Dynasty Fantasy Football Mailbag: Kyren Williams and Drake London
Welcome back to the DLF Mailbag, the preeminent mailbag in all the dynasty fantasy football land.
The answer that all fantasy enthusiasts were waiting for turned out to be… a non-answer! To that point, a potential vote on the lightning rod “tush push” play was tabled at the April NFL Owners meeting, and will potentially be voted on at a later date. Jalen Hurts and Josh Allen owners can, for now, breathe a temporary sigh of relief and continue anticipating a plethora of short-yardage rushing scores.
As to my largely meaningless thoughts on the matter – if you don’t want the opposing team to score, stop them. And if conversion of a short-yardage play is all but inevitable, stop them on earlier downs. I look at it the same way as when backup players are still competing at the tail end of a blowout contest. If you don’t want to be embarrassed on the scoreboard, do what you need to do on the defensive side of the ball.
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…
Sirens for Kyren?
Which side do you prefer for a contending team in a 12-team, superflex, TE-premium PPR league – Kyren Williams or Jonathon Brooks, pick 1.09 and pick 4.01?
This seems about right to me, especially given the enhanced value of a first-round pick in the superflex, TE-premium format. Further, it highlights what has always seemed to be something of an inequity between Williams’ fantasy and dynasty values. To that point, while his ADP has finally now broadly caught up to his fantasy value, there still seems to be some subjectivity in his assessment.
Over the last two seasons all Williams has done is average 101.1 total yards per game, while scoring the ball at robust clip with 1.1 touchdowns per contest. Even with six missed games, this has allowed Williams to finish as a top-end positional asset in both 2023 and 2024. My suspicion is that despite what he’s done in the league, dynasty owners can’t help but be continuously drawn back into the gravitational pull of his poor NFL Combine metrics and subsequent draft capital. But to me this stands as something of a “double punishment” (i.e., his NFL Combine results were already baked into his NFL Draft selection), and if he’s good enough for Sean McVay’s vision of a workhorse, he’s good enough for me.
But that’s the question, now isn’t it? There’s some risk if he leaves the cozy confines of Los Angeles, but the current rumor mill asserts the Rams may be interested in an extension. Sure, Rams General Manager Les Snead’s exact verbiage left something to be desired, but it’s better than them outright denying the possibility a deal gets done. Given this, Williams’ status with the team wouldn’t preclude me from making a trade offer, and minimally owners should be anticipating another robust fantasy output in 2025.
As to the other side of the deal, I’d hate to be flippant about Brooks’ future chances of NFL success. However, I’ve personally always viewed him as something of a “luxury pick” by the Panthers, given their massive needs on both sides of the ball. And even if he wasn’t now forced to rehabilitate a second torn ACL in as many seasons, Carolina paid teammate and fellow ball carrier Chuba Hubbard a tidy sum last season based on his stellar play. Even a fully healthy Brooks would likely be returning to the lesser half of a timeshare, effectively obliterating the erstwhile dynasty RB1 value he had previously displayed.
If you’re a believer in Brooks’ talent and capacity to eventually return near full strength, I won’t attempt to dissuade you. However the context here is what makes sense for a contending roster. With Brooks’ likely inability to provide anything in the 2025 season, it’s impossible to make a case for him improving your immediate fortunes.
As such, it may all come down to who’s available at pick 1.09. The above represents the current dynasty rookie superflex ADP – while acknowledging Tyler Warren and Colston Loveland would be likely to gain a bit of value with the TE-premium setting, these are the options I’d anticipate being available. I’ve already gone on record as not being a huge proponent of this rookie class, and the format does little to change my mind. Without trading up, my fear is you’ll be effectively boxed out of the year’s blue chip talent, left with a player who provides significantly less certainty of future viability (insomuch as any player can).
Given the totality of the above, I’m taking the Williams side handily. I’m not going to stress about what may happen moving forward, and the fact is the young running back has proven himself to be an efficient, dual-threat player with a nose for the end zone. If I was to move him, it would need to be for a deal similar to one of the two below.
London Calling
Which side do you prefer in a 10-team, half-PPR league – Drake London or Jameson Williams, 2025 pick 2.02 and a 2026 first-round pick?
Folks familiar with my writing know right off the bat that this is the type of deal I’d expect in an attempt at consolidation. While none of the pieces on the Williams side approach London’s standalone value, in totality they provide enough of a margin to consider getting a deal done. In particular, if a team is considering rebuilding, their two early draft picks are particularly alluring.
Still, London is appears to be growing into himself as a budding star, as evidenced by his output last season.
Yes, I’d like to see a bit more green coloring in the above, but just over half the time London was providing weekly WR2 or better output (assumes a 12-team, PPR league). Interestingly, all of his WR2 weeks still resulted in high double-digit points. Yes, this would be slightly diminished in a half-PPR setting, but with London going for nearly 1,300 yards and nine scores he should still be able to capitalize even with the value of his receptions diminished.
Continuing, it’s worthwhile pointing out that London was able to produce with either Kirk Cousins or Michael Penix under center. Yes, this was heavily influenced by London’s monster week 18 line of 10-187-2, but the simple fact is he was the apple of Penix’s eye, with a whopping 39 targets over the season’s final three weeks. While admittedly a small sample size, these are heartening numbers.
Perhaps Williams will begin to approximate London’s value moving forward, but while the Falcon is the clear alpha receiver on his team, Williams is firmly behind Amon-Ra St. Brown in the pecking order, and also has to contend with starting tight end Sam LaPorta. This could lead to more sporadic and chaotic production, as Williams demonstrated last season.
Interestingly, Williams had the same number of weekly WR1 efforts as London. However you can see the drop-off from there to his WR2 efforts, of which there were only two, and then again to the rest of his contests. While it’s true that Williams rarely lost weeks for you, he wasn’t doing much to win them when he wasn’t a weekly WR1.
The above likely makes it sound as though I’m not riding on the Williams bandwagon, which actually isn’t true. I like the young receiver quite a bit, but I just wouldn’t want as one of my top two receivers if I could avoid it. Given this, you will either need to flush with pass catchers, or nail your draft picks.
Unfortunately, this just isn’t the year for pass catchers in your rookie draft if you’re not selecting within the first five to seven picks! Given this you would need to hope that a player like Travis Hunter falls to pick 2.02, or that someone like Tre Harris or Matthew Golden outplays their fantasy draft position. If the pick was a bit higher I’d be more bullish on the prospects, but even in a 10-team league a second-round selection loses a bit of value.
Perhaps this could be supplemented by the returns of the 2026 first-round pick, but it’s important to remember that a healthy London likely makes that selection a little worse. It’s also hard to project out the 2026 selection given we simply don’t yet know who will be available. Yes, the pick should continue to accrue value over the next year, thereby rendering it as a fine trade asset – this could be important to rebuilding squads, but it won’t much help contending squads.
For these reasons, I’d be sticking with London even if the DLF Trade Analyzer asserts otherwise. He’s now proven a seasonal WR1 upside, and will still only be 24 years old when the 2025 season begins. My view is that he’s a foundational piece in dynasty fantasy football, and would need a lot more than ancillary pieces and lottery tickets to part with him.
- Forgotten Dynasty Veterans: Top Tier - April 8, 2025
- Dynasty Fantasy Football Mailbag: Kyren Williams and Drake London - April 8, 2025
- Dynasty Fantasy Football Mailbag: Justin Jefferson, Jameson Williams and Rashee Rice - April 1, 2025
