Week 18 Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet: Travis Kelce and Everyone Else

At the tight end position, it's Travis Kelce. Good luck with anybody else.

It's been a difficult week for everyone connected to the NFL—from players, coaches, staff and fans. Watching live while Damar Hamlin collapsed and suffered cardiac arrest was jarring. While it's wonderful to hear he's recovering, we're all left with the stark realities what players endure to deliver our favorite sport. I hope we, as people first and fans second, can step back to appreciate our fragility. It's been lovely to see everyone come together in support for Hamlin. At just 24 years old, the former University of Pitt standout may never play again and have his life's work taken away from him in a very public way. I hope we can all appreciate his sacrifice in a meaningful and sustained way. Just my two cents.

Meanwhile, the season is likely already over for the vast majority of fantasy managers. I hope you did well and if possible, I was able to help in any way I could. I believe there are some lessons to be learned, which is what I will share in this season finale edition of the cheat sheet.

1. The End of Tight Ends?

In 2021, Mark Andrews, the top-scoring fantasy tight end, scored 301.1 PPR points. The TE12 that year, Noah Fant, scored 159. In 2020, it was TE1 Travis Kelce at 312.8 to TE12 Hunter Henry at 145.3. In 2019, TE1 was Kelce again at 254.3 and TE12 Mike Gesicki at 136. The point differentials here are pretty consistent between the "best" and "worst" starting-caliber tight end.

Now you may believe this year was especially bad for the position as injuries derailed seasons for some, like George Kittle, Dallas Goedert, Zach Ertz and Darren Waller to name a few. Or that there were more anomalous results because of guys like Taysom Hill, who's managed to deliver five top 10 weekly performances at the position despite never really functioning like a traditional tight end in the Saints' offense. Or that the number of outright busts was higher than usual—most notably, Kyle Pitts. This stuff happens every year.

But really, as the numbers at the start of this write-up illustrated, this is the standard. In 2022, the TE1 was Kelce with 306.5 PPR points and TE12 Dallas Goedert scored 130.6. That is more or less in line with the last three years. So no, this year hasn't been that bad. It's been more of the same. Considering Kelce's point differential lead over his peers, he was a steal at his preseason ADP of 15.0. The No. 2 scoring TE this year, T.J. Hockenson, was also a huge value with his 65.8 ADP. However, here are the landmines with how they went off the board: Pitts 32.8 ADP (TE3) and Waller 44.8 ADP (TE5). Meanwhile, mega values like Evan Engram, Hill, Juwan Johnson and Tyler Conklin ranged from sleepers to deep sleepers to not even his mama drafted him.

There's one tight end drafting strategy: Kelce or bust. It'd be great to have landed Hockenson and if you did this year, you waited the perfect amount of time. Good luck plucking the overachieving tight end next year though. But let's not pretend there was a significantly compelling case to take Hockenson at his ADP. If there was, he would've been drafted earlier. And with Kelce, when he inevitably slows down in the coming years, you'll find yourself feeling content to punt the position like I do. Grab a couple sleepers—preferably with good quarterbacks—in back-to-back rounds in the pick No. 110-125 range after you've spend the first eight or nine rounds filling every other starter spot. Maybe grab the top-scoring Week 1 tight end off the waiver wire and hope it's his year.

One mitigating point of view here is to use a half-PPR scoring system with a TE-premium, which I discussed in my "Best Scoring System" article written back in July. This setting will make Kelce even more valuable and possibly the No. 1 pick in your drafts, but maybe that's fair given how he outperforms his peers.

2. Week 18 Stick a Fork in 'Em

I decided to keep my "SAFIE" section to make a predictive "way too early" call where you can Stick a Fork in this player for 2023.

QB Derek Carr, Las Vegas Raiders
Here are Carr's fantasy finishes over the years: 

2022: 16 (15.54 points per game)
2021: 13 (15.94)
2020: 13 (17.57)
2019: 17 (15.77)
2018: 18 (13.49
2017: 19 (13.76)
2016: 10 (17.90)
2015: 14 (16.96)
2014: 20 (12.00)

Meh. Look, Carr showed some promise early in his career and I would argue he has improved in many ways over the past decade from decision-making, pass accuracy, efficiency and avoiding sacks within the context of some pretty bad offensive lines in that time. But 2023 will be Year 10 and even if you don't like Josh McDaniels as a head coach, it should go without saying that he has the right to get his guy if he's going to be retained to stay head coach next year. Judging by his handling of Carr, the veteran quarterback's time in Las Vegas is over. But it's not without merit. Carr took a step back in nearly every meaningful stat this year from completion percentage, interception rate, yards per attempt, air yards per attempt and the list goes on. These things were supposed to flourish with Davante Adams. You'd think going from Hunter Renfrow to Adams would've been an upgrade. And maybe you believe it's more on McDaniels and the coaching staff than Carr, that's entirely possible. But it's Carr in flux now. That's how it is.

So I don't envision a "2021 Matthew Stafford Super Bowl run with the Rams" situation, where Carr lands in just the right situation. I'm seeing more of a "2022 Matt Ryan falls flat with the Colts" type of result. I guess we'll see which franchise takes a chance on him next season and go from there. I recommend you have fork in hand, primed to stick.

3. Week 18 Friggin' Bums

Every week, I'll highlight eight players (two at each position) that I like who are rostered in less than 50% of Yahoo leagues. You can think of them as desperation plays or salary punts in DFS contests.

• QB Jarrett Stidham, LV (vs. KC)
• QB Brock Purdy, SF (vs. ARI)

• RB Zack Moss, IND (vs. HOU)
• RB Elijah Mitchell, SF (vs. ARI)

• WR Rashid Shaheed, NO (vs. CAR)
• WR Robert Woods, TEN (at JAC)

• TE Trey McBride, ARI (at SF)
• TE Taysom Hill, NO (vs. CAR)

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4. Weekly SI Fantasy Must-Reads

Before setting your lineups, make sure you check out some of the world-class fantasy lowdown from our SI Fantasy analysts:

• Week 18 Start ‘Em, Sit ‘Em: QB | RB | WR | TE | K / DST
• Week 18 Rankings
• Week 18 Projections
• Week 18 Defense vs. Position
• DFS Lineup Optimizer
• Player Props
• NFL Futures
• Dynasty Stock Watch Grades: Weeks 5 to 8
• How Sites Are Handling League Championships
• Top 10 Week 17 Takeaways