Most — if not all — fantasy football regular seasons are over. Awards have already been handed out after all, but rest assured that the Fantasy Life team remains committed to providing any remaining sickos with industry-leading rankings and (free!) content to help notch that final fantasy W.

Today we’ll be answering five key questions to help accomplish that very task. As always: It’s a great day to be great.

1. Who has what to play for in Week 18?

There are varying levels of motivation around the league due to many teams already having their postseason fate decided, for better or worse.

Lucky for us, The New York Times has a cool interactive playoff picture feature that can help us access every team’s motivation level heading into Week 18. Scholar Anthony Amico also has an awesome column on the subject over at Establish The Run. Some coaches have additionally helped our cause by already speaking out about their team’s playing time intentions.

Clinched a first-round seed and have nothing to play for

  • Ravens (13-3 – resting key starters)
  • 49ers (12-4 – resting key starters)

Baltimore head coach John Harbaugh has confirmed that 2022 Pro Bowl QB Tyler Huntley will start in place of Lamar Jackson on Sunday. It remains to be seen if other key starters will rest alongside the likely 2023 league MVP; either way Vegas isn’t expecting much and has the Ravens implied to score a lowly 16.5 points.

And then there’s 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan, who confirmed Christian McCaffrey (calf) won’t be suiting up in the regular season finale and also noted, "We’ll definitely try to rest some guys, but you can’t rest everybody.” It’d make sense if the team’s key skill-position weapons see little to no meaningful usage ahead of Sunday’s matchup with the Rams.

There are a few more squads that have essentially locked things up at this point …

The division is clinched and life is good

  • Lions (11-5 – won’t be resting starters)
  • Chiefs (10-6 – resting key starters)

Kansas City has the tiebreaker over both the Dolphins and Bills, so they are locked into the No. 3 seed. Andy Reid has already announced Blaine Gabbert will start in place of Patrick Mahomes. Expect TE Travis Kelce and potentially other starters to take the week off as well.

Technically the Lions could snag the No. 2 seed with a W and losses from both the Cowboys (-13 vs. WSH) and the Eagles (-5 vs. NYG). But that’s really beside the point: Do you really think noted kneecap biter Dan Campbell has any intention other than taking this game as seriously as possible?

Maybe things change, but for now: Expect Jared Goff and the starters to have their usual full-time roles while their Week 18 matchup against the Vikings is competitive.

Playoff spot is all good with minimal upside to play for

  • Browns (11-5 – resting key starters)
  • Rams (9-7 – resting key starters)

Both teams happen to exist in the same division as their conference’s No. 1 seed, but a playoff spot is at least already secured.

The Browns are locked in as the No. 5 seed and have already announced that Jeff Driskel will start in place of Joe Flacco, while the Rams can drop to the No. 7 seed if they lose AND the Packers win (playing at the same time). And yet, NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo reports Carson Wentz will be under center instead of Matthew Stafford this Sunday among other starters resting.

Still fighting for either a divisional title or a playoff spot

The following teams have secured a playoff spot, but are still actively fighting for their divisional crown:

  • Dolphins (11-5)
  • Cowboys (11-5)
  • Eagles (11-5)
  • Colts (9-7)
  • Texans (9-7)
  • Buccaneers (8-8)
  • Saints (8-8)
  • Jaguars (9-7)
  • Falcons (7-9)

And then there are a handful of additional squads looking to secure a victory to help out their varying — but mathematically possible — playoff and/or divisional odds:

  • Bills (10-6)
  • Steelers (9-7)
  • Packers (8-8)
  • Seahawks (8-8)
  • Vikings (7-9)

Expect the same sort of utilization that has been occurring lately to keep on keeping on with all of these squads still very much having plenty to play for in Week 18.

Completely eliminated from playoff contention

It’s far from a given that these teams will choose to ride with the status quo at various positions. Be especially cautious when expecting full workloads from injured parties, but many of these teams (Jets, Titans, Chargers, Patriots, Giants, Commanders, Cardinals, Panthers) have already been eliminated for weeks and haven’t exactly stopped playing their starters in their usual capacities.

Note the Bears, Broncos, Bengals and Raiders have just recently been eliminated and hold just a bit more uncertainty surrounding their starters' usage. 

2. Who are your top five current rookie WRs ahead of next season?

I’m tentatively riding with the following order for specifically 2024:

