 Starting lineup if both are active. Even if Harris is declared inactive, I’d still be worried to start Warren and would leave him on my Bench.

Adam Thielen (WR – CAR): Adam Thielen had a hot start to the 2023 season, but has cooled off considerably since the Panthers’ Week 7 bye. In the six games prior to the bye, he averaged 21.08 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game (126.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points) with four games of more than 20.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. In the six games after the bye, he has averaged only 9.07 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game (54.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points) with a high of 15.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 8 versus Houston (8 receptions for 72 receiving yards).

Carolina is facing the New Orleans Saints pass defense that has performed well against WRs this season. They are allowing all WRs to average just 10.75 receptions for 131.1 receiving yards per game. Only eight TDs have been scored by WRs against the Saints’ defense and just four teams have allowed fewer than that. They held Amon-Ra St. Brown ($1,066,313) to his worst performance of the season with just 12.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (2 receptions, 49 receiving yards, 1 TD) so it stands to reason that they can do better against Thielen.

While Thielen did play well against the Saints back in Week 2 with 20.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (7 receptions, 54 receiving yards, 1 TD, 1 2-pt. conversion), I would be hesitant to use that performance as a reason to overlook how he has performed recently. It was likely more of an outlier so leave him on your Dynasty Owner Bench this week.

Evan Engram (TE – JAC): Evan Engram ($13,750,000) had his best game of the 2023 season in Week 13 versus Cincinnati with 23.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (9 receptions, 82 receiving yards, 1 TD). He has also been a consistent target for the Jaguars with a team-leading 91 targets and no fewer than five targets in any game. However, all of that was with Trevor Lawrence ($9,198,372) under center and this week, it’s going to be C.J. Beathard ($2,250,000) at the helm of the Jaguars’ offense.

I watched the Jaguars-Bengals game on Monday night. It was a great game and recalled that Engram seemed to be heavily utilized after Lawrence left, so I checked the stats to be sure. Turns out that Engram had four targets in two drives with Beathard at QB with four receptions for 31 receiving yards. That was 7.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points on just two drives and would seem to indicate that things should be ok for the TE5 in Dynasty Owner.

As Lee Corso says, “Not so fast, my friend”. Pick your favorite GIF or meme of Corso saying that, there were way too many to choose from. Jacksonville is travelling to Cleveland to play the Browns this week and nobody stops TEs better than they do. For the season, TEs have caught only 27 passes for 262 receiving yards and 3 TDs on just 40 targets against the Browns. Two of those three TDs were by Mark Andrews ($14,000,000) back in Week 4, but I don’t think Beathard to Engram is as potent a QB-TE connection as Lamar Jackson ($52,000,000) to Andrews. If you take out that game out, opposing TEs only have scored 42.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in 11 games (3.9 points per game) versus the Browns.

Even though I would expect the Jaguars to try and get the ball to Engram in the passing game, I think the Browns will do to Engram what they have done to pretty much every other TE this season and shut him down. Leave Engram on your Dynasty Owner Bench this week and find someone else to be your Starting TE.

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 14. Jay’s final regular season article was published on Tuesday and had five players listed to help everyone with their Free Agent Auction bids.

Not sure how this week’s announcement impacted how Dynasty Owners approached their Free Agent Auction bidding. On one hand, teams in contention for the playoffs may have bid on players they normally wouldn’t to try and do their best to make the playoffs. On the other hand, some teams may not have bothered if they are out of playoff contention. Either way, there have been two Free Agent Auction runs already this week – Wednesday at 5 AM (Eastern) and Thursday at 5 AM (Eastern), so 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
Joe Flacco	QB	CLE	$3,500,000	26.05%	36.02%	9.97%
Parker Washington	WR	JAC	$1,008,066	4.98%	24.52%	19.54%
Mitchell Trubisky	QB	PIT	$7,142,500	14.18%	29.12%	14.94%
Chris Rodriguez	RB	WAS	$1,004,422	79.69%	79.69%	0.00%
Brevin Jordan	TE	HOU	$958,046	51.72%	55.56%	3.84%

I have to say that I’m a little bit surprised to see that more Dynasty Owners picked up Mitchell Trubisky than Joe Flacco. Trubisky’s percentage went up nearly 15 percentage points, while Flacco’s increased by just under 10 percentage points. Flacco is still rostered in more Dynasty Owner leagues and even with that said, both are under 40% rostered. With QBs getting knocked out of action seemingly every week, I would have expected more Dynasty Owners to pick up some QB depth for the playoffs.

Out of all of the players who Jay mentioned, Jaguars WR Parker Washington was picked up in the most leagues as his percentage jumped by nearly 20 percentage points. That was due to the core muscle injury suffered by Christian Kirk ($18,000,000) on Monday Night Football and Washington’s salary of barely over $1 million. Regardless of any other factors, Dynasty Owners still need salary cap and roster space to acquire players from the Free Agent Auction.

Brevin Jordan had his best performance of the season in Week 13 with 9.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (3 receptions for 64 receiving yards), but his roster percentage moved up less than five percentage points. And finally, we had Chris Rodriguez whose roster percentage stayed at 79.69% with the Commanders on a bye in Week 14. Not a surprise as only Dynasty Owner teams guaranteed to make the playoffs would have the luxury of adding him this week.

Happy bidding and hope everyone got who they wanted in the final Dynasty Owner regular season Free Agent Auction.

Chase for the Ring Leaderboard

It seems pretty certain that the final 2023 Regular Season Leaderboard will have The Road Warriors at the top as they have a 124.7 point advantage over everyone else with 2,315.3 points. The question remains whether or not they will win their League and capture the Ring.

There are three other teams who have the most realistic chance to win the Ring if The Road Warriors stumble and lose in the League #27449 playoffs. Komodo Dragons from League #174404 are in second place with 2,190.6 points, followed by Footy Football from League #76061 with 2,178.8 points and Garlic Bread butt shove from League #33935 in fourth place with 2,163.3 points.

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 the Regular Season Leaderboard can change while games are in progress, but it will stay static after this week’s games are over. The Championship Contenders tab will then become active with all of the teams remaining in the playoffs until the end of the final Dynasty Owner playoffs (NFL Week 17).

Undefeated Dynasty Owner Teams

Right now, we have five undefeated Dynasty Owner teams with an 13-0 record compared to seven at this point in 2022. We lost two teams from the ranks of the undefeated last week including FantasyGoat in League #27454 who ended up losing their Week 13 match-up and dropping off this list despite a solid week with 157.4 points. They even moved up six spots on the Chase for the Ring leaderboard from 95th place to 89th place. Unfortunately, they are no longer undefeated, unlike these five teams.

Team Name	League	Dynasty Owner Fantasy Points	Chase Position
The Road Warriors	27449	2315.3	1st
Komodo Dragons	174404	2190.6	2nd
WANNABEES	36564	2132.7	5th
Footy Football	68694	2009.4	28th
Box Score Facts Checker	28287	1993.0	36th

All of our undefeated Top 100 teams are nestled in the top half and four out of five are in the top third. Footy Football had the best weekly score out of the undefeated teams with 220.3 points in Week 13 and jumped up 55 spots to move into 28th place. WANNABEES in League #36564 had 215.7 points and climbed into the top 5. Komodo Dragons and Box Score Facts Checker each stayed in roughly the same spot in the Chase standings while having slightly above average weeks. In contrast, The Road Warriors scored just 140.0 points, the fewest among our undefeated teams. However, they have still scored the most points overall and still sit on top of the Leaderboard.

Good luck to all five teams on their quest to be undefeated for an entire Dynasty Owner season!

Conclusion

And finally, good luck to all Dynasty Owners this week and hope that all of you make the playoffs. If this is the final time you are reading one of my articles, thank you for doing so this week and for every time you have done so over the past five years!

As always, 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 as well. As always, we appreciate the feedback from our fellow Dynasty Owners. If you haven’t followed me yet on Twitter/X and want to stay in touch or read my thoughts on fantasy football (and other topics) beyond this final week of the Dynasty Owner regular season, then please do so and I’ll follow you back.

Thanks for reading my final regular season article this week and have a great day!

Steven Van Tassell is the Head of Content for Dynasty Owner

Free Agent Targets – Week 14

By: Jay Pounds (@jaypoundsnfl)

Dynasty Owners, we have just one more week and the fantasy football playoffs will be here. Have you clinched a playoff berth yet? If you haven’t hopefully there will be a player on this list to get you over the hump. Before we look at this week’s free agents, let’s look through some of the surprises from Week 13.

The 49ers are back! What a difference a few weeks makes in the NFL. A few weeks back, the Niners were struggling, had just lost three straight games and people were doubting second year quarterback Brock Purdy ($934,252). Fast forward to Week 14 and the 49ers are the clear-cut favorites to win the Super Bowl after dominating the NFC’s current top seed, the Philadelphia Eagles, while making Purdy the betting favorite for MVP.

Speaking of MVP, usual front runner Patrick Mahomes ($45,000,000) just lost to Jordan Love ($3,095,863) and the Green Bay Packers this week. My biggest takeaway from that game is that Jordan Love can ball! Love struggled to start the season, but it now appears that it was the play calling holding him back. Since the Packers have opened up the playbook for Love, he has been fantastic. Will he be able to keep it up? I am not sure, but it would be something else if the Packers hit on their third straight franchise quarterback in a row.

My last big takeaway from Week 13 is that I don’t want to sound cocky but, I told you so! How about Jake Browning ($750,000)? For those of you that took my advice and picked up the former elite quarterback prospect, I sure hope you had him in your Starting lineup in Week 13! It seems a lot of you did take this advice as he is now rostered in over 90% of Dynasty Owner leagues.

Now that we have that out of the way, I wanted to take a minute to thank all of you that have interacted with me over the past few seasons. You all are awesome, and I will touch more on this in the coming weeks. Alright, I’ll shut up and talk about some free agents now!

If you are new to this series of articles, there is a small list of requirements, with the main one being that the player must be 80% rostered or below in Dynasty Owner. The only other requirement I have is that I would like the player to have a salary of $8,000,000 or less, but I will put a higher salary player on the list if I feel they are worth it. Free Agent Auction bids will process on Wednesday at 5 AM (Eastern) for this upcoming week, so there’s still time to get your bids in for Week 14. The Bid listed below is my recommended amount to secure the player for your Dynasty Owner team in the Wednesday Free Agent Auction run in a typical Dynasty Owner league.

Joe Flacco (QB – CLE) – 1 year/$3,500,000 – 26.05% Rostered

If you all remember back two weeks ago, I had Joe Flacco in my article stating he would be the Browns starting quarterback after the bye week and sure enough Joe Flacco was under center in the AFC North once again this week. The Browns did not play well in Week 13, but for once their offense was not to blame. It was the defense that let the team down by giving up four touchdowns to the Rams. Flacco certainly did his part finishing the day with 254 yards passing while adding 2 touchdowns and one interception. I know those numbers won’t blow you away, but they were good enough for a 21.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy point week, which would look nice on anybody’s Bench, especially when the player costs just $3,500,000 against the salary cap. Moving forward, I am not expecting Flacco to have any huge games, but he will likely have a solid floor every week finishing in the 16-22 Dynasty Owner fantasy point range on a weekly basis. The quarterback position is as beat up as I can ever remember meaning Flacco won’t be available long at all. Get your bids in now!

Bid – $5,000,000

Parker Washington (WR – JAC) – 4 years/$1,008,066 – 4.98% Rostered

Rookie Parker Washington’s production will depend solely on the health of Christian Kirk ($18,000,000), but from all the reports I have read, Kirk will likely miss at least one week with a groin injury, and it may even be more as the Jaguars get ready for a playoff push. In Week 13, Washington stepped in for the injured Kirk and performed well finishing the day with 6 catches for 61 yards and a touchdown plus 51 return yards, good enough to score 18.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. The Jaguars drafted Washington in the sixth round of the NFL Draft out of Penn State and had he stayed healthy in college, he would have likely been a Day 2 draft pick. Health will be a big concern for Washington moving forward as he has already suffered a knee injury earlier in the season that caused him to miss multiple weeks. Despite all of this, I believe Washington has a high ceiling because of the combination of talent he possesses and the offense he plays in. If Washington is able to have another solid game in Week 14, he may just establish a role for himself moving forward. The kid has a ton of potential no matter how you spin it and is definitely worth gambling on with such a low salary!

Bid – $3,000,000

Mitchell Trubisky (QB – PIT) – 1 year/$7,142,500 – 14.18% Rostered

Well as you all know, I am not much of a fan of Kenny Pickett ($3,516,976), but his injury couldn’t have come at a worse time. The Steelers desperately needed to see him fail, instead he’s going to miss the rest of the season and will likely get another shot in 2024 because Mike Tomlin stays loyal far too long. As bad as that is for the Steelers, it is likely good news for Dynasty Owners. As I mentioned earlier the quarterback position is all sorts of beat up and we now have another replacement quarterback waiting in the Free Agent Auction. I am not sold on Trubisky being a good option for your Dynasty Owner roster, but at this point what choice do you really have? Hopefully those of you that were in desperate need of a quarterback listened and picked up Jake Browning last week! In all seriousness the Steelers fired Matt Canada and the new offensive coordinators may feel more comfortable taking shots down the field with a veteran under center. Only time will tell.

Bid – $3,000,000

Chris Rodriguez (RB – WAS) – 4 years/$1,004,422 – 79.69% Rostered

I don’t want to toot my own horn or anything, but I have been right about a lot of players in 2023, but Chris Rodriguez was not one of them by any means. In all honesty, I had expected the Commanders to eventually give Rodriguez a shot to carry the load in the backfield before Brian Robinson ($1,261,227) started playing better a few weeks back. Now I get another chance, though it is because of unfortunate circumstances. In Week 13, Robinson left the game with a hamstring injury and will likely miss a couple of weeks with the playoffs virtually out of reach for Washington. The Commanders still have Antonio Gibson ($1,233,159) in the fold, but they have already passed him up once and I expect them to do it again. Running backs rarely come around this late in the season and while I do believe Rodriguez’s ceiling is limited because of Gibson’s involvement in the passing game, Rodriguez should still see a lot of work and will almost certainly get all of the goal line touches.

