Dynasty Fantasy Football Mailbag: Best Rookie Runners in 2024 NFL Draft?
“And it feels right this time,
On this crash course with the big time,
Pay no mind to the distant thunder,
New day fills his head with wonder, boy.
Says it feel right this time,
Turned around and found the right line,
‘Good day to be alive, sir,
Good day to be alive,’ he said.”
-Metallica (No Leaf Clover)
Welcome back to the DLF Mailbag, the preeminent mailbag in all the dynasty fantasy football land.
For those who might not remember, in my decade-plus at DLF I spent over three years from 2013-2016 functioning as the resident Mailman. All told I cranked out nearly 150 iterations of this weekly piece, and am thrilled to be back in the saddle again adding to that total! And what better time to begin anew than when we turn the fantasy calendar to the “non-points season” (there is no off-season!)?
As a reminder, there are multiple ways to pose your burning questions! I’ll be soliciting weekly feedback via X/Twitter (look for a new pinned tweet each Monday), and you can also reach out using our Discord channel, or the old-fashioned way (via our online webform).
Let’s get to it!
The Next Mountaintop
“So you’ve won the ship your first year, now what “
— Rachel (@tootsiepop6) January 1, 2024
Provided the champagne is consumed and the cigars nothing but ash, your mission is truthfully no different than that of your fellow league-mates – it’s time for an honest assessment of where you stand going into the 2024 season. This includes current players and picks, future draft selections (e.g., you may have already traded or acquired downstream picks in the 2025 rookie draft), and injured players who may be returning to bolster your lineup (e.g., quarterback Kirk Cousins, who was lost for the year in week eight).
You should also perform the same analysis on your opponents, which may help identify their potential off-season movement, along with goodness of fit for prospective trade partners. All told you should be able to craft something of league hierarchy going into the next season, albeit with the knowledge that much will change between now and September.
You should also consider the ‘type’ of champion you are. While there will be numerous subtypes and deviations from each, I’ll propose three distinct types of league winners:
- The ‘All In’ Champion: These are teams that counted on players on the downslopes of their careers, and if guys like Travis Kelce play the full 2024 season as they did at the end of 2023, they’re at risk of a cliff dive. They also may have traded away younger assets and picks for the stretch run.
- The ‘Picasso’ Champion: Your team is a work of art. You have a healthy mix of proven talent across age groups, and haven’t mortgaged the future. You may also have exciting young players like Zay Flowers or Jordan Addison who should be even better in 2024. In short, you absolutely nailed your first year. Kudos!
- The ‘Just Happy to be Here’ Champion: You limped into the playoffs as perhaps the #5 or #6 seed, and whether it was due to your team scoring well above its previously established ceiling, or your opponents doing the opposite, you managed to fit into the glass slipper. Still, if your counterpart in the finals had Jaylen Waddle, Raheem Mostert and TJ Hockenson healthy, and didn’t get dud efforts like Justin Jefferson’s 10.9 PPR points and Christian McCaffrey’s 13.1, deep down you know you were going to get stomped.
So what to do?
The ‘All In’ Champion
What is the likelihood of your aging studs pulling off a repeat? Davante Adams looks like he still has it, but perhaps we’re asking questions about Kelce and Stefon Diggs. Keenan Allen was great, but then got hurt. Mike Evans seems relatively immortal, and Mostert should still at least be the Dolphins’ 1a next year.
I can’t give you the answers on a player-by-player basis, by using the 2023 receivers as an example, there may still be some moves to make to keep the dream alive in 2024.
Players I’d be targeting would include Amari Cooper and DeAndre Hopkins, both of whom showed that the ceiling was still there regardless of their age. They shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg, and depending on your league makeup could come more cheaply during your upcoming rookie draft. If your new league was comprised of first-time dynasty players, the concept of rookie-only drafts will be new to them, and may lead to an artificial inflation of pick value. This could be a good time to strike.
Conversely, if you’ve determined a repeat is unlikely, I’d be looking to hold onto my remaining picks. A strategy may even be to dismiss 2024, build a cache of young assets and 2025 picks, and emerge anew like a phoenix. Your veterans are likely carrying their least amount of value right now, but if you have a tolerance for risk then you can hold them until they hopefully start scoring the points that matter next season, and seek a trade then.
The ‘Picasso’ Champion
Obviously you don’t need my advice! Clearly you need to just keep doing what you’ve been doing, because you’ve managed to ace player evaluation. Your biggest hurdle will likely be staying out of your own way – it’s only a matter of time before you look over your roster for the 100th time and decide “ya know, I could still make this better…” Perhaps that’s true, but there will be limited upside here – unless you have a perfect trade partner to make that one last move and truly lock in your dynasty, your biggest opponent is your own wandering mind.
The ‘Just Happy to be Here’ Champion
Look, you won, and no one can take that away. Sure, maybe it was the equivalent of the NBA Bubble Championship a few years ago, but a win is a win is a win. So what next?
I think this is the trickiest place to be, as no contender wants to voluntarily move backwards – but if you had guys who you believe are likely to see diminished fantasy returns moving forward (rationale minds may differ, but I would include names like Travis Etienne, Rachaad White, D’Andre Swift, Adam Thielen, Cole Kmet and David Njoku) or players with potential for their positions to be usurped (e.g., Jerome Ford, Gus Edwards and Joe Mixon), you’ll want to move on from them prior to free agency. You don’t need to sell for pennies on the dollar, but rather may seek to consolidate with additional pieces for exciting younger players who are clearly on the rise, but haven’t hit their peaks yet (e.g., Brandon Aiyuk, Rashee Rice, Jaylen Warren and Tyjae Spears; heck, feel free to even offer up 120% for Sam LaPorta because he can still get better!). You may also want to see if anyone is seeking reclamation projects on players with “name brand recognition” who may have fallen off this year, such as Aaron Jones, Tony Pollard and Austin Ekeler.
