Russell Gage

Dynasty Market Sweep: Veteran TE Evaluation

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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Fantasy Stock Up, Stock Down: Atlanta Falcons

Welcome back to the “Fantasy Stock Up, Stock Down” series (off-season edition). I don’t know if we’ve seen a crazier free agency than the one we are currently witnessing! We as Dynasty Managers need to be evaluating the off-season 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 “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 Atlanta Falcons. 

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Free Agency Day 2: Dynasty Winners and Losers

Zay Jones had a career year last year with 47 receptions and 546 receiving yards. He got a nice payday at up to $10M per year considering his lackluster career to date. They must have plans to incorporate him into the offense given the amount of the contract but he now enters a saturated receiving group. Jacksonville has been on a spending spree to improve the weapons for Trevor Lawrence. Christian Kirk, Evan Engram, and Zay Jones are now added to an offense that is also getting back Travis Etienne. This is not exactly high-end talent but it is an improvement over what they had.

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Paul’s Picks: Week 14

Once again, I need to give a big shoutout to Matt (@PsychWardFF on Twitter) for taking over Paul’s Picks in Week 13. Despite his incredibly solid process, Matt had a pretty unlucky week of picks. Of course, in this totally upside-down season, we all seem to be getting more wrong than right. But this week, I’m hoping to right the ship. In many leagues, this is the final week of the fantasy regular season. In others, the playoffs have already begun. Either way, there is a lot on the line. So, let’s take a look at some names at every position that I believe will exceed expectations or fall flat in Week 14.

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Paul’s Picks: Week 12

Outside of Cole Beasley, none of the “starts” from Week 11 busted. Cam and Tua were actually QB1s! Plus, I jinxed Mike Williams back into fantasy relevance. Overall, I’d say it was a highly successful week in an otherwise confusing season. Hopefully, we can build on it in Week 12. As always, I’ll be bringing you names at every position that I believe will exceed expectations or fall flat.

Let’s get into the picks.

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Calvin Ridley Out Indefinitely: Rapid Reaction

Calvin Ridley has decided to step away from football per a statement released on Twitter. It’s already been a disappointing season for a player expected to be a top-10 receiver as the first full season as the Falcons’ WR1. Ridley’s underwhelming season comes from a combination of missing a game for personal reasons and Atlanta, particularly Matt Ryan, underperforming. We’ll break down both the redraft and dynasty impact of the news and how we move forward as the third-year player recovers.

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Kyle Pitts Managers: R-E-L-A-X

For all of you freaking out about Kyle Pitts’s performance so far this season, let’s take a page out of Aaron Rodgers’s playbook and relax. Kyle Pitts is a physical beast. Let’s start this conversation off with that fact. There’s never been a prospect like him coming out of the college ranks and I was lucky enough to write about him when his name was called in April. His production was out of this world as a Florida Gator and while he has yet to see that type of output in the NFL, this week versus the Jets is when we’ll see why Atlanta used the fourth overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft on him. “But Heady, you say, he is only the 18th best tight end in fantasy right now!” Keyphrase my mafiosos, “right now”, after this week, he should be well on his way to a top-10 finish on the year. He is a sure-fire start for me in all formats, someone you do not want to sleep on and I am here to tell you why.

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Six Shares to Watch After Week 1

Unless we’re analyzing workhorse running backs or alpha wide receivers, a player’s usage can fluctuate from week to week, some will shine and some will ruin your week. Remember, targets and opportunities are earned. In this series, I will provide weekly target shares, rushing attempt shares, and snap shares of SIX players (or group of players) to help you understand the value of each of them and decide whether to start ‘em, roster ‘em, or trade ‘em.

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Fireside Chat With Heady

Welcome mafiosos to a little Q and A session with the only @Heady_Football. I took some time to gather some questions you on Twitter, our DFF Army, have asked over the off-season along with some questions I have been asked off-line, by my friends and family. Yes, don’t be shocked, I do have a life outside of fantasy football. Granted, it’s not much but it is one nevertheless. So, without further adieu, here are some of the best questions I received.

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IDP Quick Thoughts: Joe Schobert Traded to Steelers

Two days ago, the Jacksonville Jaguars sent stand-out linebacker Joe Schobert to the Pittsburgh Steelers in a move that further underscores the rebuild under Head Coach Urban Meyer’s new regime. News of the compensation trickled out a day later; just a 2022 sixth-round pick landed Schobert. Clearly, the move was a salary dump for the Jaguars.

