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Author: Steven Van Tassell (@SteveVT33)
Odds are good that your Dynasty Owner team was missing at least one of its top RBs this week, either because of injury or bye weeks. Half of the RBs drafted on average in the first two rounds (ADP 24.0 or less) of Dynasty Owner drafts didn’t play in Week 6 for one reason or another. Christian McCaffrey, Saquon Barkley, Nick Chubb, Dalvin Cook and Austin Ekeler were all out injured, while Alvin Kamara and Josh Jacobs were on bye. The only healthy ones playing were Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Ezekiel Elliott, Miles Sanders, Joe Mixon, Jonathan Taylor and Derrick Henry (and Sanders got injured and is now out 1-2 weeks). That’s a lot of missing RBs!
Not only are a lot of the best RBs injured, but several of the rookie RBs who Dynasty Owners drafted early on this year haven’t done much so far to help their teams either. Sure, Clyde Edwards-Helaire has been pretty good (#9 ranked RB in Dynasty Owner), but Johnathan Taylor hasn’t lived up to his lofty ADP (16.1) as he’s the #15 RB in Dynasty Owner right now. Most of the other rookie RBs drafted in the Top 100 picks are also underperforming as none are in the Top 20 RBs right now.
- J.K. Dobbins – ADP 27.1; RB rank #40; 45.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points
- D’Andre Swift – ADP 33.2; RB rank #25; 70.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points
- Cam Akers – ADP 34.6; RB rank #90; 12.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points
- Ke’Shawn Vaughn – ADP 81.8; RB rank #85; 14.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points
- Antonio Gibson – ADP 88.2; RB rank #24; 73.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points
- Zack Moss – ADP 95.2; RB rank #75; 16.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points
In most leagues, there’s hardly anyone in the Free Agent Auction worth picking up. With all of the injuries, all of the good backups are gone too. That’s why plenty of Dynasty Owners are asking around to see if anyone can spare a healthy RB.
This is our sixth regular season Dynasty Owner weekly recap article for 2020. Just like every week, this article will name a Dynasty Owner Player of the Week and a Value Player of the Week, highlight a player at every position who should have been one of your Starters and one who should have been on your Bench or Practice Squad. We’ll also look at what happened in the Dynasty Owner Match-up of the Week and take our weekly look at the Chase for the Ring standings.
All stats are based on the Standard Dynasty Owner scoring system as outlined in the updated Dynasty Owner Constitution. Standard Dynasty Owner scoring gives you .1 points for every yard rushing or receiving, .1 point for every 2 yards passing, 1 point per reception, 6 points for a rushing, receiving or passing touchdown and 2 points for a successful 2-point conversion (rushing, receiving, or passing). Interceptions or fumbles lost cost you 3 points, while a fumble that is recovered by the player’s team is a loss of only 1 point. Bonus points are available for 100-199 yards rushing (2 points), 200 yards rushing or receiving (6 points), 300-399 yards passing (1 point) and 400 yards passing (4 points). There is also a 3 point bonus for clutch scoring, which is a score that results in a lead change in the final two minutes of the 4th quarter or overtime. Kickoff and punt return touchdowns are worth 6 points for the player and kickoff and punt returns are worth 1 point for every 40 yards.
Standard Dynasty Owner scoring for kickers gives you 1 point for every extra point, while a missed extra point will cost you 1 point. It’s 2 points for a field goal of between 0 and 39 yards, 4 points for a field goal between 40 and 49 yards and 5 points for a field goal of 50 yards or longer. A missed field goal of between 0 and 39 yards will cost you 3 points, while a miss of 40 yards or more is a loss of 2 points.
For the purposes of this article, ADP and Dynasty Owner ownership statistics were current as of October 20th.
Dynasty Owner Player of the Week
Our sixth Dynasty Owner Player of the Week for 2020 is: Derrick Henry
Derrick Henry became the first player this season to claim the 6 point bonus for over 200 rushing yards in the Titans 42-36 victory against the Texans. Overall, Henry scored 49.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (212 rushing yards, 2 rushing TDs, 2 receptions, 52 receiving yards), which included the 200 yard rushing bonus and the clutch scoring bonus of 3 points for his 5-yard TD run in overtime. His total of 49.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points is the most by a RB since Week 5 of the 2019 season when Aaron Jones had 51.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Henry is now the #2 RB in Dynasty Owner after this performance. Sure, he was a high draft pick (ADP 23.8) and costs over $10 million of your salary cap, but so far this year (and especially this week), he’s been worth it.
