The Dynasty Price is Right

Andrew Lightner Posted On February 23, 2016

Super Bowl 50 is officially now in the books, and the football season is over. I’ll pause for a few moments to let you shed a few tears…………unless you are a man, then you hold those tears in! Because we all know real mean don’t cry (unless you are talking about your quarterback, right T.O.?). So now that you’ve gathered yourself and your emotions, it’s time to get to it because the offseason is here upon us. Sure — during the season is when you are setting your lineups, scoring points, winning games, and hopefully getting to your league’s championship game. However, the offseason is arguably the most critical time for dynasty owners because it is when you shape and mold your roster into however you want it to look or whichever direction you are planning on going. Rosters in the offseason take a new look with the rookie draft, the waiver wire, and of course through trading. You should be comprising a list (either physical or mental) of players you want to target to buy, or players you feel you should sell. My series is here to give you my opinion on the buying portion and which players I feel you should consider trying to acquire this offseason.

If you read my last installment of The Dynasty Price is Right series, you may recall that it focused on giving you buying options for your start up drafts using ADP data to identify these players. While that is obviously a very important aspect of dynasties because you are building your foundation to work with, perhaps you aren’t doing any start up drafts this offseason and sticking solely with your current teams. If that’s the case you may be asking yourself, “well where is the trading portion of your series that existed during the season?” Being this is still a relatively new series, I am always trying to add tweaks and wrinkles to get make it better. So I am here to inform you that my series is morphing into a two part series for the rest of the offseason. It will run every two weeks or so, with one part focusing on buys in regards to trading, and the other part falling in line with the last article previous to this one. That’s where I’ll go over DLF’s monthly ADP data and identify targets for a start up draft. To avoid repetition, I will try to avoid covering the same players in both parts. However, you can assume that if I mention someone as a strong target in a start up draft according to his ADP, that I probably consider that player a good buy target in trades as well. This article is going to focus on the trading side of things, so let’s jump to it and allow me to give you a few names to consider targeting in your leagues, starting with my featured player.

Keenan Allen, San Diego

We all know that Allen had a great rookie season and then followed that up with what was largely a dud sophomore campaign. Because his 2015 season was cut short due to injury, I think some people forget just how good the Chargers wide receiver was in his third season. Let me give you a few stats to remind you — for fantasy purposes Allen was the fourth overall wideout from weeks 1-8 (week eight being the last game he played before landing on IR), was one of only seven wide receivers to average 20+ fantasy points per game, and averaged 11.1 targets per game, which ties him for fourth on the season with Demaryius Thomas in that category.

Now that I have given you his 2015 fantasy stats, let me give you a couple non-fantasy stats to help complete the picture of Allen’s third season. Allen caught 75 percent of his targets, which is outstanding efficiency considering how many targets he was getting. He did only average 10.8 yards per reception, which while that’s not terrible, I’d like to see it a little higher than that. Just as a comparison, he averaged 14.7 yards per reception his rookie campaign. Even getting targeted downfield more in his rookie year, Allen still caught over 67 percent of his targets in 2013 which is also really exceptional. I’m sharing this with you to debunk any theory that he was only super efficient this past season because he wasn’t getting targeted downfield often. This data tells you that Keenan Allen is a highly efficient receiver no matter where he is targeted. In fact, he caught 100 percent of his passes deep right and deep middle of the field in 2015; and while that number is certainly skewed a bit because of the low number of deep targets he received, it still helps to show that he does not lose much efficiency further down the field.

[inlinead]As I stated in the last paragraph, I would like to see a higher yards per reception number than what Allen achieved in 2015. He isn’t a burner by any means and doesn’t possess elite speed, so I don’t expect him to ever be phenomenal in that category. But going forward, I would like to see him get more downfield targets as he did his rookie year. I do think a part of the reason he wasn’t targeted downfield as often this past season is due to just how ravaged by injuries the Chargers were on the offensive line all season long. They never had consistency on the offensive line because of all the injuries they sustained there, and that yielded very bad blocking. Obviously you can’t throw deep when your quarterback doesn’t have the protection and time to do so, and therefore you have to run shorter and quicker routes to compensate for the lack of protection.

