The DLF Mailbag

Welcome to the latest edition of the weekly mailbag.

Send me your questions using the DLF Mailbag Form and I’ll include the best in future articles.  Remember the guidelines to have the best chance at seeing your question get posted:

1.) Dynasty questions only, no start/sit questions

2.) Help me help you by providing sufficient information about your league (e.g. line-up requirements/PPR or non-PPR/etc.), and include your first name and where you’re from.

3.) Your chance of getting your question answered is inversely proportional to the length of the question.

Let’s get to it!

1. In a 10-team PPR league I have an upcoming roster problem/risk: I have Pierre Garcon and DeSean Jackson, and an overall week 10 bye problem (eight players on bye). I would like to trade away some of the risk – who would you trade between the two? Also, should I trade one or both? – Travis in DC

As a contending team, I can understand where you’re coming from in terms of hoping to both minimize your risk this year, as well as maximize your potential for winning. Having two starters from the same team definitively lowers your chance of winning during their bye week, and as such could result in a loss that diminishes your odds of gaining a better playoff seed. With that said, however, I wouldn’t feel any immediate need to trade an asset away.

In all likelihood, with eight players on bye there’s a good shot you’re losing that week anyhow. To the larger issue, dynasty football is a marathon, not a sprint – as such an individual game in a single season is akin to tying your running shoes! If you have quality players who are going to help you win every other week, I wouldn’t sweat the small stuff – no one goes undefeated.

The flip side of the coin is that you could be concerned with the Washington offense, and given their struggles last year I can’t say I fault you. Pierre Garcon will be joined by a healthy Jordan Reed and newly acquired DeSean Jackson, meaning quarterback Robert Griffin III is going to need to vastly improve upon his efficiency in order to feed all three mouths. Now fully healthy (and ostensibly better coached by new head man Jay Gruden), I do anticipate RGIII taking another step forward in his evolution as a quarterback.

Given that I don’t worry about Garcon at all – using Cincinnati as a guideline, Gruden will have Griffin target his WR1 relentlessly. More importantly, due to the dual presence of Reed and Jackson, those targets should be “better.” I’ll plant my flag now and say I fully expect Garcon to remain amongst the WR1 ranks.

Therefore I’d choose to sell D-Jax. Though I still think he has a strong chance of surpassing the 126 targets he received in 2013, it’s fair to opine that the Washington offense won’t be as effective as Philadelphia’s was last year. Also throwing in his erstwhile boom or bust nature, I’d attempt to sell him at WR2 prices in order to provide your team with more safety, along with some peace of mind.

2. In my 12-team PPR double-superflex league (we can start up to three quarterbacks), I’m blessed with five of the DLF top-20 wide receivers. I need a quarterback badly though, as Sam Bradford is the only one on my roster. Do you think it would be wise to trade Percy Harvin for a Tony Romo or Philip Rivers type, as well as that team’s 2015 first round pick (mid-first range)? – Joe in NY

I absolutely believe it would a wise move, but also have a tough time seeing it happen. Though I’ve espoused the virtues of diminishing quarterback values in standard leagues before, a superflex setting shifts the dynamic – a double superflex league, presenting owners with the possibility of starting three signal callers, then prompts the positional paradigm shift to do a complete 180. Factoring in that there’s only 32 starting quarterbacks for 36 potential starting slots, the positional value is heightened yet again.

So even though Seattle receiver Percy Harvin is considered to be the consensus PPR WR18 according to the DLF rankings, as well as the WR16 according to the April ADP data, this trade is going to be a tough sell. In addition to the positional requirements, Harvin really hasn’t shown anything since midway through the 2012 season. Given the run-first nature of the Seahawks offense, along with his injury history, it’s fair to question Harvin’s viability moving forward.

To be quite honest, in order to pull this off I think at a minimum you need to remove the first round pick from the equation. Neither Philip Rivers nor Tony Romo is getting any younger, but each should have a few years of QB1 abilities left. Given your league settings, as well as the fact you’re trotting out Sam Bradford as your only quarterback each week, I believe the onus for improvement is more on you than it is your trade partner.

