Dynasty Analysis
Within the last month, we received the news that promising San Francisco running back Jeff Wilson Jr. tore his meniscus at team facilities on May 20th. Coach Kyle Shanahan later reported that “Jeff got hurt sitting down in a chair in the locker room and he got out of it and his knee got in an awkward position”. Just a flukey injury but one that makes these NFL players seem a little more human. Wilson and team staff elected to go forward with a meniscal repair surgery vs a meniscectomy allowing us to discuss the differences in return to play between the two.
As with any league, the context is everything. Your author shares this brief disclaimer as both a reminder for your own best interest as an owner and as a primer to start this article. There are many important questions you need to know the answer to in order to correctly utilize actionable advice. Is the league redraft or dynasty? Are there 10 owners, 12 owners, 14 owners, 16 owners, or is it a multi-copy league? How many roster spots are there? Is it SuperFlex or TE premium or tiered PPR? Is it an IDP league? How many starters are in the lineup? Is the draft third-round reversal? Do you have taxi squads? Each of these questions plays a vital role in analysis within the realm of fantasy football. Before you boldly and blindly follow advice from a website or analyst, make certain you know the context with which the advice is shared.
Active dynasty leagues are the best leagues. Nobody wants to be in a stale league where owners don’t trade much, there is constant turnover in ownership from year to year, some teams are competitive (in spirit) and some are either purposely tanking or tanking due to how bad they suck. The best leagues are the ones where everyone is competing to win, trading is high, waiver claims are high, smack-talking is high, and so forth.
Tampa Bay made it apparent that they wanted to retain Brady’s pass-catchers by re-signing both Antonio Brown and Chris Godwin. Add them to the mix of Mike Evans, Scotty Miller, Rob Gronkowski, and Cameron Brate, and this group may be the deepest receiving crew in the league. To add more fire to the mix, O.J. Howard will come into the 2021 season fully healthy again. Brady finished as the QB8 last season, but most of his damage came in the second half of the season. From Weeks 7 and 17, he served as the QB6, but what’s more impressive is that he finished as the QB2 during the last three weeks of the season. Why is that the more impressive part? Maybe it’s because those last three weeks are typically the FANTASY PLAYOFFS!
The building or maintenance of a dynasty team can be such a fragile project. One early missed pick can quickly change the direction of your team. Such as using a second-round startup pick (1QB) or the 1.01 in rookie drafts on a player who doesn’t project to be worth the price. I am talking about Najee Harris.
Harris was selected 24th overall by the Pittsburgh Steelers who were lacking any sort of production from their backfield. But the bigger part of this is that he became a first-rounder, the 19th running back to do so since 2010. This is great for Harris because between 2010 and 2019, 43.8% of first-round running backs achieved at least an RB5 finish, and 75% achieved at least an RB12 finish.
Would you believe it if I told you that Antonio Gibson, who played mostly wide receiver (WR) in college, tallied 16.2 carries and targets per game in the first 11 games of his pro football career at running back (RB)? After blowing up in Week 12 for 20/115/3, along with five receptions on seven targets, he was hurt early in the next game and missed two weeks. He then came back and received a large share of the workload again, but he was hobbled a bit by the injury and indeed it has lingered into the offseason, somewhat unexpectedly. What are his prospects for 2021, and how do they compare to the rest of the 2020 RB class and other similar ranked veteran RBs?
Would you ever trade a dollar bill for three quarters? If not, can you at least imagine a scenario where you would? If it wasn’t for charity or goodwill, but an actual self-serving purpose? No? Well, try this one on. Maybe I’m driving my family in the station wagon cross country to Wally World and run into some unplanned misadventures along the way. Maybe I need to make up some time and drive through the night. I’m going to need an ice-cold Coke to keep rolling, so I stop at a rest stop and go to the vending machine. I only have one dollar bill but I also have one quarter. Stay with me, the analogy is only going to get worse from here.
Joe Burrow looked awesome in 2020 when he was on the field. As a rookie, he was very impressive and I cannot wait to see how he grows in 2021. The team is giving him every chance to succeed and I think he will take advantage of these resources to have a great season and career. I have him projected for a very solid 4,700 passing yards and 35 total touchdowns. This results in him averaging 23.4 fantasy points per game, this leaves him easily in the top eight QBs for 2021. With his ADP being about QB12 I am loving him in drafts and find myself stacking him with a Bengals wide receiver very often.
