How to Flip a Future First-Round Rookie Draft Pick in Your Dynasty Leagues

Note: When using the DLF Trade Analyzer, you can bypass the actual “analyzer” and just look at the values in list form by clicking the Values link under the title in the top left corner of the screen. This is where I will be looking to help make sure the options I am telling you actually line up in value.

March is almost over and the Super Bowl is far behind in the rearview mirror. Even more importantly, the fantastic benchmark we all impatiently wait for (most of us, anyway) has passed – the rollover of MyFantasyLeague.com to the new league year.

With the new league year comes the exciting, shiny, brand new toy that is next year’s draft picks! New picks are exciting no matter what kind of dynasty player you are. If you are a ‘productive struggle’ strategist, youth-chasing, rookie-evaluating, draft-pick-using kind of dynasty player, then now is the best time to go and acquire those picks. If you are the always win-now strategist, veteran-acquiring, production-chasing, draft-pick-selling kind of dynasty player, then the second they show up on your trade screen is the time you are trying to use those picks to go get more points.

If you saw the title of this article then you know which kind of dynasty player we are about to talk about: Points, winning, and championships!

Let’s start with the vaunted, golden 2023 firsts and what we can do with them right now.

It is staggering to see how close a predicted early 2023 first is to the first pick in this year’s class. This is absolutely something to use to your advantage. This is the best-case scenario though. Not often can you, or should you, try to guess where a future draft pick will land in a year.

Since the Trade Analyzer is so great, we can see what a middle/random 2023 first should be worth.

Lucky for us, in this one little screen shot we see each of the fantasy-relevant positions.

Diontae Johnson comes in at WR13 in March DLF ADP, scored as the WR7 in points per game in PPR leagues last season, and more importantly in many dynasty managers’ minds, is only 25 years old

Tua Tagovailoa ranks as QB16 and is on one of the most up-and-coming offenses in the league (Kyle Shanahan tree head coach in Mike McDaniel and Jaylen Waddle and Tyreek Hill at wide receiver).

We all know George Kittle by now. TE3, amazing after the catch, fantasy points for days!

Last we have JK Dobbins at RB14. Dobbins is coming off of an ACL tear so we don’t have any last season data to talk about but we do have the best running back on the Ravens – a run-friendly team – who increased backfield receptions last season. Not only would I trade a random 2023 first for any of those players, I would be happy to do so.

Hypothetical is fun but when we dip our toes into the reality pool of the DLF Trade Finder, we still see some very desirable trades.

To most people, Amari Cooper never lived up to his pre draft hype and that left a sour taste in their mouths when they say his name. If you look at his actual production throughout his career, removing his name, I don’t think you would be disappointed in rostering this no-named wide receiver. Over the last three years, our “mystery wide receiver” averaged 14.56 points per game.

The best part of all of this so far is that when you look at the trade above, you will realize that you got even more coming back at you! You will be getting a 2023 second-round rookie draft pick on top of that solid WR2 coming your way. This is the perfect trade because not only do you get those points from Cooper, you also don’t completely lose out on your future assets (or extra trade chip).

I know you all trust me implicitly but just to show you how straight forward I can be, here is a screenshot of this trade from the Trade Analyzer.

This next trade is one I can see going down in a lot of superflex leagues just like it did in the Dynasty Diagnostic Championship League.

Derek Carr is one of the least flashy names when it comes to NFL starting quarterbacks. The Raiders offense has been overall forgettable since… since… Bo Jackson??? I kid. But it has been a while.

Now we have Carr throwing to Davante Adams, Hunter Renfrow, and Darren Waller with Josh Jacobs coming out of the backfield. Even if we pretend that Carr doesn’t improve, if you could guarantee that your 2023 draft pick would score you 19.22 points per game over three seasons, I think you would be very happy. 19.22 points per game is the average of Carr’s last three seasons.

While this doesn’t look like an obvious win through the lens of the Trade Analyzer, I think this is another great move to make. Trading for QBs in superflex leagues can prove to be difficult. It can especially be difficult when you aren’t trading a QB back to the team sending you one over. Sometimes that leads to the need to overpay a little for a QB and that is exactly what is going on here.

The satisfying part about trading away your rookie picks and getting players and their production over to your team is that you will use those points to win games. The more games you win, the further back your draft slot will be. So trade that 2023 first for Cooper or Carr and add those points to your roster and watch your draft pick slide back out of view.

Before I let you go (and yes, you must wait for me to say you can stop reading this), I didn’t want to exclude those leagues that allow you to trade draft picks two years out in the future. With the MFL rollover then came the 2024 rookie draft picks!

In case you are going to try and send those away as soon as you get them, I wanted to show you some ideas of what you can expect. Like we did with the 2023 picks we will first look at the list of values used in the Trade Analyzer.

Clearly the options for trading a 2024 first are going to be a little less appealing than a 2023 first. You know what they say: “time is money!”

Jerry Jeudy is a very talented wide receiver on a Broncos team that got the quarterback upgrade of a lifetime. With Jeudy’s route-running ability and ability to find the holes in zone defense, he has the skillset to become the wide receiver Russell Wilson looks for after running three figure eights in the backfield.

TJ Hockenson did not quite fulfill our dreams (by our I mean mine) of solidifying himself as a top-tier tight end. A struggle to stay on the field and to put it nicely, playing on an offense that was very not good, held Hockenson in that second tier of fantasy tight ends. All I can say about this is that it is hard to imagine the situation getting worse. I believe in Hockenson.

Also, I am going to pull these trades from a very active day in from Trade Addicts 10.

Pat Freiermuth was drafted at an average of TE8 in the DLF mock drafts. He is also the youngest of the group outside of the top five stud tight ends (Kyle Pitts, Mark Andrews, Travis Kelce, George Kittle, Darren Waller) and scored an average of 14.18 points per game (with .75 TE premium) after the Steelers bye week. Couple the age and production with the volatility of the tight end position and you have a very strong dynasty asset.

Look carefully at the next trade and you will see that it was me who sent away my 2024 first. I have always been a fan of Michael Pittman. My dreams for Pittman are still higher than the 13.64 PPR points per game he scored last season but with Carson Wentz at quarterback and Jonathan Taylor at running back I would call finishing the season as WR21 a successful end to Pittman’s sophomore season. I am not sure if you consider Matt Ryan at this point in his career an upgrade over Wentz but I am excited and ready for Pittman to keep progressing.

Trading away my team’s future first-round rookie picks is one of my favorite trade moves. You are acquiring production from an asset that literally cannot give you fantasy points. Also, there is always plenty of time to go out and trade for first-round draft picks. Even better, go and trade for other team’s draft picks because your team is so good and going to win all the championships so why hold onto the last pick in the first round when you can get an earlier pick from one of those bad teams!

You now have my permission to click away from this article. Thank you for reading.