Player Profile

watson

Christian Watson: 2023 Dynasty Profile

Being a late bloomer, Watson was not heavily recruited in high school. He graduated at 6’2″, growing another two inches in college. Watson had a significant growth spurt between his junior and senior seasons, gaining 20 lbs. Because of this, he didn’t get significant playing time until his senior year, where he posted modest numbers of 23 receptions, 393 yards, and eight TDs. North Dakota State offered Watson a scholarship, and Watson stayed in the FCS program for all four years. His most impressive campaign was his senior season, posting 43 receptions, 801 yards, and 7 TDs. As a senior, he also tacked on 15 rush attempts for 114 yards and one TD. Watson was consistently used in the running game for the Bisons since his sophomore season. 

luke musgrave

Dynasty Prospect Combine Winners

It’s combine week! Time for all of our favorite prospects to compete in the underwear olympics. If you talk to different people, you will get different answers on just how meaningful the combine is. NFL scouts look for traits and this helps them determine that on a comparable scale. Here are the biggest winners from this week in Indianapolis and how it effects your preparation for dynasty rookie drafts.

Throughout this article you will see a tool called the Relative Athletic Score. This is a wonderful tool created by Kent Lee Platte to provide an overall size adjusted athleticism score utilizing inputs from combine results. It runs on a scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest. Give him a follow on Twitter @mathbomb.

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Derek Carr to the New Orleans Saints

The morning after the combine, everyone is moving rookie rankings up and down based on the measurements and data collected from the weekend. Little did we know we would get the first domino to fall in the off-season QB market. Derek Carr has signed a 4-year deal with the New Orleans Saints worth $150M and $100M in guarantees. The Saints are again using some strange contract structures to pretend that the salary cap does not exist. That is a discussion for another time though. For now, we dive forward into what Carr to the Saints means in terms of Dynasty Fantasy Football. Before I continue, special thanks to Chris Museezer (@force_fantasty) and Paul Patterson (@fantastyfreezer) for helping with data sources and outlining. I may be the one putting the words on the screen but those guys had already gathered useful data for me before I even turned my computer on today. 

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Where We Went Wrong: Zach Wilson & Jalen Hurts

NFL teams every single year find themselves in one of two camps at this time. Those that have their Quarterback for the future and those that do not. Those that don’t are frequently tasked with drafting a quarterback, one of the most challenging parts of a General Manager’s job in the NFL. Over the years we have had plenty of decisions that get questioned for years to come. Ken O’Brien over Dan Marino or Peyton Manning over Ryan Leaf, the differences these selections make are truly franchise-altering decisions. This process is mimicked often in the Dynasty Football space as we sit and try to evaluate the talent and project how they will perform at the NFL level. Longevity is an important trait of Quarterbacks taken in the first round of our Superflex rookie drafts like NFL teams. We may tend in the Fantasy circles to like mobile Quarterbacks a bit more than the NFL thanks to their rushing floor but mostly want the same things NFL teams want in signal callers. Sometimes we hit, Andrew Luck was exactly what we thought he was coming out of college. Sometimes we miss though. Today’s two cases we will discuss that we as a community were wrong on. 

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jalin hyatt

Jalin Hyatt: Where Fantasy and Reality Diverge

One of the most respected draft experts, Lance Zierlein, set off a Twitter firestorm this week when he placed Jalin Hyatt as his first wide receiver off the board, 12th overall, in his first mock draft.

He states:

“Let me first start off by saying I believe this draft is very similar to the 2016 draft in terms of wideouts. I didn’t see any WR as a true WR1 for a team. Here was how I graded them. Obviously, Mike Thomas ended up being a dude but the rest? Here is how I had it (old scale)”

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Xavier Hutchinson

’23 Rookie WR Early Rankings: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Truth

The Senior Bowl has come and gone and we move one step further in our off-season process. Thankfully, I’m one step closer in my own rookie evaluations with my first look at the 2023 rookie receiver class. We’ll use film analysis numerical data from the regular season and look at using KPIs based on DFF’s very own Chris Miles. Using the points from his model and tales from the tape, I’ll break down this highly touted rookie class by discussing The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of each prospect.

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velus jones jr

Overlooked Gems: NFC North Edition

In this new fantasy offseason series, we will break down one player from each NFL team who is currently being overlooked. At the same time, that player could provide great depth/potential to a deep dynasty league roster. These players are worth picking up if they are in your free agency. They are also players you may want to reconsider keeping if they are fringe roster cut options. I will be trying to convince you as to why they are worth a roster spot for now. Of course, the NFL Draft and free agency period could diminish each player’s value, but we need to be making sure we bolster our roster(s) as much as we can. Each week, one division will be broken down, and today is all about the NFC North.

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dotson

Week 1 Rookie Performances

In Dynasty Fantasy Football, it is crucial to keep a watch on the new rookie class and be aware of who is doing well, who is doing bad, and who’s values are fluctuating. Today I will be going throw some of the more relevant rookie performances and giving my thoughts on what this means for them. Let’s get right into it.

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Draft or Pass: Jameson Williams

Jameson Williams is one of the most intriguing prospects in the ’22 class. Williams tore his ACL in January but had an incredible season for Alabama before being named as a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award, which is awarded to the nation’s most outstanding WR in college. His incredible speed was displayed every weekend, regularly gashing opponents for chunk gains and long touchdowns, whether through the air or the return game, finishing his junior season with 79 catches for 1572 yards and 15 TDs. The only hole in his statistical profile is that he essentially did nothing until he got to Bama; with Ohio State, he totaled just 15 catches for 266 yards and 3 TDs in his first two seasons combined. Jameson offers a skill set that is required on every single NFL roster, his field-stretching ability could change the potential of an offense as well as possibly elevate other players around him, but I don’t think his stats will be a good representation of his value for the team that drafts him. 

