Composing a fantasy football do not draft list is not an enviable task. There is no possible way to make every single person reading this article happy, but these are things that need to be said!
There’s no worse feeling than wasting your first or second pick in your fantasy football draft on someone who just does not live up to those expectations. What if you had all the information you needed in front of you to potentially pivot away and save yourself that heartache?
In this article, we’ll discuss seven players that I am looking to avoid in fantasy football drafts — for various reasons — in 2023.
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2023 Fantasy Football’s Do Not Draft List
Drake London, WR, Atlanta Falcons
If you put London on Buffalo or Kansas City, we’d be talking about him as a top-tier fantasy football WR going into 2023. The talent level is off the charts, but his situation is one that leaves a lot to be desired from a fantasy standpoint.
Red Zone 5️⃣ pic.twitter.com/Oi8bSvoax8
— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) August 15, 2023
In this very offense, we’ve already fallen into the trap of being overly excited for a receiving option for fantasy, only to be let down and experience heartbreak with Kyle Pitts. The current state of the offense — and coaching philosophy — does not lend itself to the ball finding its way to London with regularity each and every week.
While we should see an uptick in pass attempts from what Marcus Mariota was doing in Atlanta last season, Desmond Ridder is a wildly unproven player at the NFL level. He showed competency in his four starts at the end of the 2022 season, but it wasn’t enough to project a massive upgrade for this offense.
The target volume should be fine enough for London to be a weekly starter for fantasy football. However, what will the quality of those targets be? How much volume does Bijan Robinson take away as a receiver now, too? There are so many questions that we simply do not have answers to, and London is being drafted as the WR24 in Underdog Fantasy.
Are we confidently projecting Ridder to have 20+ passing touchdowns this season? Even that is a massive leap of faith, and London needs touchdowns to return value on his WR24 ADP.
We’ve already seen that receiving touchdowns are going to be hard to come by in this offense, as London had only one receiving score on 34 receptions to close out the final eight weeks of last season.
This was the fifth-worst among all NFL WRs during that time frame. As the WR31 in my half-PPR rankings right now, London’s firmly on my “do not draft” list.
Marquise Brown, WR, Arizona Cardinals
Brown certainly had his moments of fantasy relevance last year as a member of the Arizona Cardinals, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s a must-have option in this offense for 2023.
For starters, Brown will be catching passes from Colt McCoy for the majority of this year. Even if Kyler Murray does progress quickly in his rehab, the state of this roster overall may make the coaching staff hesitant to plug Murray back in when he’s ready to go in what could already be a lost season.
If you’re the new regime in Arizona, there’s a strong incentive to hit the reset button and put yourself in a position to draft a potential generational talent like Caleb Williams at the top of the 2024 NFL Draft. This means that Murray may not even see the field at all in 2023.
Brown could return value on his WR33 ADP — it has dropped in recent days, though — if he commands a near 30% target share as the clear No. 1 receiving option for McCoy in this offense.
However, that seems highly unlikely with Zach Ertz now set to return by Week 1 off of his injury, Rondale Moore expected to be a target hog out of the slot, and the addition of Michael Wilson as the complementary outside receiver.
In an offense that doesn’t exactly figure to be near the top of the league in scoring this season, plus the other target competition around him, Brown is most likely going to end up on none of my fantasy football rosters in 2023.
Deebo Samuel, WR, San Francisco 49ers
Did you know that Deebo has ended the season as a top-24 WR just once in his NFL career up to this point? Two years ago, Samuel was a dominant fantasy force, but outside of that instance — where he generated unworldly efficiency — he’s been a relatively mediocre fantasy option that’s missed a ton of time due to injuries.
In fact, last season — on a per-game basis — Samuel was actually outproduced by his own teammate in San Francisco, Brandon Aiyuk. However, fantasy managers seem intent on drafting Samuel as a rock-solid fantasy asset that is going to be a consistent producer week after week, which simply isn’t the case.
There should be no reason that Samuel is going ahead of Aiyuk in fantasy drafts, which means that you should probably let Deebo slide by you in the third or fourth round and scoop up his teammate two or three rounds later.
Rachaad White, RB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
There are some fantasy managers out there that are very optimistic about White’s fantasy outlook heading into 2023, but I am not one of them.
