Dynasty Blueprint: 5 Takeaways From Week 12

Cleveland Browns | Huntington Bank Field

Ryan McDowell Posted On November 26, 2024

Editor’s Note: Ryan debuted the Dynasty Blueprint term all the way back in 2014, focusing on his personal dynasty strategy and philosophy. He introduced ideas like punting running backs and the now-common productive struggle. This series expands on the original, providing an in-depth look inside his dynasty mind.

This article and all of the content on DLF is for you, the reader. The goal is to make you a better dynasty player and bring home some titles. Hopefully, this will help you reach that goal.

Dynasty Five

Here are the five dynasty-related stories that have my attention coming off another week of NFL action.

Record-Breaking Barkley

After a sluggish first-half on Sunday night against the Rams, Eagles back Saquon Barkley opened the second-half with a 70-yard burst for a score. As if that wasn’t enough, he iced the game late in the final period with a 72-yard touchdown scamper. He’s just the sixth back in NFL history to score multiple 70+ yard touchdowns in a game, joining Barry Sanders, Frank Gore, and Maurice Jones-Drew, among others.

Barkley finished with 302 total yards, two touchdowns and over 46 fantasy points. The Barkley stats were flying around Twitter on Monday morning and there were some wild ones, as Barkley set the Eagles’ franchise record for rushing yards in a game. What I’m more interested in though is Barkley’s dynasty value. Just minutes before Barkley’s dominating performance, his fourth overall RB1 game of the season, I recorded this week’s episode of the DLF Dynasty Podcast. In one segment, we were choosing between Barkley and Breece Hall for the dynasty format. Despite his unreal production this season, both Dan Meylor and I chose Hall, almost completely due to the four-year age gap between the two backs.

I and many others in the dynasty community preach the idea of valuing running backs in short-term windows. This means while we might look and wideouts and quarterbacks and expect to potentially have them on our roster for years to come, we should look at the volatile running back position with a one-year, redraft mindset.

This season, Barkley is averaging over 24 fantasy points per game, nearly four more than the RB2. He’s scoring 5.4 more points per game than DLF’s dynasty RB1 Jahmyr Gibbs. He’s outscoring dynasty RB2 Bijan Robinson by 5.9 and outpacing Hall by 7.5 per game. At 27 years old, age has to be part of the conversation for Barkley, just as career workload and injury history are, but it’s very realistic and understandable to value Barkley as THE dynasty RB1 moving forward.

Keeping it a Bucky

Buccaneers’ rookie back Bucky Irving enjoyed another notable performance in Week Twelve, leading the way with 87 rushing yards and a touchdown, along with hauling in all six targets for another 64 yards. Irving easily outperformed his backfield-mate Rachaad White, who totaled 47 yards on 13 touches. Irving’s performance would’ve been even better if not for touchdown-thief Sean Tucker who entered the game for the first touchdown after Irving was tackled on the one-yard line.

This Tampa Bay backfield has been a back and forth affair for weeks, and it still is, as Irving and White evenly split 24 carries, but the rookie was clearly more effective, as he has been all season. Irving is a massive dynasty value, currently ranked as the RB25 and 85th player overall in our November dynasty ADP. I do expect those rankings to climb next month, but Irving’s dynasty value has still not caught up to his weekly production.

Bucky Irving | Credit: Katie Stratman

Broncos Duo

After a slow start to his season and career, Broncos quarterback Bo Nix has played at a high level for the past eight weeks and he’s boosted the production of Courtland Sutton at the same time. After the first month of the season, Nix was the QB22 while Sutton was just the WR44. Since that time, Nix ranks as the QB3, averaging nearly 24 fantasy points per game, while Sutton is the WR6 over that span.

On Sunday against the division-rival Raiders, Nix passed for 273 yards and two scores and Sutton led the team with eight catches for 97 yards and both touchdowns. Nix is still just the QB15 according to our latest dynasty ADP and I’m eager to see how high he climbs next month. I expect him to overtake the three signal callers ranked ahead of him in November’s data, Baker Mayfield, Brock Purdy, and Drake Maye, which would put him in the back-end QB1 range.

Miami’s Nice

It has been a disappointing season for the Dolphins’ offense, largely due to the early-season injury suffered by quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. Even with their quarterback returning to the lineup, the Dolphins stars, namely Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, have flopped. Entering Week Twelve’s matchup with the Patriots’ tough defense, Since the season opener, Tagovailoa and Hill haven’t finished in the top-ten scorers at their position even once and Waddle hadn’t cracked double-digit fantasy points in any game.

Part of the issue with the receiving duo is the emergence of tight end Jonnu Smith. He’s produced four TE1 performances and is the TE5 overall, siphoning away targets and yards from Hill and especially Waddle.

Things shifted for Miami on Sunday as they cruised against New England and posted some big-time fantasy numbers. Tagovailoa passed four touchdowns and Waddle finally woke up, catching eight passes for 144 yards and a touchdown. Smith posted a nice 9/87/1 stat line while Hill chipped in with 48 yards on five receptions. Smith will continue to take away from the more well-known duo, but this should be the beginning of a resurgence as Miami faces soft pass defenses from Houston and Cleveland in the fantasy football playoffs.

Trey Day

Sunday was a rough one for the Cardinals’ offense as they fell to Seattle, and failed to even put up a fight. The lone bright spot for Arizona was tight end Trey McBride, who caught a dozen passes for 133 yards. Of course, McBride once again failed to score a touchdown. He’s the TE3 on the season, despite not scoring a receiving touchdown this season. Despite missing a game, McBride is third among all tight ends with 61 receptions and second with 685 yards. Give McBride four scores, which is the average of the current top-12 fantasy tight ends, and he’d be just two points short of Brock Bowers’ TE1 total.

Bowers and George Kittle have gotten all of the attention of dynasty managers this season, and rightfully so, but this has caused McBride to go somewhat overlooked. McBride is the dynasty TE2 according to our latest ADP but perhaps the gap between him and Bowers should be closer.

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Ryan McDowell

Contributor at Dynasty League Football

In addition to his senior leadership role here at DLF, Ryan is also a husband, father of three and PE teacher. Ryan is the commissioner of multiple dynasty leagues, most notably the Kitchen Sink Dynasty Leagues. Here at DLF, Ryan’s focus is on identifying, monitoring and analyzing player value.