Bid – $4,000,000

Brevin Jordan (TE – HOU) – 2 years/$958,046 – 51.72% Rostered

In the final spot we have another player in Brevin Jordan whose production will likely depend on the health of teammates. I will admit I like the talent of Jordan more than anyone on this list and expected him to be drafted much higher than the fifth round back in 2021. Jordan is your prototypical pass catching tight end and will be a matchup problem anytime he is used correctly. In Week 13 Jordan finally had his chance as the top tight end with a real quarterback and did not disappoint finishing the day with 3 catches for 64 yards to score 9.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. The big worry with Jordan moving forward is the health of Dalton Schultz ($6,250,000), but the Texans also lost stud rookie Tank Dell ($1,244,382) last week which opens up plenty of targets for Jordan even after Schultz is healthy and back in the lineup. At worst, Jordan is a cheap gamble who could pay off big time at a position that is struggling across the board right now.

Bid – $2,000,000

Thank you all for reading! Be sure to check out all of the upcoming articles from me and Steve plus the Dynasty Owner Livestream. Stay safe out there and good luck on your 2023 Chase for the Ring!

NFL Week 13 Preview

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.

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.

Undefeated Dynasty Owner Teams

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

Free Agent Targets – Week 13

By: Jay Pounds (@jaypoundsnfl)

Dynasty Owners, can you believe we are just a couple of weeks away from playoff time? In a perfect world, everyone would have already secured their playoff berth but unfortunately for Dynasty Owners, this isn’t fantasy land, and the reality is we have 11 losers per league every season. If you are worried that your team is going to be one of those 11 losers, have no fear as there is still production available in the Free Agent Auction!

Before I give all of you some of the (hopefully) best advice you will ever receive let’s review some of my takeaways from Week 12. If you had to pick today who would be your Super Bowl matchup? In all honesty, I don’t know how you can pick anything other than a rematch from last season. The Eagles and Chiefs both have fairly glaring weaknesses on their roster, but both have looked dominant and even when they haven’t, they have found ways to win football games this season. I know I have been a big advocate for C.J. Stroud ($9,069,811) to receive MVP votes this season and I still stand firm on that, but I believe the award is clearly Jalen Hurts’ ($1,506,293) to lose at this point. In Week 12, Hurts magic was on full display once again as he led the Eagles to an overtime win against the now 6-6 Buffalo Bills.

What has happened to the Buffalo Bills? The Bills were a popular pick to win the Super Bowl this season and they now find themselves sitting in 10th place in the AFC and outside of a Miami Dolphins collapse, they will be fighting for a wild card spot. A huge disappointment no matter how you look at it. At this point I believe Sean McDermott needs a deep playoff run and possibly a Super Bowl appearance to see another season in Buffalo.

In other news, the Panthers fired head coach Frank Reich. Reich now becomes the second coach to be let go during the 2023 season and I have a feeling we will see one or two more before Week 18 arrives.

The last team I would like to talk about is the Lions, who started out hot and have struggled quite a bit over the past few weeks against below average competition. The Lions are still sitting pretty in their division, but they must start playing better if they want to have a shot at making a deep playoff run this season, which I am hoping for. It would be a really cool moment to see the Lions in a Super Bowl.

If you are new to this series of articles, there is a small list of requirements, with the main one being that the player must be 80% rostered or below in Dynasty Owner. The only other requirement I have is that I would like the player to have a salary of $8,000,000 or less, but I will put a higher salary player on the list if I feel they are worth it. Free Agent Auction bids will process on Wednesday at 5 AM (Eastern) for this upcoming week, so there’s still time to get your bids in for Week 13. The Bid listed below is my recommended amount to secure the player for your Dynasty Owner team in the Wednesday Free Agent Auction run in a typical Dynasty Owner league.

Jake Browning (QB – CIN) – 1 year/$750,000 – 73.56% Rostered

I must say I was rather impressed with Browning in his first ever NFL start against a tough Steelers’ defense. After watching the game, I became so intrigued that I started doing some digging on Browning and I came away extremely impressed. Browning was a highly coveted recruit coming out of high school where he won multiple state titles, two Gatorade Player of the Year awards, set state and national records for touchdowns scored in a career at 229, and set the record for the most single season passing yards in California state history at 5,790 yards while also setting the touchdown record with 91 in his senior season. Browning committed to Washington, was the starting QB as a true freshman, and led them to the College Football Playoff in his sophomore season. Injuries would set him back for years leading him to go undrafted, but his hard work has paid off and I would not be surprised to see him play at an above average level the rest of the season. If Browning can realize his true potential, he could quickly become a viable fantasy option with the supporting cast he has at his disposal in Cincinnati.

Bid – $5,000,000

Tommy DeVito (QB – NYG) – 1 year/$901,667 – 82.76% Rostered

I know I know; I am cheating on this one. Crucify me if you will, but the quarterback position is in a bad place right now and some Dynasty Owners likely need all the help they can get. In Week 12, DeVito did not have a glamorous game, but he finished with 12.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (191 passing yards, 6 rushing yards, 1 TD, 2 fumbles – 1 lost) against a Bill Belichick coached defense. I know the Belichick mystique doesn’t carry the same weight these days, but I assure you it is no small feat to win a game as a rookie quarterback against The Hoodie! DeVito has been surprisingly benchable (is that even a word?) since Week 10 against the Cowboys. I say benchable because DeVito is the perfect Dynasty Owner Bench option for anyone who has lost depth at the quarterback position and cannot afford another big name. In my opinion, DeVito is an excellent option as he has an extremely cheap salary, only one year remaining on his contract leaving you with great flexibility, and has scored double digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points in each of the past four weeks. What I am trying to say here is that Tommy DeVito should be much closer to 100% rostered here on Dynasty Owner. He may even be better than Daniel Jones ($40,000,000) already!

Bid – $5,000,000

Greg Dortch (WR – ARI) – 1 year/$1,010,000 – 70.5% Rostered

I am not sure why people are still sleeping on Greg Dortch! Dortch has been fantastic more times than not when he is on the field with quarterback Kyler Murray ($46,100,000). With his quarterback back at his side, Dortch has posted back-to-back double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy point games and found the end zone in Week 12 despite the Cardinals struggling most of the game. Dortch was once again one of the target leaders for the Cardinals with 9, and trailed only Marquise Brown ($13,413,000) who received a whopping 12 targets. The Cardinals and more specifically Greg Dortch will see easier competition the rest of the way. I don’t say that because the Rams have an elite defense these days, I say that because no matter who the Rams have on the field, they always seem to dominate the Red Birds. I highly recommend grabbing Dortch now, he is one big game or injury away from being rostered in most Dynasty Owner leagues.

Bid – $3,000,000

Royce Freeman (RB – LAR) – 1 year/$1,080,000 – 73.95% Rostered

The last two spots on this list were definitely tough, but easy decisions. Allow me to explain, I always try to put at least one player from each position on my Free Agent Auction targets list and while there are no better options than Freeman available at running back, it still feels gross putting him on here simply because of the game script the Rams found themselves in. With that said the Rams used Freeman’s teammate, Kyren Williams ($992,601), a ton and I am not so sure Williams will hold up long while getting 20 plus touches per game. Even with Williams seeing a total of 22 touches in Week 12, the Rams still found a way to get Freeman involved to the tune of 13 carries for 77 yards and 1 touchdown (13.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points). It appears the Rams have a ton of faith in Freeman and apparently you should too. At worst, Freeman is someone you want to stash on your practice squad and hope for the best. Freeman is a cheap handcuff who will see some type of volume each and every week. You can never have enough of these players on your roster with the fantasy football playoffs right around the corner.

Bid – $3,000,000

Tyler Conklin (TE – NYJ) – 2 years/$6,750,000 – 58.62% Rostered

Another week, another Tyler Conklin appearance. Tyler Conklin has slowly worked his way into the top 20 tight ends this season and he has done that despite having a slow start, missing a game to injury, and already having his bye week. He has also worked with high school level quarterback play for all but a couple of snaps this season. I am sure all of you have heard the rumors about Aaron Rodgers ($37,500,000) possibly returning in Week 14, just in time for the Dynasty Owner playoffs. I read somewhere (sorry no link) that Rodgers was feeling bad about letting the Dynasty Owners down who drafted Garrett Wilson ($5,138,502) in the first round (ADP 9.1). According to Rodgers, this is what has fueled his goal to return this season instead of waiting for 2024! Hey those are Aaron Rodgers’ words not mine, don’t shoot the messenger. The only thing I can take away from all of this is that if Tyler Conklin can play well with a combination of Zach Wilson ($8,787,670) and Tim Boyle ($1,155,000) at quarterback, I like his chances when/if Rodgers returns. If Rodgers does not return, Conklin is still a great depth/Bench option if you have the salary cap space.

Bid – $2,000,000

Thank you all for reading! Be sure to check out all of the upcoming articles from me and Steve plus the weekly Dynasty Owner Livestream. Stay safe out there and good luck on your 2023 Chase for the Ring!

NFL Week 12 Preview

Thanksgiving

By Steven Van Tassell (@SteveVT33)

It’s Thanksgiving week in the NFL and all 32 NFL teams are playing. No bye weeks and NFL games on four days this week (Thursday, Friday, Sunday and Monday) is something that all NFL fans and Dynasty Owners should be thankful for to be sure. However, while I’m thankful for the opportunity to watch numerous NFL games this week without any other games on at the same time and have every team playing, it didn’t help me too much with my weekly recommendations. Neither did the fact that because of Thanksgiving being a Thursday holiday, this article was due a day earlier than normal. I had less time to research matchups, wait for injury reports and read as much as possible prior to making my recommendations. I guess it’s kind of a mixed blessing as there are good things and bad things. Kind of like getting to spend Thanksgiving with family members you like, but maybe having to deal with one or two who you don’t. Thankfully, I’m not in that situation myself.

In addition to being thankful for 16 NFL games this week and no teams on bye, I’m also thankful for the opportunity to work for Dynasty Owner and play fantasy football in multiple Dynasty Owner leagues. Hopefully all of my fellow Dynasty Owners feel the same way.

This week is pretty simple. No long, drawn out introduction about some random (or not so random) fantasy football topic or filled with references that some of you may not get. I bet everyone reading this article is thankful for that and to get four recommendations for players 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 Josh Allen ($43,005,667) who remains the top scoring player in Dynasty Owner overall and on a per game basis. Bills’ fans have to be thankful that he’s their QB. 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.

Any salaries, ADPs and roster percentages listed were current as of the morning of November 22nd. 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 12, let’s look at Week 11 and announce the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week. Stop reading if you’ve read this before. Actually, please don’t stop reading, I’ll tell you. It’s another QB. It’s the fifth different QB to win in a row and sixth different QB to win this season. However, he’s not a first time winner as he won this award in the final week of the 2022 Dynasty Owner regular season (Week 14). The Dynasty Owner Player of the Week is Trevor Lawrence.

It wasn’t a high-scoring week at all. Trevor Lawrence ($9,198,372) “only” had 38.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (262 passing yards, 17 rushing yards, 4 TDs). It was the third 4 TD game of his career and the second one that helped him win the Player of the Week honor. While it wasn’t a high-scoring week, Lawrence did have more Dynasty Owner fantasy points than Raheem Mostert ($2,800,000) did when he was Player of the Week in Week 6 (36.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points). However, it was the fewest Dynasty Owner fantasy points for a QB winner this season and continues the streak of having one QB win Player of the Week per season with less than 40.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. However, it doesn’t really matter as he was the player with the most Dynasty Owner fantasy points this week and the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week.

Week 11 Points: 38.8

2023 Salary: $9.198,372

Cost per Point: $237,071

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. All 49ers’ fans are giving thanks to GM John Lynch for taking this player with the final pick of the 2022 NFL Draft. Everybody should know who I’m writing about now and that it’s his second Value Player of the Week award in a row, fourth award of the season and fifth award overall. It makes him the player with the most Value Player of the Week wins in Dynasty Owner history. The Value Player of the Week is Brock Purdy.

This week was the best fantasy game in Brock Purdy’s ($934,252) career as he scored 37.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (333 passing yards, 14 rushing yards, 3 TDs). He didn’t have more passing yards or TDs than in any game in his career, but he didn’t have a turnover which enabled him to get 0.4 more Dynasty Owner fantasy points than he did back in Week 5 when he had 4 TDs but fewer passing yards. With his fifth Value Player of the Week honor, he moves ahead of Aaron Jones ($12,000,000) who had four during the 2019 and 2020 season and Amon-Ra St. Brown ($1,066,313) who had three last year and one in Week 6 of this year. Not only was this the most Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Purdy’s career, but he had the most by a winner, and the lowest Cost per Point for a Value Player of the Week this season.

Week 11 Points: 37.0

2023 Salary: $934,252

Cost per Point: $25,250

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). Last week, I said it was time to start having some Good recommendations and it’s time to see if I did just that.

QB: Jordan Love ($3,095,863) – 27.1 (Good recommendation)

RB: Devin Singletary ($2,750,000) – 21.8 (Good recommendation)

WR: Jahan Dotson ($3,762,090) – 11.3 (Just Ok recommendation)

TE: Michael Mayer ($2,328,412) – 8.6 (Just Ok recommendation)

Two Good and two Just Ok recommendations means that Week 11 is tied with Week 1 for the best week for Starting lineup recommendations of the 2023 season. While Jordan Love had more Dynasty Owner fantasy points than Devin Singletary, Singletary was higher ranked, so let’s start with him. It was Singletary’s second straight game with over 100 yards rushing and over 20.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. This week, he had 112 rushing yards, 2 receptions, 6 receiving yards and a TD (21.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points). Jordan Love had more points than all but six other QBs with 27.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (322 passing yards, 2 TDs, 2 fumbles). As predicted he had over 250 passing yards and a TD, but wasn’t a top 5 QB (he finished as QB7 for the week in Dynasty Owner) and scored more Dynasty Owner fantasy points than eight of the top 12 overall QBs.

