Dynasty Analysis
With most of the Pro Days behind us and the NFL Draft quickly approaching it seems to be a good time to reveal some rookie WRs that might be flying a bit under the radar at the moment. Should it be because of the hype surrounding WRs at the top of the board or their teammates, there are three WRs in this 2021 class that I believe are being truly slept on. According to my new model/data set, these WRs have a very high likelihood of fantasy football success. I will take a look at “The Measurables”, “The Production”, “The Film”, and “The Draft” to show you why these WRs deserve to be at the front of your mind.
The Rookie 1.01 Draft pick always holds a premium in dynasty fantasy football. Rookie draft picks also vary in value based on the current time of the year that we are in. In the second part of this article, we are going to explore how to dominate the 2021 Rookie Drafts and revisit the value of how rookie pick values change at different parts of the season.
There is no time when a draft pick is more valuable than when it is on the clock in your rookie draft. You have the power to select your favorite rookie prospect, but you also have the opportunity to trade the rights to the pick for what you view as more value to a league mate. By the time rookie drafts roll around, the ADP is more or less settled and we are targeting our favorite prospects within their given tier. Being right on one player versus another player is very important, but being in the situation to control your draft is even more crucial to success in your fantasy leagues.
Joe Mixon played college football at the University of Oklahoma from 2014-2016. As a redshirt sophomore, Mixon racked up over 1,800 yards from scrimmage and scored 15 TDs. After his strong 2016 season, Mixon declared for the 2017 NFL Draft. During the pre-draft process, he measured in at 6’ 1”, 226 lbs. and registered an impressive 92nd-percentile speed score with his 4.50 40-yard dash. Under different circumstances, Mixon could’ve easily been a first-round pick. Due to character concerns and an incredible RB class that included Leonard Fournette, Dalvin Cook, and Christian McCaffrey, Mixon slipped into the second round where he was selected by the Cincinnati Bengals.
Recently the NFL announced plans to expand the season, adding one additional regular-season game. This has led to a lot of speculation on how record books will change, and some players, most notably Alvin Kamara, expressed disappointment. With this change, managers and league commissioners will have some adapting to do in the upcoming season, so let’s look at what’s in store.
Leonard Fournette re-signed with the Buccaneers on a one-year deal worth $3.25M. The contract also includes incentives that would push it up to $4M. Fournette will now re-join Ronald Jones Jr. in one of the best backfields in the league. Last offseason, Fournette was released from the Jacksonville Jaguars. He then quickly signed with Tampa Bay on a one-year deal worth $2M. The Buccaneers planned for Fournette to serve as Jones Jr.’s back-up, something Fournette had never done in his three seasons in the league. Jones Jr. battled injuries throughout the season, and Fournette had plenty of opportunities to succeed.
On March 20th, Kenny Golladay signed a four-year, $72 million contract with the New York Giants. Put another way, the biggest receiver in free agency signed the biggest contract to play in the Big Apple. When an elite wide receiver changes teams, as we saw with Stefon Diggs and DeAndre Hopkins in 2020, it’s kind of a big deal. There will be significant fantasy ramifications for each member of the Giants’ offense, from Daniel Jones to Saquon Barkley to Darius Slayton. Let’s zoom in for a closer look!
With the recent draft trades, things are spicing up a month before the NFL draft is set to open and teams are doing their best to fill fans with hope for upcoming seasons. I’ll be analyzing the incoming rookie quarterbacks in this one because teams don’t trade up to take any other position than the face of the franchise. It will be more than likely a run of quarterbacks very early in this year’s draft, and for Superflex leagues, it’ll be hard to decide between more than a few of these players.
Kenneth Gainwell was the “onion” in Memphis’s offense; he served as their leading rusher and lined up in many different alignments. At his 2021 Pro Day, Gainwell measured in at 5’8” and 201 lbs. He ran a 4.47-second 40-yard dash, benched 225 lbs. 21 times, executed a 35” vertical jump, and ran a 4.46-second short shuttle. After his performance, Gainwell had some kind words to say about himself: “My skill set is very, very different. I can play between the tackles, I can play outside the tackles, I can line up at the slot. So my position is very, very different than these other running backs in the draft.”
Earlier this week, the Chicago Bears signed Damien Williams to a one-year contract, bolstering their running back room. Williams was cut from the Kansas City Chiefs after opting out of last season. This addition should affect both David Montgomery and Tarik Cohen’s fantasy outlook for the upcoming NFL season. Let’s take a look at each player’s fantasy value in 2021.
Mike Davis was nothing short of exceptional in 2021 completing the year with 642 yards on 165 rushing attempts along with securing 59 of 70 targets for 373 yards and eight total touchdowns. He showed great contact balance and elusiveness all year and proved his worth and upside as a borderline elite pass-catcher. The 28-year-old career backup finished last season as the fantasy RB11 in PPR formats with the third-highest catch rate among running backs (84%) and the second-most games with five or more receptions among running backs (7).
As the first week in NFL Free Agency has come and gone, dynasty owners can now sit back and take in all that transpired. In general, the highly anticipated free agency period did not quite live up to the hype. There were not as many big splash landings as the dynasty community had hoped for. The reduced salary cap played a significant role in the lack of major long-term contracts we have come to expect when big names hit the open market. With that said, some moves do spark some excitement in terms of fantasy football.
Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah was a two-sport star at Bethel High School in Hampton, Virginia. The stud defender came to Notre Dame as a three-star prospect and the 17th rated overall player coming out of Virginia in 2017. (247sports.com) Once he cracked the Notre Dame starting lineup, Owusu-Koramoah made national headlines with his play, winning the Butkus Award as the country’s top linebacker. He was also named first-team Associated Press All-American, ACC Defensive Player of the Year, a finalist for the Bednarik Award, and a finalist for the Nagurski Trophy. In 2020, Owusu-Koramoah led the Irish to an NCAA playoff birth and the Rose Bowl.
With Russell Wilson trade rumors swirling around the league, Seattle decided to bring back the starting running back that has lined up next to him the past four seasons. Last week, Chris Carson agreed to a two-year deal worth up to $14.6M, per reports from NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero. The deal also includes a third voidable year that makes the contract cap-friendly.
As the great movie “Talladega Nights” informed us all, America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, bad-ass speed. Washington has taken that to heart and signed arguably the most competent and fastest wideout on the free agency market. Curtis Samuel. His signing now makes the college dream of his and Terry McLaurin into reality and nightmares for NFC East defensive coordinators. This one, two, punch is now in my mind, one of the best in the NFC, if not the NFL.
Before everyone goes out and gets Fitzmagic Washington jerseys, everyone needs to take a step back and take a deep breath. Washington is bringing back their entire quarterback room minus Dwayne Haskins, to whom I say good riddance, and is a story for another day. The contract is also another possible indicator of what Washington is planning to do with the quarterback position. Signing him for only a year and $10 million means they aren’t entirely assured of him being the starter the whole year let alone in the future. While I forecast Ryan as the opening day starter, the odds of him finishing up the year as the starting quarterback are slim.
Over the past two years, players that have been drafted after the second round of the rookie draft picks have not had a high success rate. For this exercise, we are going to view success as defined as holding a current ADP in Superflex startup drafts inside the top 200. Within the top 200 feels like a solid spot for an arbitrary cut-off because that can include players who may not have had a successful fantasy finish, yet but they still hold value since their rookie draft took place.
Hotly debated heading into rookie drafts last season and now again this season is the potential of Eagles wide receiver, Jalen Reagor. Is he good? Do you want him on your fantasy team? Are the Eagles bad at developing wide receiver talent? All of these are valid questions that we honestly don’t have a definite answer to. I’m going to try to provide those answers today.
After recent free agent signings, some have cooled on running backs entering their 2nd season. Jonathan Tayor, D’Andre Swift, and James Robinson have seen their value dip with the worry of a veteran backup coming in to take some of the workloads. I firmly believe there is nothing to worry about with these three backs, but I wanted to see if the numbers back me up. Here’s what I found.
Day one of the NFL’s free agency period only had a few big-name offensive skill players find teams. But there was one extremely active team…the New England Patriots. The Patriots made roughly 99% of the signings on Monday and each one came with criticism. On the offensive side of the ball, they added Jonnu Smith at the tight end position and the wide receiver duo of Agholor and Bourne. Agholor signs a two-year $26 million dollar deal while Bourne signed a three-year deal, worth $22.5 million.
Joe Douglas gets his first free agent of 2021 as the Jets finally look to rebuild their organization after two years of tearing it down. The Twitter analysts are on both sides of the good and the bad for his fantasy value, but the one thing everyone agrees on is the value of the contract. The Jets didn’t blow the bank open for the biggest name (yet) but instead charged along “Joe Douglas” way by finding the value in the market. Davis didn’t start to show signs of being worth his first-round pick until last year which was his fourth year in the league.
In college Jonnu Smith broke out as a true freshman for FIU with 388 yards and two TDs, earning a dominator rating of 23.8%. A 710 yard and eight TD sophomore season was Smith’s most productive, as he earned a 42.6% dominator rating. However, injuries slowed down Smith in the latter half of his collegiate career. Smith was a piece of the 2016 Jared Goff trade that landed the Titans a litany of draft capital. Smith was selected in the third round of the 2017 NFL Draft by the Tennessee Titans at the 100th overall pick. In his four seasons with the Titans, Smith amassed 114 catches for 1,302 yards and 16 TDs. He is coming off his most productive season in which he turned 65 targets into 41 catches, 448 yards, and eight TDs along with one rushing TD. He finished as the TE20 in fantasy football, underperforming based on his TE16 dynasty ADP.
As the start of NFL free agency inches closer, now is an excellent time to explore some landing spots that could boost Will Fuller’s outlook. The speedy wideout will be entering his sixth season and is coming off a year cut short due to a six-game PED suspension after Week 12. Fuller was on pace for a monster season, posting career-highs in receptions, yards, and TDs to the tune of 53/879/8 in 11 games played. He was the WR8 in PPR scoring during that stretch. The suspension came at a crucial time in the fantasy season as those who owned him had to find a way to replace that production heading into the fantasy playoffs.
Harris found more success in his sophomore season. In ten games, he carried the ball 137 times for 691 yards and 2 TDs. However, with just 7 targets in that span, he failed to make a real impact in the receiving game. During that stretch of ten games–Weeks 4 through 14–Harris was the RB29. His 9.1 PPR points per game placed him between Devin Singletary and Jamaal Williams for the season.
The year was 2014, amongst many other discrepancies in the world, Jimmy Graham changed his Twitter bio to inform the world that he was a wide receiver, not a tight end. An NFL arbitrator had to step in and rule on this case. Why is this important? Because Jimmy Graham was franchised tagged by the New Orleans Saints and wanted to be designated as a wide receiver rather than a tight end. Graham lined up split out on 67% of the Saints snaps the previous season. If Graham had been designated as a wide receiver, he would have made 71% more money on his franchise tender than as a tight end. The NFL arbitrator ruled that Graham was a tight end, saving Mickey Loomis millions of dollars.