  1. Rams WR Puka Nacua: 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 even after Cooper Kupp returned from injury. Always trust the breakfast club.
  2. Chiefs WR Rashee Rice: Posted PPR WR43, WR3, WR22, WR7, WR8, WR35 and WR15 finishes in seven games following the team’s Week 10 bye. A full-time role with elite YAC ability (only trails Deebo Samuel in ESPN’s advanced WR grades) and proven target-earning ability in a Patrick Mahomes-led offense is a tantalizing prospect.
  3. Texans WR Tank Dell: Ripped off PPR WR2, WR13, WR3 and WR21 finishes before suffering a season-ending leg injury. Good news: He’s tentatively expected to be at 100% for 2024 and figures to once again work as C.J. Stroud’s 1.B WR at worst. This supplied weekly upside WR2 goodness for at least a portion of 2023.
  4. Ravens WR Zay Flowers: Was neck-and-neck with Mark Andrews in targets (58 vs. 56) in Weeks 2 to 10 when both were fully healthy. Flowers also held an edge in air yards, while Andrews was the clear leader in red zone opportunities. Regardless: Top-two pass-game duties in a Lamar Jackson-led offense proved consistently fruitful in 2023 and could be leaned on even more in 2024 should Odell Beckham Jr. take his talents elsewhere.
  5. Packers WR Jayden Reed: Certainly benefited from the likes of Christian Watson (hamstring) and Aaron Jones (hamstring) missing plenty of time throughout the season, but the the 2023 NFL Draft’s 50th overall pick still deserves credit for making the most out of his opportunities down the stretch on his way to ripping off PPR WR12, WR11, WR25, WR50, WR6, WR17 and WR4 finishes in his last seven games of the year. And he looked good doing it.

It’s an absolutely loaded group and doesn’t even include the consensus top-two re-draft players coming into 2023 in Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Jordan Addison.

Perhaps a QB upgrade — or at least a full return to health by Kirk Cousins — could push Addison up into the group’s top five, but otherwise it’s tough to really find someone else deserving of joining the group barring massive personnel changes between now and next September (example: Seahawks trade Tyler Lockett and D.K. Metcalf).

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3. What offenses are peaking at the right time?

There are four offenses with playoff spots either locked in or at least attainable in Week 18 that have been playing their best football of the year in recent weeks.

Green Bay Packers

Skill-position talent of all shapes and sizes have been in and out of the lineup during the second half of the season, but none of it has really stopped Jordan Love from really putting forward some consistent high-end efficiency down the stretch.

Overall, this team has scored 29, 27, 22, 20, 33 and 33 points over the last six weeks. Only the 49ers (+0.217) and Ravens (+0.159) have a higher EPA per play than the Packers (+0.158) during this admittedly arbitrary timeline — but still!

Cleveland Browns

The Joe Flacco stuff was a bit funny at first. He led the team to a couple of wins while posting solid counting numbers thanks to high-end volume, so who cares if he had a worse EPA per dropback than Zach Wilson after his first three starts?

Then something funny happened: Flacco started playing a lot like one of the better QBs in the league.

  • Week 13: -0.173 EPA per play (26th)
  • Week 14: -0.028 (17th)
  • Week 15: -0.371 (31st)
  • Week 16: +0.416 (5th)
  • Week 17: +0.169 (15th)

Flacco carries the position’s sixth-best EPA + CPOE composite score over the past two weeks. In english: Mr. Elite has been incredibly accurate on his way to leading one of the game’s most efficient passing attacks over his last eight quarters of football.

Los Angeles Rams

The Rams were more or less playing good offensive football during their first nine games, but injuries to Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp alike prevented the offense from fully catching its stride compared to what we’ve seen recently.

  • Weeks 1-9: -0.018 EPA per play (13th), 5.4 yards per play (10th) 
  • Weeks 11-17: +0.095 (5th), 6.2 yards per play (2nd)
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Dec 10, 2023; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp (10) celebrates with wide receiver Puka Nacua (17) after scoring a second quarter touchdown during the at M&T Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

This group has scored 37, 36, 31, 28, 30 and 26 points over their last six games, racking up at least 390 total yards in each and every game along the way.

Get your popcorn ready for a potential Wild Card matchup in Detroit against Jared Goff and company.

Pittsburgh Steelers

Mason Rudolph is playing … absolutely awesome?

  • EPA per dropback: +0.243 (No. 2)
  • Completion percentage over expected: +11.2% (No. 1)
  • PFF pass grade: 73.3 (No. 21)
  • Passer rating: 115.3 (No. 1)
  • Yards per attempt: 10.5 (No. 1)

The longtime backup most famous for being assaulted by Myles Garrett has legit been playing lights out over the past two weeks on his way to leading the team to 64 combined points against the Bengals and Seahawks. Second-year WR George Pickens suddenly looks unstoppable with 4-195-2 and 7-131-0 receiving lines to his name over the past two weeks, while literally only the Ravens have averaged more yards per play (7.1 vs. 6.7).

This won’t keep up. It won’t. It can’t. It could? It won’t. It probably won’t. But a victory over the Ravens alongside either a Bills or Jaguars loss will get Mike Tomlin and company into the playoffs … seemingly peaking at the right time behind the right arm of Mason f*cking Rudolph. What a time to be alive.

4. Are there any key lessons we learned from 2023 in fantasy football land?

Maybe a few. Let’s start with three:

Don’t underestimate high-end volume helping elderly WRs stay balling

30 is generally the breaking point for WRs in Fantasy Land.

Of course, a bit of this is survivorship bias (there are more twentysomething WRs in the NFL than thirtysomething players), and it’s also possible that football in the year 2024 is more manageable on the human body than it was 10 years ago thanks to rule changes and modern health care (side note: I am NOT a doctor).