Jahan Dotson had a late 8-yard TD reception which vaulted him into being a low-end FLEX player and Just Ok recommendation with 11.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (3 receptions, 23 receiving yards, 1 TD). Finally, Michael Mayer was TE15 for the week with 8.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (4 receptions for 46 receiving yards), but since he was only 0.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points behind TE12 Cade Otton ($1,123,486). The Raiders kept the game close and didn’t need to air it out late as predicted, but even so, it was a Just Ok recommendation.

It’s going to take a lot of Good recommendations over the next few weeks to have more Good than Bad recommendations this year. Here are the players who I’m predicting will have solid Thanksgiving Week performances and be Good recommendations.

Gardner Minshew (QB – IND): Even though Trevor Lawrence is still outside of the top 12 QBs at QB18 after his Player of the Week performance in Week 11, I’m not taking him here. I could, but don’t think it’s appropriate to recommend a player coming off the top scoring week and drafted in the first two rounds (ADP 18.8) of Dynasty Owner start-up leagues here. Therefore, I need to look for someone else.

That looking around led me to Gardner Minshew ($3,500,000) who is playing Tampa Bay this week. In four out of the past six games since their Week 5 bye week, the Buccaneers pass defense has given up more than 30.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and over 300 yards passing. Neither Will Levis ($2,385,542) nor Desmond Ridder ($1,340,740) achieved those marks against the Buccaneers but the other for QBs did. It’s not a bad bet that any QB would do well against the Buccaneers, even if Minshew has only gotten more than 30.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points once so far this season. That was back in Week 7 against Cleveland (31.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points), and it was also one of only two games in which he had over 300 yards passing (305 passing yards).

I’m sure that there will be a QB outside of the top 12 who has a great Week 12 performance. After all, Tommy DeVito ($901,667) was QB4 last week and Jordan Love was QB7. This seems like another week in which the top 12 QBs will play well, but if you lost Joe Burrow ($9,047,534) to injury or are still trying to find a replacement for Kirk Cousins ($35,000,000) then Minshew is a recommended QB for your Week 12 Dynasty Owner Starting lineup.

A.J. Dillon (RB – GB): A.J. Dillon ($1,321,458) had a terrible game back in Week 4 against the Lions with just 1.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (11 rushing yards). Of course, he only had five touches that week which was the fewest of the season and that’s unlikely to be the case on Thanksgiving as Aaron Jones got hurt last week and is doubtful to play on Thursday. Green Bay also has multiple injured WRs, and rookie TE Luke Musgrave ($2,118,933) had to go to the hospital on Monday. There may be limited options on offense for the Packers with Dillon being one of the top ones.

This goes against Dillon’s history against the Lions as he has scored only 22.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in six career games against Detroit, an average of 3.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game. However, the Packers have rushed for over 100 yards in each of the past three games and without Jones, it stands to reason that Dillon will be the Packers’ primary ball carrier this week.

A depleted set of offensive weapons should lead to plenty of rushing attempts and targets for Dillon who is only averaging 2.1 targets per game. I’m betting on volume for Dillon this week and that he can turn that volume into a productive fantasy game, so get him into your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup this week. Since the Packers-Lions game is the first one on Thanksgiving, he hopefully will give your Dynasty Owner team an early advantage in your Week 12 match-up.

Odell Beckham Jr. (WR – BAL): It took a while, but Odell Beckham Jr. ($15,000,000) has finally started to play better over the past few weeks with double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points three weeks in a row. He’s scored 40.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (10 receptions, 212 receiving yards, 2 TDs, 1 fumble lost) in those three games. However, even with those performances, he’s still WR62 in Dynasty Owner for the season and averaging 7.82 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game (70.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in 9 games played).

That’s not the only reason for picking OBJ this week. The Ravens best pass catcher, TE Mark Andrews ($14,000,000), was injured last week and they are playing the worst pass defense in the NFL in the Los Angeles Chargers. The Chargers are allowing 291.6 passing yards per game and with Andrews out, there should be more targets available for OBJ from Lamar Jackson ($52,000,000). If you’re one of the Dynasty Owners in just 44.44% of leagues who has him on your Dynasty Owner roster, then it’s time to get OBJ in your Starting lineup.

Hunter Henry (TE – NE): This might be risky as it’s not 100% clear who the QB will be for New England this week, but I’m going to base this more on the Patriots’ opponent (the New York Giants) than their QB. Hunter Henry ($12,500,000) has had three of his best games so far this season against the other teams in the NFC East. He had a respectable 9.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (4 receptions for 51 receiving yards) in Week 4 when the only scoring that the Patriots managed was a single field goal and Mac Jones ($3,896,588) had three turnovers and negative 0.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Henry is averaging 13.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game against NFC East opponents.

That would be enough points to put him into the top 12 TEs for Week 12. The Giants have allowed double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points to two other similar TEs in the past two weeks. Technically, Logan Thomas ($8,021,667) had 7.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, but he would have been over that if you leave out the lost fumble that cost his Dynasty Owners 3.0 points. Jake Ferguson ($1,091,221) doesn’t need a caveat as he had 12.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (4 receptions, 26 receiving yards, 1 TD) against the Giants in Week 10.

A risky choice to be sure, but since I’m picking Bench players who should be in your Starting lineup for the week, it’s pretty much par for the course. Therefore, I confidently recommend getting Hunter Henry into your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup this week.

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). Did I go up and do better than the four Bad recommendations from Week 10? Let’s find out.

QB: Jalen Hurts ($1,506,293) – 18.4 (Good recommendation)

RB: Isiah Pacheco ($934,777) – 10.1 (Just Ok recommendation)

WR: Gabriel Davis ($998,595) – 0.0 (Good recommendation)

TE: Evan Engram ($13,750,000) – 6.9 (Good recommendation)

I most definitely did better last week than in Week 10. Let’s start with the only Just Ok recommendation. Isiah Pacheco barely got double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points with 89 rushing yards and 1 reception for 2 receiving yards (10.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points). He was a very low-end RB2 or FLEX player in Week 11 so that recommendation was Just Ok. On the other hand, I had three Good recommendations with the best one being Gabriel Davis. Since Davis had a Blutarsky (0.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points), I needed to check and make sure that he actually played. I was surprised to find that he played a lot and more snaps than any Bills’ skill position player not named Josh Allen. Pretty impressive to do that and not even have a target. This might be the best Good Bench recommendation of the season.

In addition, going out on a limb and recommending that Dynasty Owners put Jalen Hurts on their Bench turned out to be Good as he had just 18.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (150 passing yards, 29 rushing yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT, 1 fumble) and finished the week as QB16 in Dynasty Owner. He was also the second worst of the top 12 QBs behind only Jared Goff ($33,500,000) who had 17.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, so unless I took Goff, I made the best possible pick here. Evan Engram was also a Good recommendation with 6.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (4 receptions for 29 receiving yards) as he did almost exactly as predicted with not a lot of volume (6 targets, which was his second lowest of the season), less than 10 yards per reception (7.25 yards) and statistics right around the averages by the Tennessee defense against TEs over the course of the season.

I’m thankful for three Good recommendations and no Bad ones and my second best Bench recommendation week of the season. It was behind Week 1, just like the Starting lineup recommendations. Here’s hoping for a repeat with these four Bench recommendations for Week 12.

Sam Howell (QB – WAS): Even after a subpar game with 3 interceptions, Sam Howell ($1,005,400) is still QB6 in Dynasty Owner. He has played one more game than several of the QBs behind him, but even so he has averaged 22.95 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game (252.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in 11 games played). He has scored 9.3 more Dynasty Owner fantasy points than Lamar Jackson who has also played 11 games so far. On a 10-game pace, Howell would have scored 229.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and be ranked as QB11 just ahead of Jared Goff. Regardless of the number of games he has played, Sam Howell is a top 12 Dynasty Owner QB so far this year.

However, he has yet to play the Dallas Cowboys this season and has to do so on Thanksgiving in Dallas. Points and passing yards have been difficult to come by against Dallas this season as they are allowing only 157.1 passing yards per game (second best in the NFL) and 17.5 points per game (fifth best). Howell is going to have to be on top of his game to do well against Dallas and bounce back from last week’s subpar performance. He has bounced back before as he scored 41.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and was Player of the Week against Philadelphia in Week 8, just one week after scoring a mere 10.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points against the Giants.

While it has happened before, I don’t think it’ll happen again. The Cowboys defense is just too good, and the week is too short for Howell and the Commanders to prepare and bounce back. Even though his Dynasty Owners are thankful for how Howell has performed so far this season, they should still have another option on their roster and can use that QB as their Week 12 starter and leave Howell on the Bench.

Saquon Barkley (RB – NYG): Patriots coach Bill Belichick is known for doing two things to disrupt opposing offenses. First, rookie QBs tend to struggle mightily against Belichick defenses. That’s bad news for Dynasty Owners hoping for a repeat good week from Giants QB Tommy DeVito. Second, he likes to take away the opponents’ best offensive player and make the rest of the team beat his team. For the Giants, their best offensive player is clearly Saquon Barkley ($10,091,000). As a result, I would expect the Patriots defense to focus heavily on Barkley and dare DeVito and the Giants’ WRs and TEs to beat them. I don’t know who’s going to win the game, but I do strongly believe that this focus on stopping Barkley will work for the Patriots.

The Patriots are already in the top third in fewest rushing yards allowed to RBs per game (80.3 rushing yards per game). Even though Barkley has averaged over 5.0 yards per carry in each of his past three games, the Patriots are second overall in yards allowed per carry (3.4) and allowing just 3.5 yards per carry to RBs. Barkley will need volume to get his yards and Belichick will do his best to limit that volume. In terms of passing, Barkley only has 11 receptions for 75 receiving yards in the four games that DeVito has played extensively in. If it wasn’t for the two receiving TDs last week versus the Commanders, he wouldn’t be doing much in the Giants’ passing game. Even though the Patriots are in the bottom third in receptions and receiving yards allowed to RBs, they have only allowed 1 receiving TD by a RB. I’m not expecting Barkley to have another pair this week, or even one.

All put together, it seems like a good week to leave Barkley on your Dynasty Owner Bench. Be thankful that there are no teams on a bye in Week 12, so you have a full complement of RBs at your disposal to replace him.

Davante Adams (WR – LV): Choosing Davante Adams ($28,000,000) back in Week 10 didn’t work out as he had 14.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (6 receptions for 86 receiving yards). Why am I doing it again?

Two words, one player. L’Jarius Sneed. The fourth year cornerback from Louisiana Tech has been a very good shadow on some of the top WRs in the NFL this season. The top WR for each of the Chiefs’ opponents has averaged only 10.65 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game this season and outside of 19.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points by Amon-Ra St. Brown in Week 1, no top WR has scored more than 15.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points against Sneed and the Chiefs. Sneed’s latest game was one of his best as he limited the overall WR4 A.J. Brown ($25,000,000) to just 1.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (1 reception for 8 receiving yards) on Monday Night Football. That dreadful performance cost my friend Vik a chance to advance in a Guillotine league that I was chopped from weeks ago. All he needed was 2.9 points and Brown couldn’t do that for him. Now, he’s out.

If I was a Chiefs’ fan, I’d be very thankful that Sneed is on my team. I’m thankful for the opportunity to recommend that Dynasty Owners leave Adams on their Bench again and correct the mistake from two weeks ago.

Sam LaPorta (TE – DET): I can’t remember where I read it so I can’t give the person who wrote the article or Twitter post their due credit, but I saw something about how Sam LaPorta ($2,366,498) is less involved in the Lions’ offense and scores less fantasy points when both David Montgomery ($6,000,000) and Jahmyr Gibbs ($4,461,283) are healthy and playing. The Lions have an 8-2 record this season even though that’s only happened five times (Weeks 1, 2, 4, 10 and 11). I wasn’t sure if my recollection was accurate, so I investigated.

Turns out it was correct, which is surprising if I saw it on Twitter/X as that’s a cesspool of misinformation. However, the facts are that LaPorta has scored 125.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in 10 games played (12.52 points per game) with 44.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in the five games (8.92 points per game) with both Montgomery and Gibbs in the Lions’ lineup and 80.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in the five games (16.12 points per game) with one of them out.

Neither RBs are on the Lions’ current injury list, and both are expected to play on Thanksgiving. Based on prior history, LaPorta’s Dynasty Owners should be expecting him to score less than 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. That would likely leave him as a Bench option rather than a TE who you should have in your Starting lineup. Who else is thankful for information like that?

Free Agent Auction Targets Update

This week, there has only been one Free Agent Auction run – Wednesday at 5 AM (Eastern) because this article is being published on Wednesday and not Thursday. Dynasty Owners have had just one chance to go pick up these guys in the Free Agent Auction instead of the usual two chances. Hope you bid enough if you wanted to get them!

Player	Position	Team	Salary	Week 12 Roster %	Current Roster %	Change
Tommy DeVito	QB	NYG	$901,667	74.33%	80.84%	6.51%
Tim Boyle	QB	NYJ	$1,155,000	0.77%	14.56%	13.79%
Jake Browning	QB	CIN	$750,000	12.64%	62.07%	49.43%
Joe Flacco	QB	CLE	$3,500,000	0.38%	0.77%	0.39%
Greg Dortch	WR	ARI	$1,010,000	69.73%	69.35%	-0.38%
Tyler Conklin	TE	NYJ	$6,750,000	57.47%	57.85%	0.38%

Except for Jake Browning, the rest of these players were picked up in fewer leagues than usual. Part of that is likely because Dynasty Owners only had one day to pick them up. I wonder if having four players at the same position also limited how many bids Dynasty Owners placed on certain players and if the percentage increases for QBs such as Tim Boyle will go up if Dynasty Owners bid on Jake Browning and lost, but still need a Week 12 QB. That happened to me in one league where I lost Joe Burrow, but got outbid for Browning. Not sure if I’ll go get Boyle (or even if he’ll fit under my salary cap) or just ride with my other two starting QBs this week and see what happens.

Tommy DeVito did have enough Dynasty Owners impressed by his Week 11 performance that they took a chance on him for Week 12 and pushed his roster percentage above 80%. He won’t be appearing here again likely for the rest of the season and I’m sure that will be a topic of conversation around the DeVito family dinner table at Thanksgiving. Because he still lives at home (and his mom makes his bed) in case you didn’t know.

