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As we approach the peak of draft season, I have been doing tons of mocks and best-ball leagues. These experiences have led me to know who my favorite players are this year, or “My Guys”. In this piece, I will share one guy from each position that I have been heavily targeting in these drafts.
Ryan Tannehill is my absolute favorite “late-round” quarterback this season. On a PPG basis, Tannehill has finished as the QB9* in each of the past two seasons. He also ranks first in yards per attempt, second in passer rating, and ninth in passing TDs during that stretch. With a 28-game sample size in Tennessee, it’s fair to say that Tannehill has fully rebounded from his below-average seasons in Miami. He is now a high-quality NFL starting QB. He’s also a sneaky rusher who has added over 15 rushing yards per game and 11 total rushing TDs during his stint with the Titans.
Two weekends ago the #DFFArmy organized its annual staff redraft league composed solely of DFF writers/editors as owners. Upgrading from 12 to 14 owners this season, your author willingly joined in the fun. The settings of the league are pretty conventional: a 0.5 PPR league with a starting lineup of 1 QB, 2 RBs, 2 WRs, 1 TE, 3 W/R/T, 1 K, and 1 DEF. Passing TDs are worth six points while rushing and receiving first downs are worth 0.5 points. There is also a 0.1 point per carry bonus and a 0.5 TE reception bonus.
I don’t typically play in many redraft leagues these days but I’m always game for our yearly DFF Staff Redraft League. This year, with our growing staff, we decided to challenge ourselves a bit more with an increase to 14 teams instead of the standard 10-12 team league which presented difficult decisions from the get-go. I was granted the lovely honor of picking from the dead center of this draft, the 1.07 spot. I wouldn’t have chosen it this way and was titling from the moment I was on the clock for my first pick but I was surprisingly thrilled at the completion of this draft, so let’s dive into it.
When entering a fantasy draft, the first thing I do to plan out my strategy is to look at the league settings. In this draft, there were a lot of irregular rules, like getting points for rushing attempts and first downs, but none of that changed how I evaluated those players. Two rule changes caught my eye as having the biggest impact on weekly scoring. The first is how points are scored for quarterbacks. Instead of the typical four-point passing touchdowns and negative two points for throwing an interception, passing touchdowns are worth six and interceptions take three points away. The next rule change has to do with team defenses. Typically, my strategy is to stream defenses all year long. But in this league, there is a huge bump for allowing low point totals, and there are event points for tackles for loss, QB hits and passes defended.
Hey #DFFArmy, it’s your Director of Information Systems, @DFF_JoeMem, back again with a rankings update! As we enter into August, we are bringing back Redraft into focus. You’ll find those rankings HERE. Look closely and you’ll see that we were able to add Sleeper’s Redraft PPR ADP to our ranking page! For now, it’s only alongside our Redraft rankings, and we believe this will add a lot of value to the #DFFArmy on the road to some Championships. So we have Sleeper ADP, truly the voice of the people, but what about the rankers themselves? Who are the people you’ll be trusting your drafts with? Let’s find out!
Picking out of the one spot is easy this year in regards to who to take #1 overall, but the strategy following that pick can vary greatly. Below is my thought process as I drafted one of my favorite teams thus far during this off-season. Let me know what you think!
For this NFL season, a collection of 14 DFF analysts took their talents to a new Redraft league. As the analyst with the 14th pick, I knew it would be an uphill climb to add value. Despite this being a redraft league, I decided to go with my favorite dynasty strategy, the zero-RB. Knowing that this is a 14-team league, we had to adjust compared to the standard 12-team leagues in which elite positional players hold even more of a premium.
Having a consistently high floor allows for a better chance to make the playoffs. But the title of this series is not how to make the playoffs. Our goal is to win. Assuming you read Part 1 of this series, you know that our plan in rounds 3-6 is to go after high upside wide receivers. This doesn’t mean that we are neglecting other positions and only looking at wide receivers, but the value here is tremendous. This is also why solidifying the running back position is so important to do early. It now allows us to chase value in these rounds.
Robert Woods has been one of the more consistent fantasy players these last few years. Yet, even with his steady production, it appears he always flies under the radar, and down the draft board. For whatever the reason may be, Woods has been vastly underrated by the fantasy community after proving year in and year out that he can put up solid numbers and boost a starting lineup. This article will dive into the numbers and look at the situation surrounding Woods, making the case for him to be a WR1 this season.
Welcome, #DFFArmy to Dynasty Football Factory’s Redraft season kickoff! This year looks to be even more competitive than last year as we added two teams to the league, bringing the total number to 14. Not only did we grow the league size, but we expanded rosters by adding a flex position as well, which makes hitting in the mid to late rounds even more important than normal.
This week I drafted an 18-man roster in a 14-team 0.5 PPR staff redraft league for @DFF_Fantasy. It is also TE Premium, where they get a full 1.0 PPR. There are 11 starting positions, QB/2RB/2WR/TE/3FLEX/K/DEFplus seven bench spots. There are also bonus points for converted first downs, both on receptions and in the running game.
The player I can’t leave my draft without is Zach Cunningham. While a bit of an obvious choice, I want to make sure everyone is aware of who he is and the situation that surrounds him. I want to start off and preface that it is nearly impossible to predict fumbles, interceptions, and touchdowns. This is where a lot of the big points in IDP leagues come from. What’s one thing that is predictable? Tackles. This is precisely why there is an emphasis on getting a good linebacker for your team.
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of drafting against a number of my colleagues for our 14-team staff league, cleverly named the “DFF Redraft Championship.” The draft was a ton of fun, and I can already tell the competition is going to be stiff. For some additional context, our starting lineups consist of 1 QB, 2 RBs, 2 WRs, 1 TE, 3 W/R/T, 1 K, and 1 DEF. Passing TDs are worth 6 points, while rushing and receiving first downs are worth 0.5 points. There is also a 0.1 point per carry bonus and a 0.5 TE reception bonus. In this article, I’ll be breaking down the thought process behind each of my picks.
Last weekend DFF organized a 14 team redraft league comprised solely of DFF writers/editors as owners. In this piece, I will talk about how I prepared for the draft, got my strategy together, and actually navigated the live draft. Hopefully, this will give you some insight on not only the players I took but also the methods I used to prepare.
Building a league-winning roster involves being competent across many different criteria. The first box to check is having a high and consistent weekly floor. A weekly floor is important because inconsistent teams tend to not make the playoffs. It’s a long season, and your team getting cold for a couple of games here and there can be the difference between making a championship run and trying to not finish last. Now I understand that talking about players’ floors is not the sexiest topic in the world, but points win weeks. It’s as simple as that. This series will be written for those in normal PPR redraft leagues, starting 1QB, 2RBs, 2WRs, 1TE, and 1RB/WR/TE along with a Kicker and Defense. Follow these steps, and you will be on top of your league’s podium at the end of the season.
The Raiders hired veteran defensive mind Gus Bradley to coordinate their defense in 2021. Bradley has a long history of creating studs for IDP fantasy football. This track record, however, has delivered no shortage of teases to the game as well. For every Derwin James, there has been a Ronnie Harrison and a Kyzir White for each Telvin Smith. The 2021 Raiders are sure to have equal parts boom and bust among their defensive players.
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.
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.
In 2020 Dynasty Football Factory launched a series titled “Schemes Are Ch-Ch-Changing”. Each edition of the series explored how a new defensive coordinator would affect defenders as fantasy assets. The David Bowie song “Changes” would roll through my head as I started each article. I admit it; by the sixth or seventh article, I began to cringe at the title. I reached out to the team at DFF for ideas. Thus, I give you “Scheme or Scam.” The premise remains. I will investigate for each article how a new defensive scheme will deploy defenders and how that will translate to fantasy value. I write about this because it’s information I sought out and could not find when I began playing IDP fantasy football just a few years ago.
Jamin Davis entered the 2021 NFL draft as a redshirt junior. He was a starter for the University of Kentucky Wildcats for just one year. Davis topped off a very productive year with a break-out bowl game versus North Carolina State. He collected 13 tackles, was in on a QB sack, and picked off a pass to secure a victory. He ended the season with 102 tackles including four for loss and four forced turnovers.
Nick Bolton played in all 13 games as a true freshman where he recorded 22 tackles, one sack, and one TFL. He developed from promising up-and-comer to SEC defensive star in 2019, earning first-team all-conference honors after leading the league with 8.9 tackles per game (107 total, 8.5 for loss), intercepting two passes, and breaking up eight others in 12 starts.