Forgotten Dynasty Youth: Bottom Tier

Fantasy football managers have a short fuse yet a long memory. Your top wide receiver bombs in a critical playoff matchup? Some may be tempted to blackball them from their rosters for life. Start slowly after being identified as an August sleeper? You may be traded for a single blind bidding dollar by Week 4.

Of course, we tend to gravitate back towards the top talent, regardless of the heartbreak. The largest blind spot may young players who were never expected to be impact players from day one and end up floating at the end of rosters. There is always a point where it is time to throw in the towel on a player, but these players are too young to bail on just yet.

To define “young”, we are highlighting players with two or fewer years of NFL experience. Those in the 2022 and 2023 rookie classes. The structure for tiers will be 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 covered the middle tier previously. We will continue with the bottom tier below.

Treylon Burks, WR TEN

ADP: 181.83

Age: 24

Years In League: Two

Merely utter the name Treylon Burks within the vicinity of someone who thinks he has wronged them, and you are liable to get a sharp object thrown at you. The 18th overall pick in the 2022 draft, Burks was a favorite of many. He dominated at Arkansas and his NFL frame and power made a natural transition look probable.

Suffice to say, said transition has not been smooth. While he has shown flashes – including a dominating eight reception for 111-yard performance as a rookie in a primetime game against Green Bay – injuries and consistency have been constant issues. In hindsight, the pre-draft scouting report from NFL.com looks fairly on point:

Courtesy of NFL.com

Thus far, the “bust” portion of his profile has shown up far more than the “boom”. Concerns about overall athleticism have proven valid and Burks has failed to develop into the all-purpose weapon he was with the Razorbacks. His stagnant development led to the Titans giving Calvin Ridley the bag in free agency.

I am not, however, ready to close the book on Burks’ career. While I am not absolving Burks of responsibility for a sluggish start to his career, the Titans tried to plug in Burks as their AJ Brown replacement as opposed to working to his strengths (given Brown’s usage in Philadelphia, you could argue the Titans did not maximize him either). The Titans are under new management, giving Burks a fresh slate, though it is fair to wonder if they flip him for a day three pick after adding Ridley to complement DeAndre Hopkins. Wherever he plays in 2024, I will be interested in plopping Burks on the back end of my dynasty roster and seeing what transpires.