Fantasy Football Strategy. Drafting from the 1.08 in 2023.

The 1.08 is the 2023 trouble child of drafting spots.

We rarely get to draft one of the elite top four WRs, are never getting a crack at Christian McCaffrey, and once in a blue moon may have Travis Kelce fall to us.

That leaves us pigeonholed into an RB start or having to semi-reach on a second-tier WR.

It’s a tricky place to begin drafts and one that takes big-time moxie to overcome.

Luckily, the resources on Fantasy Life can provide us with that kind of intangible, and we’ll be relying on the tools and articles there to help us put together a solid start.

Let’s dive in.

Roll with the rookie RB or grab an established WR?

As we can see when we bring up the Fantasy Life ADP grid tool, more times than not at 1.08 we’re going to be left with a choice between either Bijan Robinson or one of the WR options that exist outside of the top four names (Jefferson, Kupp, Chase, and Hill).

There is a decent case for considering Nick Chubb here (over Robinson), but for argument's sake, we’ll just say that Robinson vs. a group of WRs that includes Stefon Diggs, AJ Brown, Cee Dee Lamb, and Amon-Ra St. Brown is what we’ll be left with more times than not.

The Falcons had the second-highest run play percentage in the league last season and were last in DBOE (dropbacks over expectation).

They ran the ball at a higher rate in almost every different scenario (up big, down big, etc.) in 2022 than the average NFL team and are a great landing spot for a high-end back like Robinson. The issue is that the coach may not be interested in making his rookie prize anything more than the head of a larger committee.

Last year the Falcons gave 354 carries to Tyler Allgeier and Cordarrelle Patterson, and both players will be with the club again for 2023. That’s not to say Robinson can’t connect for a massive season, even on lower usage than a typical RB1, but there is a downside that the market isn’t recognizing.

More pertinently, there are also established RBs like Saquon Barkley and Tony Pollard that could potentially fall to us in the second round at 17.0 and provide the same upside as Robinson.

Going with a WR at 1.08 isn’t sexy, but it provides the safest base to work off of and gives us a chance to address RB in round two with a player at a better valuation.

In terms of which WR to take, Stefon Diggs provides the safest blend of upside and usage. He had a slightly lower team target share than AJ Brown in 2022 but averaged over 1.0 targets per game more than Brown (9.6 vs. 8.6) while outscoring Brown by 1.8 fantasy points per game in PPR scoring.

Diggs also gives us good exposure to Josh Allen’s upside and a top-five offense in Buffalo that was second in pass rate in leading game scripts last season.

What to do in round 2?

The Fantasy Life ADP grid does a good job of showing why the 1.08 hole can be so frustrating.

While the 10-12 spots all get to have some level of control over the group of players ranked from 10.0 to 17.0 in the standings, when you start at 1.08, your second-round selection means settling for whoever got bypassed from that collective group, or reaching for a player with a higher ADP.

Realistically, if Tony Pollard (16.5 ADP) falls to us at 17.0, it’s pretty much a no-brainer most of the time.

Pollard took 193 carries and saw 55 targets last season but figures to top both those marks by a wide margin in 2023. I’d be happy enough just to take him and move into round three with a high-end RB/WR start more times than not. The balanced beginning also gives us the luxury of not having to be so positionally focused with our next couple of picks.

If Pollard isn’t there, then I’d rather defer to a WR-WR start and take a rising star like Chris Olave—who has a realistic top-five upside at the WR position for fantasy.

The Dolphins' Jaylen Waddle is the other WR available in this ADP range, but he’s already been banged up in training camp.

Olave ranked sixth in air yards and fifth in air yards team share in 2022 and gets a QB upgrade for 2023. He’d be the preferred target if push came to shove and would lead us back to the strategy I mentioned in the 1.04 starting position where we’d prioritize an RB in round three.

Going Pollard at 17.0, though, lets us be more flexible in the mid-rounds and opens up a wider range of possibilities for our build.

The mid-rounds

Our next three picks from rounds three to five would have us choosing at the following spots:

Round 3 - 32.0
Round 4 - 41.0
Round 5 - 56.0

Regardless of who we take in round two, the 32.0 spot puts us in a prime position to make a run at either Rhamondre Stevenson or Josh Jacobs. Jacobs’s ADP may drop after he signed his tender last weekend, hence removing the overhang risk of him sitting out the season.

