The 2023 fantasy football season has come and gone. We occasionally laughed, definitely cried, and hopefully brought home some championship hardware for our efforts.

Of course, earning that first-place prize wouldn’t be possible without championship-level performances from the actual NFL players involved.

Kudos to you, a scholar, on making some great start/sit decisions this season – but let’s not forget the Jims and Joes have a bit more to do with the outcome than any X’s and O’s.

Today, Fantasy Life honors the 2023 season’s best fantasy performers with awards spanning across seven different categories. More than ever: It’s a great day to be great.

Fantasy Football Most Valuable Player

Christian McCaffrey, RB - 49ers

Checking your lineup to see if you were matched up against McCaffrey during any given week was downright terrifying.

Holding him to something around 20 fantasy points almost felt like a win considering the guy went for 40-plus PPR points on multiple occasions this season.

Overall, nobody scored more total PPR points than McCaffrey (391.3) regardless of position. He scored 122.6 more PPR points than any other RB in fantasy football. This disparity simply isn’t even close compared to the top two scorers at other positions.

The RB1 in all-time PPR points per game has always been an absolute superstar in fantasy land, but his 2,023 total yards and 21 TDs this season came as the engine of the game’s third-ranked scoring offense and maybe the single-best team in the league.

A calf injury limited CMC to “just” 19 combined carries and targets on a 54% snap rate last week, resulting in a season-low … 13.1 PPR points.

While I won’t argue with anyone who wants to focus more so on the “valuable” part of the award, this is more of a “Who was the BEST fantasy player” selection for me – and nobody was more productive on a week-to-week basis than CMC.

Honorable mention:

Fantasy Playoffs MVP

Amon-Ra St. Brown, WR - Lions

The Sun God was technically third in overall PPR points during the final three weeks of the season, but it was the consistency with which he dominated down the stretch that undoubtedly helped earn many of his fantasy managers some cold hard cash.

Overall, St. Brown was the only non-QB to score at least 20 PPR points in all three weeks of the fantasy playoffs this season.

Hell, only Jalen Hurts also managed to achieve this even when including signal-callers. Amon-Ra’s managers were undoubtedly getting at least a little bit concerned after back-to-back relative duds (WR26, WR60) before him racking up three consecutive top-seven PPR finishes when it mattered most.

The Lions’ undisputed No. 1 WR carried a mid-round-two ADP before this season, but I fully expect him to be a top-eight pick in many fantasy leagues ahead of 2024.

After all, Matthew Berry’s Ride-or-Die joined CeeDee Lamb and Tyreek Hill as the only WRs with at least 300 PPR points during the first 17 weeks of 2023. Not too shabby for the same guy who fell to the 112th overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.

Honorable mention:

Best Fantasy Championship Game Performance

Lamar Jackson, QB - Ravens

Nobody scored more half-PPR points in Week 17 than the likely 2023 league MVP.

Jackson eviscerated what had been the game’s single-best defense in EPA allowed per play over the last two months of action to the tune of 321 passing yards and five TDs. Throw in an extra 35 yards on the ground, and Jackson’s fantasy managers got the position’s fifth-biggest performance of this season when it mattered most.

Seriously, the man only threw three incompletions all afternoon – and two of those were drops. Jackson was absolutely BALLING out there.

The 36.3 fantasy points trail only 2022 Tom Brady (37.7) in terms of the biggest Week 17 fantasy performances from a QB over the past three seasons. Remember that time no team tried to get a deal done with Jackson after he publicly stated he wanted out of Baltimore this offseason?

Honorable mention:

Most Improved Fantasy Player

Kyren Williams, RB - Rams

Williams scored just 30.5 total PPR points during his mostly uneventful rookie season.

This year? 255 PPR points – good for a league-high +224.5 point upgrade among all non-QBs.

Only Browns RB Jerome Ford (+204.8), Jets RB Breece Hall (+146.4), Nico Collins (+128.8) and Gus Edwards (+124.9) were within even 100 points of this level of improvement.

