Dynasty Analysis
Today is March 11, 2021, this is important because we are less than a week away from Free Agency. On March 17th we will likely find out where players such as JuJu Smith-Schuster, Kenny Golladay, Aaron Jones, Will Fuller, Curtis Samuel, Corey Davis, Todd Gurley, Marvin Jones Jr., Kenyan Drake, T.Y. Hilton, A.J. Green, and Hunter Henry will land. There are 43 days until the NFL Draft, and in most years we would have the NFL Combine to overreact to, however, as you know the NFL Combine was canceled due to the pandemic. Although we do not get to see all of the relevant players get their testing measurables in the same conditions, we still will get good data from the school’s Pro-Days.
On the surface, this feels like a signing that should mean nothing, however, this could be the best news David Johnson managers received since he signed his own extension nine days ago! David Johnson is most likely nearing the end of his fantasy relevance, but with an extension and the chance of Mark Ingram being his top competition for touches this year, he may just go out with a BANG! His health is a concern, but in the 12 games that Johnson was on the field in 2020, he scored double-digit points. Those numbers are golden for a player with an expert consensus ranking of RB27 on FantasyPros.
Heady Mafia, the franchise tag option deadline for NFL teams has come and past and you know what that means. Chaos and bedlam all over the place! Now, most people will just give you a list of teams that this player might sign with and others give teams that can offer the most money but let’s be honest. Only one thing matters to us. Fantasy production. In particular, fantasy production for the hottest running back on the market and the one I own in most of my dynasty leagues, Aaron Jones (AJ33).
Every season teams lose valuable receiving options from the prior year, and every season fantasy managers daydream about the possibility of a random bench piece inheriting all that volume. While this narrative has played about favorably for a handful of players, in the grand scheme of the NFL, it is actually very rare. “Vacated Targets” is the snake oil of fantasy football. Don’t let yourself get duped.
Every year in fantasy football, there are players who take the next step towards becoming “must-own” dynasty assets. Finding who these players are is one of the many things that make fantasy football such a challenging and rewarding game. The purpose of this article is to discuss a few of those targets who could be on the cusp of entering top-12 first-round dynasty status.
Kwity Paye came out of Bishop Hendricken high school as a three-star defensive lineman with plenty of accolades to his name. Coming out of Rhode Island, Paye was at a camp where he clocked a spectacular 4.5 40-yard dash, vaulting him to the top-ranked player in his state for the 2017 recruiting class. A high 3-star recruit, Paye was a First-Team All-State pick. Off the field, Paye won the Rhode Island State Championship in Long Jump with a mark of 21 feet and 5 inches. The stud defender had his choice of multiple offers but ultimately decided that Ann Arbor was the right place for him. While at Michigan, Paye carved out a solid career for the Wolverines.
Last year I looked into the Restricted Free Agent (RFA) market in search of sleepers we may be able to dig up. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that exciting. The likes of Kendrick Bourne, Isaiah McKenzie, David Moore, and others ended up resigning and had limited impact throughout the year. The best of that group last year was Keelan Cole who ended up with 55/642/5. We as dynasty owners are always trying to find value or that next guy that could take a leap. The free-agent class this season is much deeper and more exciting. However, for fantasy, we are always looking for that throw-in piece into a trade or a player forgotten as an afterthought. I am hoping to give you some names to grab before the beginning of free agency to acquire cheaply or for nothing at all.
Around this time each season, the dynasty community seems to grow a little bit bigger. There is a resurgence of enquiring social media posts along the lines of “Has anyone played dynasty fantasy football? It looks really fun but I’m not sure where or how to begin”. Every time I see one of these, I get excited. So excited in fact I have decided to write an article, for you – the enquiring mind. Here at Dynasty Football Factory, we want to ensure that all levels of dynasty players are catered for – from the beginner who has never been in a league, to the most seasoned of players.
The best way to play fantasy football is to not care about the rules of the game at all. My home league had one flaw that kept hassling us as the years went by. We completely forgot that fantasy football is a game. It’s a game about a game and you make the rules. Why not play around with them? Keep you and your friends on their toes! Give no one an edge by mixing it up with your redraft leagues every year.
The Rayne Dakota Prescott contract saga in Dallas is finally over. After months of “will they, won’t they?”, sanity has prevailed and Prescott has signed a four-year contract to remain the franchise quarterback of America’s Team. Adam Schefter announced the details of the contract which includes $126million in guaranteed money and Dak will earn an eye-watering $75M in his first year which includes a record-breaking $66M (!) signing bonus.
I am fortunate enough to roster Travis Kelce in one of my dynasty leagues. Every offseason I wrestle with the idea of trading him away while I can maximize the value. Every offseason I decide I’ll hold him for just one more year. Playing the age game in a dynasty league is difficult, so I decided to dive into the historical performance of players age 30 or older at the tight end position. Here’s what I found.
Ohio State’s offense took advantage of Justin Fields arm strength. A spread offense at its core, mixed in plenty of downfield shots to a talented wide receiving core. Unlike other spread offenses, Ohio State used downfield concepts to get guys open. Fields’ ability to launch the ball downfield with the touch and accuracy which he does, is phenomenal.
Monday, the news became official that J.J. Watt had accepted an offer from the Arizona Cardinals for two years and $31 million with $23 million guaranteed. For the two and a half weeks he was a free agent, Watt had been linked to the Buffalo Bills, Green Bay Packers, Cleveland Browns, and a few other teams. For Watt, it is the end of an impressive era with the Houston Texas, who selected him 11th overall in the 2011 NFL Draft. The fan-favorite won the hearts of millions with his work ethic, integrity, and authenticity. Heading into his age 32 season, J.J. Watt embarks on the twilight hours of his career as he chases the ever-elusive Lombardi trophy.
We composed a four-person mock draft at DFF to start collecting devy rank data. For some people, a devy-only draft will be coming up soon, while for others the only draft of the season will be a blended rookie and devy draft after the NFL Draft takes place. We will go over how to value devy players versus rookie players later in this offseason, but for now, let’s dive into the devy debates.
The analytics vs. film debate is ripping you off. Neither side is willing to come to the middle and admit defeat. But the problem is bigger than that. The analytics versus film debate is forcing you, the fantasy football GM, to make decisions based on half-truths.
Here at DFF, we completed a startup dynasty league draft with a unique format that few had tried before. But few will willingly go back to a standard snake draft after experiencing the thrill of the hybrid setup. This was a shallow, 12-team league including a Superflex starting roster and tight end premium scoring. The unique format of this draft is that we started with a partial auction, then rounded out the rosters with the standard snake-style.
If you’re anything like me, you grabbed Robby Anderson every year he was with the Jets expecting a massive breakout. You usually came up empty-handed as Anderson only finished inside the top 24 once (WR18 in 2017). In 2020, he signed with the Panthers and, after a fast start, finished as WR19. The Robby rollercoaster has burned a lot of fantasy managers over the years, so I decided to find out if last season was an outlier or the new normal.
A few weeks ago, I was scrolling the Twitter timeline and saw several tweets about the value of rushing quarterbacks, and how the “Late Round QB” (LRQB) strategy in fantasy football (popularised by JJ Zachariason) was on the wane. Seemingly, the consensus was that capturing the upside that rushing quarterbacks bring to your lineup, was worth the opportunity cost of selecting one in the early to middle rounds of your draft. As a fervent proponent of the LRQB theory, my immediate thought was to dismiss it, but my curiosity got the better of me – so I went to the data to see what I could find.
Among running backs in the 2021 rookie class, three players have clearly risen to the top: Najee Harris, Travis Etienne, and Javonte Williams. All of these players are likely coming off the board in the first round of rookie drafts. The next RB to come off the board is where the questions start to come up. Who is the best of the rest? In this series, several members of the DFF staff will try to make a case for who they think answers that question. Today, I’ll be making the case for Kenneth Gainwell.
Yes, some of us are still nursing Super Bowl hangovers or regretting watching Tom Brady walk out of the organization he called home for the last two decades, but there are three things we love in Fantasy Football: Start-Up Drafting, Trading & Rookie Drafts. So the team at DFF got on board and jumped the gun on a 2021 way too early Rookie Mock, and the results will surprise you in just how deep this class is on the back of a stellar 2020 class.
At 6’6” and 265 pounds, the Hurricane defensive lineman has excellent height for a pass rusher. Rousseau has a good base weight but should be able to add even more muscle as he develops in the NFL. His size, explosion, and speed are already above average coming into the NFL, but within a few years, I would expect Rousseau to play at 280 to 290 pounds and become the prototypical size for an NFL defensive end.
In this series, I will be taking a deep dive into an NFL teams’ situation as we turn to 2021. We will look at coaching/GM changes, team needs, salary cap/free agents, and overall fantasy outlook for 2021. The next team on the list: the Denver Broncos.
Carson Wentz’s career has been nothing short of a rollercoaster ride. Wentz was initially drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles with the second overall pick in the 2016 draft and caught fire almost instantly. In his first year, he set multiple NFL and Eagles’ rookie records and in his second year led the Eagles to an 11-2 record catapulting him into a front runner for league MVP before suffering a torn ACL, ending his season.
As I continue with my NFL Team Deep Dive series, I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support and encouragement since I began writing this year. I have been around the game of football for most of my life—as a player, coach, and now a Twitter scout/writer. I have huge aspirations for 2021 and am working my tail off to provide great content for anyone who chooses to follow me!
In this series, I will be taking a deep dive into every NFL teams’ situation as we turn to 2021. We will look at coaching/GM changes, team needs, salary cap/free agents, and overall fantasy outlook for 2021. The next team on the list: the Cincinnati Bengals.
In this series of articles, we discuss some players from each defensive position group that are poised to break out this season. These players should put up a floor of respectable, fantasy starting lineup stat lines with the potential for positional top-15 ceilings. These are players that can be drafted or acquired with minimal draft capital in most full IDP leagues. An examination of the factors promoting these ascending players will take place in each article. Remarkably, there are quite a few players that are among the “IDP unseen,” as of now. The series began with the defensive line last offseason, followed by linebackers a few weeks ago.