Fantasy Football’s One-Game Wonders of 2023

Many teachers let you drop your lowest test score when factoring your final grade, so one outlier doesn’t color the impression of your entire experience. Today, we apply that to fantasy football.

In the beginning, we looked at fantasy point total for the season. Because it’s a season-long game, right? Ten points in Week 1 and 20 in Week 2 is ultimately the same as 15 in Week 1 and 15 in Week 2. Eventually, we realized guys who could average 20 points per game in half a season before getting hurt were more valuable than guys who averaged 10 per game over a full season, and we started looking at points per game. But that still lets a single big week color things.

My best example: In 2018, Mitch Trubisky was the QB15, with 263.02 fantasy points. Good season. Not great, but you see that and thing “Oh, I could have done some things with that.” But in Week 4 of that year, Trubisky had a legendary week. 354 passing yards, 54 rushing yards, 6 passing TDs. 43.5 fantasy points. Best game for a QB all that season, sixth best overall. Take that game out and give him his average game instead, and Trubisky would have been QB18, and his points per game would have dropped by 2.4.

In other words, he was a one-game wonder. So who were the one-game wonders of 2023? Who would have seen their numbers drop by the most if you took out one massive game? And does it mean anything for 2024?

(All scoring is PPR. Players needed 150 points to qualify, 120 at tight end.)

Fantasy Football One-Game Wonders of 2023

Quarterback

C.J. Stroud, Houston Texans

Total points: 276.0
Biggest game: 41.8, Week 9 (15.1%)

C.J. Stroud had a monster rookie season, finishing as the QB11 despite missing two games. His real coming-out party was that Week 9 game, where he not only went 30-of-42 passing for 470 yards and 5 touchdowns and added 27 yards on the ground, but he led a game-winning touchdown drive in the last 46 seconds of the game to beat the NFC South champion Buccaneers. Before the game, Stroud was a fine rookie, QB17 in fantasy. After that game, he was a sensation, rising to QB8 and carrying that momentum to an Offensive Rookie of the Year finish.

Stroud averaged 18.4 fantasy points per game last year. Replace his Week 9 with his average game, and that drops to 16.7, the same as guys like Tua Tagovailoa, Baker Mayfield and Jake Browning. Still a good season, but not “resetting the record book”-level good. And that’s the hangup on Stroud in fantasy. He doesn’t really run. He had 167 rushing yards and three scores as a rookie. And you can be an excellent passer, but without wheels to make it up, you simply have to have those kinds of unsustainable mega-games to be a fantasy superstar. Stroud’s a great real quarterback, but in fantasy I’m a bit hesitant.

Desmond Ridder, Atlanta Falcons

Total points: 177.1
Biggest game: 26.2, Week 5 (14.8%)

Justin Fields, Chicago Bears

Total points: 230.2
Biggest game: 33.0, Week 5 (14.3%)

Two young quarterbacks, two big Week 5 performances, two guys who might not be starters in 2024 (one who definitely won’t be). Desmond Ridder was a nonfactor for most of 2023, but losing his Week 5 would have taken his already underwhelming PPG from 11.8 to 10.8. When you already struggle to put up points, losing a whole point off your average is a killer. Meanwhile, Justin Fields’ full-season average of 17.7 points per game was totally respectable. But take out his Week 5 (282 passing yards, 4 passing TDs, 57 rushing yards) and that average drops to 16.4, with five of 13 games under 11 fantasy points. His inconsistency is a big part of the reason why he hasn’t found a job.

Running Back

De’Von Achane, Miami Dolphins

Total points: 190.7
Biggest game: 51.3, Week 3 (26.9%)

The perfect storm: One absolutely historic game plus injuries costing the player a bunch of others, lowering his point total and making that historic game count that much more. De’Von Achane’s PPG average of 17.3 was fifth at the position, but without his 233-yard, 4-touchdown Week 3, it drops to 13.9, 18^th in the league. Of course, Achane had some games he was barely there which offset his Week 3 somewhat. So the truth is somewhere in the middle. He’s an exciting prospect for 2024, but that Week 3 game might be unnaturally elevating the excitement a bit.