- Week 6 Points: 49.4
- 2020 Salary: $10,278,000
- Cost per Point: $208,057
Congratulations Derrick on your first Dynasty Owner Player of the Week honor and only the second one overall by a running back!
Dynasty Owner Value Player of the Week
Because this is Dynasty Owner and we’re all looking for value from the players on our roster, we also have the Value Player of the Week. The sixth Dynasty Owner Value Player of the Week for 2020 is: Anthony Firkser
For just the third time overall and first time in 2020, two players on the same team are the winners of the Player of the Week and the Value Player of the Week award. This is the first time that the players haven’t been members of the Kansas City Chiefs as well as the first non-QB and WR combination. Anthony Firkser earns this honor after taking over for an injured Jonnu Smith and scoring 25.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (8 receptions, 113 receiving yards, 1 receiving TD). The absence of Corey Davis all game and Smith for much of it plus a porous Texans pass defense gave Firkser the opportunity to shine and he ended up scoring more points in one game (25.3) than he had scored in four previous games this season (15.9). All for just $660,000 in salary.
- Week 6 Points: 25.3
- 2020 Salary: $660,000
- Cost per Point: $26,087
Congratulations Anthony on your first Dynasty Owner Value Player of the Week honor!
Players Who Should Have Been Starters This Week
Next, we look at those players who should have been in one of your Starters based on their performance in Week 6. We aren’t going to write that you should have started Derrick Henry this week because barring injury or bye week, he should always be in your Starting lineup. Instead, these are players who might be Free Agents or on your Bench or Practice Squad, but likely weren’t Starters in Week 6 when they should have been.
QB: Carson Wentz (PHI) – 34.6 points
Carson Wentz hasn’t had the benefit of a healthy Eagles offense for the 2020 season and his stats have shown it. This week, he almost led his depleted team to a come from behind victory against the Baltimore Ravens. It wasn’t to be, but he did score 34.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (213 passing yards, 2 passing TDs, 49 rushing yards, 1 rushing TD, 2 2-pt conversions, 1 fumble lost). That was the most points he has scored since Week 1 of the 2019 season (35.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points) and made him the #5 QB for the week. It wasn’t enough for him to climb into the Top 12 QBs (he’s #15 overall now) and make him a weekly Starter, but Dynasty Owners with Wentz on their roster should have had him in their Starting lineup this week.
RB: D’Andre Swift (DET) – 29.3 points
Swift has been perfectly average so far this season after being drafted pretty early in Dynasty Owner drafts (ADP 33.2). He was averaging 10.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per week in the first four weeks of the season before the Lions’ Week 5 bye. Good, but not what his Dynasty Owners were probably expecting from the rookie RB and Dynasty Owners may have been reluctant to start him with Adrian Peterson still getting more carries than Swift. Hopefully you had no other choice with all of the top RBs out this week as the Lions finally let Swift loose a little bit in Week 6. He responded with 29.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (116 rushing yards, 2 rushing TDs, 3 receptions, 7 receiving yards). It’s possible that he could be in line for even more work in the future as he only carried the ball 14 times compared to 15 times for Peterson. The 14 carries were more than he had all season to date (12). That’s good news with all of the injured RBs around the league. It’s probably time to make sure Swift is in your Starting lineup on a week in and week out basis after his performance in Week 6.
WR: Christian Kirk (ARI) – 22.6 points
Unless you actually paid attention to what I wrote in the Week 6 preview article (https://dynastyowner.com/2020/10/week-6-preview-2020/), then you probably didn’t have Christian Kirk in your Starting lineup. Kirk was the #78 WR in Dynasty Owner before the beginning of Week 6, but had been improving for the past couple of weeks. While he didn’t get the increased number of targets predicted, he made the most of both of them by scoring 22.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (2 receptions, 86 receiving yards, 2 receiving TDs). That was good enough to make him a Top 5 WR for the week and so, Dynasty Owners should have put Kirk in their Starting lineup.
TE: Trey Burton (IND) – 21.9 points
Indianapolis QB Phillip Rivers has a pretty long track record of throwing to his TEs. Twice this season, Mo Allie-Cox scored double digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points (16.1 in Week 2 and 14.0 in Week 3) catching the ball from Rivers. With Cox out due to a knee injury, Trey Burton stepped in and scored 21.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (4 receptions, 58 receiving yards, 1 receiving TD, 1 rushing yard, 1 rushing TD). Burton has a low salary of $910,000 this year and some track record of success in the past, but is still only owned in 79% of Dynasty Owner leagues. While he was owned in that many leagues, not too many Dynasty Owners likely had Burton in their Starting lineup this week.
