Fantasy Football Mock Drafts: An Early 2023 Mock

The 2022 fantasy football season is in the books, and after a day to let it marinate, it’s time to get right back into the action with an early 2023 fantasy football mock draft.

12 FTN Network people got together for a 0.5-PPR mock draft on Sleeper. You needed 1 QB, 2 RBs, 3 WRs, 1 Flex as the starting lineup. Let’s get right into it.

2023 Fantasy Football Mock Draft

Here’s the full draft board:

A few interesting nuggets:

First-Round Strategy

The first round saw five RBs, six WRs and a TE come off the board, and only two RBs were selected in the first nine picks.

In 2022 drafts, seven RBs were gone by the end of Round 1, and RBs accounted for six of the first nine picks. Top-end RBs are devalued in these early 2023 drafts.

Early-Round Strategy

By the end of Round 3, 15 RBs, 16 WRs, two TEs and three QBs were off the board.

Last year had 16 RBs, 14 WRs, three QBs and three TEs gone by the end of Round 3 which are nearly identical to the early 2023 mock. So by the end of the early rounds, the balance between positions is similar to last year despite fewer RBs going extremely early.

First Round of the Early 2023 Mock Draft

Here’s how our first round went down:

No major surprises here — except for maybe Najee Harris slipping into the first round ahead of Travis Etienne, A.J. Brown, CeeDee Lamb and some others.

Notable RBs missing from the first were Derrick Henry, Dalvin Cook and Alvin Kamara — who have been mainstays in the first for several years.

Kelce went in the first — which certainly feels right. The concern with him last year was what the KC offense would look like without Tyreek Hill, and whether Kelce’s age would catch up. The answer was a resounding no, and even if there’s a dip in production in 2023, he’ll still be the clear-cut fantasy TE1 producing WR1 numbers.

Strategies from FTN’s Way-Too-Early 2023 Fantasy Football Mock Draft

Here are some of the strategies that came out of the draft:

RB Heavy: 3 RBs to Start

Breece Hall 2023 Fantasy Football Mock Draft

Drafting from the 1.01 spot, this is what I ended up rolling with. My draft started with CMC, Breece Hall and Joe Mixon. I followed that up with Keenan Allen, Terry McLaurin and Drake London.

The end result was that this felt just OK. The RBs fill up my starting spots and flex nicely, but the blend of old-medium-young with my starting WRs feels sure to miss in at least one spot. And the depth behind these three WRs ended up being rough, with Hunter Renfrow, Chase Claypool, Mecole Hardman and Allen Robinson finishing out as the depth options.

One single mock draft in February isn’t enough for me to say I won’t try heavy RB again in 2023, but it certainly felt like it missed the mark.

Zero RB: No RB Selected in First 5 Rounds

Mike Randle went with Zero RB from the 1.05 spot, starting his draft with Stefon Diggs, Tee Higgins, Mark Andrews, Justin Herbert and Amari Cooper before selecting Miles Sanders and Isiah Pacheco in back-to-back rounds.

This is a solid, well-rounded team, and Sanders/Pacheco looks like fantastic Zero RB targets in those middle rounds. Both are starters for their squads, and both play on high-scoring offenses.

Early QB: QB Off the Board in First 2 Rounds

I have a hunch we will see more early QBs in 2023 — and we saw it in this FTN mock draft not once, but twice. (Three times if you count Patrick Mahomes in the third round.)

Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts were drafted back-to-back at 2.10 and 2.11. Last year, only Allen was selected in the first two rounds. But according to the Fantasy Football Wins Added tool, these top-flight QBs might indeed be worth such a high draft pick.