Our analysts have put together fantasy football outlooks for all fantasy-relevant players. You can find them on our player pages and via our Expert Consensus Rankings (ECR). These will be updated throughout the preseason to help you navigate your fantasy football drafts utilizing our bevy of tools, including our FREE draft simulator and cheat sheet creator. We’ll cover players in different groups to help you identify those to target and others to avoid. Let’s take a look at players that are entering make-or-break fantasy football seasons.
- More Fantasy Football Advice
- Snake Draft Pick Strategy: Early | Middle | Late
- Best Ball Draft Primers: QB | RB | WR | TE
- Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator
Fantasy Football Players in Make-or-Break Seasons
Here are 2023 fantasy football outlooks for players entering make-or-break seasons.
The 2022 version of Deshaun Watson was a far cry from the early-career Watson who finished top five in QB fantasy scoring in each of his first three seasons as a starter. Amid allegations of sexual assault, Watson didn’t play in 2021 and served an 11-game suspension in 2022 before making a Week 13 debut for the Browns against his old team, the Texans. Watson was predictably rusty, producing numbers befitting a fantasy backup over a small sample size. It’s reasonable to assume that Watson will look at least a little more like the dynamic dual-threat QB he used to be in 2023, but it would be a leap of faith to assume that he’ll be as effective as he was from 2018 to 2020.
- Pat Fitzmaurice
Antonio Gibson‘s production fell off substantially in 2022 as he split work in the Commanders’ backfield with rookie Brian Robinson Jr. In Gibson’s last nine healthy games played – he missed the end of the year with a foot injury that required surgery – he and Robinson operated as fantasy RB3s as the RB34 and RB30 respectively in points per game. AG was still the much more involved receiver with an impressive 14% target share – three catches, four targets and 22 receiving yards per game – but he was out-carried 9.7 rushing attempts per game to 16.7 by Robinson. B-Rob’s status as the starter on early downs entering the season will surely make Gibson – a free agent at the end of 2023 – an enticing late-round running back option based on his pass-catching prowess and RB1 fantasy production his first two years in the league. Keep in mind, that J.D. McKissic is coming off a neck injury with an out in his contract, slating Gibson to reprise the full-blown receiving role for Washington. Gibson’s 80.5 PFF receiving grade ranked third among all RBs in 2022.
- Andrew Erickson
Davis didn’t live up to the deafening hype last year. He finished as the WR36 in fantasy with an 18.2% target share (43rd). He remains Josh Allen‘s deep threat of choice, ranking 12th in deep targets and sixth in aDOT among wideouts. Davis has proven that he isn’t a high-end target share earner. He was 68th in target per route run rate last year. Davis remains tied to Allen’s cannon of an arm, so spike weeks will come again in 2023. At this point, you’re kidding yourself if you think he will turn into a consistent WR2 type of player. Davis is a WR3/4 that can win you a week when he’s locked in. I’m more inclined to get my Davis exposure than in redraft this year. The addition of Dalton Kincaid and James Cook taking another step forward could make his peaks and valleys more pronounced this season.
- Derek Brown
Check out more Fantasy Football Draft Strategy & Advice 
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | SoundCloud | iHeartRadio
