Dynasty Fantasy Football Mailbag: Kyren Williams, Justin Jefferson and Rashee Rice
Welcome back to the DLF Mailbag, the preeminent mailbag in all the dynasty fantasy football land.
In a milestone that perhaps went underreported in the massive wake of the 2025 NFL Draft, teams recently decided whether or not to add fifth-year options for their 2022 first-round selections. All told, the results were fairly unsurprising, though it was good to see the Lions commit to mercurial receiver Jameson Williams. On the other side of the coin, Jahan Dotson and Treylon Burks are effectively on the clock this year, with the 2025 season serving as something of an audition for new homes in 2026. Of the two I’d prefer Dotson, though it should be noted Burks hasn’t so much proven to be a bust as he’s proven to be injured most the time, with only 27 games played in three seasons. Still, with a wide-open Titans depth chart and first overall pick Cam Ward in at quarterback, perhaps he can salvage a sinking career.
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…
Kyren Dangerfield
Which side do you prefer in a 10-team, half-PPR 2QB league – Kyren Williams or 2026 first and second-round picks, and a 2027 second-round pick?
Here’s a proposed scenario where I’m both surprised and unsurprised. To the former, we’re talking about future intangible assets, two of which are outside of the first round. And while the 10-team league size and 2QB setting makes those picks more valuable, we’re talking at best the 11th (-ish) best prospect. With no rookies guaranteed to offer any future viability, punting production by at least a year for two picks, and two years for another seems like a massive opportunity cost.
To the latter, well, it’s Kyren Williams! While he’s not the most disrespected fantasy asset of all time, he’s definitely towards the top of the Rodney Dangerfield scale. To that point, let’s consider his last two seasons.
Those are stud numbers. Though he’s missed some time with injury (six games over the past two years), he’s a PPR RB1 more than half the time when he’s on the field. This included being a top-five player a quarter of the time, and functioning as a PPR RB2 or better 85.7% of the time. With nary a game resulting in an RB4 finish or worst, he may not have always met projections but he never lost the week for you.
If Christian McCaffrey’s 2022-23 seasons represent the pinnacle of fantasy production, Williams has at least put forward a reasonable facsimile of the 49ers phenom. Yet for his troubles, he just never seemed able to break through into dynasty’s upper echelon following his jump in value from September to October, 2023. And even when he did break into the (1QB) first round last October, he was unable to sustain that momentum. Incredibly (to me), he’s viewed as a (10-team) fourth-round pick in 1QB leagues, and a fifth-round pick in 2QB teams.
I understand the uncertainty given it’s the last year of his current contract with the Rams. But 2024 third-round pick Blake Corum only received a meager 58 carries last season, and they only used a fourth-round selection on Jarquez Hunter in this year’s draft. It’s not nothing, but it’s not exactly the fantasy equivalent of divorce papers, either.
Perhaps I’m an optimist, or just a fan of players who score fantasy points in bunches. Maybe both. But a 25-year-old yearly RB1 deserves a lot more respect than he receives, regardless of what the future may hold in 2026 in beyond, and especially given the fact that the Rams seem likely to run it back again this coming season.
Per our DLF devy rankings, and acknowledging there’s an entire season to be played between now and next year’s NFL Draft, this is what the future appears to hold. If you’re short at signal caller, I understand the allure of the extra first-round pick – but the other positions aren’t especially inspiring, meaning you may find it hard to replace Williams’ direct production. However if these are players you’re high on, then that should factor into your decision.
Still, if Williams plays as he’s shown previously, it stands to reason your trade partner’s 2026 picks will get worse with the addition of a high-end half-PPR RB1. No one player is going to seismically change a team’s direction, but teams adding good players get better. If your trade partner was already looking like a strong team, and Williams adds another horse to their stable, you could be trading with a future league champion and receiving picks 1.10 and 2.10. Yes, this is all hypothetical, but when trading future assets it’s important to play out all the potential scenarios.
Not shockingly and as you’ve probably surmised, I’d be taking the Williams side. He’s a proven asset who appears locked and loaded for another high-end year in 2025. 2026 and beyond represents uncertainty, but then again so do the draft picks. I’d be happy with the cheap and underappreciated, Dangerfield-ian production.
Carry On My Wayward Jeffer-Son
Which side do you prefer in a 12-team, half-PPR, superflex league – Justin Jefferson, or Rashee Rice, pick 1.04 and pick 2.02?
Readers may recall that in this space last week, I tackled a very similar superflex scenario, picking sides between Malik Nabers or Rice, Ray Davis and pick 1.02. While I felt the deal was fair for both sides, I saw the wisdom of being able to select the NFL’s first overall draft pick in Ward and pair him with the ascendent (prior to injury) Rice. Spoiler alert – there were thoughts in the comment section!
As such, you might think a similar response would follow here. And while I do feel that the deal passes the red fact test, there are a couple of distinct differences.
First and foremost, this is Justin freaking Jefferson (Rocket Raccoon: “And he didn’t say freaking.”). He’s the apex predator, and arguably the best receiver in the league with only former LSU teammate Ja’Marr Chase… giving chase… in the discussion. And while it’s true that Nabers actually outperformed Jefferson on a weekly basis when comparing their rookie seasons, it took him an additional 45 targets to do so. While the 2020 Vikings weren’t a stellar team at 7-9, Jefferson didn’t put up the same slanted numbers in the fourth quarter that Nabers did. Moreover Jefferson compiled these numbers while dethroning Adam Thielen as the team’s top pass catcher, even though the veteran did double him up in touchdowns.
I understand we’re effectively comparing the number of carats in two golden assets, but these are important distinctions to make. Perhaps Nabers’ future holds similar to what Jefferson has been able to do, but this is where he would need to be:
This is a largely unparalleled type of output, with nearly half of his contests resulting in WR1 weekly performances. Even more importantly, he was a WR2 or better nearly 70% of the time, providing both an elite ceiling and floor.
Yes, Nabers was excellent, but he’s just not where Jefferson is, and there’s no guarantee he gets there. Maybe this is splitting hairs, but the simple fact is there is a difference between the two players. As such I give his side more weight than I did with Nabers in the previous Mailbag.
On the other side, my thoughts on Rice remain the same as they were last week. In short I’m a big believer, but he’s not a bulletproof dynasty prospect like either Jefferson or Nabers. He gets you a good chunk of the way there, especially if he returns to his early 2024, pre-injury form – but this side of the deal still needs work.
And this is where pick 1.04 comes in. To me, there is a massive difference between this pick, and pick 1.02 that was proposed in last week’s Nabers deal. Yes, this should yield a great prospect such as Tetairoa McMillan or Travis Hunter, but my fear is you would miss out on Ward, a player with the potential to make a big difference in a superflex setting and quickly rise the dynasty ranks more than a player at another position would be able to do. It may seem like a minor enough thing, but if I’m not getting the bump at the most important position in superflex, the value sours a bit for me.
So yes, I’m going to pivot on my prior, related thoughts from last week. Again, it’s indeed a fair deal, but Jefferson is a thoroughbred, and pick 1.04 just doesn’t have the same gravitas as pick 1.02. Rice will likely remain one of the more underrated dynasty assets until he reasserts himself in 2025 as Patrick Mahomes’ top target in the passing game, but he’s the cherry on top of a sundae that’s missing a scoop of ice cream.
Another famous Jefferson, our nation’s third president Thomas, once said “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” I’m here for that, but his namesake Justin offers both past precedent and future stardom. As such, I’m taking the past, present and future star in this deal.