The other QB for a New York team on Jay’s list, Tim Boyle, went up by more percentage points than DeVito but is still rostered in far fewer leagues overall. If he plays well against the Dolphins on Black Friday, we’ll see how much that percentage goes up prior to Week 13.

The other three players on the target list didn’t get added or dropped in too many leagues. Joe Flacco is so far from playing that it’s understandable to me. Tyler Conklin has a high salary of $6.75 million and a new QB plus was already rostered in a majority of leagues. Not sure why Greg Dortch’s roster percentage went down after his first productive game of the 2023 season, but it did. He scored 14.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (6 receptions, 76 receiving yards, 26 return yards) and maybe that caused some Dynasty Owners to remember that he was sitting on their Practice Squad. They figured that type of game won’t happen again, so they dropped him to go get Browning (or another one of the QBs on Jay’s list).

Happy bidding and hope everyone is thankful if they got who they wanted in the Free Agent Auction already this week.

Chase for the Ring Leaderboard

Not a lot of change with the top two teams in the Chase for the Ring, although Bastedos from League #28280 did suffer their first loss in Week 11. They are still in second place overall and behind The Road Warriors from League #27449. The Road Warriors expanded their lead and are now ahead of Bastedos by 76.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points with 1985.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points compared to 1908.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points for Bastedos. The Road Warriors’ lead after Week 10 was 55.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points.

The Chase for the Ring Leaderboard can be accessed at any time by going to https://app.dynastyowner.com/chase-for-the-ring. It’s a live leaderboard and can also change at any time while games are in progress. It’ll probably move quite a bit on Thanksgiving.

Undefeated Dynasty Owner Teams

It’s time for our first look at 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 9 undefeated Dynasty Owner teams with an 11-0 record. Last year, there were 11 undefeated Dynasty Owner teams at this point of the season.

Team Name	League	Dynasty Owner Fantasy Points	Chase Position
The Road Warriors	27449	1985.0	1st
Komodo Dragons	174404	1834.3	4th
WANNABEES	36564	1741.8	9th
Luna Llers	54160	1701.6	21st
The Tubthumpers	27466	1691.9	29th
Bastedos	34662	1666.8	44th
Box Score Facts Checker	28287	1645.4	63rd
FantasyGoat	27454	1631.9	82nd
Footy Football	68694	1623.3	92nd

While we have three undefeated teams in the top 10 of the Chase for the Ring standings, we also have two teams in the top three who have another undefeated team. Bastedos from League #34662 and Footy Football from League #68694 are the undefeated teams with another team in the top three. Congrats to both of them, but I bet they’d rather win the Ring than go undefeated.

Conclusion

Who are my fellow Dynasty Owners thankful for on this Thanksgiving holiday? Hopefully it’s your family and friends, but you can also add in someone who you drafted late in your Dynasty Owner startup draft or rookie draft who has really helped your team this season. I’m guessing that there are more than a few Dynasty Owners thankful that they have Puka Nacua ($1,021,244), Joshua Dobbs ($2,000,000) and Tank Dell ($1,244,382) on their teams. Both Nacua and Dell were drafted on average in the third and final round of Dynasty Owner rookie drafts, while Dobbs was drafted in the 20th round on average (ADP 230.7) in 2023 Dynasty Owner startup drafts.

In honor of Thanksgiving, let me (and your fellow Dynasty Owners) know who you’re thankful to have in your life (fantasy football or “real” life) by posting it on Twitter/X and tagging me and Dynasty Owner, or posting about it on Facebook, Instagram or Reddit. It would be great if you could also please comment in all of those places when this article is published and let everyone know if you like, or dislike, my weekly recommendations, or think you can do better. You can even agree and like the article on any of those social media platforms as well. We appreciate the feedback from our fellow Dynasty Owners.

The Week 12 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). The Livestream is taking the week off since both Tim and I will be with our families at the usual time on Thursday for Thanksgiving. Hope the same is true for all of you as well. If you want to see us, then stop over for dinner. If that’s not possible, then go ahead and watch an old episode on the Dynasty Owner YouTube channel. Thanks for reading and have a great Thanksgiving holiday!

Steven Van Tassell is the Head of Content for Dynasty Owner

Free Agent Targets – Week 12

By: Jay Pounds (@jaypoundsnfl)

Dynasty Owners, it is your favorite time of the week again! Time spent with yours truly is always a special experience I am sure! We have a lot to talk about today so let’s get right into Jay’s weekly recap. In Week 11, we did not see the usual craziness though there are some things we need to talk about. If you remember back to last week, I included my list of coaches I felt would be replaced and while he was not included, I must admit former Buckeye Mike Vrabel is dangerously close to joining the list. I do firmly believe Vrabel would have another coaching job within a week of being let go, but it is a real possibility Titans fans should be bracing for at season’s end should the Titans not start playing better in the coming weeks.

While we did not have many, let’s take a look at a few surprises from Week 11. The biggest upset of the week was none other than the Browns beating my Steelers with a rookie quarterback at the helm who only managed to muster up a total of 185 yards, scored zero touchdowns, and threw an interception (7.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points). If you remember back to the recent Dynasty Owner Livestream Steve Van Tassell and I did together you will remember me saying the Steelers lose games they should win all the time with Mike Tomlin as head coach, and this is a prime example. The Steelers need to fire Matt Canada immediately and at this point I would be alright if they gave Tomlin the boot too. Sure, he has never had a losing season, but I am also sick of picking 15-20 in the NFL Draft every year. The fact that Tomlin has stuck by Matt Canada for so long is extremely worrisome as a Steelers fan. I hope I am being dramatic, but I am dumbfounded as to why Canada is still allowed in the Steelers facility. Who knows, maybe he saves his best 3-yard bubble screen play call for when he needs to sneak past security to get in the building. (Editor’s note: Jay submitted this article prior to the news about Matt Canada’s firing. Despite multiple attempts to reach him, I can only assume that he heard the news and has been celebrating non-stop since and was unable to update the article himself.)

While I am not sure I would call this game a true upset, it is a game that I fully expected one team to win despite not trusting the coach at all. Do you know what game I am talking about? If you guessed the Chargers versus the Packers, congrats, you nailed it. The Chargers let this game and likely their playoff hopes slip away to a Packers team that has struggled to win football games all season long. What makes this loss even worse is the fact that Justin Herbert had a good game, and the Chargers still found a way to lose. Brandon Staley should have been fired a long time ago, but as always, he’ll be back on the sidelines for the Chargers in Week 12.

If you are new to this series of articles, there is a small list of requirements, with the main one being that the player must be 80% rostered or below in Dynasty Owner. The only other requirement I have is that I would like the player to have a salary of $8,000,000 or less, but I will put a higher salary player on the list if I feel they are worth it. Free Agent Auction bids will process on Wednesday at 5 AM (Eastern) for this upcoming week, so there’s still time to get your bids in for Week 12. The Bid listed below is my recommended amount to secure the player for your Dynasty Owner team in the Wednesday Free Agent Auction run in a typical Dynasty Owner league.

Tommy DeVito (QB – NYG) – 1 year/$901,667 – 74.33% Rostered

In all seriousness, was there a bigger surprise in Week 11 than Tommy DeVito? I know DeVito’s numbers won’t blow anyone away but when you look at the fact, he was sacked a total of 9 times on Sunday, it makes what he was able to do that much more impressive. In Week 11, DeVito finished the day completing 18 passes for 246 yards and 3 touchdowns, while adding just 7 rushing yards for 31.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. What stood out to me much more than DeVito’s numbers is the fact he did all of his damage with his arm whereas I was expecting a quarterback who would try to win by beating opponents with athleticism and making throws only when necessary. My big worry with DeVito is the fact that the Giants offensive line is hardly replacement level and Week 11 was the ceiling and then some for DeVito in his current situation. Regardless of what happens the rest of this season, DeVito led an NFL team to victory, and no one can take that away from him. If you are after DeVito, be prepared to bid a little higher than usual as there will be Dynasty Owners after him with such a productive week now in the books. Then again, it was against the lowly Commanders who are now 0-2 against the Giants this season.

Bid – $8,000,000

2.Tim Boyle (QB – NYJ) – 1 year/$1,155,000 – 0.77% Rostered

I must say I am no Tim Boyle truther, fan boy, or anything else you would like to call it, but I do believe in Lions’ head coach Dan Campbell. You may be asking what in the world Dan Cambell has to do with anything and rest assured I will explain. Cambell and the entire Lions’ front office loved the talent of Boyle, and one point Boyle was looked at as the backup plan for Jared Goff ($33,500,000), though we all know how that turned out. I know this is far fetched thinking but sometimes that is what you need to hit on lottery tickets via the Free Agent Auction. I also would like to acknowledge that you should take this with a grain of salt as Boyle has struggled when he has seen game action during his short career. However, with nearly a full week of preparation and some added confidence from his teammates, Boyle may surprise some of us when the Jets hit the field on Black Friday.

Bid – $4,000,000

3.Jake Browning (QB – CIN) – 1 year/$750,000 – 12.64% Rostered

Even as a Steelers fan this one sucks to write. I know I am supposed to hate the other quarterbacks in the AFC North, but I just can’t bring myself to hate on Joe Burrow ($9,047,534). No, it’s not just because he played for Ohio State as I am a huge fan of Ravens’ quarterback Lamar Jackson ($52,000,000) as well. Now that I have that out of the way let’s talk about the former Washington product who will be taking over for the Bengals, Jake Browning. Browning had never seen meaningful regular season game action in his career before Week 11 and I must say he handled it better than I expected. In relief of Burrow, Browning was able to find the end zone once while throwing for 68 yards on 8 completions and rush 5 times for 39 yards (13.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points). Good or bad, the Bengals seem content letting Browning run the show for the rest of 2023 and with an extremely low salary of $750,000, he is a must add for anyone in need of a starting quarterback at this point in the season.

Bid – $3,000,000

4.Joe Flacco (QB – CLE) – 1 year/$3,500,000 – 0.38% Rostered

I really should have changed the name of this article to Quarterback Free Agent Auction or something along those lines. Do any of you remember a week when so many cheap quarterbacks with potential to start the rest of season were available in the Free Agent Auction? I certainly do not. While it may be Week 13 or 14 before we see Joe Flacco take over the starting QB spot in Cleveland, I am hearing it is only a matter of time with the Browns squarely in the thick of the playoff race. The Browns have somehow managed to win football games despite atrocious play from veteran quarterback P.J. Walker ($2,075,000) and rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson ($1,045,568) but that certainly won’t last forever. The Browns currently have one of, if not the best defense in the NFL, and desperately need a veteran quarterback who won’t lose them games. That is where Joe Flacco comes into play. Could we see another appearance of Playoff Flacco? I know none of this will help out your Dynasty Owner team right now, but a player needs an opportunity before he can provide you with production. If you are going to go after Flacco and commit to fitting his current salary of $3,500,000 under your salary cap, I highly recommend doing so now as he will only cost more Dynasty Dollars if you wait until he is named the starter in Cleveland.

Bid – $2,000,000

5.Greg Dortch (WR – ARI) – 1 year/$1,010,000 – 69.73% Rostered

Well folks, Kyler Murray ($46,100,000) came back into the fantasy picture and subsequently so did Greg Dortch. We have seen this before with Dortch and Murray though it has been quite some time with Murray being injured for the final few games of last season and not playing until Week 10 this year. Dortch does come with quite a bit of concern due to the amount of talent that is technically ahead of him on the depth chart, but the one thing that is and will continue working in the favor of Dortch is the fact he has undeniable chemistry with the Cardinals’ star quarterback. In Week 11, Dortch was able to haul in 6 catches for 76 yards (and 26 return yards), in route to a 14.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy point week. If Dortch and Murray keep this up, Dortch could be a great sneaky play the rest of the season.

Bid – $3,000,000

Tyler Conklin (TE – NYJ) – 2 years/$6,750,000 – 57.47% Rostered

Due to the unbelievable number of quarterbacks on this list I am throwing in a bonus player! I have had Tyler Conklin on this list on a few different occasions this season and despite Conklin not having his best game in Week 11, I am more optimistic about him than I have been thus far. Quarterback Zach Wilson ($8,787,670) is finally being benched in favor of a veteran option in Tim Boyle and it can only mean more opportunities for any player who catches passes in the Jets’ offense. If the passing game improves even slightly, Conklin could be a sneaky option for Dynasty Owners the rest of the way, especially as a Bench player come playoff time. Another positive working in Conklin’s favor is the fact the Jets still have Trevor Siemian ($1,317,500) waiting if Boyle happens to play poorly.

Bid – $2,000,000

NFL Week 11 Preview

Quarterbacks

By Steven Van Tassell (@SteveVT33)

Quarterbacks are always a good fantasy football and real NFL football story. They are the most important players on the field and in Dynasty Owner, they are given their proper due. The Dynasty Owner scoring system gives six points per passing TD and .1 point per every two passing yards. That’s higher than most fantasy football leagues as it’s typically only four points per passing TD and 1 point for every 25 passing yards. To me, it makes more sense to give QBs more points as they are the focal point of the offense for pretty much every NFL team and NFL teams live and die by the performances of their QBs.

It’s getting to a point now in the NFL where it’s the QB Haves and the Have Nots. The Haves have a good QB and a winning record (11 teams) while the Have Nots don’t have a good QB and also have a losing record (8 teams). You may not completely agree if I listed all of the teams, but there are 19 in total and over half of the league. Only two teams have a .500 or below record and a good QB. Buffalo has Josh Allen ($43,005,667) who is still ranked as QB1 in Dynasty Owner and in the top three in most other scoring systems, but only a 5-5 record and the 4-5 Los Angeles Chargers who have Justin Herbert ($6,644,689), the QB3 in Dynasty Owner and elsewhere. Three teams have a bad QB and a winning record (Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Seattle). Out of the three QBs, Geno Smith ($25,000,000) is the highest ranked at QB18. If you only take the five full games that he has played in, Deshaun Watson ($46,000,000) has scored 105.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in total (21.1 per game). That projects to 189.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in nine games, which would put him at QB15 for the entire season. The combined Cleveland QB situation is bad and getting worse with Watson now on Injured Reserve and Dorian Thompson-Robinson ($1,045,568) getting the Week 11 start over P.J. Walker ($2,075,000), even though the Browns are 6-3.

