Two Players To Sell Before The NFL Draft (And One To Buy)
The NFL Draft presents a huge inflection point for dynasty managers. Many players will lose their starting roles to a newly-drafted player, while others will be able to breathe a sigh of relief if their team avoids drafting a player at their position. If you can predict what teams are most likely to do, you'll often be able to maximise value, either by buying or selling directly before the Draft. First things first, let's discuss one player I would be buying in the next week, and then conclude with two I'd be working on selling.
BUY:
Rashee Rice, WR KC
The infamous 19th-century financier Nathan Rothschild is credited with saying, “The time to buy is when there’s blood in the streets, even when it’s your own.” The quote is fitting for this scenario as Rice’s reckless behavior caused a six-vehicle accident, resulting in injuries to multiple victims. If you can separate the person from the player, and more importantly for our purposes, the fantasy production, buying assets when value has dipped and potentially bottomed is one way to win in our market—being greedy when others are fearful the name of the game when investing in both real-life and in dynasty fantasy football.
Rice's legal and NFL suspension status is still uncertain. The League typically waits for the legal process to resolve before handing out punishment. I’m certainly not a lawyer (follow Drew Davenport for genuine legal opinion), but it seems like the worst possible scenario from a playing time standpoint is missing six to eight games in 2024. I think he’ll miss one or two at most, possibly not missing any games. We’re still playing dynasty, right, folks? I will remain positive until given a reason not to be. I hope this will be a career near-death experience for Rice that makes him realize how fragile his opportunity is and that he needs to tighten up his behavior if he wants to play in the NFL for the best team in the league, with perhaps the best quarterback in NFL history.
Rice is surprisingly still the WR20 and 31st overall selection in our April ADP.
I suspect we didn’t see a significant drop this month because mock drafts were well past the third round, where he was being selected on average, by the time the news came out.
On the flip side, the current trade market for Rice is a land of opportunity. The price is no longer a first-round rookie pick, and I’ll be looking to acquire several shares. Let’s head over to the DLF Trade Finder, which pulls actual dynasty trades from over 6,000 dynasty leagues.
Rice for the 2.06 and the 3.06
Ideally, I’d like to pay a single second for Rice, but I won’t let a mid-third stop this deal.
Rice for the 2.12, 3.12, and 4.08
Ditto
Rice for Zamir White and the 3.01
What, what, what? Yes, please, smash accept, give it to me now.
How quickly we forget that from Weeks 12-17 (he didn’t play in week 18), Rashee Rice posted a face-melting 27.3% target share per game, 18.5 PPR points per game, and was the WR4 over the final six-game stretch of his rookie season. Rashee Rice is a screaming buy right now, but there is some risk that his suspension or legal trouble is worse than is currently public knowledge. To combat that possibility, you could acquire one share at today’s prices and another once we know precisely what his sentence will be, thus reducing your entry price should the worst-case scenario play out.
