Dynasty Fantasy Football Trading Post: Bijan Robinson, RB ATL (Or the Rookie 1.01)
We made it. The NFL Draft has come and gone. Now it is time for the next big step in our dynasty leagues, rookie drafts! It is not every year that we have such a strong player who is a consensus top player that will be the first pick off the board in both one quarterback and superflex leagues. It also isn’t every year that when your team is bad enough to earn the 1.01, you don’t really want that best player on your team. As you can tell, we are going to be talking about…
Bijan Robinson, RB ATL
If you are in the middle of a tough rebuild or if your team is just really bad (it happens to the best of us), then walking into a player who will score as many points as Robinson isn’t always what is best for our team. Most dynasty roster rebuilds can’t be completed in one non-point-scoring season and if that is the case, you want to go through next season scoring as few points as you can. Maybe you have loose rules around your taxi squad and you can just drop him in there for the year but chances are if you have him, you have to start him.
All of this makes the 2023 1.01 rookie pick an asset that could and should be traded away from the teams who earned them. The hard part is getting a trade that feels worth it. It has been years in the making that Bijan Robinson would walk into the NFL as a stud, workhorse running back. Getting drafted by the Atlanta Falcons solidified that fact.
What is it like to trade away this level of player who has never stepped on the NFL field but is still worth a first-round dynasty startup pick? Let’s go to the DLF Trade Finder and Trade Analyzer and find out!
99% of rookie drafts – superflex or single quarterback – will have the same first pick. After that, the two formats will bring very different drafts. In superflex leagues, the second through fourth picks will most likely be quarterbacks (Anthony Richardson, CJ Stroud, and Bryce Young) in any order. That leaves these picks being very valuable even if you aren’t getting Robinson.
This means that this trade will be the new dynasty RB1 for a rookie quarterback drafted in the top four of the NFL draft and Josh Jacobs, a 25-year-old running back who finished as the RB3 in PPR scoring last season. While this trade doesn’t completely fit the rebuilding narrative I was spinning above I still like this move. Jacobs has shown us that he can finish as a top-ten running back multiple times and we still get to add a very good quarterback prospect to our team.
If this was me I would have gone after a wide receiver but if I felt like I needed to get out of the 1.01 (which you shouldn’t – just draft Bijan Robinson and trade him later) then this is a good first step. My next step would be putting Jacobs on the trade bait.
This trade displays the true power of the 1.01. In April superflex ADP, Justin Herbert is the fifth player off of the board. Before the end of the first, at spot ten, is when we see Robinson getting drafted. While ADP does not equal trade value, it is still a good gut test on how a player could be valued. I know the Analyzer shows a difference in the values of the smaller pieces in this deal but if you ask me this can be evaluated as straight-up Herbert for Robinson. Stud running backs are fun and great to have on your team but this is a 12-team superflex league and quarterbacks are the gold standard and Herbert is among the gold standard of the gold standard. It would be hard to hit the accept button but I would send the pick to get Herbert.
I wanted to make sure we had at least one trade that was a one-quarterback league. There are many paragraphs in this article talking about how talented and valuable Robinson is to the NFL and to dynasty teams. This article would get a little too long if I started gushing over Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Jordan Addison, and Jahmyr Gibbs also, so I won’t, but I also believe these three players will be cornerstones for a rebuilding dynasty team.
This trade moves you off one building block and hands you two, slightly smaller building blocks. Even if I didn’t earn the 1.01 or if I was ready to start competing at the end of my rebuild, I would heavily consider this trade and most likely take it. It is not very often one player makes the difference between winning and losing but two could. On the other hand, if there were one player who would be that difference, it would be Bijan Robinson.
This is why I find trading so much fun. Trades don’t always go by the book, don’t always follow consensus value, and definitely don’t always go as you planned but they are always fun to send, offer, and think about. And if we are going to spend our time on dynasty trades why not go big? Good luck with all of your rookie drafts!
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