Dynasty Fantasy Football Mailbag: Brian Thomas, Amon-Ra St. Brown and More
Welcome back to the DLF Mailbag, the preeminent mailbag in all the dynasty fantasy football land.
There’s never a dull moment during the off-season, is there? Within the past week, we’ve seen the Rams allow quarterback Matthew Stafford to seek a trade, the Bucs signal an intent to re-sign star receiver Chris Godwin, and the Bengals show a willingness to franchise tag pass catcher Tee Higgins in an attempt to keep their offensive core intact. DLF will continue to monitor these comings and goings accordingly, and if ever you have a question please reach out directly to get an answer in the Mailbag!
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!
From Discord…
Pick(ens) a Side
Which side do you prefer in a 12-team, PPR league for a contending team – Bucky Irving and George Pickens, or Brian Thomas Jr?
Dollars and cents. As shown above, by no means are Irving and Pickens without value, but they are the quarters trying to add up to the buck that is Thomas. So the fact that the package deal appears to possess higher value is unsurprising – “overpays” are often necessitated in consolidation trades where the team giving up more players is receiving the top asset.
And as the 2024 PPR WR5, not only did he outduel every other 2024 rookie, he did so with “only” the 14th most targets in the league amongst receivers. This brings me back to my Adjusted Improvement Ratio metric, which I created to help determine a pass catcher’s efficiency. The premise is simple – I’m looking for players who did more with less, or at the very least performed as expected.
To that point, Thomas scored 275.2 out of the team’s 828.7 PPR points (33.2%) while accruing 133 out of the available 546 targets (24.4%). The resulting ratio is a sterling 1.36 AIR score, which is one of the highest I’ve ever seen. And given the fact he had more than half of the team’s passing scores, over 3x more receiving yards than the next closest Jaguar (Brenton Strange), and nearly twice as many receptions (Evan Engram), it’s not at all surprising. If Thomas was catching passes from anything resembling even league-average passing, he could have been the PPR WR1 as a rookie.
In doing so Thomas was largely consistent. Yes, there’s a bit more red than you’d like to see, but it’s important to remember the Jaguars were held to 20 or fewer points in 12 out of 17 contests. Even prime Jerry Rice would struggle in this offense. Importantly however, Thomas really hit his stride at the end of the year – he was the team’s leading receiver in six of their final seven contests, scoring double digits in each with two weekly top-four finishes.
The contrast with Pickens, a third-year player, is stark. Yes, the Steeler missed three contests, but the colors here better resemble the seasonal change during leaf-peeping season. To be clear, Pickens is a talented player, but these are neither week- nor season-winning numbers. In combination with his mercurial nature, often showing a lack of effort when things aren’t going his way, he’s not a player I’m actively pursuing. On the contrary, if I could leverage him as part of a deal to land a better player like Thomas, I’d do so gladly.
Irving is an interesting player, and while he was about 40 points lighter his rookie-year ascension nearly rivaled Thomas’. His weekly game log actually resembles Thomas’ as well – he didn’t have quite the ceiling, but he finished the season strong and was an offensive focal point following the team’s bye towards the end of the year, excepting a contest against the Raiders where he exited early due to injury.
I think the biggest speculative issue for me with Irving is his longevity. I don’t inherently believe a player’s size makes him injury-prone, but Irving was routinely banged up in 2024. At 5’10” and 195 pounds he’s built more like a change-of-pace ball carrier, though his late-season workload belied his inability to function as a bell-cow.
Snap data courtesy of 4for4.com.
Irving’s snaps ticked up towards the end of the season, but on the year he was only on the field 45% of the time. Maybe this is the secret sauce – yes, Irving needs to have the ball in his hands to do his fantasy damage, but if he can avoid unnecessary collision (e.g., blocking) and wind sprints it could do wonders for his longevity. So while I (rightfully) give Tampa teammate Rachaad White criticism for his lack of dynamic, simply having him (or another warm body) present taking up snaps could potentially unlock an early career Austin Ekeler-type dynamic for Irving.
So while I don’t have many questions with Irving, I do have some. And despite the fact he’s seemingly the hero of his own story, my questions with Pickens are typed in font size 18, bold type, possibly even in comic sans. In the past I’ve given volatile players more of a pass, but in doing so they needed to have a Josh Gordon-type upside. To me, Pickens is more Martavis Bryant – the highlights are great but the lowlights are too prominent to justify the cost.
I have no questions on Thomas. After his stellar rookie season, he is one of the most bulletproof prospects in dynasty football, and has a legitimate case to be considered as the dynasty WR1. While swapping Pickens with a similarly valued (but higher floor) player would pique my curiosity (as shown below), I’m taking the Thomas side here.
Taylor Made?
Which side do you prefer for a rebuilder in a 10-team, 1QB, PPR league – Amon-Ra St. Brown, or 2025 picks 1.02 and 1.06?
As per usual, let’s start out with the DLF Trade Analyzer.
Well doesn’t this look familiar? Once again, similar to the first question above, we’re looking at a consolidation deal where one team is trying to level up to a stud. However, unlike with Irving and Pickens, the 1.02 and 1.06 picks don’t inherently have any flaws. A pick can’t tear an ACL, doesn’t have off-the-field issues, and has as much upside as an owner is willing to believe.
Still, we have to remain rooted in reality. There always exists the option of trading to trade, where you nab a pick only to flip it closer to the date of the draft, potentially accumulating value along the way. But there exists downside in the gamble – depending on when your draft takes place there could be several months between now and when you make your picks. This means you would be subject to the whims of off-season movement such as free agency, poor selections in the NFL Draft, and even potential injury.
On the other hand is St. Brown, a player who eclipsed 300 PPR points for the second season in a row, and performed as a fantasy WR1 for the third year straight.
Not that you need me to point it out, but this is rarified air. St. Brown is one of the best players in the league, and is still only 25 years old (he turns 26 in October). This means he fits literally any type of roster build, essentially functioning as a dynasty chameleon. If I’m getting rid of him, I need to believe I’m getting something of significance in return.
With this draft class, I’m just not seeing it. I recognize this is the definition of subjectivity, but Jeanty and possibly McMillan are the only players I view as having the potential to yield top-end dividends. To be fair, Brian Thomas was viewed similarly at this time last year, and look what he was able to do. But if we could predict every Brian Thomas and Ladd McConkey, we probably wouldn’t be looking to make trades!
So once again I’m going to have to disagree with the Trade Analyzer. The deal is reasonable depending on your point of view, but mine is that in a 10-team league, I want a league-winning stud like St. Brown. This is a player who will produce both immediately and for years to come, and should form the bedrock of your dynasty roster.
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