These are just some examples, but the fact is that unless you have a ‘Picasso’ team, the easiest way to nosedive in dynasty football is to sit still. Lightning could strike twice, but don’t fall into the trap of viewing your team with rose-colored glasses.
Rookie Runners on the Rise!
Best rookie RB’s in the draft?!?! Cook, Swift, Ekeler and Jacobs cost my the Championship this year.
— WhoDey! (@WhoDey2024) January 2, 2024
This is a tale of two sets of rankings here. First, here are DLF’s rankings for the 2024 rookie running backs:
The biggest current issue is the consensus RB1, TreVeyon Henderson, hasn’t actually declared yet! The next pressing issue is in the majority of NFL mocks I’ve seen, there isn’t a single running back being projected in the first round. This isn’t to say it can’t happen, or that it even matters in today’s NFL where ball carriers are devalued, but if you use real-life NFL draft capital as a large basis for your dynasty selections it’s indeed notable.
This is further fleshed out in the second of the two aforementioned rankings lists:
In this list are shown all positions (non-superflex, PPR), where it is noted there are only two running backs in the first round, and five in the top 20. If Henderson doesn’t declare, we’re likely looking at a single ball carrier in the first round. With somewhat disappointing seasons by players such as Will Shipley and Donovan Edwards, it’s not altogether unsurprising.
So to answer your question, the best running back may be none at all. You definitely don’t want to reach due to positional scarcity – if you sorely need a ball carrier, I’d seek to either trade my pick for a current player, or trade back into the middle of the second round when they start to come off the board. But if you stand pat, the central thesis in a rookie draft is to draft for talent and not position – these things are, quite frankly, a crapshoot to begin with, with no guarantees even among the generational players (as an example and noting that I still expect good things, but I would defy you to find any owners who considered Bijan Robinson’s rookie season as anything other than a disappointment). So I wouldn’t want to compound any potential problems by forcing a player into a higher tier than they deserve.
If you’re seeking to trade, I recommend using DLF’s Trade Analyzer as a resource. As shown below, a player like Kenneth Walker would be worth an early 2024 first-round pick, while players like James Cook and Isiah Pacheco would be worth late first-round picks.
Movin’ Marvin / Caleb Commerce
What are some packages trading down from the 1.01 to 1.02
— coach ronald (@smallbagjohnson) January 2, 2024
Starting in 1QB leagues and again referencing the pan-position draft rankings list shown above, there exists a firm consensus that Ohio State receiver Marvin Harrison Jr is the biggest star in the 2024 rookie draft. As such this seems to be another year like 2023 with the aforementioned Robinson, where the 1.01 pick is in a tier of its own. As such there might be more of a chasm than we’d otherwise typically see.
Unfortunately, we don’t yet have explicit granularity for deals involving picks 1.01 and 1.02, as trades likely aren’t yet allowable until after the Super Bowl, or there just isn’t a significant volume for returns. Instead, let’s try a workaround, leveraging DLF’s Cornerstone rankings. For those unaware, these rankings include the current rookie class, next year’s rookie class, and the 2025 draft class. Notably these are superflex rankings, but I’ll attempt to make apples-to-apples comparisons here.
Within the Cornerstone Rankings, Harrison is closest to Bijan Robinson. The presumed 1.02, Malik Nabers, is closest to Zay Flowers. So what does that trade look like?
To be clear, this is an inexact science – I would actually view Robinson and Flowers a bit closer, but the players listed as additions aren’t altogether unreasonable. Continuing, we’re not actually talking about Robinson and Flowers, as these are surrogates. But we’re also not actually talking about Harrison and Nabers, either – we’re talking about picks 1.01 and 1.02. These picks don’t have to run a 40-yard dash and three-cone drill, nor are they at risk for injury. Harrison, Nabers and all other rookies face a lot more risk as it relates to value depreciation for these reasons, while the picks will be relatively insulated.
As such, owners with pick 1.01 are effectively able to print money. If I was moving down from the best pick in a 1QB draft, I would minimally want one borderline tier-one/tier-two player who I could envision in my upcoming starting lineup. They may not be bulletproof, and may have certain warts (e.g., age for Davante Adams, or injuries and sporadic performances for Saquon Barkley), but the upside has to be there.
Let’s now pivot to superflex leagues. In this scenario, USC quarterback Caleb Williams is viewed as the 1.01, with Harrison as the 1.02. This time, Williams is closest in the Cornerstone Rankings to Houston’s CJ Stroud, with Harrison again next to Robinson.
Now we see the values become a bit closer. To be clear, I actually believe Stroud can lay claim to being the best asset in superflex dynasty football right now – as such the value shown above, where he still isn’t, seems about right for Williams. Though he suffered from some erratic play this season, he still remains one of the best quarterback prospects in recent memory.
In this scenario, I’d love to get a guy like Pacheco in return for dropping back. I’m less certain about some of the other players listed here – my assumption is the 1.01 owner paid the iron price, and needs to get younger. Given this, the veterans listed wouldn’t do much for me. I’m also not sold on Brian Robinson with a new regime, or Courtland Sutton possibly breaking in a rookie quarterback. Other players in this range could include Rashee Rice, Dallas Goedert, and James Cook. A potentially alpha coup would be someone like Nico Collins, if your trade partner is worried that Tank Dell’s return will put a dent in his value. Alternatively, a future first could do the trick, though I’d prefer a 2025 pick versus kicking the can down the road to 2026.
Again, this was an inexact science, but hopefully it provided some food for thought. Happy trading!
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