While success relative to ADP varies, the likes of Keenan Allen (WR3 in PPR points per game), Mike Evans (WR8), Stefon Diggs (WR16), Davante Adams (WR17), Adam Thielen (WR22), Cooper Kupp (WR25) and DeAndre Hopkins (WR33) all proved more than capable of still supplying some fantasy goodness despite their “elderly” status.

Each just so happened to be the fairly clear-cut No. 1 pass-game option in their respective offenses. While changing teams and QBs made the evaluation tougher for a few of them: Think twice about fading a reasonably priced baller WR JUST because their age will begin with the number three by the end of the year.

Attack uncertain backfield depth charts inside offenses we expect to be good

The Dolphins are the prime example of this, with both Raheem Mostert and De’’Von Achane providing huge value at their respective low ADP. A similar sentiment is true for the Rams considering just how rocky the Sean McVay-Cam Akers relationship had always been, while even guys like James Cook, Isiah Pacheco and D’Andre Swift in hindsight should have been bigger priorities thanks to their affordable price tags as projected lead backs inside of offenses we fully expected to be really good this season.

Breece Hall (RB3) was the only top-five PPR scorer at the position in Week 17 who carried an ADP inside the top-60 picks before the season started. The entire idea of zero- or hero-RB strategy is setting yourself up to benefit from the week-to-week volatility of the position — so what better way to do so than by REALLY prioritizing backs operating in good, yet murky, offensive attacks?

Don’t assume a QB change will be a good thing just because the last one sucked

While Aaron Rodgers’ quick Achilles injury never gave the Jets a chance to prove if they could reach a new level without Zach Wilson, there wasn’t exactly a great track record of offenses reaching an entirely new level upon deciding to roll with a new QB in 2023.

The following teams improved their scoring offense with a non-injury-induced season-long QB change in 2023:

  • Colts: 30th in scoring in 2022, 10th in 2023
  • Texans: 30th, 14th
  • Commanders: 24th, 23rd
  • Buccaneers: 25th, 19th
  • Saints: 22nd, 14th
  • Packers: 14th, 11th

And then there were three notable teams who crashed and burned after making a change under center:

  • Raiders: 12th, 25th
  • Falcons: 15th, 26th
  • Panthers: 20th, 31st

It’s a lot easier in hindsight to simply point to these latter three squads as the obvious candidates to fail, but at the end of the day none of these offense’s managed to rank higher than 10th in scoring this season.

This isn’t to suggest that these groups were useless in fantasy land — C.J. Stroud, Jordan Love and to a lesser extent Baker Mayfield in particular emerged as reliable QB1s — but the preseason optimism for guys who were simply not good in 2022 like Desmond Ridder and Derek Carr always seemed to more so be tied to the assumption that things couldn’t get worse than they were with Marcus Mariota or Andy Dalton at QB … and they did. 

5. What are three bold predictions for Week 18?

Every week I put together matchup-specific charts to help determine the week’s biggest mismatches by combining offensive and defensive rates in explosive plays, pressure, yards before contact, passing yards per dropback and EPA. This provides singular metrics to help quantity advantages on both sides of the ball instead of always having to go, “Offense ranks x, defense ranks y.”

The following three players might have a red flag or two in their Week 17 projection — that’s why they aren’t ranked as sure-thing top-12 options at their position — but I believe there’s enough of an edge in the matchup to warrant enhanced optimism.

1. Cowboys WR Brandin Cooks torches Washington to the tune of a 5-110-1 receiving line. Dak Prescott has the slate’s second-best matchup in terms of combined passing yards per dropback against the Commanders’ largely pitiful secondary. Dak made things look easy on his way to throwing for 331 yards and four TDs when these teams met on Thanksgiving; don’t be surprised if the encore includes Cooks getting going in a major way against this bottom-three defense in yards per attempt and TD rate allowed on passes thrown at least 20 yards downfield.

2. D’Andre Swift makes all sorts of plays on the ground, goes for 15-115-2 against the Giants. No backfield has a better matchup this week in terms of combined rush yards before contact. Look no further than two weeks ago to find an example of Swift (20-92-1) making plenty of good things happen against this very defense. There’s always a risk of expecting too much from Swift considering Jalen Hurts vultures the TD every time the offense gets to the one-yard line; just realize Swift should be able to make the most out of his opportunities across the other 99 yards of the field this Sunday.

3. Khalil Herbert stays hot, rips off 100-plus total yards and two TDs against the Packers. The Bears made D’Onta Foreman a healthy scratch last week and are seemingly more than content with Herbert working as their lead back the rest of the way. This Packers defense has looked lost more times than not over the past month of action, leading to the Bears enjoying the week’s single-best advantage in terms of combined explosive run play rate. Similar to Swift, there’s always a bit of risk here with a high-volume dual-threat QB like Justin Fields under center; just realize Herbert should have plenty of opportunities to create some explosive plays inside a Bears offense that has managed to score at least 27 points in three of their last four games.

Fantasy Questions