Dynasty Fantasy Football Trading Post: Dallas Goedert

Hey everybody! I am back from my Scott Fish Bowl-related hiatus and ready to talk trades. There is always news to talk about but as usual, I would rather talk about a player I am having trouble valuing and hope I leave this article with a better idea of how to think about him.

We have tried many ways to create scoring that evens out players across positions. First, there was points per reception (PPR). It was a running backs league at the time and wide receivers were falling behind in the fantasy points total column. This was our answer: the player caught the ball, and they got some points. Of course, now this helps a lot of running backs as well but throwing to backs wasn’t nearly as popular even ten years ago.

As the pendulum always swings, the NFL became a passing league and we got so used to playing with PPR that we didn’t want to take that away so we started giving points per carry (PPC). This will continue to be helpful now that the league seems to be going away from full workhorse running backs.

Our most futile effort, of course, is tight end premium. It seems to always be the case that there are three or four worthwhile tight ends for fantasy football and the rest just a giant mush of meh. Tight end premium is just extra points per reception given only to the tight end position. We started with .5 PPR but that wasn’t enough. Then we tried .75 extra PPR. Nope, still not good. I see many leagues now where a tight end will get a full extra point per reception and yet we still don’t have enough tight ends to fill a 12-team league with a good player for each squad.

There are two ways to think about tight end premium when you get outside the top three or four TEs you would want on your team anyway. First, just ignore the position and grab a few bottom-tiered players and pick the best matchup each week. Second, still just try and get the best player you can. It is a onesie position and an advantage is still an advantage.

This article is for the second group of thinkers. One player who is towards to top of the second tier of tight ends that I can’t seem to value correctly is…

Dallas Goedert, TE PHI

The Eagles’ tight end is ranked TE6 in July DLF ADP and finished as TE5 in points per game (.75 TE premium). This is either a player you can plug in your tight end spot and feel great about it every week or a player you can slide into your flex spot and feel really great about it.

In my mind, the issue is that there are so many people who are in that first group of thinking where “if they aren’t top tier then we don’t want them” that he still gets looked over. The question then becomes: is this good for his value or bad? Does this lower his price to where those second people consider him a buy? Or is his price just all over the place and you just need to hope to get lucky to be in a league with someone who values him? Let’s go to the DLF Trade Finder and Trade Analyzer.

12tm SF PPR TEprem (.5) start 10

I really like Jordan Addison. I loved his landing spot and I have high hopes for him even this season. I think Goedert should be worth more. Maybe not a lot more but we have a player who has had multiple years of top-end positional production on an offense that is firing on all cylinders.

That should be the goal, and getting Calvin Ridley on your team is always a win as well. If confronted with the situation would I trade away Addison to acquire Goedert? I honestly don’t know and I am glad I am not currently in that situation, but sitting here and looking at this trade I think I would want the Goedert side.

12tm SF PPR TEprem (.5) start 10

Why do I keep finding trades that are pulling on my heartstrings? While I do think this is easily the AJ Brown/D’Andre Swift side, the part I want to bring up is how close in value Swift and Goedert are. I think Swift will have a very good year if he can stay healthy.

Like I said before when talking about our tight end, the Eagles offense is very good and Swift should get a nice sized portion of that backfield work. But to think that he is worth the same as Goedert in a TE premium league doesn’t feel right to me. Goedert has the higher positional upside and has shown to have a much safer floor. I can’t end a trade that involves Tee Higgins without pointing out my love for Higgins. I love Tee Higgins… that is all.

12tm SF PPR TEprem (.5) start 10

Diontae Johnson is absolutely better than he was last year. Hopefully, that entire Steelers offense will be better than they were last year but I don’t see the upside in this move. This is very easily Dallas Goedert (and free Josh Palmer).

Scrolling through the DLF Trade Finder and looking at all of the Dallas Goedert trades didn’t help as much as I hoped. There seemed to be an equal amount of trades where he was treated as a non-essential trade piece and some where he seemed like a true player of value.

This leads me to the frustrating conclusion that his value will just be league-dependent. If you have this stud tight end on your team you have to hope there is another person who feels the same way and would be willing to pay the price that level of player demands. If you are looking to acquire him, you have to hope you have the type of manager who just thinks he’s another brick in the tight end wall.