Stevenson would be a fine consolation and the more likely of the two to actually be available at this pick. Despite the signing of Ezekiel Elliott, Stevenson’s PPR upside should remain massive in 2023 after he posted the second-highest TPRR (26%) rate in the league in 2022.

At 41.0, two Chicago Bears would be in play with rushing quarterback Justin Fields and yards after the catch monster D.J. Moore both worth chasing.

Given the WR-RB-RB start, I would advocate harder for Moore as it would solidify us at WR and provide some exposure to Fields’s upside. Moore had a couple of big plays in preseason, and his week-to-week upside remains fantastic even if there is the potential for a few down weeks after moving to a lower-volume passing offense.

The 56.0 pick gives us a great shot to either land our TE in Darren Waller or build up more WR upside with Diontae Johnson. Assuming we landed Moore in round three, I’d have no issue going after Waller, who acted like the Giants' primary receiving option in limited playing time this preseason, demanding a 44% team target share when on the field with Daniel Jones.

The later rounds

We’ve laid out a balanced start above that includes either landing our TE1 in the first five rounds or going with two RBs and three WRs. With those two dueling approaches in mind, it becomes important to allocate our remaining picks wisely to meet our positional needs.

Sep 11, 2022; Landover, Maryland, USA; Washington Commanders wide receiver Jahan Dotson (1) catches the game winning touchdown in front of Jacksonville Jaguars cornerback Tyson Campbell (32) during the second half at FedExField. Mandatory Credit: Scott Taetsch-USA TODAY Sports

Obviously QB becomes a focus, and we don’t want to be scrambling at the end of the draft as we justify having Kenny Pickett as our starting QB and Jimmy Garoppolo as his backup.

We also need to remember that since we went with two RBs in the first five picks, we may have to sacrifice some depth at the position to either address WR in the next couple rounds, or ensure we don’t miss out on all the second-tier TEs.

Here are some names I’d be looking to target in the next five rounds to round out our draft.

65 (round 6): Chris Godwin or Jahan Dotson
80 (round 7): Rachaad White or Dallas Goedert
89 (round 8): Deshaun Watson, Isiah Pachecho, or Anthony Richardson
104 (round 9): Anthony Richardson, Zach Charbonnet, or Pat Freiermuth
113 (round 10): Daniel Jones, Jaylen Warren, or Dalton Kincaid

The biggest takeaway from this area of the draft is the limited receiving options we have available. Things get thin at WR after round 7, and after round 8 I'm almost happy to avoid the position altogether until we get out of round 10.

If we grabbed Waller in round 5, then taking a player like Godwin or Dotson would be a priority in round six—as opposed to dipping back into the RB pool. At the same time, good value options like Rachaad White and Isiah Pachecho should be targets in round 8 or 9 to help balance out our allocation.

Anthony Richardson, Deshaun Watson, and Daniel Jones would all be good starting points for a tandem approach to quarterback and provide solid rushing upside to counteract the teams who went after an elite QB early on.

Mocking from the 1.08

Below is a hypothetical squad that I constructed while drafting from the 1.08 spot, using the guide outlined in the article above (average ADP provided from Underdog Fantasy).

Round 1 (Pick 8) - Stefon Diggs
Round 2 (Pick 17) - Tony Pollard
Round 3 (Pick 32) - Rhamondre Stevenson
Round 4 (Pick 41) - DJ Moore
Round 5 (Pick 56) - Darren Waller
Round 6 (Pick 65) - Jahan Dotson
Round 7 (Pick 80) - Zay Flowers
Round 8 (Pick 89) - Deshaun Watson
Round 9 (Pick 104) - Zach Charbonnet
Round 10 (Pick 113) - Daniel Jones
Round 11 (Pick 128) - Jerick McKinnon
Round 12 (Pick 137) - Chigoziem Okonkwo

Obviously how you construct after round 12 depends on a few factors—most pertinently, which DSTs are available when your turn is up and how much you value a higher-end kicker.

If you are going with Waller as your TE in redraft leagues this year, I do like the upside of grabbing a TE2 like Chigoziem Okonkwo later on simply because of Waller’s injury history. Okonkwo could also be great trade bait later on if Treylon Burks’s injury lingers.

Jonathan Mingo, Tyjae Spears, and Chris Evans are a few of the RBs and WRs I’d be looking to grab after round 12 as early-season stashes or high-end handcuffs.

You can find a great breakdown of the various tiers of RB handcuffs available for 2023 on our site, and also make sure to check out the various in-season tools we have to help with waivers, trades, and start/sit decisions.

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