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Startup Strategies: Drafting to Reload, Not Rebuild: Part 2 – Depth Evaluation

Hurray for the start of Training Camps!! We can finally begin overhyping Twitter highlights while we listen to the sweet voice of Liev Schreiber give hope to Cowboys fans via Hard Knocks. So as we squeeze in a few more startups before the regular season starts, let’s dive into Part II of our Startup Strategies series. Make sure to check out Part I where I focus on drafting a strong core pick-by-pick through the first nine rounds of a real draft I participated in, and how you can take my strategy and deep dive to draft a roster competitive enough to win now without having to rebuild later. In Part II we’ll take a broader look at the full roster post-draft to evaluate depth by position and consider immediate and future roster moves needed to bring home The Ship. 

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2021 Buy Low Dynasty Sleepers

It’s officially start-up season! The buzz of the NFL Draft and free agency has worn off, rookie drafts are wrapping up, and dynasty managers are left chasing that sweet high. We’re all scraping for every bit of info we can from OTAs like we’re searching for a loose fry at the bottom of the bag. Welcome to The Void. The space between OTAs and Mini-Camps where every fantasy junkie is trying to fill said void anyway we can. Most of us are now obsessively trading or telling ourselves “just one more startup,” followed by more obsessive trading. Depending on what boat you’re in, let’s look at those cheap sleepers you can either buy low on the league trade block or take a flier during a startup so you can spend that high draft stock elsewhere using Sleeper’s ADP data, and scouting reports from NFL.com.

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Fantasy Stock Up, Stock Down: NFC South

Tampa Bay made it apparent that they wanted to retain Brady’s pass-catchers by re-signing both Antonio Brown and Chris Godwin. Add them to the mix of Mike Evans, Scotty Miller, Rob Gronkowski, and Cameron Brate, and this group may be the deepest receiving crew in the league. To add more fire to the mix, O.J. Howard will come into the 2021 season fully healthy again. Brady finished as the QB8 last season, but most of his damage came in the second half of the season. From Weeks 7 and 17, he served as the QB6, but what’s more impressive is that he finished as the QB2 during the last three weeks of the season. Why is that the more impressive part? Maybe it’s because those last three weeks are typically the FANTASY PLAYOFFS!

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Julio Jones Traded to the Tennessee Titans

Julio Jones will be traded to the Tennessee Titans for future second and fourth-round picks. Jones who was drafted as the sixth overall selection in 2011, spent 10 productive seasons in Atlanta. In that time Jones became one of the most productive wide receivers in NFL history hauling in 848 catches for 12,896 yards and 60 TDs. He will instantly become Tennessee’s WR1 sufficiently boosting the outlook for Ryan Tannehill’s 2021; let’s dive into how it impacts his fellow Titans teammates along with how his departure impacts the viable fantasy options in Atlanta.

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new coaching hires

New NFL Coaching Hires: Where The Dust Settled (Part 1)

All seven of the vacant head coaching positions that were available in the NFL this offseason have been filled. In this piece, your author is giving a rapid reaction to each hire, along with some brief fantasy football implications. Understand that these are the analyses and opinions of your author, based on the knowledge and information he possesses. The NFL is a dynamic league, and turnover at the head coach and GM positions not only occur each year but also keeps interest in NFL franchises fresh and relevant. The complete slate of additions will be covered in two articles, the first three breakdowns are here. Overall, the decisions made were underwhelming but interesting. Some teams made strong hires, some underwhelming hires, and some were true boom or bust hires. Now it’s time to dive in, in no particular order, and unpack the new coaching hires… 

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Looking Ahead to Week 7

In this weekly article, I’m going to look ahead to the following week. I’ll point out a few players below 40% owned on ESPN who have strong matchups next week that you can pick up ahead of time to beat the waiver run. I’ll also try and get ahead of breakouts that could happen in the current week, as predicting breakouts is the best way to save your FAAB budget.

Mecole Hardman is 40.2% owned and just misses the 40% cut. But, with Sammy Watkins out, he’s an absolute must-add ahead of a potential Week 6 breakout.

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Looking Ahead to Week 3

In this weekly article, I’m going to look ahead to the following week. I’ll point out a few players below 50% owned on ESPN who have strong matchups next week that you can pick up ahead of time to beat the waiver run. I’ll also try and get ahead of breakouts that could happen in the current week, as predicting breakouts is the best way to save your FAAB budget.

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DFS Fantasy Football Owners

What Lessons Can DFS Teach Fantasy Owners?

For this article, I’m going to focus on regular weekly DFS contests, like FanDuel and DraftKings. Although there are other DFS formats, I feel that those weekly contests have unique takeaways and provide the most value for dynasty owners. Also, they are the most popular style of DFS, so they provide the broadest reach. I’ll split this article into the two main types of weekly DFS: cash games and GPP contests.

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