Ladd McConkey – NFL Draft Sleeper Alert
Jay Felicio
All summer long, I’m taking a look at the fantasy landscape heading into 2023 and helping drafters make some of the toughest decisions. If two players are close to one another in ADP, who should you choose? That’s the plan here. This is Fantasy Crossroads.
The AFC North is always a very entertaining division. Over the years, it has been known for stellar defensive teams. But as of late, it has started to shift more toward offense.
Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson have had plenty to do with that.
Both elite quarterbacks are going to post stellar numbers for fantasy football, but who warrants more attention entering the 2023 season?
Joe Burrow, QB, Cincinnati Bengals
The Case for Joe Burrow
During his first full NFL season in 2021, Joe Burrow was arguably the best signal-caller in the NFL. He threw for 4,611 yards and 34 touchdowns and ranked first in completion percentage (70.4%) and yards per attempt (8.9). Burrow was also second in yards per completion (12.6) and 13% of his pass attempts traveled 20-plus yards.
In 2022, teams defended Burrow and the Bengals differently, but it didn’t slow them down much at all. Burrow tossed 35 touchdowns to just 12 interceptions and finished as QB4 in fantasy. Sure, his yards per attempt and completion percentage dropped from 2021, but it was going to be impossible to remain as efficient as he was that season. After Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase led the NFL in vertical touchdown passes in 2021, opposing defenses tried to stop the bleeding by playing a ton of two-deep safety looks. In 2021, the Bengals faced the vaunted Cover-2 shell on 27.2% of dropbacks. However, this past season, opposing defenses played either Cover-2, Cover-4, Cover-6 or 2-Man on over 44% of dropbacks against the Bengals. There were a few speed bumps to get over, but once Burrow started to take what the defense gave him, the Bengals offense did what we expected them to do. Per FTN Data, Burrow was third in passing yards (2,097) and first in touchdown passes (12) against those defensive looks. They also were extremely pass-heavy – only the Los Angeles Chargers sported a higher pass rate in neutral game scripts than Cincinnati (64.5%). The Bengals also called pass on 57.6% of plays in the red zone, the sixth-highest rate in the league. Burrow ranked seventh in pass attempts from inside the 10-yard line (38) and averaged about 36 pass attempts per game, and we know he’ll contend for the league lead in passing.
But he quietly added a fair amount of production on the ground, too.
Only six quarterbacks saw more designed rushing attempts than Burrow’s 48 last season, as he ultimately finished the year with 257 rushing yards and five touchdowns. It wasn’t as if Burrow was just randomly scrambling out of the pocket – he was just 10th at the position with 27 scrambles. The Bengals were calling designed rushing plays for Burrow, especially in short-yardage situations. His seven carries from inside the five-yard line were the fifth-most among all quarterbacks. Burrow recorded at least 20 rushing yards in six different games last season, and through 42 career regular-season games, he has scored a healthy 10 rushing touchdowns. Burrow is the focal point of a pass-heavy offense, sees designed rushing attempts (especially from in close) and has one of the best wide receiver trios in the NFL.
What’s not to love?
The Case Against Joe Burrow
I repeat. What’s not to love?
There really aren’t many arguments to make against Burrow. He’s one of the best players in the NFL, is in a great offense and throws passes to Chase, Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd every week. The issue with Cincinnati over the last few years has been the offensive line, and Burrow felt that heavily in 2021. He was sacked a league-high 51 times that season and was under pressure on 33.3% of dropbacks. However, the offensive line improved this past season, as Burrow was under duress on just 26.5% of dropbacks, the third-lowest rate among qualified quarterbacks. Entering 2023, there will be some changes – the Bengals signed Orlando Brown to play left tackle, while La’el Collins has no timetable for his return. There hasn’t been a ton of continuity on this unit of late, but there’s still plenty of talent in front of Burrow.
Lamar Jackson, QB, Baltimore Ravens
The Case for Lamar Jackson
Did you watch his 2019 MVP season?
I understand it was a few years ago and Lamar Jackson has had some trouble staying on the field since. But the fact remains that when healthy, Jackson is still one of the best quarterbacks in all of football. And the fantasy upside is as high as anyone. In the three seasons since his MVP year, Jackson has averaged 0.76, 0.54 and 0.65 fantasy points per dropback, which ranked first, seventh and third during that span. Only Jalen Hurts and Justin Fields averaged more fantasy points per dropback than Jackson this past season, as Jackson led all quarterbacks in rushing yards per game (63.9). Of course, Jackson is always going to provide huge rushing totals – he’s rushed for at least 700 yards in all four seasons and eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark twice. Since becoming Baltimore’s starting quarterback in Week 11 of the 2018 season, Jackson has rushed for at least 40 yards in 50-of-62 games, which is right around 81%.
Entering the 2023 season, there appears to be more passing volume on the way for Jackson. In Greg Roman’s offense over the last three seasons, the Ravens ranked 32nd in all of football in neutral-script passing rate (49.2%), while Jackson only averaged about 28 pass attempts per game during that span. But between the change in offensive coordinator and added talent at wide receiver, the Ravens are primed to see a massive uptick in passing volume. Todd Monken will be calling plays for Baltimore, who has led more pass-heavy offenses during his time in the NFL. He was the offensive coordinator in Cleveland in 2019, and in that season the Browns ranked 10th in passing rate on early downs (55.3%). Meanwhile, when he was calling plays in Tampa Bay in 2018, the Bucs ranked fourth in passing rate on early downs (59.9%). This is going to be a serious change of pace for the Ravens, who sported an early-down pass rate of 49.5% from 2019-2022, which ranked 25th in football. Jackson is coming off a career-low 6.9 yards per pass attempt but was throwing to Devin Duvernay, Demarcus Robinson, Sammy Watkins and DeSean Jackson for much of the season. Don’t forget that Jackson ranked top-11 in yards per attempt in both 2021 and 2019. Fast forward to 2023, and Jackson will play in a higher-volume pass offense that added Zay Flowers and Odell Beckham this offseason and will get Rashod Bateman back from injury. And when you remember that tight end Mark Andrews is still there, it’s pretty easy to see that this is the deepest group of pass-catchers the Ravens have had in years.
The Case Against Lamar Jackson
Legitimately the only way Jackson disappoints this season is if he misses time, which has been an issue over the last two seasons. Jackson has missed 11 games and dealt with multiple sprains. While many believe Jackson’s injuries are a result of him rushing so much, keep in mind that his PCL sprain last year came off a sack and his ankle sprain in 2021 took place when he rolled out on a pass to Andrews.
The Verdict: Lamar Jackson
Burrow and Jackson are two of the best players in the NFL. And from a fantasy perspective, I’d be legitimately shocked if both don’t finish as top-seven quarterbacks. However, I think Jackson has a really good chance of getting back to QB1 in fantasy football. He’ll likely flirt with 450 passes and 120 rushing attempts in an offense that has more talent across the board than we have seen of late. If I’m selecting a quarterback in the first five rounds of a fantasy draft, I’m looking for someone who has the upside to match, or even surpass, the consensus top-three signal-callers in fantasy (Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen). There’s a path for Jackson to do just that in 2023.