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Fantasy Stock Up, Stock Down: Green Bay Packers

Welcome back to the “Fantasy Stock Up, Stock Down” series (off-season edition). We are so close to The Draft, we can almost taste it here at DFF. As Dynasty Managers, we need to evaluate all of the off-season transactions and think about our roster adjustments every day. Who are we going to target in rookie drafts? Who are we going to go out and trade for? Who are we willing to give up in return? Will you go all in this season to bring home a championship? Or should you go young and prepare for the future? There’s so much to think about before September. The “off-season edition” of this series is an early look at whose stock is up and whose stock is down as we head into draft season. We will break down each NFL team one by one. Today is all about the Green Bay Packers.

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Fantasy Stock Up, Stock Down: Detroit Lions

Welcome back to the “Fantasy Stock Up, Stock Down” series (offseason edition). The big free agency splash moments are all but over, and the NFL Draft is approaching quickly. We, as dynasty managers, need to be evaluating these offseason transactions and thinking about our roster adjustments every day. Who are we going to target in rookie drafts? Who are we going to go out and trade for? Who are we willing to give up in return? Will you go all in this season to bring home a championship? Or should you go young and prepare for the future? There’s so much to think about before September. The “offseason edition” of this series is an early look at whose stock is up and whose stock is down as we head into draft season. We will break down each NFL team one by one. Today is all about the Detroit Lions. 

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Fantasy Stock Up, Stock Down: New York Jets

Welcome back to the “Fantasy Stock Up, Stock Down” series (offseason edition). The big free agency splash moments are all but over at this point, and the NFL Draft is approaching quickly. We, as dynasty managers, need to be evaluating these offseason transactions and thinking about our roster adjustments every day. Who are we going to target in rookie drafts? Who are we going to go out and trade for? Who are we willing to give up in return? Will you go all in this season to bring home a championship? Or should you go young and prepare for the future? There’s so much to think about before September. The “offseason edition” of this series is an early look at whose stock is up and whose stock is down as we head into draft season. We will break down each NFL team one by one. Today is all about the New York Jets. 

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Dynasty Trading Psychology: It Pays To Advertise

Trading is the lifeblood of Dynasty Fantasy Football. Most of us would prefer to be in a league full of active and attentive owners where lots of trades go down. Unfortunately, that is often not the case, and even in some of the best leagues, there are usually at least one or two owners that are hard to reach (for any number of reasons) and that are hard to make deals with. I don’t know if I have ever gone through a startup draft or a rookie draft where there wasn’t at least one instance of someone reaching out to me and saying.

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Dynasty Market Sweep: Quarterback Carousel Part 2

Welcome to the Dynasty Market Sweep, a weekly recurring offseason article focusing on substantial value disparities in the dynasty market consensus. The very nature of the instantaneous fantasy news feed has made the dynasty market more reactionary and volatile than ever before. Once the proverbial petrol is poured and Twitter fingers snap to ignite, player values can burn to the ground overnight. Value changes of this nature cause a ripple effect across the market. For every step up the ladder, someone must move down and vice versa.

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Dynasty Market Sweep: Quarterback Carousel Part 1

Welcome to the Dynasty Market Sweep, a weekly recurring offseason article focusing on substantial value disparities in the dynasty market consensus. The very nature of the instantaneous fantasy news feed has made the dynasty market more reactionary and volatile than ever before. Once the proverbial petrol is poured and Twitter fingers snap to ignite, player values can burn to the ground overnight. Value changes of this nature cause a ripple effect across the market. For every step up the ladder, someone must move down and vice versa.

To access this post, you must purchase a DFF Membership.

Is Jalen Reagor Good?

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.

Justyn Ross: A Wide Receiver Possessed

Justyn Ross is possibly the best wide receiver to play for Clemson University, if not one of the best we have seen in the college game of recent memory. Better than DeVonta Smith. Yes, I said that and stand by it. He has the size (6’4”/205 lbs.) and despite his pedestrian 4.87 40 time, as soon as he straps on a helmet and pads, he takes it to a whole other level. The current NFL player I would most likely compare him to is another Clemson WR product, DeAndre Hopkins. His size, catch radius and just football instincts are second to none.

The Lazard King

Allen Lazard: 2020 Dynasty Profile

Lazard showed excellent ball skills while gaining the trust of quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Starting in three games, he hauled in 35 catches for 477 yards and three touchdowns. When Lazard was targeted in the passing game, Aaron Rodgers had a 115.6 passer rating, good for 12th in the NFL.

Tarik Cohen: 2020 Dynasty Profile

Tarik Cohen: 2020 Dynasty Profile

Cohen came into the NFL as a fourth-round pick in 2017, where he profiled as the pass-catching complement to two-down grinder Jordan Howard. Throughout his three seasons, Cohen has played every game and has increased his receptions year over year. In 2018, Cohen shined as the Bears’ offense found success. He averaged an incredible 10.2 yards/reception and 8.0 yards/target.

Tyler Higbee

Tyler Higbee: 2020 Dynasty Profile

Higbee is one of my favorite 2020 values at tight end, coming in at TE6 in my redraft rankings. He’s in the same tier as Hunter Henry and Evan Engram, but neither of those players has anywhere close to Higbee’s upside. The Rams’ offense should improve from 2019, as quarterback Jared Goff had almost the same yardage in 2018 and 2019 but threw 10 fewer touchdowns. I expect to have many Higbee shares in my 2020 redraft leagues, and I would love to have him on my dynasty team.