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You got plans tonight? NFL Schedule release and chill??

In today’s Fantasy Life Newsletter presented by Epic Seats:

Some of the schedule has leaked
Will Lamar Jackson run less this year?
Dwain’s QB Tiers: The Alphas
Team Preview: New York Giants
It’s 5/11. Take it away, Peter Overzet

For normal people, tonight is simply another Thursday night. For those reading this newsletter, it’s NFL SCHEDULE RELEASE NIGHT.

The NFL is onto us fantasy sickos and is smartly serving us up an over-indulgent, three-hour release show on the NFL Network.

But like a kid taking a sneak peek at the presents under the tree before Christmas morning, the league has leaked a few of the gifts before the full reveal.

Let’s dig into what we know so far…

📅 An epic Week 17 matchup

Last year we missed out on an epic conclusion to the 2022 fantasy season when the Bills-Bengals Week 17 game was suspended mid-action and subsequently canceled.

This year we’ll get another crack at it with an intriguing tilt between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Kansas City Chiefs—two teams with a lot of recent playoff history.

If you’ve been reading our best ball strategy coverage, you are well aware of how important the Week 17 matchups are for winning first place in the big tournaments. With this news, don’t hold your breath hoping for any ADP discounts on Ja’Marr Chase, Travis Kelce, Patrick Mahomes, and Tee Higgins in upcoming drafts. You might need to get creative.

🛒 The inaugural Black Friday game

Football on a Friday? Football on a Friday.

Aaron Rodgers and the Jets will host the Miami Dolphins on Friday, November 24, at 3 pm ET on Amazon Prime.

I can’t think of a better excuse to avoid the Black Friday zoo than saddling up with some turkey leftovers and watching Rodgers get in a back-and-forth affair with Tua, Reek, and Waddle.

🌍 Overseas action

The NFL also announced five games in Europe for the 2023 season:

Week 4: Falcons vs Jaguars (London)
Week 5: Jaguars vs Bills (Tottenham)
Week 6: Ravens vs Titans (Tottenham)
Week 9: Dolphins vs Chiefs (Germany)
Week 10: Colts vs Patriots (Germany)

Sadly, our poor friends abroad rarely get to see the best version of the NFL product. But that Jaguars-Bills game could be hot, and the Dolphins-Chiefs matchup not only has 60-point-over/under upside but also a Tyreek Hill revenge game.

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The NFL Schedule drops tonight but we’re getting our tickets NOW…

There are 272 Regular Season games on the calendar…which ones are you going to?

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We know the 2023 NFL Season is going to be a banger, but here are some games that are definitely going to be better in person than on TV:

Bills at Bengals…there won’t be a dry eye in the house when Damar Hamlin returns to Cincy
Jets at Raiders…Aaron and his new WR1 in Vegas against his former WR1
Eagles at Seahawks…both offenses are LOADED! Fantasy points EVERYWHERE!
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💌 A lot of love from a coach about his new rookie WR. He’s a priority target in drafts right now.

🏃‍♂️ Will Lamar Jackson run less this year? Interesting comment from Todd Monken.

📓 Team Previews for ALL 32 Teams are incoming. Bookmark this page.

🚀 Jonathan Taylor’s interesting comparisons for Anthony Richardson. This isn’t going to help keep his ADP in check.

🙏🏻 An incredible update on Foster Moreau. What an exciting turn of events.

📊 Which WRs are due for positive TD regression? There’s one massive outlier.

🤔 Who will be the Bucs starting QB? Bucs OC weighs in.

Dwain’s Top 150 rankings for 2023 are live now on FantasyLife.com. BUT today, he’s here to walks us through his tiers at the QB position…

Tier 1 – The Alphas

💪 Josh Allen | Bills

Allen is the all-time record holder for most consecutive seasons with 24-plus fantasy points per game at three.

2022: 26.0
2021: 24.6
2020: 25.6

That is a mark Peyton Manning reached once in his illustrious career. Aaron Rodgers has three such seasons. What Allen is doing is next level, and his archetype is the measuring stick by which we now evaluate fantasy QBs.

Allen offers the perfect blend of high-end passing and rushing upside thanks to his ability and the Bills' pass-first mentality.

No other QB posted an 85-plus PFF grade in passing and rushing categories. Allen was also the only QB to top 35 passing attempts and seven rushing attempts per game. Kyler Murray was the only other player close with 35.5 and 6.2.

Buffalo ranked second in pass rate in close and leading game scripts last season, which helps keep his passing attempts high regardless of the score. In addition, his ability to contribute in designed rushing attempts and on scrambles also makes him an integral component of the Bills’ rushing attack.

Allen handled 17% of Buffalo’s designed rushing attempts (No. 4 QB) and ranked third as a scrambler, converting 9% of his dropbacks into rushing attempts. He was even more critical inside the five-yard line, accounting for 50% of the team’s rushing attempts.

When you add it all up, you get an amazingly high weekly ceiling and floor. The Bills’ signal caller delivered an astounding 11 top-five QB finishes in 2022 – tied with Jalen Hurts for the most. Allen only had one finish outside of the top 12.

If there was a knock on Allen heading into the offseason, it was the Bills’ lack of a high-end No. 2 receiving option. Stefon Diggs is a legit WR1, but Gabriel Davis and Dawson Knox have tertiary profiles as target earners. However, Buffalo pulled the trigger on TE Dalton Kincaid after trading up, who could challenge for the No. 2 role immediately from the slot.

At age 27, Allen is in his prime and is the best bet in football to register 4,500 passing yards and 750 rushing yards with 40-plus total TDs. That will make you the QB1 in most seasons – no wonder he has three in a row.

💪 Jalen Hurts | Eagles

No other QB with at least 10 games played averaged more fantasy points per dropback than Hurts in 2023.

