2023 Fantasy Football Awards

The 2023 fantasy football season recently came to an end, which means it’s time to celebrate the winners (and highlight some losers) with the fantasy awards for the 2023 season.

As always, I’ll be your host. Let’s get to it.

2023 Fantasy Football Awards

2023 Fantasy MVP: Christian McCaffrey, San Francisco 49ers

Christian McCaffrey finished the 2023 season with 2.22 fantasy wins added (half-PRR), eking out CeeDee Lamb and Tyreek Hill for the crown this year. (Lamb’s Week 17 eruption would give him a season-long weighted value edge over McCaffrey, for what it’s worth, since obviously championship-round ceilings are worth more.) McCaffrey simply did not miss at any point this year. There were literally zero games in which he finished with negative Fantasy Wins Added. FWA measures your fantasy win rate as a direct result of that player being in your lineup.

Best Fantasy QB of 2023: Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills

He’s done it again. Josh Allen has now finished as fantasy’s best QB four years in a arow. He also finished with the most Fantasy Wins Added (1.68) again. Allen led the league in TDs (it wasn’t close) and, like CMC, had zero games with negative FWA. 

Best Fantasy RB of 2023: Christian McCaffrey, San Francisco 49ers

See above. McCaffrey’s 2.22 fantasy wins added were not only the best among all players, but he was so far above every other RB it hardly registers. 

Best Fantasy WR of 2023: CeeDee Lamb, Dallas Cowboys

CeeDee Lamb’s enormous Week 17 was enough to put him ahead of Tyreek Hill (2.21 FWA vs. 2.18).

Over the second half of 2023, Lamb just took over the league. He scored over 20 fantasy points in six of his final 10 games and didn’t score fewer than 13 in any of them. 

Best Fantasy TE of 2023: T.J. Hockenson, Minnesota Vikings

T.J. Hockenson crushed this year and finished with 0.58 FWA in half-PPR leagues, just ahead of Travis Kelce at 0.57 FWA.

Yes, Hockenson was more valuable than Kelce even though Kelce technically scored more points. (Sam LaPorta scored more than both of them, but he finished with only 0.33 FWA. All of this is a very interesting example of why FWA is superior to straight up points when assessing player value in fantasy.)

But back to Hockenson: He posted 95 receptions and 960 yards in a season that was cut a couple of weeks short due to injury. He easily would have topped 100-1,000.

Best Fantasy Draft Value of 2023: Raheem Mostert, Miami Dolphins

Raheem Mostert was the No. 3 RB this season after his absurd 21-TD season. His massive year will have people re-thinking the “never draft an RB over 30” mantra. Mostert was a fixture in the double-digit rounds of fantasy drafts and was so good that he was able to dominate even with rookie sensation Devon Achane breaking out alongside him. Remember when the potential of Dalvin Cook to the Dolphins was scaring people off Mostert? 

Best Fantasy Waiver Pickup of 2023: Kyren Williams, Los Angeles Rams

Special shout out to Puka Nacua, who easily would have won this award if it weren’t for his pesky teammate.

As noted above, Kyren Williams was the No. 2 RB in fantasy this year — and it wasn’t particularly close. The workhorse for LA from Week 1 (15 touches, 2 TDs), Williams erupted after the first month and started touching the ball 25-30 times per week. He ripped off 5.0 yards per attempt and 15 total touchdowns. And his playoff performances were legendary: 32 touches, 155 yards, TD followed by 22 touches, 104 yards, TD followed by 22 touches, 101 yards, 3 (!) TDs in the championship round.

Best Fantasy Rookie of 2023: Puka Nacua, Los Angeles Rams

This one is pretty easy. C.J. Stroud gets consideration from the QB camp, as do Sam LaPorta and Jahmyr Gibbs for the other positions, but this one is Puka Nacua all the way. 

Nacua finished with 1.03 FWA, 12th among all players in the NFL. That means you got first-round fantasy value out of a player you most likely didn’t even draft. He supplanted Cooper Kupp as the WR1 in LA, which was unthinkable back in August. He finished the year as a more valuable fantasy WR than DJ Moore, Mike Evans, Ja’Marr Chase, Stefon Diggs and Brandon Aiyuk (and many others, of course).

Breakout Fantasy Player of 2023: Nico Collins, Houston Texans

Any of the players mentioned above could be given this crown, but I’ll pass it to Nico Collins, who shined as Houston’s WR1 all season. Collins produced massive spike weeks, which is exactly what you want to chase in fantasy football (even if it means some big down weeks, too).

And he did all of this with just a 19.3% team target share, which is not bad, but it’s far from elite. (That was in the range of Jakobi Meyers, DeVonta Smith, Jaylen Waddle — a bunch of team WR2s.) He could go from breakout player in 2023 to superstar in 2024.

Career Revival Player of 2023: DJ Moore, Chicago Bears

People thought DJ Moore might be done for in Chicago, but it proved to be the move needed to turn Moore into fantasy gold. He finished the year as the No. 13 overall player in terms of fantasy value. He was being drafted in Round 5, so saying people were writing him off completely would be disingenuous to say, but there was definitely a lot less Moore hype than usual leading into the season. He ended up setting career highs across the board with 96 receptions (previous high of 93),

Fastest Dynasty Riser of 2023: Jordan Love, Green Bay Packers

There are a ton of options for this spot. Kyren and Puka are obvious candidates. Breece Hall bounced back in a big way. C.J. Stroud will be rising up dynasty boards, too. But give me Jordan Love, who was so ice-cold awesome down the stretch that his dynasty ADP or trade value is set to go through the roof. Love turned into Aaron Rodgers 2.0 seemingly, and with limited dynasty QBs out there, Love will climb rapidly.

Biggest Bust of 2023: Austin Ekeler, Los Angeles Chargers

What a difference a year makes. Last year in this post, Austin Ekeler was named the fantasy MVP. (But we also named Kyle Pitts the bust last year, which — hey, it’s true again this year!) But Ekeler’s fall from dominance was so quick, unexpected, and brutal, that he gets this spot by default.

He had a solid stretch in Weeks 8-10, where he posted 19.5 or more half-PPR points every week. But after that, he reached 18.5 points one more time (Week 14) but then was 10.3 points or below in every other game. By the end of the season, he was in a timeshare with Joshua Kelley. Gross.

Best Game of 2023: Tyreek Hill, Miami Dolphins 

Here were the top 10 single-week performances based on fantasy wins added: