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dynasty strategy

Christian Watson

Breaking Down the Metrics: Dynasty Football Wide Receivers

Dynasty / By /

In the fantasy football Twitter space, different and new stats and metrics are thrown out constantly by people talking about their favorite and least favorite players. My job as a numbers-based analyst is to understand which statistics best project fantasy success. In this mini-series, I will go through each position and tell you some of my favorite stats, how much they matter, and stats I often see that do not matter as much as someone might want you to think. Let’s dive right in with our first position: wide receiver.

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Amari Cooper

Turning the Corner: The Transition from Rebuilding to Contending

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It has become common knowledge in the Dynasty community that one should either compete for a championship or try to acquire future assets and secure a higher draft spot. While many can tell when it is time to “blow it up” and begin rebuilding on a team that was once a contender, the part often unmentioned is when to go from a rebuilding team to winning the championship. I have experienced the joy of earning the 1.01 as my rookie pick and winning a championship the following season, but I have also seen many teams stuck in the perpetual rebuild. Their roster and assets look great in any roster evaluation tool, but we aren’t here to have good-looking rosters. We are here to win championships. So how do we turn the corner?

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Sean Tucker

2023 Dynasty Rookie Draft Strategy

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Spring is one of my favorite times of year but not for the same reasons as most people. Spring is the climax of rookie draft research season. As the snow begins to subside, it means the Senior Bowl is upon us. When we put the heavy down jacket into storage, it marks the calendar for the NFL Combine. Blades of glass emerge from the ground as NFL Free Agency ramps up. As we see Zay Flowers in full bloom, we have all the pomp and circumstance of the NFL Draft.

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Top 10 Fantasy Football Myths Busted: #1-5

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There is no shortage of annual narratives that develop within the hive mind of the fantasy football (FF) community. Some narratives last for several seasons, and some attach themselves to specific players. That is not to say that the hive mind can’t be useful, or that narratives that form are necessarily wrong. Quite the opposite happens a lot of the time. The wisdom of the crowd is something that can be leveraged to improve one’s fantasy performance. But following the groupthink mindset can be treacherous, and has led to what I think are some systemic misunderstandings within the hobby.

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Gabriel Davis: Gas or Brakes?

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If Gabriel Davis wasn’t on your radar before last weekend, he sure is now. After his explosive performance in the AFC Divisional Round loss to the Chiefs, a football game that some are calling the best ever played, there has been no shortage of speculation and debate about this soon-to-be third-year WR from the University of Central Florida. What do I think of Davis going forward?

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Early Declare Status: Why Should We Care?

Dynasty / By /

Making decisions in your dynasty rookie drafts can be incredibly tough. Especially when you are forced to choose between two players you like or even two players you don’t know much about. There are a few factors that can sometimes help break the tie and make this decision much easier. One of them is a player’s early declare status, and this is mainly for wide receivers. But what is early declare status and how can it help us? Let’s find out below.

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Jalen Richard OUT Indefinitely: It’s Time to Stop Sleeping on Kenyan Drake

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Earlier this week, Tashan Reed of The Athletic reported that Las Vegas Raiders’ running back Jalen Richard sustained a foot injury after returning from the COVID-19 list and will be out indefinitely. The report had zero mention of what injury Richard suffered but to be immediately labeled as “out indefinitely” I have to assume it was fairly severe. Plus, foot injuries for skill position players are never a good thing as we have seen in the recent Carson Wentz saga and with Joe Mixon in season’s past.

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Justin Jefferson: Injury Reaction

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Our hearts dropped this week as Vikings’ star Wide Receiver Justin Jefferson went down hard onto his left shoulder. Jefferson then left practice and was seen holding his wrist to support his shoulder. A classic sign of clavicle or collarbone injury. Thankfully, we didn’t have to speculate long as only a few hours later, Adam Schefter reported that Jefferson “has a sprained AC Joint” and it was considered “nothing serious, per source, but there would be further testing this weekend.” So right away, that tells us that Jefferson had an immediate radiograph or x-ray and it was determined that he did not fracture his collarbone which would have knocked him out for 6-8 weeks. 

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FFPC SuperFlex Startups: Crazy to Wait on QB?

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SuperFlex (SF) formats have become more and more popular over the last couple of years. In the FFPC Dynasty world, 42% of all startups in 2021 have been SF. This was the going rate back in 2020 as well. Before 2020, SF only made up about 11% of the total number of dynasty leagues on their site. Now it is closer to 26% and rising. I fell in love with this format and hold 19 FFPC SF dynasty squads.

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Dynasty League History: Is Activity Level Correlated With Success?

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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. 

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The 2020 Superflex Dynasty Startup Strategy Guide

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Recently, I wrote an updated, free 1QB startup strategy guide. In that guide, I went through both general and specific positional strategies to help you through dynasty startups in 2020. Everything I said in that article will still apply to this superflex guide, so take a look at that story first before moving forward with this one. First, let’s break down what exactly a dynasty superflex league is. Unlike a normal 1QB league, you can start an extra quarterback in a superflex slot. As quarterbacks score more fantasy points than any other position, it is almost always beneficial to start a second quarterback if possible. There are only 32 starting quarterbacks at most in any given week, so there is an inventory scarcity at the quarterback position. Therefore, quarterbacks carry extreme value in superflex leagues compared to 1QB leagues.

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The 1QB Dynasty Startup Strategy Guide

All Access, Strategy Content / By /

Back in 2019, the then-DFF team wrote a dynasty startup strategy guide. That guide holds up well even now, and I would highly recommend going back and reading it. However, I feel like the guide needs a 2020 update. So much has changed in the dynasty universe since March 2019, and I want to address that before the 2020 season. Now that the 2020 season looks like a lock to happen, many of you readers might participate in dynasty startups before the season begins. Therefore, I want to give you my version of this guide. I’m going to split it up into two parts, one for regular 1QB leagues and one for superflex leagues. At this point, superflex formats are so popular within the dynasty community that they certainly deserve their own guide. With all that said, let’s get into the 1QB guide.

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A Guide to Creating Your Own Fantasy Database

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After consuming fantasy content, do you find yourself keeping fantasy notes on your phone? Do you bring your own personal rankings to your draft? Are you making spreadsheets for important stats as you prep for your rookie drafts? Do you fill-up notebooks analyzing your league mates’ tendencies? Are you taking pages of notes as you break down film on Odell Beckham Jr. or DJ Moore? If this sounds familiar, making your own database could give you the upper hand over your competition.

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The Dark Side of the Moon: Exploring IDP through the Prism of Offense

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In the interest of furthering the inclusion of individual defensive players in redraft and dynasty leagues alike, let’s explore how each of the five defensive positions functions like an offensive position on fantasy football rosters. I can’t tell you which offensive player or even fantasy rookie draft pick you should offer for Aaron Donald without knowing the context of your league. I can, however, explain how to value defensive tackles in fantasy football using tight ends as context. In fact, each defensive position has a close parallel on offense.

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