Twitter Observations: Ezekiel Elliott and Travis Kelce Heading in Opposite Directions

Michael Moore

You know it’s almost the end of the season when you make it to the Thanksgiving slate. And in typical 2020 fashion, one of those games was moved but at least we still had the traditional Lions and Cowboys disappointment. We also had several players to evaluate for our dynasty teams. It may be past your league’s trade deadline but it’s never too early to start looking at next year. Below are a few tweets that might factor into those decisions.

Zeke Now or Forever Hold Your Piece

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. After a stellar start to Ezekiel Elliott’s real-life and fantasy career – including averaging over 1,300 rushing yards and eight rushing touchdowns in each of his first four seasons – it’s all come crashing down. Between the loss of his quarterback and the disappearance of a once-vaunted offensive line, Elliott looks extremely average in 2020.

On the season, he’s averaging 3.9 yards per carry, has just one 100-yard rushing game and is averaging the least amount of receiving yards per game and per reception of his career. And this past Thanksgiving game was no different – he barely averaged more than three yards per carry and lost a fumble in a Cowboys loss. Elliott, like most of the Cowboys’ season, has been a failure.

Dynasty Impact: Inevitably, the conversation around Elliott will be if he can return to his glory days. Presumably, Dak Prescott will be back (for at least another year) while his offensive line can’t get any more injured. But does that all add up to a bounce-back? Remember that Elliott will be entering his age-26 season next year and have close to 1,500 carries behind him – an average of 300-plus each season when you factor in the playoffs. Running backs rarely, if ever, return to the top of dynasty rankings after seeing a dip and Elliott is no different.

After being a consistent top-three dynasty bank, our own DLF rankers have him at eight. What’s more worrisome is every back ahead of him on that list is his age or younger which means no easy opportunities to move back up unless Elliott overcomes some serious hurdles. I would be looking to move Elliott in the off-season even if his worth has depreciated because of this train wreck of a season. I’d rather get something now than nothing later.

Space Hamler

Sometimes lost in the fact that the Broncos took highly-touted receiver Jerry Jeudy in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft was the fact that they took another receiver just one round later. KJ Hamler was taken 46th overall, just 31 picks after Jeudy, and if it weren’t for Jeudy, Hamler would have gotten much more attention from the get-go. Nonetheless, he’s making a name for himself now.

After seeing just 18 targets through the first half of the season, Hamler followed that up with ten targets in each of his next two games and added six more last week. The injury to veteran Courtland Sutton certainly helped but the opportunity will only enhance Hamler’s dynasty value.

Dynasty Impact: Despite being a top-50 draft pick, Hamler was viewed much lower than a typical second-round receiver normally would be and certainly when it came to rookie drafts.

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Just going by rookie ADP, Hamler was well behind other receivers and running backs drafted after him in the real draft. Currently, using our DLF Trade Analyzer, Hamler is valued between a second and third-round rookie pick. Ideally, his value would keep going up and he’d be worth a second-round pick by itself. Barring injury, I would make Halmer a target at that price. Sutton is a free agent after 2021 and with Hamler and Jeudy in the fold, there’s no reason to re-sign him. This would open the door for Halmer to cement a regular role in the offense and provide a good ROI on that second-round pick.

Any Gibson Sunday

Whether it was rookie jitters in the first part of the season or the on-going presence of Alex Smith at quarterback, Antonio Gibson seems to only be getting better as the season rolls on. In his last five games, he’s seen 75 carries and turned them into 400 yards and eight touchdowns. He also has three games of 90-plus rushing yards in the span while still seeing an average of three targets-per-game. And coincidence or not, Washington is 3-2 in their last five games and, for the moment, are in first place in the NFC East. Back to Gibson – he was a low-end RB1 in fantasy scoring and appears to have solidified that after his Thanksgiving Day performance.

Dynasty Impact: There’s no doubt that Gibson is having an impressive rookie season, and much more so than the backs taken ahead of him in the 2020 Draft. My concern would be if he could have the same production next year. The Washington offense is in flux and will, again, be on the lookout for a long-term solution at quarterback. It could turn back to Smith for at least the 2021 season, but can the offense keep up this level of production with Gibson still dominating the snaps? Or if they draft a quarterback or bring in another veteran, will the offense look different/worse like it did when Dwayne Haskins was calling plays earlier this season?

If you’re going to be a consistent RB1, it helps to have consistency in the offense including the quarterback. Gibson is currently ranked as a low-end RB2 in dynasty rankings which feels right. If you come along with someone who values him higher, I would pull that trigger.

Travis Aggressive

Despite Travis Kelce being in his age-31 season, he’s having the best campaign of his career. He’s averaging the best yards-per-game (89.6) of his career, the best yards-per-reception (13.6) of his career and his seven touchdowns are just three off his career-high of ten in a season. All of that has propelled him to top all tight ends in fantasy scoring by a wide margin (as enumerated in the tweet above) and would actually be the second-highest scoring fantasy wide receiver if he were classified as such. In short, Kelce is only getting better.

Dynasty Impact: It’s rare I would recommend paying top dollar for a stud playing any position, but I would for Kelce. Using our DLF Trade Analyzer, Kelce would be worth an early first-round pick in rookie drafts. Just think of the players taken this year and if you would trade any of them, right now, for Travis Kelce. You would. And chances are it won’t be any different next year. Yes, he’ll be 32 but he’s not showing any signs of slowing down and still has the great quarterback in his prime throwing it to him.

Kelce did recently sign a contract extension but the only real year the Chiefs are on the hook for is next year so it’s not like he’d be hard to move on from for Kansas City. But unless they draft his heir apparent, expect Kelce to stick around.

michael moore