Forgotten Dynasty Veterans: Middle Tier

Whether I’m the yin to his yang, the heads to his tails, or perhaps just the other side of the pillow, I’m authoring this miniseries as a supplement to my colleague Tyler Justin Karp, who is looking at the Forgotten Dynasty Youth. You might think I drew the short straw here, given that veterans are often persona non grata in a largely ageist dynasty culture. However, to me, veterans represent a very important subset of football players, as often times you can find bargains relative to the shiny new toys.

So how am I defining veterans? It’s a bit of a gray area. You can use years in the league, age, or wear and tear, with the latter particularly important at the running back position. However, we already know that players like Davante Adams and Mike Evans have relatively lower ADPs as compared to younger players who produce similarly solely due to their age, but that doesn’t mean they’re “forgotten.” So using age or any other single metric doesn’t seem appropriate to me. But one way or another these will be guys who have been around the block at least a few times, and who I think may have fallen a bit off the radar.

Where there will be structure is in the tiers, which will be threefold and as follows:

• Top Tier: ADP < 84.0 (first seven rounds of a 12-team startup draft)
• Middle Tier: ADP > 84.1 and < 168.0 (rounds eight through 14 in a startup draft)
• Bottom Tier: ADP > 168.1 (the rest)

I’ll be looking at four players per tier, and you can find my thoughts on the Top Tier here. Let’s continue with the Middle Tier!

David Montgomery, RB DET

ADP: 88.2

Age: 26 years

Years in League: Five

Going solely by the base numbers, Montgomery had the best statistical season of his career. Despite missing three games and parts of others, he had the second-most rushing yards of his five seasons in the league, and his 13 rushing scores were five more than his previous high. Perhaps more importantly, his 4.6 YPA bettered his prior best by 0.3 YPC.