Fantasy Upside
Injuries mostly derailed Joe Burrow's 2023 season, but in his brief period of good health (Weeks 5-10), he was fantasy's QB6. Each of the five games in that sample resulted in a multi-touchdown performance, with him going for 280+ yards in four of them. When healthy, those are the types of numbers Burrow has put up across his career; a QB5-QB8 with minimal rushing contribution, supporting multiple pass-catching options as a tide that lifts all boats.
Fantasy Downside
Whether they're freak injuries or not, Burrow has dealt with a multitude of them since coming into the league in 2020, so what's to say they won't continue to mount going forward? While the team added Jermaine Burton to add more pop out of their WR3, they lost OC Brian Callahan to the Titans and long-time running back Joe Mixon to the Texans. Burrow has played with Callahan and Mixon for the entirety of his career, so it's worth wondering how he will adjust without those two pillars.
2024 Bottom Line
Fifteen years ago, options like Burrow, C.J. Stroud, and Dak Prescott might have been the first three quarterbacks off the board, with ADPs in the opening rounds of the draft. Nowadays, they slide down boards due to their lack of rushing, no matter how good they are as "real" quarterbacks. Burrow would have to have an otherworldly season to finish as a top-5 QB option, but he has done it before, as recently as the 2022 season. It's understandable why risk-averse drafters would prefer to fade Burrow due to his injury history, but he offers a type of fantasy upside that is hard to come by with non-rushing QBs in today's NFL.