So what happened to Allen in 2014? I took a look back and watched some of his game film, and I still saw most of the the attributes in which he excels at — having good hands and quality route running. However, he wasn’t getting as good separation. I also noticed that his level of competition was higher, as he faced the likes of Patrick Peterson, Richard Sherman, Chris Harris, Darrelle Revis, and Brent Grimes (who people may laugh at now, but was actually excellent in 2014). What I also saw was an inconsistency in quality of targets as well. Basically, it was definitely a mixed bag when looking back on Allen’s 2014 season. What I didn’t see though was any sort of complete disarray, for I still saw the strengths in Allen’s game. It’s important to note that he was playing through a groin injury. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I know just how severe the injury was or how long he had the groin injury for. With that being said, we do know how long lower body injuries can linger and be a hindrance when not given full time to heal. We’ve seen it with plenty of other receivers the inconsistencies and lack of quality play when they decide to play through the injury rather than sit out a few weeks to let it fully recover. Top that off with the fact that a guy such as Allen isn’t one to win match ups based on elite size or speed, losing a couple steps can be even more detrimental.

I completely understand how one may be a bit concerned due to his 2014 season, but for me personally I have seen enough to chalk it up more to just simply a down year. Allen will only be 24 years old this upcoming season, so he’s still quite young. The 2016 season will also be Allen’s contract year, and we all know that when professional athletes see dollar signs on the horizon, they play hungry for that M-O-N-E-Y! A young wideout who is the clear number one option on their team, has a quality quarterback, and not only receives a lot of targets but is also very efficient is a recipe for a fantasy wide receiver stalwart. He may not have the freakish physical traits like Julio Jones, but Allen still has all the factors to make him a building block for dynasty rosters.

So what would I trade for Allen? I really like the options I have where Allen is sitting; as I can trade down to acquire him and also gain additional value, or trade up using highly valued assets which I feel are either overvalued or simply players I am not as comfortable with. If I had Mike Evans, I would have no problems trading down from Evans to get Allen while also receiving more in the return. I don’t see that much of a gap between the value of the two wide receivers, however I think you can get a return in value that exceeds that gap. Players who I feel are being overvalued that I would very comfortably add a sweetener or two to acquire Allen include Martavis Bryant and David Johnson. Devonta Freeman, whom I do like, is a player valued very closely that I wouldn’t hesitate flipping for the featured wide receiver either.

Now that we discussed my featured trade target, let me identify two other players I feel are good buys right now.

Giovani Bernard, CIN

When I see a player is being valued differently between my fellow DLF writers and the rest of the fantasy community, I take note. The player known as Bernard is ranked as the RB12 by my fellow compadres, above Jeremy Hill. However, in the mock drafts it is Hill being drafted higher than his fellow backfield mate. I agree with the DLF consensus, and think Bernard is the more valuable of the two. Not only does Bernard have a higher floor in PPR scoring, but I believe his ceiling in this format is higher. Simply put, I think Bernard is the better player. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he out-snaps and out-touches Hill next season. Bernard is a quality RB asset who’s receiving prowess and skill set gives him a very nice floor as mentioned above, but he also has abilities that exceed that of many fellow receiving specialist running backs in the NFL; for he has better running abilities than players such as Theo Riddick, Shane Vereen, and Charles Sims. The (better) Bengals running back is still only 24-years-old, and I am very interested to see what happens next off-season when he becomes a free agent. When it comes to running backs, I love making multiple player deals, where I downgrade in value at running back while upgrading in value at wide receiver. This is completely theoretical, but just to give an example I may offer something like David Johnson and Allen Hurns for Giovani Bernard and Brandin Cooks.

Jace Amaro, NYJ

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not a huge Amaro fan; however he comes in ranked as the TE26 according to DLF’s rankings. He has a lot of upside for that price, and he’ll cost next to nothing to acquire. He is a guy that, if you are weaker at tight end, could get as a throw in into a deal. Considering his fellow draft mates Eric Ebron and Austin Seferian-Jenkins are being valued much higher even though it was Amaro who showed the most on the field in his rookie year, I think he makes a solid buy candidate even if you aren’t in love with Amaro.

That’s it for part one of this edition of The Dynasty Price is Right. Check back in a week or two and we’ll cover who I would be targeting in start up drafts using DLF’s February ADP data, as well as glance back on January’s draft targets and see if there has been any changes in draft position. Thanks as always for reading — now go make some deals!

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