Dynasty Value Study: Kenny Golladay

Ryan McDowell

In this series, I will take a deep dive into one specific player’s current dynasty value. This can actually be quite a challenge considering player value in a dynasty league is impacted by everything to the weekly production during the season to decisions players make off the field in the spring and summer months.

Here at Dynasty League Football, we offer many tools to measure a player’s value and I’ll be using many of those in this article. Let’s dig in!

As a rookie in 2017, Lions receiver Kenny Golladay was a trendy dynasty sleeper pick in rookie drafts and quickly gained value when he dominated the preseason. Once the regular season began though, Golladay was slowed with injuries and was an afterthought behind veteran receiver Golden Tate and Marvin Jones, both of whom finished as top 12 fantasy receivers for the season.

Golladay was once again a favorite of many over the off-season with the expectations of a breakout season spreading. There were still concerns though, namely focused on Jones and Tate and the likelihood of Golladay eclipsing either in terms of production or even dynasty value.

Those concerns were quickly answered as Golladay has been on equal footing, at worst, with his pair of talented teammates. Golladay has weekly finishes of WR17, WR16, WR20, WR44, and WR11. Golladay’s 41 targets and 200 routes run rank second on the team. Golladay is currently the WR23 on the season, which also ranks second on the Lions.

Dynasty Rankings

In our Top 200 Overall Dynasty Rankings, Golladay currently ranks 41st overall, with a high rank of 25 and a low of 75. Golladay is ranked between a pair of rookies, receiver D.J. Moore and injured running back Derrius Guice.

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In our Positional Rankings, Golladay comes in as the WR20, between veterans T.Y. Hilton and Doug Baldwin. He has a relatively narrow ranking window with a high of WR15 and a low of WR27.

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Dynasty ADP

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In our recently released October dynasty ADP, Golladay’s ADP was 38.5, ranking him as the 37th overall player. This places him between recently injured players Devonta Freeman and Cooper Kupp.

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Golladay’s dynasty ADP history, which can be found on his player page, shows that his current ADP is his new all-time high. This is no surprise but what is somewhat disappointing is that his second-highest data point came in January of 2018.

This tells me that dynasty players identified Golladay as a prime off-season target early in the process though he went on to drop through much of the off-season before spiking over the past month.

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Trade Finder

Possibly my favorite value related tool at DLF is our Trade Finder, which pulls trade data from actual dynasty leagues. You can also customize the data based on number of teams, scoring and starting requirements. Each of the following trades are based on typical PPR leagues with just one starting quarterback.

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These most recent trades, all taking place within the past ten days, show a wide range of value for Golladay, spanning from one for one deal of Tyler Lockett to David Johnson. Golladay’s typical trade value lies somewhere in between.

Twitter Polls

Lastly, I love to utilize Twitter polls to identify how the community is valuing a player. While this is obviously not a DLF specific tool, it can be very revealing.

In recent days, I paired Golladay with many of the receivers that were valued similarly to him in either DLF dynasty rankings or October ADP. In most of these cases, I “aimed high” as the other receivers were typically ranked ahead of the Lions young star. I wanted to really test the dynasty market for Golladay and the results were quite surprising.

So, based on these results, we could loosely rank these backs in this order:

  1. Stefon Diggs (72%)
  2. A.J. Green (58%)
  3. Kenny Golladay
  4. Brandin Cooks (45%)
  5. Cooper Kupp (33%)
  6. Jarvis Landry (30%)
  7. Corey Davis (28%)
  8. Allen Robinson (24%)
  9. T.Y. Hilton (24%)
  10. Amari Cooper (14%)
  11. Will Fuller (11%)
  12. Sammy Watkins (7%)

While receivers like Brandin Cooks and Jarvis Landry are much more established at this point, dynasty owners responding to these polls are clearly chasing the upside. Honestly, the real surprise is that the veteran A.J. Green held off the charging Golladay.

Conclusion

If you’re viewing just one of the above DLF value tools, it becomes clear that Golladay’s value rising. When viewing the data from all tools combined, we see that Golladay is close to being considered as a dynasty WR1, a top 12 receiver.

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ryan mcdowell