There are a few teams in the middle who either have a bad record and have played a QBs at much different levels in Justin Fields ($4,717,989) and Tyson Bagent ($906,667) for Chicago, have a .500 record and a middle of the road QB such as Derek Carr ($37,500,000) for New Orleans. or a below .500 record but a QB who is playing well, but I can’t classify as Good just yet (Washington). It’s difficult to judge Sam Howell ($1,005,400) even though he is QB6 in Dynasty Owner. However, I’m not sure we can call him a good QB yet.

Finally, at the bottom, we have eight teams with losing records and bad QBs. Bryce Young ($9,488,768) is a bad QB nine games into his rookie season as QB27 in Dynasty Owner. It doesn’t mean that he’ll be a bad QB forever. However, he’s been bad this year so far. Others like Zach Wilson ($8,787,670) or Daniel Jones ($40,000,000) have been bad QBs for a while with an occasional flash of goodness and have steered their teams into losing records so far. While it’s true that Wilson was a backup at the start of the season, having a good backup QB, like Joshua Dobbs ($2,000,000) can keep a team with playoff aspirations in the hunt as he’s done for the Vikings or at least at .500 like Gardner Minshew ($3,500,000) is doing for the Colts. Minshew and the Colts are on bye this week. This is not a week that Dynasty Owner have to worry about QBs on bye as Minshew and Derek Carr are the top QBs with a bye this week.

In Dynasty Owner, having a top scoring QB can really help your team. With higher points for yards and TDs plus bonus points, a QB who has an excellent week can score around 40% more points in Dynasty Owner than the typical scoring system outlined earlier (4 point per passing TD and 1 point for every 25 passing yards). A quarterback who throws for 300 yards and 2 TDs would score 28.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, but only 20.0 points in a typical scoring system. That’s 40% more points. Last week, several of the top QBs had 300 passing yards and 3-4 passing TDs and all of them scored about 35% more points in Dynasty Owner than elsewhere. The advantage is lowered for running QBs as all rushing TDs are scored the same (6.0 points) and rushing yards are .1 point for every yard. Kyler Murray ($46,100,000) had 249 passing yards, 33 rushing yards, 1 rushing TD and 1 INT for 18.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. That was only 8.3% more points than in a typical scoring system (17.26 points). The low-end QBs who aren’t throwing for a lot of yards and passing TDs, or who are turnover prone and lose points, tend to only score about 10% more points in Dynasty Owner.

Find out later on which QB and player at the other positions (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 Josh Allen who is the top scoring QB and player in Dynasty Owner. 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.

Any salaries, ADPs and roster percentages listed were current as of the morning of November 16th. 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 11, let’s look at Week 10 and announce the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week. He’s the fourth different QB to win this award, another first time winner this season, but also won the first Player of the Week award back in 2019. The Dynasty Owner Player of the Week is Dak Prescott.

Dak Prescott ($40,000,000) was the highest scoring QB and player in Dynasty Owner this week with 52.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (404 passing yards, 17 rushing yards, 5 TDs, 1 INT). If you had a more “traditional” regular fantasy football scoring system that suppressed QB scoring, he wouldn’t have been at the top. In fact, he would have been in third place with 37.86 points behind both Keenan Allen ($20,025,000) who had 40.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (11 receptions, 175 receiving yards, 2 TDs) and CeeDee Lamb who had 39.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (11 receptions, 151 receiving yards, 14 rushing yards, 2 TDs).

In Dynasty Owner, Dak was a runaway winner, the only player to score more than 50.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and had over a dozen (12.4) more Dynasty Owner fantasy points than Allen. While it was his first win of 2023, he has won this award every year in Dynasty Owner history except last year. Only Patrick Mahomes has one win per season and just Mahomes and Josh Allen have more Player of the Week wins than Dak does. Not surprisingly, QBs have won this award half of the time in 2023, and a majority of the time in Dynasty Owner history.

Week 10 Points: 52.9

2023 Salary: $40,000,000

Cost per Point: $756,144

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. Quarterbacks are far less likely to be the Value Player of the Week than Player of the Week and in addition, there have only been five different winners of the Value Player of the Week this season. This week, we have another repeat winner and the second player to win three Value Player of the Week awards this season. Once again, the winner is Brock Purdy.

I’m assuming that Brock Purdy ($934,252) and Puka Nacua ($1,021,244) got tired of seeing someone win the last two Value Player of the Week awards and that Purdy had to take matters into his own hands since Nacua was on bye. Purdy had a great performance after three straight average games and his Week 10 bye and scored 32.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (296 passing yards, 3 TDs) In fact, Purdy was outscored by another low-salary QB, but Sam Howell only had 0.5 more Dynasty Owner fantasy points at 33.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (312 passing yards, 17 rushing yards, 3 TDs, 1 fumble – lost) and a slightly higher cost per point ($1,709) because he makes $71,148 more than Purdy. Having two QBs battle it out for Value Player of the Week is unusual as there have only been six different QBs to win this award at all in Dynasty Owner history and Purdy is the only one to win it multiple times.

Week 10 Points: 32.8

2023 Salary: $934,252

Cost per Point: $28,483

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, see how they did (Good, Bad or Just Ok), and give a recap. Unfortunately, it’s not a good recap this week.

QB: Taylor Heinicke ($7,000,000) – 12.1 (Bad recommendation)

RB: Ezekiel Elliott ($3,000,000) – 10.8 (Just Ok recommendation)

WR: Kyle Philips ($993,331) – 9.1 (Just Ok recommendation)

TE: Gerald Everett ($6,000,000) – 0.0 (Bad recommendation)

Both Bad recommendations saw the recommended player suffer an injury. It was the first time this season that two recommended players had gotten hurt in the same week. Gerald Everett got through the first half, but suffered a back injury early in the second half after being targeted only twice and catching neither pass. He ended his day by giving his Dynasty Owners a Blutarsky (0.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points). It was the third Blutarsky by a recommended Starting TE this season. Heinicke had a decent chance to be a Good recommendation before he left the Falcons’ game at the start of the fourth quarter with a hamstring injury after scoring 12.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (55 passing yards, 34 rushing yards, 1 TD). Everett would have likely gotten more opportunities as the Chargers scored 38 points in their loss to the Lions.

Both Ezekiel Elliott and Kyle Philips were on the wrong side of the low-end Starter/high-end Bench player line, so while their recommendations weren’t Bad, they weren’t Good either. Elliott had 10.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (54 rushing yards, 2 receptions, 34 receiving yards) and was near the bottom of low-end FLEX position players. Philips was the Titans’ leading receiver, but had 9.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (3 receptions for 61 receiving yards) and fell a little bit below the line.

Depending on whether you focus on the Good recommendations or minimizing the Bad recommendations, it wasn’t a solid week. It was the first time this season that I failed to have a single Good recommendation. However, there have been four weeks with more Bad recommendations than the two I had in Week 10. Either way, it’s time to have some Good recommendations, starting at QB.

Jordan Love (QB – GB): Every QB outside of the top 12 is in theory available for me to use this week as no top 12 QBs are either injured or on bye. That would include three second round Dynasty Owner startup draft picks who were all drafted before their current QB ranking right now. Joe Burrow ($9,047,534) was ADP 14.8 but is ranked as QB17 right now, Trevor Lawrence ($9,198,372) was ADP 18.8 but is ranked as QB20 right now, and Justin Fields who is returning from missing the past four games with an injury, was ADP 21.1 but is ranked as QB23 right now. I’m going to pick none of them though.

Instead, I’ll take Jordan Love ($3,095,863) and hope he can do what almost every QB has done this year against the Chargers, which is throw for 250 or more yards and at least 1 TD. All nine QBs have thrown for over 200 yards against the Chargers defense and they are allowing QBs to throw for an average of 315.7 passing yards per game. They are the only team allowing more than 300 passing yards per game on average. Love has five games with 20.0 or more Dynasty Owner fantasy points, and this looks like a good week for him to put up his sixth. With all of the top 12 QBs in action, Love isn’t likely to be a top 5 QB this week, but I do think he’ll score more Dynasty Owner fantasy points than a couple of those top 12 QBs and be worth having in your Starting lineup.

Devin Singletary (RB – HOU): I was shocked to see that Devin Singletary ($2,750,000) was still only ranked as RB41 after his 25.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy point (150 rushing yards, 1 reception, 11 receiving yards, 1 TD) outing against the Bengals last week. It’s getting harder now to jump the rankings with a single good game and that’s all that Singletary really has this year. Prior to last week, he was averaging just 5.34 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game (42.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in eight games). However, with no Dameon Pierce ($1,118,858) last week, Singletary was able to have his best game of the season while QB C.J. Stroud ($9,069,811) and Texans’ passing offense continued to put his big numbers as well.

Not sure right now if Pierce is in or out, but with the Texans playing an Arizona defense that is allowing over 100 rushing yards per game (110.7) to RBs plus 4.9 receptions per game and 30.0 receiving yards per game and 14 overall TDs (10 rushing and 4 receiving), there might be room for both of them to do well. Singletary seems likely to have the most opportunities in Week 11 and be worth having in your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup.

Jahan Dotson (WR – WAS): It seems pretty risky to take a player like Jahan Dotson ($3,762,090) who already has two Blutarskys (0.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points) this season, including one last week. In those two games, he had a combined three targets, but follow my logic on this. He also had two Starting lineup worthy games in between those Blutarskys with 24.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 8 versus Philadelphia and 16.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 9 versus New England. In those two games, he had 10 and 8 targets respectively. In the three games between the Blutarskys, he has averaged 17.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and 8.67 targets per game. So, he’s basically Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

How do I know that he’s going to be the good Jahan Dotson this week? Well, first of all, the Giants pass defense isn’t very good. They have given up the second most yards and third most receptions to WRs this season. Second, his QB Sam Howell leads the NFL with 2,783 passing yards. Third, he has played very well in three games against NFC East opponents this season with 46.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (15.6 points per game). Three of his four best games have been against the Giants in Week 7 with 9.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (5 receptions for 43 receiving yards) and two games versus the Eagles. Finally, he has a great track record against the Giants. In three career games against them, he has been targeted 23 times and compiled 14 receptions for 202 receiving yards and 2 TDs (46.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points), or an average of 15.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game.

All of that leads me to believe that the good Dr. Jekyll version of Jahan Dotson will show up in Week 11. That guy can be inserted into your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup.

Michael Mayer (TE – LV): For the season, Michael Mayer ($2,328,412) is the TE31 with 41.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, an average of 4.18 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game. However, since Week 5 when he finally started getting more snaps than fellow Raiders TE Austin Hooper ($2,750,000), he has scored 38.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (6.43 points per game). Those numbers get slightly higher when we look at the last two games with new coach Antonio Pierce and Aidan O’Connell ($1,087,345) as the Raiders starting QB with 10.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (3 receptions, 19 receiving yards, 1 TD) last week against the Jets.

The Raiders travel to Miami this week to face the Dolphins, who are in the bottom half of the NFL in all of the relevant metrics (targets, receptions, receiving yards, TDs) allowed to TEs per game. Their averages are 7.33 targets, 5.78 receptions and 56.6 receiving yards allowed. Because the Dolphins average a NFL best 31.7 points per game and have scored over 30 points five times this season, the Raiders are likely going to have to air it out to have any chance to keep the game close, never mind try to win. That means more pass attempts for O’Connell and likely more targets for Mayer. Both times that Mayer has gotten five or more targets, he has scored double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points (12.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 5 versus New England and 10.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 10 versus the New York Jets).

With success against other AFC East opponents, a team that gives up receptions and yards to TEs, a likely need to score a lot of points and throw the ball a lot, there are many good reasons to think Mayer can hit double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points for the third time this season. If he does, he’ll be worth having in your Dynasty Owner 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 10 worked out (Good, Bad or Just Ok). Unfortunately, they were even worse than the Starting lineup recommendations.

QB: Dak Prescott ($40,000,000) – 52.9 (Bad recommendation)

RB: Alvin Kamara ($15,000,000) – 18.5 (Bad recommendation)

WR: Davante Adams ($28,000,000) – 14.6 (Bad recommendation)

TE: Cole Kmet ($1,894,445) – 9.6 (Bad recommendation)

It’s never good when the number of Dynasty Owner fantasy points for the Bench recommendations are larger than those for the Starting lineup recommendations, so let’s not sugarcoat this. All of my Bench recommendations last week were Bad. We’ll start from the worst of the worst which came at QB as I recommended putting Dak Prescott on your Bench. You may recall that he was the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week with 52.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Sorry if I believed Cowboys’ coach Mike McCarthy who said that he wanted to “run the damn ball” more this season after taking over play calling duties and thought it would happen against the Giants. Next up was the Alvin Kamara recommendation. He didn’t score a TD or a red zone touch, but did have two 2-pt. conversion runs among his 18.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (42 rushing yards, 7 receptions, 33 receiving yards, 2 2-pt. conversions). He was a low-end RB1 last week, not the overall #1 player at his position like Dak, but still a Bad recommendation.

The other two recommendations were Bad, but not by much. Davante Adams had 14.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (6 receptions for 86 receiving yards) but had to get 13 targets to get there. Still, he was safely in the top 24 WRs so the recommendation to Bench him was Bad. Cole Kmet also barely did enough to crack the top 12 TEs and be a Bad recommendation with 9.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (5 receptions, 45 receiving yards, 1 rushing yard).

It can’t get worse than four Bad recommendations, so there’s nowhere to go but up with these Week 11 Bench recommendations.

Jalen Hurts (QB – PHI): With all top 12 Dynasty Owner QBs playing this week, there’s no easy road to take with this pick. So, I’ll pick the QB playing the best defense and hope it works out. I realize that it’s not a great strategy, but I’ve got to make a pick here.

Only one of the four teams (Browns, Chiefs, Cowboys, Ravens) allowing less than 300 yards per game of total offense, 200 yards per game passing and fewer than 20.0 points per game is playing a top 12 QB. That’s how Jalen Hurts ($1,506,293) ends up as the pick this week.