Williams honestly has a case for multiple awards on this list. He’s been excellent from start to finish this year on his way to racking up 1,350 total yards and 15 TDs in just 12 games.

Kyren Williams

Dec 3, 2023; Inglewood, California, USA; Los Angeles Rams running back Kyren Williams (23) scores on a 1-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter against the Cleveland Browns SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Only Christian McCaffrey (24.5 PPR points per game) out-scored Williams (21.3) on a per-game basis. Even the second-year back’s BIGGEST truthers couldn’t possibly have expected this level of dominance.

Kudos to everyone who attained Williams either as a late-round dart or Waiver Wire darling – and thanks to ace Rams reporter Jourdan Rodrigue for calling out his potential upside way back in August!

Honorable mention:

Comeback Fantasy Player of the Year

Devin Singletary, RB - Texans

This is strictly looking at a player’s performance during the first eight weeks of the season relative to what went down in Weeks 9 to 17. Basically, the “they had us in the first half not going to lie” meme as opposed to an analysis of who improved the most from 2022 (that was the last award).

Everyone considered must have played at least four games in both samples. The best ability is availability as they say.

Ultimately, nobody improved their average PPR points per game more than Singletary (+9.5) during the second half of the season.

The ex-Bills veteran averaged a pedestrian 4.8 PPR points per game in Weeks 1 to 8, but finished STRONG with 14.3 per game throughout his final nine games.

The production originally started thanks to a Dameon Pierce injury, but Singletary has retained control over the backfield in recent weeks even with the second-year talent back in action. 

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The counting numbers involved were good enough to produce the eighth-most points at the position during the stretch.

Not too shabby for an RB who was readily available on more waiver wires than not after failing to find the end zone and averaging just 31.3 total yards per game over the first eight weeks of the season.

Honorable mention:

Waiver Wire Addition of the Year

Puka Nacua, WR - Rams

You could also go with Puka’s teammate and I wouldn’t disagree, but finding a handcuff gem on the waiver wire occurs a bit more often than, you know, getting the guy who will in all likelihood be the NFL’s new single-season record holder for receiving yards as a rookie this time next week.

The Rams’ fifth-round pick started the year on absolute fire with 10-119-0, 15-147-0, 5-72-0 and 9-163-1 receiving lines out of the gate with Cooper Kupp (hamstring, IR) out of the picture. Many expected Nacua to fall back to earth after Kupp returned, but the rookie had other plans.

Just seven WRs managed to score at least 17.5 PPR points per game this season. You’ve probably heard of some of them:

  1. Tyreek Hill (23.7 PPR points per game)
  2. CeeDee Lamb (23)
  3. Keenan Allen (21.5)
  4. Amon-Ra St. Brown (20.2)
  5. Justin Jefferson (18.5)
  6. A.J. Brown (18.1)
  7. Nacua (17.8)

His average of 2.59 yards per route run also ranks seventh at the position this season. Puka demonstrated an elite blend of route-running goodness and YAC ability all season long on his way to functioning as a weekly WR1 option in fantasy land.

Moral of the story: Always trust the breakfast club.

Honorable mention:

Fantasy Rookie of the Year

Sam LaPorta, TE - Lions

It’d be more than reasonable to run back Puka in this section as well, but no other rookie can stake the claim to being their position’s No. 1 fantasy option like LaPorta.

The rookie TE has somehow managed to out-score Travis Kelce in raw PPR points (225.4 vs. 219.4) over the first 17 weeks of the season. Yes, LaPorta has benefited from playing an extra game. Also yes, he’s out-scoring Travis Kelce!

Reminder: Kelce has finished with the position’s most total PPR points in six of seven years coming into the season.

Mark Andrews … and now LaPorta are quite literally the only two TEs who have not dated Taylor Swift and still managed to lead the position in fantasy points since 2015. Not a bad debut!

Honorable mention:

Fantasy Awards