It’s that time of year once again! Football Absurdity will bring you a breakdown of every notable fantasy football-relevant player throughout July and August. In the last half of the 2022 season, Isiah Pacheco was RB14. Yet he’s being drafted RB27. Insane value or a wise market correction? Let’s take a look at 2023 Isiah Pacheco and try to figure it out, together! Also, I had the weirdest dream, last night.
Isiah Pacheco ADP and AAV:
Average Draft Position: RB27, 72nd overall
Average Auction Value: $12 (10 Teams), $15 (12 teams)
Isiah Pacheco Statistics:
| Year | G | GS | Rush | Ru Yds | Ru TD | Tgt | Rec | Yards | TD | Touches | Opp | Total Yards |
| 2022 | 17 | 11 | 170 | 830 | 5 | 14 | 13 | 130 | 0 | 183 | 184 | 960 |
| Year | YPC | Rush/G | Ru Yd/G | Tgt/G | Rec/G | Catch% | Yds/Tgt | Yds/Rec | Touches/G | Opp/G | Yds/G |
| 2022 | 4.88 | 10.0 | 48.8 | 0.82 | 0.76 | 92.9% | 9.29 | 10.00 | 10.76 | 10.82 | 56.5 |
| Year | Std Pts | HPPR Pts | PPR Pts | Pts/G | HPPR Pts/G | PPR Pts/G | Pts/Tch | HPPR Pts/Tch | PPR Pts/Tch |
| 2022 | 122 | 128.5 | 135.0 | 7.18 | 7.56 | 7.9 | 0.67 | 0.70 | 0.74 |
| Draft Year | College | Height | Weight | Draft Data |
| 2022 | Rutgers | 5-10 | 216 |
Kansas City Chiefs / 7th / 251st pick / 2022
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So, before we go into Isiah Pacheco’s fantasy outlook, let me start telling you about this super weird dream. In it, I had somehow traveled back in time to 2005 and I was at a gas station. On to Isiah Pacheco!
Pacheco was waiver wire gold in 2022. Well, he averaged 11.7 points in weeks 11-18, so maybe gold isn’t the right metal. Let’s call him waiver wire tantalum.
The argument for Isiah Pacheco is the same argument fantasy managers use every year to talk themselves into reaching for a K.C. running back: He’s a K.C. running back and they move the ball a lot. What’s that? You know, tantalum. It’s a shiny, silvery metal.
The argument against Pacheco is that K.C. doesn’t use a workhorse back strategy. Clyde Edwards-Helaire is still hanging around, and Jerick McKinnon is practically a WR2 who lines up in the backfield. Huh? I said “tantalum,” it’s used in making electrolytic capacitors so it has value. Just… forget I said it, okay? Isiah Pacheco was like waiver wire copper in 2022. We’ve got to stay focused, here!
So, anyways, in this dream I had I was back in 2005. A car pulls up and one of the people in it is this guy I knew from college. He died in a 2020 whitewater rafting accident. So I decide I’m going to change the future by handing him a note telling him how he dies and begging him not to go whitewater rafting in 2020.
2022 Isiah Pacheco Fantasy Football Draft Strategy:
Isiah Pacheco Salary Cap Value: $11 (10-Teams), $13 (12-teams)
Draft Ranking: RB25, 75th overall
Here’s the deal, Ally McBeal: I guess Pacheco is an acceptable filler as a 3rd RB on your team, but he’s not the kind of guy I like to keep on my bench. I use my Toolbox Bench strategy, where my bench is made up of a combination of boring, high-floor, bye-week guys and fliers that could break out and win me games in the fantasy playoffs. While Pacheco was that boring high-floor guy in the back half of 22, never scoring less than 8.2 points in HPPR, he also scored less than 2 fantasy points four different times.
Now, there is a narrative that the 2022 7th-round pick needed time to adjust and his later games, particularly during the Chiefs’ playoff run, better reflect how he will be in his sophomore year. If you buy that narrative, go ahead and reach for him, it’s a logical narrative. My main issue is reaching for someone just because they are “safe” is better done with a guy who might disappear behind K.C.’s 5 other decent skill position players.
In my dream, after I gave my friend the note not to go whitewater rafting, I jumped forward to 2017 for no apparent reason. The butterfly effect was in full effect and almost everything was different. Dead bodies kind of wormed around on the ground and dogs had ten opposable fingers on each paw. I ended up getting in a fistfight with a dog over a sandwich. Also, my dream made sure to let me know that my changing the past did not change Tom Brady winning all those Super Bowls because, apparently, my brain hates me.
Best Case Scenario:
Pacheco improves in his second year and ends up a top-18 back.
Worst Case Scenario:
Andy Reid does not hit his head so hard he forgets he’s Andy Reid and continues to bury his RB room’s fantasy values by running the same committee approach he’s always run with the Chiefs. Pacheco ends up RB25 with several goose-egg weeks.
The weirdest part was after I woke up. I had a friend like the one in my dream, but he never died in a whitewater rafting accident. Then I realized that I hadn’t talked to him since before the pandemic, so maybe he did. I searched the Internet and found a headline about a guy with the exact same name and age dying in a whitewater rafting incident… in 2020! I saw a picture and it was a totally different guy and it turns out my friend is still alive but, dangit, can’t I just sleep normally without all this time travel, psychic, dogfighting nonsense? Anyways, good luck with your Isiah Pacheco shares.
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[Statistics are sourced from pro-football-reference.com, airyards.com, and ftnfantasy.com]