Hurts scored 46.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (304 passing yards, 70 rushing yards, 4 TDs, 1 2-pt. conversion, 1 fumble – lost) in the Super Bowl loss to the Chiefs, but the Eagles did score 35 points in that game. However, the Chiefs defense is much improved this season as witnessed by the fact that they are allowing only 288.2 yards of total offense, 176.0 passing yards and 15.9 points per game this season. They have also not allowed a rushing TD by a QB so far and you’ll recall Hurts had three of those in the Super Bowl.

While he’s my Bench QB recommendation and I’m standing by it, don’t take it literally. If all you have besides Hurts is one of the bad QBs discussed at the beginning, then don’t Bench Hurts, just temper your expectations. However, some Dynasty Owners have the luxury of a high-salary, great QB paired with Hurts and should start that QB and leave Hurts on their Bench.

Isiah Pacheco (RB – KC): The Eagles have the best rushing defense in the NFL and allow only 66.3 rushing yards per game. That average drops to 52.8 rushing yards per game allowed to RBs. Therefore, as the Chiefs’ main ball carrier, Isaih Pacheco ($934,777) will be impacted the most.

Pacheco splits the RB receiving work for the Chiefs, mainly with Jerick McKinnon ($1,317,500), but even then Pacheco does most of his damage running the ball. Over 60% of his Dynasty Owner fantasy points (72.5 out of 118.5) come from running the ball. With that likely limited, I’m not sure Pacheco will get enough targets and receptions to offset the loss of rushing yards. He’s only averaging 3.1 targets and 2.7 receptions for 17.8 receiving yards per game.

If the Chiefs mainly throw the ball against the Eagles, the passes from Patrick Mahomes will most likely go in Travis Kelce’s ($14,312,500) direction and also be spread around to one of the team’s half-dozen WRs. Pacheco has only scored 6.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and 6.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in his past two games, so he’s also in a little bit of a down period. I’m expecting a similar game this week so put Pacheco on your Dynasty Owner Bench and hope that you have enough points to win your matchup before the Chiefs-Eagles game on Monday night.

Gabriel Davis (WR – BUF): Gabirel Davis ($998,595) is as likely to score more than 20.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points as he is to score less than 3.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. He has done each one three times this year with four games in between. If you go back and include last year, it’s five times for each. Which Davis is going to show up this week against the Jets?

One thing that could change matters is if the Buffalo offense looks different with Joe Brady as the offensive coordinator. However, it won’t change the fact that the Jets pass defense has stymied Davis in six out of seven games against them, all with Josh Allen as his QB. Only once back in 2021 has Davis scored double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points against the Jets. This year, he had just 5.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (2 receptions, 32 receiving yards) in Week 1, a game in which I recommended that Dynasty Owners who drafted Davis (2023 startup ADP 96.2) keep him on their Bench. Davis’s average against the Jets for his career is a meager 6.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game.

Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Davis’s history shows that he doesn’t play well against the Jets. I already picked it correctly once this year and hope to go two for two by recommending that Dynasty Owners leave Davis on their Bench this week.

Evan Engram (TE – JAC): Volume is why Evan Engram ($13,750,000) is TE9 and has scored 95.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points so far this season. He is averaging less than 10 yards per reception and his 8.1 yards per reception average is the worst of his career and 2.3 yards below his career average. In fact, he hasn’t averaged 10 yards per reception in any single game this season. He also doesn’t have a TD after scoring four last year. What he does have is a lot of targets from QB Trevor Lawrence.

Engram has been targeted 68 times in nine games played (7.6 targets per game) and no fewer than the five targets he got in Week 1. Since then, it’s either 7 or 8 targets per game with one game of 10 targets back in Week 8 before the Jaguars’ bye.

We are going to likely find out this week against Tennessee what happens when that volume disappears as the Titans are allowing TEs to average 5.1 targets per game for 3.9 receptions and 39.9 receiving yards per game. The top scoring game by a TE against Tennessee this year is 10.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (4 receptions for 69 receiving yards) by Mark Andrews ($14,000,000). He’s the only TE to reach double-digits. I don’t think Engram will be the second one so keep him safely on your Dynasty Owner Bench this week.

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 11. In addition to having a bonus sixth player with two players at 5a and 5b, Jay also gave us a list of NFL head coaches on the hot seat. He did not foresee Buffalo firing offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey a mere couple of hours after finishing up his article though.

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 11 Roster %	Current Roster %	Change
Noah Brown	WR	HOU	$2,600,000	56.32%	78.93%	22.61%
Tommy DeVito	QB	NYG	$901,667	58.62%	68.97%	10.35%
Jalen Guyton	WR	LAC	$1,232,500	15.33%	32.18%	16.85%
Brandon Powell	WR	MIN	$1,232,500	39.08%	39.08%	0.00%
Jameis Winston	QB	NO	$4,000,000	35.25%	39.85%	4.60%
Royce Freeman	RB	LAR	$1,080,000	70.11%	72.03%	1.92%

Definitely not as many people venturing to the Free Agent Auction this week based on these top targets. Only Noah Brown was picked up in more than 20 percentage points worth of Dynasty Owner leagues and the Dynasty Owners who did it were a week late as they missed his 24.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (7 receptions for 172 receiving yards) effort. There’s still time as he’s available in about one-fifth (21.07%) of Dynasty Owner leagues.

There are more than twice as many Dynasty Owners with Jalen Guyton on their team now than last week as his roster percentage jumped from 15.33% to 32.18%. Giants QB Tommy DeVito also had his roster percentage go up by double-digits points (10.35%) with his overall roster percentage almost at 70%.

The other three players had increases of less than five percentage points. Brandon Powell saw his roster percentage stay steady at just under two-fifths (39.08%), but there is no way for me to tell how many times he was added or dropped. Royce Freeman creeped up a little bit again this week after dropping slightly last week so he’s now at the same roster percentage (72.03%) as he was last week before the Rams’ bye. Finally, because it’s unclear how hurt Derek Carr is or maybe Dynasty Owners are shy about picking up Jameis Winston after what happened earlier in the year when he replaced Carr during a game, then Carr played the following week. It also may have to do with the fact that the Saints have a Week 11 bye and Dynasty Owners are more focused on QBs who might play this week than one who definitely isn’t. Regardless of the reasons, Winston’s roster percentage increased by less than five percentage points.

Happy bidding and hope everyone didn’t have to scramble too much and got who they wanted in the Free Agent Auction this week.

Chase for the Ring Leaderboard

The Chase for the Ring is turning into a two-team race with The Road Warriors in League #27449 in the lead with 1839.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. They are trailed by Bastedos in League #28280 who have scored 1783.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. The teams in third place and beyond are over 150.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points behind The Road Warriors and nearly 100.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points behind Bastedos. However, both teams need to keep scoring points and win their League Championship or another name will be on top after the playoffs are over.

Conclusion

Hopefully you have at least one of the top quarterbacks on your Dynasty Owner team. If not, this could be your last chance to make a move that can catapult your team into the playoffs. Otherwise, you might have to work on rebuilding instead of trying to make the playoffs. I have one team with five underachieving or rookie QBs and it’s mired in eighth place, having scored the second fewest points by a team in the league, but somehow still on the edge of the playoff hunt with a 4-6 record. Anything can happen so don’t forget to make those Free Agent Auction bid, offer a trade to another team and do whatever it takes to turn your season around before it’s officially too late.

Did you notice how many different QBs I mentioned in this article and how many QB/quarterback references there were? Add them up and let me (and your fellow Dynasty Owners) know the answer by posting it on Twitter/X and tagging me and Dynasty Owner, or posting about it on Facebook, Instagram or Reddit. It would be great if you could also please comment in all of those places when this article is published and let everyone know if you like, or dislike, my weekly recommendations, or think you can do better. You can even agree and like the article on any of those social media platforms as well. We appreciate the feedback from our fellow Dynasty Owners.

The Week 11 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). The Livestream is back to normal with Dynasty Owner CEO Tim Peffer quarterbacking it this week at 4 PM (Eastern). Come join us at that time or watch it later on the Dynasty Owner YouTube channel. Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Steven Van Tassell is the Head of Content for Dynasty Owner

Free Agent Targets – Week 11

By: Jay Pounds (@jaypoundsnfl)

Dynasty Owners, welcome back to another round of Jay’s Free Agent Auction targets! Week 10 was a wild one with six games ending in walk-off field goals with no time remaining, a new NFL record and also a Dynasty Owner clutch scoring event worth an extra 3.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. The NFL has always wanted a close and competitive league and they finally have it in the year 2023. The NFL has seen a ton of close games this season and speaking strictly as a fan of the sport, I have to say it is a lot of fun to watch.

While we are on the subject, let’s look at some of the craziness that happened in Week 10! I usually dedicate a small piece of my articles to pick on the Browns, but this week is different. The Browns overcame a huge deficit against the Ravens who have been one of the best teams in the NFL up to this point. Jay’s Silver Lining – while it was an impressive victory for the Browns, their immediate future is concerning. If Deshaun Watson ($46,000,000) is unable to consistently raise his level of play, the Browns are going to be in a lot of trouble as Watson’s contract is too big for the Browns to survive.

In other news, C.J. Stroud ($9,069,811) continues to dominate! Stroud led his team into Paycor Stadium and delivered an impressive game winning drive over the Bengals to put the Texans squarely in the playoff race. I know I am an Ohio State homer, but what Stroud has done with a bad Texans’ roster is extremely impressive. Has Stroud already locked up the Rookie of the Year award? If he plays average football for the remainder of the year, I believe the answer is easily a “Yes”. Heck, he may even be the front runner for the MVP award at the moment.

The last game I wanted to touch on is the 49ers vs. Jaguars. The 49ers have been on a 3-game losing skid but came out and made a statement this past Sunday against the Jaguars. My question for all of you is, are the 49ers a true contender that just had a bad stretch? I believe the answer is a resounding “Yes” simply because they have a capable roster, an excellent head coach and the league’s best running game.

Before we get into what everyone is here for, I wanted to do something fun and look at all the coaches who I think are on the hot seat and believe will be replaced by the end of the season below. The first three may surprise some of you. Let me know who is different on your list!

Bill Belichick – The fairy tale run is over. Maybe most NFL fans (ones outside of Foxboro) will get lucky, and Josh McDaniels is still the succession plan!
Sean McDermott – Outside of the Bills flipping a switch in the coming weeks, I believe McDermott will be gone. Twelve men on the field while the other team misses the game winning FG is inexcusable. Harbaugh to the Bills! Place your bets now.
Mike McCarthy – I know the Cowboys are winning now but I believe McCarthy’s job depends solely on playoff success. Sean Payton is off the market which helps McCarthy’s case, but he must get past the second round of the playoffs. Not to be a Debbie downer, but I would bet good money that does not happen.
Frank Reich – The Panthers had the number 1 pick in 2023 and still look like Matt Rhule is coaching on the sidelines.
Brandon Staley – Do I even need to say anything here? Eric Bieniemy anyone?
Matt Eberflus – Matt Nagy, I mean Eberflus, shouldn’t make it the rest of the year let alone last until 2024, though winning the last two games will likely get him through the season.
Ron Rivera – I still love Rivera as a coach, but I believe his days are numbered in Washington if he doesn’t finish over .500. New ownership will likely want “their” guy. Riverboat Ron will probably end up turning into Retiring Ron.
Antonio Pierce – I know the players seem to love him, but Mark Davis has shown time and time again he wants the big-name coach. The one thing that could work in Pierces favor is the fact Davis probably regrets not hiring Rich Bisaccia a couple of years back. Let’s go full circle and say Bill Belichick to the Raiders!

If you are new to this series of articles, there is a small list of requirements, with the main one being that the player must be 80% rostered or below in Dynasty Owner. The only other requirement I have is that I would like the player to have a salary of $8,000,000 or less, but I will put a higher salary player on the list if I feel they are worth it. Free Agent Auction bids will process on Wednesday at 5 AM (Eastern) for this upcoming week, so there’s still time to get your bids in for Week 10. The Bid listed below is my recommended amount to secure the player for your Dynasty Owner team in the Wednesday Free Agent Auction run in a typical Dynasty Owner league.

Noah Brown (WR – HOU) – 1 year/$2,600,000 – 56.32% Rostered

I think Noah Brown’s last two weeks speak for themselves, but allow me to convince you if you will. In Week 10, Brown kept his hot streak going with another massive performance, catching 7 of 8 targets for 172 yards (24.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points) after catching 6 passes for 153 yards and a touchdown (27.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points) in Week 9. The big worry with Brown is the fact his teammate Nico Collins ($1,217,879) will soon return from injury but with the way Brown has played over the past two weeks I am expecting C.J. Stroud to look Brown’s way early and often regardless of who else is on the field. I am not saying he is a lock for your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup just yet, but if he is able to have a big week when Collins is back it will be time to have that conversation. I assure you this is your last opportunity to add Noah Brown to your roster! Is Noah Brown for real or is he the next Travis Fulgham ($895,000)? Let me know your thoughts on Twitter/X.

Bid – $7,000,000

2.Tommy DeVito (QB – NYG) – 1 year/$901,667 – 58.62% Rostered

I know this is an ugly one but hear me out, Tommy DeVito put up 17.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 10. DeVito did not look good throwing the ball though he did find the end zone twice and showed good athleticism running the ball for 41 yards on just 7 carries. DeVito’s final stat line will scare some away as he threw for less than 100 yards, but he was also facing the best defense he will see the rest of the season. A mix of confidence, easier competition and opportunity should make DeVito a decent Bench option for many Dynasty Owners. The quarterback position is extremely beat up right now and DeVito will at least provide relief for some. Outside of an unexpected injury, we won’t see another permanent starter at the quarterback position on this list for the rest of the season.

Bid – $3,000,000

3.Jalen Guyton (WR – LAC) – 1 year/$1,232,500 – 15.33% Rostered

Well, someone has to do something opposite of Keenan Allen ($20,025,000). In Week 11, both Quentin Johnston ($3,547,195) and Jalen Guyton stepped up for the Chargers but only Guyton is available at all here on Dynasty Owner. Both Mike Williams ($20,000,000) and Josh Palmer ($1,258,110) are stuck on Injured Reserve leaving the number 2 receiver spot opposite Allen wide open. In Week 10, Guyton finished the day with 4 catches for 41 yards and a touchdown (14.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points) and showed he can step up when needed. Can Keenan Allen keep catching 10 passes every game and stay healthy? If the answer is “No”, then Guyton could be a great sneaky play come playoff time, especially on your Bench.