Raheem Mostert, Miami Dolphins

Total points: 267.7
Biggest game: 45.2, Week 3 (16.9%)

I didn’t plan to include this here (it was No. 4 at running back), but I just wanted to note one more time how crazy it is that two running backs on the same team combined for nearly 100 fantasy points in a single game. Absurd.

Zack Moss, Indianapolis Colts

Total points: 169.6
Biggest game: 33.5, Week 5 (19.8%)

Jonathan Taylor, Indianapolis Colts 

Total points: 156.4
Biggest game: 27.6, Week 18 (17.6%)

It went under the radar a bit, but Jonathan Taylor closed his season on a five-game touchdown streak. Taylor or Zack Moss scored in 13 different games last year (for 15 total) but never scored in the same game. So this isn’t a point about either guy, necessarily — it’s a point that the Colts’ offense is so very friendly for a running back, and with Moss gone to Cincinnati now, Taylor could see a flashback to his 2021 season.

Wide Receiver

Amari Cooper, Cleveland Browns

Total points: 227.0
Biggest game: 51.5, Week 16 (22.7%)

Amari Cooper was … fine last year. He was WR27 entering Week 16, with three games of 20-plus points. No shame — especially given the team’s mess at quarterback — but hardly “WR tentpole” level. Then in Week 15 he caught 11 passes for 265 yards and 2 touchdowns. He finished the season as WR20 despite not even playing again after that game. Without it, his average would have gone from 15.1 PPG to 12.5, and 12.5 points per game over the 15 games Cooper played worked out to 188.0 points … or WR36. Maybe Cooper improved in 2024, especially if the quarterback situation is better, but don’t let that Week 16 overcount in your evaluation.

Ja’Marr Chase, Cincinnati Bengals

Total points: 262.7
Biggest game: 52.2, Week 5 (19.9%)

2023 wasn’t Ja’Marr Chase’s best season as a pro, with a career-low in yards per game (76.0) and a yards-per-target mark of 8.4 that was a full 3.0 yards below his 2021 average as a rookie. In Week 5, he caught 15 passes for 192 yards and 3 touchdowns. What else was notable about Week 5? Tee Higgins missed that game. And with Higgins reportedly wanting out in Cincinnati, that’s something we need to monitor, because per the FTN Fantasy splits tool, over the last two years, Chase has averaged nearly 3 more PPR points per game with Higgins out:

You want to say a second receiver helps pull coverage away, but maybe Higgins leaving Cincinnati could make Chase even more elite.

Tight End

Dallas Goedert, Philadelphia Eagles

Total points: 136.3
Biggest game: 25.7, Week 5 (18.9%)

(Week 5 had a disproportionate number of entries in this space.)

Dallas Goedert has struggled to be consistently dominant in his career. He’s definitely one of the league’s better tight ends, but he has never put together any dominant stretch like other big-name tight ends have. He has five 100-yard games over the last four years, with two in 2021 and one in each of the other three. He only has one career multi-touchdown game (2021). Last year, Week 5 was his lone 100-yard game (he never topped 77 yards in a game otherwise), and he scored a touchdown in that game. This is why Goedert will never crack the top of the heap at tight end. He’s a fantasy starter, but a back-end starter, not a top-of-the-heap one.

Mark Andrews, Baltimore Ravens

Total points: 135.4
Biggest game: 25.0, Week 4 (18.5%)

Mark Andrews had a yo-yo season. Missed Week 1, TE3 in Week 2, TE20 in Week 3, TE2 in Week 4, and so on. The arrivals of Zay Flowers and Odell Beckham in Baltimore, and the development of Isaiah Likely, had Andrews average 6.1 targets per game in 2023, his lowest since he was a lightly used rookie in 2018. Beckham is likely gone in 2024, as are Gus Edwards and J.K. Dobbins, but the arrival of Derrick Henry in Baltimore could mean even more carries as opposed to pass attempts, and with more touch competition, I wonder if Andrews’ days as an uber-elite tight end are behind him.