The Buffalo RB group is interesting. I gave Zack Moss more rushing work than Devin Singletary and gave Singletary more receiving work than Moss. Which matches the trend set when both were active in 2020. Unfortunately, this creates two RBs that I do not want. At first, I found it surprising that Singletary came out with more points than Moss because I thought Moss’s TD upside would trump the receiving upside. However, Singletary uses that receiving upside to achieve four receiving touchdowns. Both of these running backs ended up with seven total touchdowns, but Singletary had 30 more receptions which give him the point advantage. These RBs may not seem desirable, but at their respective ADPs, I could see myself owning some Singletary. He is currently being drafted after Zach Moss, so I would take advantage of this by fading Moss and scooping Singletary late.
Spring of 2018, scrolling through my Twitter feed I stumbled upon a tweet about a 24-team 2-copy Superflex IDP Dynasty League. I didn’t know what Superflex or Dynasty meant but it sounded fun. In my mind, it was like building a Madden franchise, so I joined the league. I really had no idea how to draft or what rankings to follow. I was always very good in my redraft home leagues, but it was difficult to adjust my rankings. It was the middle of the offseason; I had no rankings for 2018 yet. I ended up opening FantasyPros and using the consensus rankings for dynasty. The problem was, I didn’t realize the rankings were for 1QB leagues.
Welcome back to the “Fantasy Stock Up, Stock Down” series. This week’s coverage is all about the AFC South. This is the third division breakdown, and you can find the AFC East here and the NFC East here. Keep in mind, there will be a player whose stock is up and a player whose stock is down from each team in this division. Let’s dive right in.
Clyde Edwards-Helaire is a player that was hyped to Mars in the last off-season. I had been calling him a post-hype buy candidate all off-season so I was excited to see what my projections would have in store for him. In 2020 CEH had 45% of the team’s carries and that was with him missing three full games. So, in 2021 I have him projected for 50% of the team’s carries. I also gave him a 50% share of the rush TDs and a 10% target share. All of these comes together to make a 1,300 yard and 13 total TD season. One of CEH’s biggest issues last season was finding the endzone, I have him correcting this in a big way and seeing an elite TD floor. He is the main RB in the league’s most consistent offense. He should see a lot of TD opportunities this season.
In this series, I am diving into each NFL team and putting forth my predictions on what I think they will do in the 2021 season. I think having a set of reasonable or expected projections can help us during our drafts. They can help differentiate between closely ranked players, not only by comparing floor but also by comparing potential upside. I will be showing a set of realistic or expected projections and telling you if I think anyone is being under or overvalued in best ball/redraft drafts right now. These can also be used in a dynasty mindset, especially if you are a contending team. But, even if you are in a rebuild these projections could outline a young, cheap player who may get more work than a lot of people think. Let’s dig in.
Myles Gaskin played college football at the University of Washington from 2015-2018. Gaskin put together an impressive college career, rushing for over 1,200 yards and double-digit TDs in each of his four seasons. During the pre-draft process, he measured in at 5’ 9”, 205 lbs, and registered a below-average speed score with his 4.58 40-yard dash. Gaskin was selected by the Miami Dolphins in the seventh round of the 2019 NFL Draft.
The receiver with two 1,000+ yard receiving seasons in their first three years or the receiver with just one top-24 season? Whichever way you want to portrait it, D.J. Moore has a lot of different interpreters that are struggling to find consensus. The range on Moore’s ADP is one of the most drastic out of all players. But where should we be valuing him? Is his WR16 ADP low enough to find value gains or not quite worth the price?
In this coming series, I will be diving into each NFL team and putting forth my predictions on what I think they will do in the 2021 season. I think having a set of reasonable or expected projections can help us during our drafts. They can help differentiate between closely ranked players, not only by comparing floor but also by comparing potential upside. I will be showing a set of realistic or expected projections and telling you if I think anyone is being under or overvalued in best ball/redraft drafts right now. These can also be used in a dynasty mindset, especially if you are a contending team. But, even if you are in a rebuild these projections could outline a young, cheap player who may get more work than a lot of people think. Let’s dig in.