Bid – $3,000,000

4.Brandon Powell (WR – MIN) 1 year/$1,232,500 – 39.08% Rostered

Brandon Powell may be the very definition of a safe low floor player this season. In the past six weeks, he has scored 7.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points or more in four of those weeks. He has also posted 9.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points or more in three of those weeks. In Week 10, Powell posted a stat line of 4 catches for 35 yards plus 12 return yards (7.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points) and seems to have the trust of new quarterback Joshua Dobbs ($2,000,000). Should Justin Jefferson ($3,280,701) and K.J. Osborn ($890,693) return from injury in the coming weeks, Powell will no longer be viable, but with bye weeks still in play and the status for both of those players still up in the air, Powell is a safe pickup for now.

Bid $2,000,000

5a. Jameis Winston (QB – NO) – 1 year/$4,000,000 – 35.25% Rostered

I won’t spend a ton of time here because of recent reports about Derek Carr’s ($37,500,000) injury being positive. Had those reports been worse, Jameis Winston would easily be number 1 on this list. It appears Carr avoided a major injury and may be ready to go after the Saints Week 11 bye, though I would still recommend stashing Winston if you have the roster room and salary cap space available. Winston is still a turnover machine who is not afraid to sling the rock. It may not be good for a real football team, but it sure won’t look all that bad on your Dynasty Owner roster.

Bid – $2,000,000

5b. Royce Freeman (RB – LAR) 1 year/$1,080,000 – 70.11% Rostered

I will make this short and sweet as I wrote about Royce Freeman last week. While this may be Freeman’s final week in a featured role with Kyren Williams ($992,601) returning from injury, it’s still a week with a running back that has a good chance to fall in the end zone. Good luck finding a better option at the position!

Bid – $2,000,000

NFL Week 10 Preview

Scrambling

By Steven Van Tassell (@SteveVT33)

When the 2023 NFL schedule came out and especially after the first couple of weeks of the season, fantasy football managers were looking at this week (Week 10) with a feeling of dread because three high-scoring teams (Chiefs, Dolphins, and Eagles) being on bye. The Rams are also on bye in Week 10 but other than Cooper Kupp ($26,700,000) at the schedule announcement and Puka Nacua ($1,021,244) and Kyren Williams ($992,601) after the first week or two, there weren’t a lot of Rams’ players who people thought they’d really be missing in their lineup. However, I can think of a dozen players on the Chiefs, Dolphins or Eagles who Dynasty Owners would be impacted by them being on bye.

However, at least to me, it felt like Week 9 ended up being a more difficult bye week than Week 10. For all four Week 9 bye teams (49ers, Broncos, Jaguars, Lions), there are five or more highly rostered and relevant Dynasty Owner players per team meaning that there were at least 20 players who needed to be replaced in Starting lineups or Bench spots. That’s compared with about 15 or so players for Week 10.

As a result of this phenomenon plus because of the rash of injuries that I discussed last week, I really had to scramble to find players in multiple Dynasty Owner leagues (and other fantasy football leagues that I’m in on other platforms) to insert into my Week 9 lineups. It meant that I made more Free Agent Auction bids, waiver claims and use more of my Free Agent Acquisition Budget in Week 9 than any other week so far. For Week 9, I made a total of 11 Free Agent Auction bids across all of my Dynasty Owner leagues, including eight on Saturday and Sunday alone. In comparison, I made a total of 22 Free Agent Auction bids in the previous four weeks once NFL bye weeks started and have only made two bids so far in Week 10. I may end up making a couple more Week 10 bids, but it’ll be far fewer than last week.

In addition, some of the Week 9 Free Agent Auction bids seemed pretty desperate, like having to grab Rams QB Brett Rypien ($1,080,000) to fill a Bench QB spot in more than one Dynasty Owner league and in the SuperFlex spot in a non-Dynasty Owner league. I had to bid on Tommy DeVito ($901,667) to replace Rypien in one Dynasty Owner league and didn’t even win as someone else bid $4 million Dynasty Dollars for his services while I only bid $1 million. I went cheap since I’m not sure DeVito will do much against the Cowboys’ defense, so the scrambling for a Bench QB for that team continues. Fortunately, I had Kyler Murray ($46,100,000) coming back in the non-Dynasty Owner league, so I don’t need DeVito there.

I was surprised by how much work I had to do last week to fill out my Dynasty Owner Bench spots with players who at least had a chance to score some points and that I’ve had less work to do (so far) this week. Let me know on Twitter/X which week you’ve had to scramble to fill more Dynasty Owner lineup holes in or if it’s a future week, like Week 13 when six teams (Bills, Bears, Giants, Raiders, Ravens, and Vikings) are on bye.

What I didn’t have to do this week was scramble to get out this weekly preview article and recommendations for a player at each position (QB, RB, WR, TE) who you should have as a Starter in your Dynasty Owner lineup. These won’t be the obvious choices. No recommendation to go ahead and start Josh Allen ($43,005,667) this week as he’s the only player in the top 5 overall scorers who’s not on bye. 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.

Any salaries, ADPs and roster percentages listed were current as of the morning of November 9th. 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 10, let’s look at Week 9 and announce the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week. It’s another first time winner and the second rookie winner this season. It’s not a surprise who won the award this week so I’m not going to drag it out because only one player had over 400 passing yards and more than 3 TDs in Week 9. The Dynasty Owner Player of the Week was C.J. Stroud.

C.J. Stroud ($9,069,811) had a career game in Week 9. And I’m not talking about a career game for a guy who’s NFL career is just eight games. I’m talking about a career game for guys who have played eight years in the NFL. Stroud had the highest scoring game of the 2023 NFL season with 62.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (470 passing yards, 10 rushing yards, 5 TDs, 1 2-pt. conversion, 1 fumble) and the second highest scoring game in Dynasty Owner history. He got 7.0 bonus points with 4.0 points for having over 400 passing yards and 3.0 bonus points for the 15 yard touchdown pass with six seconds left in the Texans’ 39-37 victory over the Buccaneers. His 470 passing yards was the most by a QB so far this season and the most passing yards in a single game by a rookie in NFL history. He was also the first player to have 5 TD passes in a single game during the 2023 season. It was a historical game for Stroud and capped off with the first Dynasty Owner Player of the Week award of his career.

Week 9 Points: 62.5

2023 Salary: $9,069,811

Cost per Point: $145,117

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. In contrast to the Player of the Week award that has been won by a different player every week this year, the Value Player of the Week award had only been won by four players over the first eight weeks of the 2023 season. Make it five now as the player who caught the previously mentioned game-winning 15 yard touchdown pass from C.J. Stroud ended up being the Value Player of the Week for Week 9. That’s right, your winner is Tank Dell.

Slightly overshadowed by Stroud’s performance was the fact that Tank Dell ($1,244,382) had the best game of his rookie season in Week 9 with 33.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (6 receptions, 114 receiving yards, 2 rushing yards, 51 return yards, 2 TDs). Dell did it all, except break a big punt return as I predicted in last week’s article. He did have one punt return for 7 yards and two kickoff returns for a total of 44 yards, so he got an extra 1.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points from return yardage. It was Dell’s third game of the season with more than 20.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. The Houston passing offense was so good that two Texans receivers, Noah Brown ($2,600,000) and Dalton Schultz ($6,250,000), had more receiving yards than Dell, while Schultz also had more receptions. It was the game-winning TD that sealed this award for Dell as it earned him 11.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. There were several other players who had good weeks with low salaries, but none of them were better than Tank Dell who won with the highest salary ever for a Value Player of the Week.

Week 9 Points: 33.9

2023 Salary: $1,244,382

Cost per Point: $36,707

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, see how they did (Good, Bad or Just Ok), and give a recap.

QB: Mac Jones ($3,896,588) – 14.3 (Bad recommendation)

RB: Chuba Hubbard ($1,048,294) – 9.7 (Just Ok recommendation)

WR: Tank Dell ($1,244,382) – 33.9 (Good recommendation)

TE: Cade Otton ($1,123,486) – 25.0 (Good recommendation)

While it wasn’t the four Good recommendations that I was looking for, I managed to have my second best week of the season, behind only Week 1. I had two Good recommendations which included recommending that the Value Player of the Week be in your Starting lineup before he scored the season-high in Dynasty Owner fantasy points for any recommended player. Cade Otton also had a great week with as many TDs as Dell and also a clutch TD reception of 14 yards with 46 seconds left in the Buccaneers loss. Otton finished as TE2 for the week with 25.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (6 receptions, 70 receiving yards, 2 TD, 1 lost fumble). He would have been TE1 without the lost fumble.

On the other hand, we had two non-Good recommendations. Chuba Hubbard was a Just Ok recommendation at RB with 9.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (58 rushing yards, 4 receptions, 9 receiving yards, 1 fumble). That was good enough for a low RB2 finish for the week and a Just Ok recommendation. Not quite enough production to be a Good recommendation because he didn’t get his predicted TD. Even as the volume was there with 20 touches (16 rushing attempts, 4 pass receptions). Finally, we had Mac Jones score just 14.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (220 passing yards, 3 rushing yards, 1 TD, 1 INT) to finish as QB18 in Dynasty Owner for Week 9 and a mid-range Bench QB, so that recommendation was Bad.

Even though I had to scramble for those picks last week, they ended up being pretty good. I’m going to try and do better this week and here are the recommendations of four players who I think should be in your Starting lineup in Week 10.

Taylor Heinicke (QB – ATL): Taylor Heinicke ($7,000,000) may be the player who I’ve recommended the most in these weekly preview articles. As a member of the Washington Football Team/Commanders in 2021 and 2022, I recommended him four times with pretty decent results (2 Good, 1 Just Ok, 1 Bad recommendations). The last time was in Week 8 of the 2022 season, and he rewarded me with a 28.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy point performance and a coveted Good recommendation. That’s not why he’s my pick in Week 10 though.

It’s because while he hasn’t been great, he’s been pretty good and with some of the low-end QBs starting this week for the Bears, Jets, Giants and Raiders and three of the top four QBs on bye – Jalen Hurts ($1,506,293), Patrick Mahomes ($45,000,000) and Tua Tagovailoa ($7,568,859) – all I need Heinicke to be is a little above average. I’m defining that as at least 18.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, which he has achieved in a dozen games during his career. So far, in six quarters of action this year, he has scored 34.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, including 18.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (268 passing yards, 20 rushing yards, 1 TD, 1 INT) last week.

The Falcons travel to Arizona to play the Cardinals in Week 10 and the Cardinals defense has been allowing QBs to play a little above average this season. They have allowed an average of 23.06 Dynasty Owner fantasy points to starting QBs this season and at least 15.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points to all nine starting QBs who have faced them. Heinicke should be able to pull off a slightly above average game and score in the low 20s in Dynasty Owner fantasy points. That’ll be enough to be a top 10 QB this week, so Dynasty Owners should get him in their Starting lineups.

Ezekiel Elliott (RB – NE): I tried to avoid this choice, but didn’t feel like there were many options this week. Many of the teams playing bad run defenses have a solid RB1 who’s firmly in the top 24 RBs. The exception are the Bears who are playing Carolina, but while all three of their primary RBs are ranked outside of the top 40 RBs, I’m not sure if the leader of the Bears’ backfield will be D’Onta Foreman ($2,000,000), Khalil Herbert ($902,677) or Roschon Johnson ($1,152,172), so I’m going to punt on them.

One of the worst run defenses in the NFL is the Indianapolis Colts, as evidenced by my Chuba Hubbard pick here last week, which only worked out Just Ok. However, I’m hanging my hat on the fact that the Colts have allowed 12 TDs to RBs this season and gave up 2 TDs and 18.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points to veteran RB Kareem Hunt ($1,350,000) back in Week 7.

Ezekiel Elliott ($3,000,000) is another veteran RB, but one who has just two TDs all season and only one game with more than 40 rushing yards. His yards per carry is ok at 3.8, but his yards per reception is freakishly low at 4.6 (16 receptions for 74 receiving yards). However, with a multitude of injured WRs, I would expect the Patriots to try and run over the Colts defense and throw checkdown passes to the RBs. That’s good news for Rhamondre Stevenson ($1,057,264) and my desire to have a Patriots player win the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week or Value Player of the Week award sometime this year.

It’s also good news for Dynasty Owners with Elliott on their rosters. Don’t get me wrong, he’s highly unlikely to be Player of the Week, but he has a great chance of scoring a TD and getting enough rushing attempts and targets to exceed his best game so far as a Patriot (11.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points). Be like me and wake up early on Sunday to watch the Patriots and Colts play in Germany and see if this recommendation to put Elliott in your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup is correct.

Kyle Phillips (WR – TEN): The identity of the #2 receiver in Tennessee is a complete mystery. Clearly the #1 receiver is D’Andre Hopkins ($13,000,000). It’s not even close as Hopkins has 29 more targets, 11 more receptions and 340 more receiving yards in 8 games than any other Titans’ receiver.

If you look at draft capital and potential, it’s clearly Treylon Burks ($3,592,398), but he suffered a concussion at the end of the Titans-Steelers Week 9 game and didn’t practice this Wednesday. He’s also only suited up in five games so far and scored just 21.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (8 receptions, 122 receiving yards, 14 rushing yards) on just 18 targets.

Based on season-long data, you could argue that it’s either Nick Westbrook-Ikhine ($1,260,000) or Chigoziem Okonkwo ($1,041,085). Both have played in all eight games, but while Okonkwo has more targets and receptions, Westbrook-Ikhine has scored 3 TDs compared to none for Okonkwo and also has more receiving yards. That means Westbrook-Ikhine has scored 58.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (7.3 points per game) compared to 41.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (5.2 points per game) for Okonkwo.