Yes, he caught an impressive 86% of his targets last season in Tampa Bay, but it’s important to look at the entire equation before confidently projecting a player forward. Last season, White caught 50 receptions for 290 yards and two touchdowns. This means that he averaged just 5.8 yards per reception in 2022.
Additionally, on the ground, White carried the ball just 129 times for a measly 3.7 yards per carry.
To further illustrate his inefficiency, White averaged just 2.8 yards per carry on rushes up the middle last season, which was the worst of 40 qualified RBs. The offensive line struggled last year in Tampa, but it wasn’t solely to blame for White’s struggles as a runner.
As the RB1 for the Buccaneers, White has every opportunity in front of him to be a solid fantasy option. However, if White struggles to move the ball efficiently — whether on the ground or as a receiver — are we entirely sure that the team won’t give Ke’Shawn Vaughn or Sean Tucker a chance to see what they can do?
White’s an incredibly risky draft selection this year with essentially no path for upside. I’d prefer to look elsewhere at that point in drafts.
Najee Harris, RB, Pittsburgh Steelers
Harris’ appeal for fantasy purposes since coming out of Alabama has been his ability to shoulder a massive workload and be a volume-based option in lineups. While he showed flashes of big-play potential in college, that has yet to truly translate over into the NFL level through his first two seasons.
Harris has yet to crack 4.0 yards per attempt over the course of an entire season, and there was a brief moment last season where it appeared as though he may end up losing this backfield to UDFA rookie Jaylen Warren.
While Harris was able to re-establish control as the RB1 over the latter half of the season, Warren still remains a significant threat to his touches heading into 2023. If Warren continues to outperform Harris from an efficiency standpoint, why would Pittsburgh not give Warren more touches?
Harris needs 20+ touches every single week to be a top-15 fantasy RB. It’s just a matter of fact at this point. If he’s not getting that guaranteed opportunity, he falls into a dangerous category in fantasy football.
If he finds the end zone, you’ll be happy you started him. If he doesn’t score, you’ll be kicking yourself for not going with someone else.
Is that really how you want to spend your fantasy football season? This is why Harris is all the way down to RB17 on the year in my rankings.
Jonathan Taylor, RB, Indianapolis Colts
If JT were at training camp and getting ready for the season in Indianapolis this year, I’d be comfortable selecting him as a borderline top-five RB off the board. However, he’s not, and the closer and closer we get to the start of the season with this issue being unresolved, Taylor drops further and further down my rankings.
At his current ADP, fantasy managers have to take a complete gamble and leap of faith to add him to their roster. While he’s tumbled down draft boards slightly over the past couple of weeks, he’s at the spot where fantasy managers need guaranteed production.
As a top-three round selection in drafts, fantasy managers need to know that they can rely on him week in and week out, and that’s simply a complete mystery right now.
Therefore, if I’m drafting right now, I’m letting someone else take the chance on JT. We know that he can be the overall RB1 in fantasy football, but the risks far outweigh the benefits right now with drafting Taylor as a top-15 RB off the board.
If we see him return to Colts camp here soon and start suiting up in pads, he’ll move back up my rankings. For the time being, he’s on my do not draft list.
Dak Prescott, QB, Dallas Cowboys
Prescott’s been a solid fantasy QB in the past. There have been moments where we’ve thought that he could be a consistent top-five option, but those days seem to be behind him now.
With Kellen Moore moving off to Los Angeles, we’re going to see a dramatically different approach on offense this season in Dallas. Mike McCarthy will be calling plays for the Cowboys in 2023, which means that we should expect to see a heavy dose of the ground game.
During his time in Green Bay, McCarthy leaned heavily on his RBs and was committed to slowing down the pace of play. This — along with the strength of Dallas’ defense — means that we shouldn’t expect to see Dak throwing the ball 40+ times per game again this year.
With Dak doing very little in the ground game recently, too — just 328 rushing yards over the past two seasons combined — he has to make up for that lack of volume with insane touchdown efficiency. He has the playmakers to help him do it, but is that worth the investment as a top-12 QB?
When there are other options like Tua Tagovailoa, Kirk Cousins, Aaron Rodgers, and Deshaun Watson all going off the board around Prescott, it’s worth letting someone else take the chance on Dak and going after one of the other options that present more upside.