Saquon Barkley (RB-NYG), as we all know, tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and meniscus in his right knee in Week 2 (September 20th) of the 2020 NFL season. It was a devastating injury for the consensus top-five fantasy player, an injury that would land him on the IR for the remainder of the season. However, most assumed that he would be back to 100% by the start of the 2021 season and this assumption was reflected in his fourth overall fantasy ranking in half-point PPR. An assumption, that I like to call the Adrian Peterson effect or “The AP Effect” for short.
Miles Sanders’ stock is dropping, and his fantasy value is in a completely opposite situation than last offseason at this time. The third-year pro put together a somewhat disappointing season in 2020. He played in four fewer games than his rookie year, he hardly outproduced his rushing statistics, and he was simply a non-factor as a receiver out of the backfield. In 2019, he finished as the RB15 in PPR leagues compared to the RB23 in 2020.
I think at this point we are all well aware of how unwanted a high ankle sprain diagnosis is for our fantasy football superstars. No injuries are good injuries when you are competing for fantasy football championships, but high ankle sprains have been a death sentence in recent years. Why? Well to understand why it derailed the fantasy football seasons of Michael Thomas, Raheem Mostert, and Christian McCaffrey in 2020, we need to better understand high ankle sprains.
Julio Jones will be traded to the Tennessee Titans for future second and fourth-round picks. Jones who was drafted as the sixth overall selection in 2011, spent 10 productive seasons in Atlanta. In that time Jones became one of the most productive wide receivers in NFL history hauling in 848 catches for 12,896 yards and 60 TDs. He will instantly become Tennessee’s WR1 sufficiently boosting the outlook for Ryan Tannehill’s 2021; let’s dive into how it impacts his fellow Titans teammates along with how his departure impacts the viable fantasy options in Atlanta.
Accountability is paramount in this business, and last season your author swung big on both Montez Sweat and Ifeadi Odenigbo. One was a home run and the other was a strike-out. Montez Sweat broke out for a double-digit sack season playing across from top draft pick Chase Young, as well as in tandem with fellow defensive interior players Daron Payne and Jonathan Allen, who each boast first-round draft capital of their own. Ifeadi Odenigbo, on the other hand, was not accompanied by perennial all-pro Danielle Hunter, who threatened to hold out before opting for surgery to repair an injury. He ended up missing the entire season and the Vikings’ entire pass rush struggled.
For the Heady Mafia and loyal members of the #DFFArmy out there, you can take a break from reading this paraphernalia as it’s not about you. Although, please get ready to forward this to some people in your life. This barely conscious smattering of words on paper…fine, “digital” paper, is for Tom from Accounting, Susan from Human Relations, or my wife 10 years ago. This is for the people who for some strange reason, despite the ease of it, have yet to dip their itsy-bitsy toes into the foray of fantasy football. I am here today, to tell, no, dare say, educate you (ok fine, “brainwash”) why those excuses you keep giving your significant other, family member, or coworker will no longer work in this day and age. So, let’s get down to business and make our way through the bullshit that is your excuse. Bonus, I am even going to give you a type of fantasy football league that would suit you best for this year.
We learned that tackles are king at safety! The top five finishers in IDP scoring at safety all finished with more than 100 total tackles each through week 16. The top five stars of the safety position included Jordan Poyer, Budda Baker, Jessie Bates, Jeremy Chinn, and Adrian Phillips. Of those finishers, three are under the age of 26, and amazingly, Jeremy Chinn was able to crack the top five as a rookie. Chinn looks primed for another excellent year of production in 2021, so if you roster the Carolina safety, you are looking fine.
Each season in dynasty leagues there are post-rookie draft waiver targets that provide a tremendous value for owners who were savvy or lucky enough to find them on their roster. Some provide an immediate “home-run” return like Kamren Curl did last season or Maxx Crosby in 2019. Others make great taxi squad stashes that provide value later (think Jerome Baker, Josey Jewell, Jeffery Simmons, Dre Greenlaw, D.J. Wonnum, Alex Highsmith, etc.). The majority will fall flat as expected.
We learned that the young star linebackers were prepared to dominate once again! Both Roquan Smith and Devin White came into 2020 with extremely high expectations, and both delivered with resounding success. These two superstars combined for 280 total tackles (140 each), 32 tackles for loss, and 13 sacks on the season. Finishing just behind these two phenoms was a trio of consistent veterans in Zach Cunningham, Blake Martinez, and Joe Schobert. Barring any major unforeseen changes, the 2020 top five should produce well again in 2021.