However, over the past two games with Will Levis ($2,385,542) at QB for the Titans, it’s arguably been Kyle Philips ($993,331). Philips has been targeted 8 times for 16.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in the two games with Levis at QB. That’s more Dynasty Owner fantasy points than any Titans receiver not named D’Andre Hopkins and more targets than any besides Hopkins and Okonkwo.

That’s good enough for me as the Titans face the Buccaneers pass defense that allowed three Houston Texans receivers to have over 100 receiving yards and more than 20.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points last week. It seems likely that at least one Titans’ receiver not named Hopkins will score double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points and be worth having in your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup. My bet is on Kyle Philips.

Gerald Everett (TE – TB): The injuries to Chargers’ receivers continue to mount as Josh Palmer ($1,258,110) just joined Mike Williams ($20,000,000) on Injured Reserve. It’s time for rookie first round NFL Draft pick Quentin Johnston ($3,547,195) to step it up, but through eight games played, he hasn’t done much with just 24 targets (3 per game) and 27.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (3.38 points per game).

Enter Gerald Everett ($6,000,000) who’s also been injured and missed the Chargers’ Week 8 game against the Bears. He hasn’t done a ton this season yet, with just 48.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in seven games played (6.87 points per game) and just two games with barely over 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. However, I think that’s going to change in Week 10 against Detroit.

The Lions are in the top third in receptions, receiving yards and receiving TDs allowed to TEs this season. Back in Week 7, they allowed Mark Andrews to score 22.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (4 receptions, 63 receiving yards, 2 TDs) in admittedly their worst defensive performance of the season. Even with their recent injuries, the Chargers have more offensive firepower than the Ravens, but someone other than Keenan Allen ($20,025,000) and Austin Ekeler ($6,125,000) is going to have to step up to help Justin Herbert ($6,644,689) out. My pick is Everett, so I’m recommending that his Dynasty Owners get him into their Starting lineups this week.

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 9 worked out (Good, Bad or Just Ok).

QB: Tua Tagovailoa ($7,568,859) – 15.3 (Good recommendation)

RB: Alexander Mattison ($3,500,000) – 17.3 (Bad recommendation)

WR: DJ Moore ($20,620,000) – 4.4 (Good recommendation)

TE: Logan Thomas ($8,021,667) – 7.1 (Good recommendation)

This was also my second best week of recommendations. I guess while I was scrambling for players for my own Dynasty Owner teams, I had to look more closely at Week 9 matchups and made some solid Bench recommendations too. Let’s start with the only Bad recommendation. That was Alexander Mattison who was a top 12 RB for Week 9 with 17.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (44 rushing yards, 2 receptions, 49 receiving yards, 1 TD). It was his second best game of the season, and he was helped by the season-ending left Achilles injury to Cam Akers ($1,543,259).

The other three Bench recommendations were Good, and I hope Dynasty Owners with these players heeded my warnings about them. At QB, Tua Tagovailoa was QB17 for the week with just 15.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (193 passing yards, 7 rushing yards, 1 TD, 1 fumble). Logan Thomas was targeted six times, but only caught four of them for 31 receiving yards. His 7.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points was barely enough to make him a Bench TE this week as six TEs had more than 20.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and you needed your TE to score at least 13.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points to have a top 12 performer. Finally, it was another difficult week for DJ Moore without Justin Fields ($4,717,989) at QB. Moore only had 4.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (3 receptions, 44 receiving yards, 1 fumble – lost) and should have probably been on most Dynasty Owners’ Practice Squad.

If I can have another week with three Good Bench recommendations, my Good recommendations record will be at .500 for the season. Here goes with my four recommendations for players to leave on your Dynasty Owner Bench this week.

Dak Prescott (QB – DAL): Dak Prescott has been playing very well recently with 39.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and 38.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in the Cowboys’ two games since their Week 7 bye. He’s moved up to QB10 for the entire 2023 season. Why is he here?

Well, when the Cowboys don’t need Prescott to pass much, they don’t have him pass much. In three blowouts, which I’m defining as a game that the Cowboys won or lost by 30 or more points, Prescott has thrown an average of 27.3 passes for 185.7 passing yards per game. He’s had a total of 31.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (10.47 points per game) in those three games.

This week’s game against the Giants could be as much of a blowout as Week 1 when the Cowboys romped by a final score of 40-0. Especially with Danny DeVito at QB for the Giants. Sorry, I meant to type undrafted rookie free agent Tommy DeVito at QB for the G-Men, not the diminutive comedy actor. I’m not giving the Giants much of a chance at all to score points with DeVito at QB, so there will be little need for Prescott to throw the ball and thus, he won’t accumulate many Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Because of that, I’m recommending that Dynasty Owners leave Prescott on their Bench this week.

Alvin Kamara (RB – NO): Both Alvin Kamara ($15,000,000) and Jamaal Williams ($4,000,000) are negatively impacted the most by the emergence of NFL Swiss Army knife Taysom Hill ($10,000,000) as the Saints’ best red zone threat. Williams has only played in five games and scored a mere 18.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points with zero TDs, so he can’t be listed here. Therefore, the spot goes to Kamara who is RB8 for the season despite missing the first three games of the season due to a suspension.

Kamara has been solid and averaged 20.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game (124.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in six games played) but “only” has three TDs, which is one fewer than the number of rushing and receiving TDs for Hill. While it’s possible that Hill could throw a TD pass to Kamara, that scenario is less likely than Hill taking the goal line rushing attempt or catching a short TD pass from inside the 10-yard line instead of Kamara or Williams.

Last week, Kamara had his worst game of the 2023 season with 11.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (26 rushing yards, 4 receptions, 44 receiving yards) and by far, his fewest number of touches in a single game (13). Not only that, but the Vikings are an above average defense at stopping RBs with barely over 100 yards per game in total offense (100.6) and 5 TDs allowed to RBs. Since Kamara is splitting that work with Hill who had 15 touches (11 rushing attempts and 4 receptions) last week, it’s looking more likely that Kamara has a similar game to last week than his season-long averages.

That’s why I’m recommending you find a better option for your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup. Put Kamara in that Bench RB spot and hopefully it works out for your team.

Davante Adams (WR – LV): He’s not happy. He’s got a rookie in Aidan O’Connell ($1,087,345) at QB and he’s playing under a new head coach and offensive coordinator. All of those things are working against Davante Adams ($28,000,000) this week. Plus, he has scored fewer than 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in four out of his last five games. Hence, the unhappiness.

Plus, Adams and the Raiders have to play Sauce Gardner, D.J. Reed and the Jets’ defense that is doing their job to keep the Jets in the playoff picture despite the team’s offensive ineptitude. Opposing WRs are averaging 10 receptions and 101.5 receiving yards against the Jets this season. That’s all of the team’s WRs, not just their top WR or perimeter/slot receivers. All of them.

While Adams is ranked as WR14 overall, it’s almost all because of his Week 3 performance against the Steelers with 42.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (13 receptions, 172 receiving yards, 2 TDs). In the other eight games, he has scored 84.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, or just 10.51 points per game. He hasn’t been worthy of a spot in your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup for most of the season and now, he’s facing the best secondary in the league. No thanks!

Put Davante Adams on your Dynasty Owner Bench this week. I could say the same thing about Jakobi Meyers ($11,000,000) who is ranked as WR16, but Meyers has scored double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points in six out of his eight games played. Regardless, I wouldn’t want to rely on either one of them this week.

Cole Kmet (TE – CHI): After a Blutarsky (0.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points) in his first game with Tyson Bagent ($906,667) as the starting Bears QB, Cole Kmet ($1,894,445) has rallied with two consecutive solid games and sits as TE5 for the 2023 Dynasty Owner season. He scored 17.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 8 against the Chargers and 23.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 9 against the Saints. Neither of those teams are as good at stopping TEs as the Bears’ opponent on a short week in the Carolina Panthers.

In eight games, Carolina has allowed TEs to catch just 25 passes for 266 receiving yards and 2 TDs. They are playing the NFC North teams this season and already faced the other two NFC North TEs, T.J. Hockenson ($9,392,000) and Sam LaPorta ($2,366,498), ranked in the top 5 TEs in Dynasty Owner scoring. Hockenson had just 4.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (2 receptions for 24 receiving yards) on a mere three targets, while LaPorta had the only TDs allowed by the Panthers along with 3 receptions for 47 receiving yards (19.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points). He was only targeted four times though.

If the Panthers can keep Kmet’s targets down to three or four like they did to Hockenson and LaPorta, he’s likely to score far below double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 10. I think that will happen and so Dynasty Owners should leave Kmet on their Bench this week.

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 10. As he mentioned, he couldn’t come up with a great fifth player, so he scrambled to find three players to list as 5a, 5b and 5c to go along with his first four selections.

Player	Position	Team	Salary	Week 10 Roster %	Current Roster %	Change
Noah Brown	WR	HOU	$2,600,000	30.65%	45.21%	14.56%
Keaton Mitchell	RB	BAL	$904,333	78.16%	92.72%	14.56%
Taysom Hill	TE	NO	$10,000,000	49.81%	62.07%	12.26%
Leonard Fournette	RB	BUF	$7,000,000	69.73%	70.88%	1.15%
Royce Freeman	RB	LAR	$1,080,000	72.03%	70.88%	-1.15%
JuJu Smith-Schuster	WR	NE	$8,500,000	85.06%	85.44%	0.38%
Jack Stoll	TE	PHI	$815,833	1.15%	2.30%	1.15%

Unlike last week when Dynasty Owners (including myself) were scrambling for players and turning to the Free Agent Auction, there hasn’t been as much movement among Jay’s targets. Maybe people are shy after so many of them ran to grab Jaren Hall ($1,029,819) and drove his roster percentage up over 60 percentage points in just two days. Then they had to suffer through watching him play on Sunday and get knocked out with a concussion after scoring just 5.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (78 passing yards and 11 rushing yards).

The top three players on Jay’s list this week all had their roster percentage increase by at least ten percentage points. Keaton Mitchell is now over 90% rostered in Dynasty Owner leagues and won’t be anywhere near this list for a long time. Both Noah Brown and Taysom Hill increased their roster percentage by quite a bit, but are still eligible next week. Hill is nowhere near being rostered in nearly all Dynasty Owner leagues as Jay thinks he should be, but he did move to over 60% rostered, while Brown is creeping up on the 50% rostered mark.

Leonard Fournette is in his own category with that $7 million salary and still sitting on the Bills’ practice squad. As a Dynasty Owner with Fournette in one league, I’m happy to sit on him and wait for him to start playing and take the salary reduction once he’s elevated to the Active roster. However, I’m not bidding on him in other Dynasty Owner leagues in which he might be available, then paying his $7 million salary when I might need that salary cap room or roster spot for someone who can help my team out immediately.

Finally, it appears that Dynasty Owners aren’t buying into the three players who shared the #5 spot. Being on his bye in Week 10 has likely caused Royce Freeman’s roster percentage to dip very slightly. Having scored less than 1.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game he has played in (32.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in 42 games played or 0.77 points per game) hasn’t led to a rush of people scrambling to bid on Eagles TE Jack Stoll. Finally, JuJu Smith-Schuster already had a super high roster percentage (85.06%) at the start of Week 10 and his less than inspired play this season with only 41.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points plus $8.5 million salary has given Dynasty Owners several reasons to not bother to bid on him.

Happy bidding and hope everyone didn’t have to scramble too much and got who they wanted in the Free Agent Auction this week.

Match-Up of the Week and Chase for the Ring Leaderboard

Are you missing the Dynasty Owner Match-Up of the Week and Chase for the Ring standings that used to appear here? It was over on Twitter/X pretty regularly over the first few weeks of the season and if you follow me there (@SteveVT33), you may have seen it. However, it’s been lacking submissions, so I haven’t posted one for the past couple of weeks. If you have a good match-up and want it to be the Week 10 Match-up of the Week, then send it over and I’ll post it for you.

The updated Chase for the Ring Leaderboard has been sporadically posted on Twitter/X as well. You don’t really need it posted there as anyone can access it 24/7 at https://app.dynastyowner.com/chase-for-the-ring. It’s a live leaderboard that can change at any time, so your team name could be in the top 100 now, or sometime during this week’s games.

Slightly longer versions of the Match-up of the Week and the Chase for the Ring Leaderboard have also appeared on a hit or miss basis on the Dynasty Owner thread on Reddit, as well as Facebook and Instagram. The Chase for the Ring leaderboard Top 10 has been appearing regularly in a weekly newsletter sent out by Dynasty Owner.

Conclusion

We should be back to a more normal amount of Free Agent Auction bidding for Week 11 when the Colts, Falcons, Patriots and Saints are on bye. Some good solid players on those teams, but not nearly as many players as Week 9 or as prominent as the ones on bye this week. After that, it’s Thanksgiving week with no teams on bye to close out November, followed by another six team bye week in Week 13 to start December.

In case you missed last week’s article or didn’t read the Conclusion, I asked Rhamondre Stevenson and Demario Douglas ($993,333) to step up with a big game and win the Dynasty Owner Player of the Week or Value Player of the Week award and get the Patriots their first award winner. Stevenson did have a fine week with 22.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (87 rushing yards, 4 receptions, 42 receiving yards, 1 TD), but needed another TD to be a better value than Tank Dell. There’s still plenty of weeks left in the Dynasty Owner season for someone from the Patriots to step up and win one of these awards.

Which week was more difficult for you to set your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup and fill out a full Bench? Did one of them have you scrambling to bid on replacements in the Free Agent Auction more than the other one? Let me (and your fellow Dynasty Owners) know about it by posting it on Twitter/X and tagging me and Dynasty Owner, or posting about it on Facebook, Instagram or Reddit. It would be great if you could please comment in all of those places when this article is published and let everyone know if you like, or dislike, my weekly recommendations, or think you can do better. You can even agree and like the article on any of those social media platforms as well. We appreciate the feedback from our fellow Dynasty Owners.

The Week 10 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). Speaking of Jay, the Livestream is back this week on the Dynasty Owner YouTube channel at a slightly different time of 3:30 PM (Eastern) and Jay is going to be joining me for it. It’ll be good to reunite with him and chat Dynasty Owner fantasy football. Tim’s out this week, so if you want to see him, then go watch an old episode. Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Steven Van Tassell is the Head of Content for Dynasty Owner