Hurts developed into one of the premier dual-threat QBs in 2022, delivering top-six marks in PFF pass grade (80.6) and rush grade (84.4). The third-year QB improved his passing yards per game from 210 to 247, registering a career-high 8.0 yards per pass attempt.

The Eagles led by four-plus points more than any other team last year (53%), contributing to the fifth-lowest dropback rate in the NFL at 54%. While projecting a pass-heavy Eagles offense wouldn’t be prudent, given the last two seasons, there is room for improvement. The average NFL team plays 24% of their snaps with a lead of four or more, which leaves room for more than 30.7 pass attempts per game for Hurts in 2023.

Of course, the Eagles could also just decide to pass more this season. After all, they have one of the best-receiving trios in the NFL with A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert. We saw Josh Allen stuck in a run-first offense early in his career before the Bills opened up the offense in his third season.

The 25-year-old signal caller ranked No. 1 in rushing attempts per game (11.1). He was the No. 2 QB in designed rushing attempts (25%) – including a 43% rate inside the five-yard line, and finished fourth in scramble rate (8%). Thanks to his broad application in the run game, Hurts is a great bet to finish in the top-three QBs in rush attempts again in 2023.

Hurts delivered a top-five finish 11 times in 15 games last year and should be in for another high-end season given his dual-threat ability and elite surrounding cast.

💪 Patrick Mahomes | Chiefs

Mahomes finished as the top fantasy QB in 2022 despite the loss of Tyreek Hill, and he has four top-six finishes over the last five seasons.

No other QB in the history of the NFL with at least 36 games played has averaged more yards passing per game than Mahomes at 303. He had the second-best PFF pass grade (89.0) last year and averaged the second-most attempts per game (38.1). Regardless of the game script, Kansas City opted to pass far more than the NFL average.

Leading by four-plus points: 60% (+11)

Within three points: 69% (+10)

Trailing by four-plus points: 74% (+6)

While Mahomes isn’t a dual-threat option, he isn’t a zero in the run game. His PFF rush grade of 84.7 was in the top-five last year, and his 5.2 career yards per carry average is far above the 3.1 NFL average since 2011. In addition, Mahomes has eclipsed 350 yards on the ground in consecutive seasons.

If there is a question about Kansas City’s passing attack, it is the question marks behind Travis Kelce.

Kadarius Toney – high-end target earner, but must stay healthy
Skyy Moore – 2022 second-rounder, but couldn’t get on the field in 2022 despite the team's need
Rashee Rice – 2023 second-rounder, late breakout vs. non Power Five
Richie James – solid slot guy for the Giants but more of a role player
Marquez Valdes-Scantling – not a target earner
Justin Watson – not at target earner

The 28-year-old’s ability to extend plays and create chunk yardage outside of structure gives him a chance to deliver another great passing season, but there is some risk with this unproven group of weapons. However, with Toney, Moore and Rice, at least they have three young options with significant draft capital battling for reps.

Mahomes is a lock to finish inside the top-six quarterbacks, and if one of his young receiving options can fill in behind Kelce, he could challenge for No. 1 again.

Dwain’s Full QB Tiers

Fantasy Life senior analyst Ian Hartitz is breaking down all 32 NFL teams over the next two months. Let’s take a look at the Giants, who are looking to build on their promising season in 2022…

🏈 QBs

Daniel Jones (Ian’s QB13)

Tyrod Taylor (QB43)

Jones has started 54 games since the Giants drafted him sixth overall back in 2019. His rookie season produced some booms, as Jones actually had more 30-plus fantasy point performances than any rookie QB other than Lamar Jackson. But 2020 and 2021 largely consisted of Jason Garrett-induced nightmares for Jones both in real life and in fantasy.

That said, fantasy GMs were thrilled about Jones’s performance in 2022. As one of just eight QBs to average at least 18 fantasy points per game (PPG) last season, Jones largely ran his way to high-end fantasy relevance on a Giants offense devoid of pretty much any above-average pass-game options.

Seriously, Jones’s nickname of “Vanilla Vick” has some legs (get it?), as the man became one of just nine QBs to ever register a season with 3,000-plus passing yards and over 700 rushing yards last year. In fact, Jones ranked fifth among QBs in fantasy PPG from pure rushing production in 2022:

Justin Fields (10.8)
Jalen Hurts (10.3)
Lamar Jackson (7.9)
Josh Allen (7.4)
Daniel Jones (7.1)

Additionally, only Fields (52.5%), Hurts (40%), and Jackson (38.5%) had a higher percentage of their fantasy points come from rushing production than Jones (38%). Jones may not look the part, but he can legit scoot.

The question becomes whether or not Jones can take after his head coach’s former protégé, Josh Allen, and begin to mix in some elite passing production alongside the rushing goodness.

It’s tough to be overly critical of Jones’s passing numbers from last season because the team lacked pass-catching talent. The Giant’s top-four WRs entering Week 1 were Golladay (mannequin), Sterling Shepard (torn ACL in Week 3), Kadarius Toney (traded to the Chiefs) and Wan’Dale Robinson (played only six games due to injury). None of these WRs were contributors, and Jones made the most out of Darius Slayton and Isaiah Hodgins, among others.

Jones deserves credit for finding a way to improve as a passer during his short four-year career, even if the final product (to this point) still isn’t all that great.

I’ve preferred deploying a “first or last” strategy for drafting QBs in best ball due to the position flying off the board at a ridiculously fast rate, but Jones stands out as a middle-class QB with the potential to soar higher should his passing production improve even moderately from his 2022 numbers.

Add in his plethora of affordable stacking partners, and, at cost, I actually prefer building around Jones in best ball at ADP over more expensive options like Dak Prescott and Tua Tagovailoa.

What about the RBs, WRs, and TEs??