Dynasty Fantasy Football Mailbag: Pivoting Away from Jonathan Taylor
Welcome back to the DLF Dynasty Fantasy Football Mailbag, the preeminent mailbag in all the dynasty fantasy football land. This year I’ll be answering questions from you via X, Discord, or the old-fashioned way (via email).
We are now just weeks away from “point-scoring season”, with honest-to-god real-life football to digest and analyze with preseason games in full swing. All your work during the off-season is now ready to pay dividends. This will be the last week of the mailbag of his off-season, and I just wanted to thank everyone for the questions provided and everyone for reading every week.
Just one more @DLFootball mailbag this off-season! Give me your questions and let's close out the off-season in style.
— Shanesays (@ShaneIsTheWorst) August 26, 2023
Pivoting off Jonathan Taylor
Let’s say JT isn’t traded by Tuesday. What kind of RB are you comfortable tiering down to if you want to trade him?
— Ryan Mallady 🇺🇦 (@MalladyRyan) August 28, 2023
If given my choice, I’d rather move away from Taylor to another position, specifically a wide receiver. That option may not always present itself though, so pivoting to another running back while getting a second piece back is also a viable approach. I would not pivot from JT to another running back straight up unless I was getting back Bijan Robinson, Breece Hall, Christian McCaffrey, Saquon Barkley, or Tony Pollard. Running backs continue to be the hand grenades of the fantasy game and I wouldn’t want to just swap out the hand grenade I’m holding unless there’s some juice involved.
As always, I like to look to the DLF Dynasty Trade Finder to see what real-world trades have taken place to give myself a frame of reference for the market.
Both the above trades are wins for the manager dealing away Taylor, I don’t really think I need to explain why. In general, you should look to move Taylor for another starting-level running back/wide receiver and a future rookie pick.
Future casting
I know we are typically process over players… however give me 6 predictions for big swings in player value by this time next season (we can revisit this time next year).
3 players that may 📈
3 players that may 📉Could even rank the 3 in each category by level of confidence
— Daniel McGunnigle (@McGunnigle) August 26, 2023
Currently the WR8 (ADP), Chris Olave is the player I’ve invested in all summer, expecting an increase in value to WR4 or better. I’m not going to belabor this point, but if you’d like some reasons as to why I believe in his ascension see here, and here.
George Pickens is the WR37, which actually seems low to me, even though I’m not really a Pickens guy. Even if his target share was pedestrian last year, he still had a successful rookie season, and he seems to turn in a giant play every week, which is something our community loves.
I hear all the time that George Pickens can’t separate, but does that really matter when all he does is make plays like this?
Probably better served in half or non PPR, but damn this dude is goodpic.twitter.com/bRAWjpiox4
— Adam Koffler (@AdamKoffler) August 24, 2023
Marvin Mims is the WR57, and due to injuries to KJ Hamler, Tim Patrick, and now Jerry Jeudy, is set up for instant success in Denver.
My fallers are probably not going to come as a shock. Give me Christian McCaffrey (RB2), Austin Ekeler (RB7), and Kenneth Walker (RB10). McCaffrey will be 28 this time next year, while Ekeler will be 29, and I will continue to bet against running backs in that age range. Walker is locked in a running back committee with a player (Zach Charbonnet), who is as good as a pure runner and is a better pass catcher than he is. I can’t see Walker as producing any better than a back-end RB2, and his value will follow suit.
Lance’s Red flags
What were the red flags in Trey Lance’s profile we should have seen? What takeaways from this situation can we learn going forward in rookie drafts?
— Chad Gravitt (@gravitt_chad) August 26, 2023
The Trey Lance experience has been a brutal one for anyone who bought in on him in the dynasty. What can we learn from that experience though? First and foremost we probably should have been weary of his lack of experience, with just 18 college starts and 318 pass attempts under his belt.
Additionally just one of those starts came in the year prior to him being drafted, as he played one game in 2020. If a player is a physical marvel like Anthony Richardson, projecting traits might make sense, but Lance simply was never that guy. He’s a good athlete, but not truly elite.
The level of competition Lance played against in college – FCS – should have been something that raised our antenna as well. These factors, in and of themselves, might not have been reason to fade Lance, but in the aggregate, they should have kept the fantasy community from falling in love with him.
Moving Swift-ly
In, out or neutral on Swift in Philly? Love your content, Shane!
— TheBurche (@TheBurche) August 28, 2023
In a vacuum, with no consideration for cost, I’m out on D’Andre Swift. Generally, you want running backs who either get goal-line work and/or will see a lot of work in the passing game. In the last two seasons combined, Swift has a total of eight rushing attempts from within the five-yard line. While Swift is a good receiving back, the Eagles ranked dead last in % of targets to the running back position in 2022 with just a 12.1% target share.
Swift will compete with Kenneth Gainwell and Rashaad Penny for touches, and it’s hard to imagine he’ll see enough of an opportunity to be productive unless he is hyper-efficient. Though he ranked second in fantasy points per opportunity last season, that still only resulted in him finishing as the RB15 (PPG). Any decrease in volume, or regression to even his 2021 efficiency (16th in fantasy points per opportunity), and Swift’s fantasy production will suffer.
- Dynasty Fantasy Football Mailbag: Pivoting Away from Jonathan Taylor - August 29, 2023
- Dynasty Fantasy Football Mailbag: Kyle Pitts, Brock Purdy and Roster Construction - August 22, 2023
- Dynasty Fantasy Football Mailbag: Late-Round Stashes and More - August 15, 2023
