The wait is almost over: After nearly a six-month hiatus, NFL football is on the horizon.

One thing that makes the NFL great is that it never really stops. Football is a year-round business, with the offseason attracting nearly as much attention as the actual games. But all of those offseason distractions can make us forget exactly what happened when in 2023-24. 

So let's look to the second half of last season to examine some of the biggest fantasy football news and notes that will affect the 2024 fantasy football season.

Jordan Love Breaks Out

The Packers’ QB machine continues to roll. The franchise that has already been blessed with three Hall-of-Fame quarterbacks (Bart Starr, Brett Favre and eventually Aaron Rodgers) has yet another hit on its hands.

Love was drafted in the first round in 2020, but he didn’t get his first chance to start games until 2023. After a slow start, Love looked like one of the best quarterbacks in football.

In his final eight regular season games, Love averaged 268.8 yards and 2.3 touchdown passes per game with only a single interception, illustrated below by our Utilization Report Game Log:

Such a pace over a 17-game season would look like this: 4,569 yards, 38 touchdowns and two picks. That kind of production would put him in the MVP conversation.

For fantasy purposes, Love finished as the No. 6 QB in points per game. He scored at least 17.5 fantasy points in seven of his final eight contests and had at least 20.9 fantasy points five times.

Despite that production, Love is barely being drafted as a starter in one-QB leagues. He’s coming off the board as QB10 on ESPN, with an ADP right around pick 90. I’d be more than happy to go into the season with Love as my starting quarterback.

Travis Kelce – the End of an Era?

Kelce will go down as one of the greatest tight ends in NFL history. He’s been a staple of the first round for fantasy football drafts ever since Patrick Mahomes took over at quarterback, and it’s been close to a decade since anyone else was ranked as the top option at the position.

Drafting Kelce has long felt like a security blanket. While the rest of the league struggles to fill out the tight end position, the team with Kelce can enjoy WR1 production from a far weaker position. Safe to say, that was a massive advantage.

That changed in 2023.

On the surface, Kelce’s numbers for the year weren’t bad: 93 catches, 954 yards, five touchdowns. It was still good enough to make him the No. 1 tight end in terms of PPR points per game.

However, those who rostered Kelce last year know that the ride wasn’t nearly that smooth.

He looked like the same player of old in his first nine games, racking up 7.1 catches, 71.2 yards and 0.6 touchdowns per contest. That put him on a 17-game pace for more than 120 grabs and 1,200 yards.

But over the second half of the year? Kelce was a massive disappointment.

He dipped to just 4.8 grabs and 57.2 yards over his final six regular-season contests, and he didn’t find the end zone a single time.

Kelce proved that he still has some gas left in the tank during the playoffs, but the Chiefs’ pass-catching corps should be improved in 2023-24. They brought in Marquise Brown in the offseason and drafted Xavier Worthy in the first round.

Kelce will also turn 35 years old next season, so clicking on his name is a lot tougher than it was in years past.

He’s still coming off the board as the No. 1 TE in ESPN leagues, while Sam LaPorta gets the nod on Yahoo, Underdog and the high-stakes formats. Our rankers still have Kelce as a tier-one option at the position, but the gap between him and the rest of the field has closed significantly.

The Dolphins Offense Goes Quiet

The Dolphins were the story of the first half of the 2023 season. Their offense was putting up video game numbers, highlighted by a 70-point eruption vs. the Broncos. They have game-changing speed at every position, and Tua Tagovailoa emerged as an MVP candidate. Their offense earned the reputation of being one of the best in NFL history, while Mike McDaniel was anointed as the next offensive genius.

The Dolphins’ offense still has plenty of appeal heading into 2024, but we should pump the breaks on them just slightly. They weren’t nearly the same team over the second half of the season. Over their first eight games, they averaged 33.9 points and 453.3 yards per game. Over their final 10 (including playoffs), they dipped to 23.2 and 346.

Jan 7, 2024; Miami Gardens, Florida, USA; Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa (1) tosses the football to running back De'Von Achane (28) against the Buffalo Bills during the second quarter at Hard Rock Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports

Tagovailoa remains the biggest question mark. He has to prove he can stay healthy for a full season — and that he has the arm strength to deal with the colder weather. We’ll see if he can answer either of those questions in 2024.

I’m certainly not avoiding the Dolphins in fantasy, but in leagues with in-season management, I might look to trade some of their players before the fantasy playoffs.

James Cook Gets Cooking

If you played best ball last year, you don’t need me to tell you just how good Cook was down the stretch.

He finished with 25.1 and 36.1 PPR points in Weeks 14 and 15, making him a top-three option at the position in both weeks.

The Bills underwent a schematic change late in the season that propelled Cook’s breakout. After finishing with a positive Dropback Over Expectation (DBOE) in 11 of their first 13 games, the team transformed into a run-first squad. They had a negative DBOE in their final six games (including playoffs), and Cook averaged 18.3 carries over that stretch. He also had at least three targets in all but one of those contests, so he carried one of the largest workloads in football at the position.

With the Bills’ receiver room getting decimated in the offseason, expect Cook to continue to get all the touches he can handle in 2024.