Dynasty Fantasy Football Mailbag: Garrett Wilson on the Rise

Shane Manila

Welcome back to the DLF Mailbag, the preeminent mailbag in all the dynasty fantasy football land. This year I’ll be answering questions from you via Twitter, Discord, or the old-fashioned way (via email). Free agency is now far behind us. The 2023 NFL Draft has now come and gone. It’s the quiet season until training camps open, but that doesn’t mean the questions ever stop. With most of us with at least several rookie drafts under our collective belts, our rosters are starting to come into focus for 2023, but there’s no time to rest.

Garrett Wilson rising

Though I’m not as vocal about my love for Garrett Wilson as I am with Chris Olave (who is slightly cheaper to acquire in dynasty leagues), I’m still pretty bullish on Wilson. The DLF rankers are also largely bullish, with Wilson checking in as the WR6 in the latest rankings. If not for Jeff Haverlack ranking him as his WR14, Wilson would be even higher. Jeff would like to see another season out of Wilson before he moves him up, which is a fair and measured take.

I am less well-reasoned and measured and have Wilson ranked as my WR5. I’m high on him because he produced as a rookie, notching 12.6 points per game as a rookie. A quick snapshot of the rookie wide receivers who have been able to do that in the last decade is an impressive list of fantasy assets.

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Courtesy of Stathead Football.

Taking a walk down narrative street, it’s likely that the quality of targets Wilson will receive from Aaron Rodgers will far exceed the targets he received from Zach Wilson, Joe Flacco, and Mike White last year.

With all that said already ranked as the WR6, there’s not much more room for Wilson to move.

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I could see him leapfrogging Jaylen Waddle if Wilson sees a moderate increase in fantasy scoring and Waddle’s PPG remains in the 15 – 15.5 PPG range, which is a low-end WR1/high-end WR2. Year three is typically a crucial year for fantasy prospects and if it looks like Waddle has hit his ceiling, he may fall in the rankings. AJ Brown didn’t miss a game last year and if he were to miss a few games as he has in previous seasons, the four-year age difference could be enough to move Wilson over Brown. CeeDee Lamb finally realized the potential the fantasy community saw in him last year, but again a step back could allow Wilson to jump him. There’s a path for Wilson to be ranked as high as the WR3 in dynasty next year, I see no path other than injury to him leaping Ja’Marr Chase or Justin Jefferson.

Now what?

So you’ve gone ahead and gathered a bunch of future first-round rookie draft picks. Now what are you supposed to do with them? Your league format is going to play a large part in how you should move forward. Gavin’s league is a 10-team start 12 league, meaning the total starters for this league would be 120 deep, exactly the same as if you were playing in a 12-team start 10 leagues. While the starting rosters are deep, being a 10-team league means overall scarcity isn’t going to be as much of an issue if this were a 12-team league, where 144 starters are needed.

I would be more likely to try to consolidate these picks in a league like this for one asset/player than I would if this were a 12×12 or a 12×11, or anything in that range. Being a superflex league, QB remains king and I’d be more than willing to attach multiple picks to players/mediocre quarterbacks to move into the elite range of quarterback. Gavin didn’t share his roster, but based on the scoring, I would lean toward the format and try to acquire tight ends and running backs instead of WR3 or below.

In general, the deeper a league is the less likely I would be to consolidate picks, and I’d be more likely to make rookie picks, hoping to hit on a player and then splitting the asset the following season (think Chris Olave).

That’s the Pitts

When discussing tight end premium leagues, it doesn’t get more premium than starting two tight ends with 1.75-2.0 fantasy scoring. Again leaning on the DLF rankings, the tight end 10-20 range of rankings is not great.

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If I was absolutely forced to tier down from Kyle Pitts into this range of tight end, in a start two tight end league, I’d want at least two firsts with one of these players.

The only tight ends I even want in this range are David Njoku, Trey McBride, Michael Mayer, or Evan Engram. Expecting a manager to give up two firsts and a tight end in this format is a huge ask considering Pitts has yet to finish as more than the TE10 in his first two seasons. I’m a huge Pitts believer but I would blush at that amount. A more likely route would be trying to tier down to someone like Dallas Goedert and asking for another first in return. That’s the minimum you can accept in a deal sending away Pitts. Even in this scenario, you would likely need to throw back something on the back end to get the deal done.

Chasing the points

Trades like this are the ones I often refer to as big boy/girl trades. On one side is the dynasty WR1, and on the other is the dynasty RB2 (in my personal rankings). Kenneth Walker and Alvin Kamara are also in this deal.

Before I get into my take on this deal I wanted to check with the DLF Dynasty Trade Analyzer, which leans heavily towards the Breece Hall/Walker side of this deal.

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The analyzer has this deal so far apart that in order to even it up it suggests the Hall side would need to add as much as the 1.04 in this rookie draft.

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A couple of points to keep in mind: this is a full PPR league, which would make Chase the most coveted asset in the deal. While both players are elite, Chase is just more elite, having scored at least 20 PPG last year in 50% of his games played vs Hall who hit that mark in 33% of his contests. I know this isn’t an apples-to-apples argument as Hall was forced to share the backfield for the first several weeks of the season with Michael Carter. Hall really hit his stride in weeks four through six averaging 21.2 PPG before he blew his knee out in week seven. It’s reasonable to project that Hall could outscore Chase on a per-game basis next year, or maybe even the year after that, but we all know that long-term wide receivers have significantly longer careers than running backs, and are less susceptible to major injury than running backs. A case in point would be Hall blowing his knee out last year as a rookie.

The difference in this deal in the eyes of the analyzer would be Walker’s value over Kamara. Though Kamara is a short-term asset who is likely to miss some time due to suspension next year, I’m going to have to disagree with the machine here. If Walker didn’t have Zach Charbonnet to contend with for the remainder of his rookie contract I could get on board with this difference in value, but that’s not the case. Charbonnet is going to limit whatever ceiling Walker would have had and now he shouldn’t be looked at as anything more than a RB2. Even if Kamara only plays 10-12 games next year it’s likely he’ll be able to produce as a low-end RB1 at his worst. I see Walker as holding a value edge over Kamara, but not enough so for me to prefer the Hall/Walker side. I want the Chase side of this deal.

shane manila
Dynasty Fantasy Football Mailbag: Garrett Wilson on the Rise