Tactical Transactions: Moves to Make Before Week Five

In what has seemed like the blink of an eye, we are somehow already through the first month of the NFL season. Unfortunately, with the changing of the calendar to October come the dreaded byes. In week five alone, we’ll be without our studs on the Browns, Chargers, Seahawks and Buccaneers, and must plan accordingly. This is dynasty football, so I don’t typically advise making moves solely to cover weekly absences, and let’s be honest – if your roster is fragile enough where bye weeks are severely impeding your likelihood of making the playoffs, you’re probably better served with a high draft pick. As such the advice in this space will continue to take the long view in mind (both rest-of-season and beyond 2023), but you should absolutely take advantage of resources such as DLF’s Lineup Advice to best satisfy your weekly lineup needs.

Disclaimer time! Now that real, live football is upon us, I need to clarify the overarching rationale behind my advice. As you’re well aware by the fact you’ve come to a website entitled dynastyleaguefootball.com, we’re still taking a long view into account in addition to each player’s weekly (and year-to-date) output. Therefore and for example, when I say a player is a “buy high,” it’s not solely due to the week he just had. Instead, guidance will also take into account his current stature in tools such as DLF’s ADP and rankings, in addition to how he performed.

Much as in previous iterations of this weekly series, I will list one player apiece who I’ve bucketed into the following categories:

• Buy low
• Buy high
• Sell low / Drop
• Sell high
• Add (Big Bucks)
• Add (Pennies)

One last note, as I’m referencing DLF ADP and rankings, advice herein is for a 12-team, non-superflex setting with full PPR scoring. Divergent league settings (both for starting positions and scoring) hopefully shouldn’t render this advice as not actionable, but it’s an important disclaimer nonetheless.

With that preamble in hand, here are the tactical transactions you should consider before week five:

Buy Low – Jahan Dotson, WR WAS

Week 4 Line: 4-27-1 (9 targets)

It just hasn’t come together for the Commanders’ sophomore receiver. While it was reasonable to expect his touchdown-scoring proficiency to decrease after 20% of his 35 rookie receptions found their way into the end zone, all of Dotson’s per-game counting stats have ticked down. Perhaps of greater import, the next man up in the long line of “answers” under center, quarterback Sam Howell, has only been able to distribute a weekly 53.5 PPR points to his pass catchers. As these have been effectively consolidated across the trio of Dotson, Terry McLaurin and Curtis Samuel, it’s unsurprising none have made inroads into 2023 fantasy stardom.