3. I’m in the middle of a 12-team, 20-man roster non-PPR dynasty league slow draft trying to defend our inaugural championship. Thinking they would last a few more picks, I traded pick 2.12 for two later third rounders and missed out on getting either Terrance West or Isaiah Crowell as my target. I’ve been offered West and Dennis Pitta for Julius Thomas, who I paid $1 as a FA last year after write-ups here. I also drafted Jace Amaro as my backup tight end with pick 2.02. Your thoughts, please? – Stephen in NC

Recently, DLF’s own Jaron Foster wrote a fascinating article about how positional values fluctuate given a league’s scoring settings. Though it seems like a simple concept, digging into the numbers unearthed some trends that might have previously gone unnoticed, especially as they relate to the tight end position. Given that the two primary components of your prospective trade, Dennis Pitta and Julius Thomas, play said position I think it behooves us to gauge the relative impact.

According to Jaron’s study, of the top 100 scorers in non-PPR leagues only seven of them were tight ends. You can therefore take this one of two ways – either you believe it pays to have a relatively elite asset at the position, or that you could still start a competent tight end even if you didn’t place a huge priority on him. For my money, I’m inclined to believe the former.

To paraphrase the above, big-time tight end scorers don’t grow on trees in a non-PPR format. Since Thomas was the TE3 in terms of overall scoring (12.8% of the rate of the TE4, Jordan Cameron), his value on the trade market should be commensurate with that fact. So even though Browns’ backup running back Terrance West is an intriguing talent, he’s not enough to bridge the gap between Thomas and Pitta (and for what it’s worth I’m fairly bullish on Pitta).

To make this happen I’d insist your trade partner throws in a 2015 first round pick, with your side chipping in a 2015 second rounder. He might view it as a steep cost, but that’s the price I believe needs to be paid for an upper-echelon player in a non-top heavy position. Pulling this off would then not only give you the ball carrier you initially coveted, along with a comparable tight end, but also a nice bonus come this time next year.

4. In my 12-team PPR league I recently acquired pick 1.02 in our rookie draft. I was counting on having Josh Gordon, but now he appears to be facing a lengthy suspension. Assuming Sammy Watkins goes at pick 1.01, what is your opinion of Mike Evans at 1.02, even though I have Vincent Jackson? – Mark in OH

Depending on who you ask, this might not even wind up being a consideration for you. Be it do to landing spot, size or red-zone prowess, there is a growing groundswell of support for Tampa’s Mike Evans as the most coveted dynasty rookie asset of 2014. In fact, even Rotoworld’s Evan Silva stopped by last week’s Podcast to posit just that during our conversation about his recently posted dynasty rookie rankings.

But for the sake of the question let’s proceed with the prevailing notion that Buffalo’s Sammy Watkins will be the first pick of your rookie draft. Should that occur I wouldn’t let the fact you already own Vincent Jackson act as any sort of impediment against you selecting Evans. In fact, quite the contrary – by virtue of having the venerable V-Jax to act as both a teaching tool and alleviator of double coverage, I believe Evans’ immense talent is actually rivaled by his landing spot.

To that last point, if Tampa’s off-season was to be put in baseball terms, I think they hit a grand slam. In addition to their first round selection of Evans, the Bucs also picked do-it-all tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins in the second round, affording a trio of credible weapons for quarterback Josh McCown, a player who was (you guessed it) also signed just a few short months ago. To call this a mammoth upgrade over last year’s Mike Glennon/Josh Freeman led offense would be a disservice to our prehistoric, wooly brethren.

Continuing with McCown, he now finds himself in the all-too-familiar position of having three behemoth receiving threats at his disposal – if you recall, he did okay in such circumstances just last year. While it’s certainly reasonable to question a signal caller whose career year occurred in his age-34 season, some players simply “get it” at different times – I believe McCown will serve as a fine leader of the Tampa offense. So given the totality of the above, even with the fact you already own Jackson, this is a no brainer to me – you’ll be in the heavens with a selection of Evans.

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