K: Brandon McManus (DEN) – 22.0 points
McManus is not rostered in as many Dynasty Owner leagues as most of his kicking colleagues with just 69% ownership. If he continues to put up 22.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points every week (or even 18.0 points like he did last week), his ownership will go up, even at his $3.75 million salary. This week, McManus made all six of his FG attempts with two short FGs of less than 39 yards (20 and 27) worth two points, two medium length FGs of 40 to 49 yards (44 and 45) worth four points and two long FGs of 50 or more yards (52 and 54) worth five points. He has only missed one FG attempt so far this season (a 58 yard attempt). All together his 22.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points was the most points by a kicker this season and his 53.0 points for the season makes him the #5 kicker now despite already having had his bye week. He was the #7 kicker last year and should probably be in your Starting lineup if he’s on your roster.
Players Who Should Have Been on the Bench or Practice Squad
For every player who should have been one of your Starters but wasn’t, we have some players who probably were Starters, but were better left on your Bench or Practice Squad. Even with injury depleted rosters and bye weeks, here are some likely Starters who should have been riding your Dynasty Owner Bench or hanging out on the Practice Squad in Week 6.
QB: Aaron Rodgers (GB) – 3.4 points
So far this season, the up and down Aaron Rodgers had been nothing but up for his Dynasty Owners. In the first four games of the season before the Packers Week 5 bye, he averaged 36.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game. He only had three games with more points last year all season, including one game with 62.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, but no other games of over 40.0 points. This year, he already had two games with 40.0+ points (43.4 in Week 1 versus Minnesota and 41.9 in Week 4 versus Atlanta). His Dynasty Owners were feeling good with Rodgers in their weekly lineup coming into Week 6 and the return of Davante Adams to the Packers lineup was making them feel even better. It was not to be as Bad Aaron made the trip south to Tampa and he only scored 3.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (160 passing yards, 14 rushing yards, 2 INTs). In a surprise to probably most of his Dynasty Owners, Rodgers should have been on their Bench or better yet, the Practice Squad, this week.
RB: Alexander Mattison (MIN) – 4.0 points
This is exactly the situation that explains why Dynasty Owners drafted Mattison so high. Many drafted Dalvin Cook in the first or second round of their Dynasty Owner draft and then used a pretty early pick (ADP 106.9) on a definite backup RB. Whether as a handcuff to Cook or thinking Mattison might carve out a fantasy relevant role as a backup or in anticipation of Cook getting hurt, this was why Dynasty Owners got Mattison. What a disaster it turned into as Mattison only carried the ball 10 times for 26 yards and scored 4.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (26 rushing yards, 1 reception, 4 receiving yards). Not as his Dynasty Owners had drawn it up, but probably par for the course in 2020. Mattison should have been a backup option this week and left on the Bench.
WR: Mike Evans (TB) – 2.0 points
Mike Evans has been one of the few constants in the Tampa Bay receiving corps this season with injuries costing Chris Godwin three games and O.J. Howard two games and counting. He was averaging 17.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game and had scored a receiving TD in each of the first five games of the season. However, in Week 6, his TD streak came to an inglorious ending with a 2.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy point performance (1 reception for 10 yards). There’s not much more left to be said other than he should have been left on your Bench or Practice Squad.
TE: Mike Gesicki (MIA) and Christopher Herndon (NYJ) – 0.0 points
Gesicki and Herndon were opponents this week as the Dolphins and Jets clashed in what ended up as a 24-0 Dolphins victory. Neither starting TE for the two teams had a reception, but their backups scored quite a bit. Miami backup TEs Adam Shaheen and Durham Smythe had TD receptions and Jets backup TE Ryan Griffin had two more catches than Herndon. Gesicki has given his Dynasty Owners a couple of good weeks of more than 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (27.0 in Week 2 and 14.1 in Week 5). The same cannot be said for Christopher Herndon who has yet to score double digits. In fact, Herndon has been outscored by Griffin in two of the last three weeks (3.7 points to zero this week and 4.0 points to 2.1 points in Week 4). Both of them put up the dreaded Blutarsky this week with 0.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and were best left on the Practice Squad.
K: Stephen Gostkowski (TEN) – -2.0 points
Just when Mike Vrabel and Dynasty Owners were starting to trust Gostkowski after his Week 1 kicking issues, he goes out and misses two FGs of less than 39 yards and scores negative Dynasty Owner fantasy points (-2.0). Both FG attempts came in the second half with the 27 yarder blocked and the 37 yarder missing wide right. He had 14.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 2 and 25.0 points in Week 3 after scoring -1.0 points in Week 1, so his Dynasty Owners are hopefully that he’ll go out and do the same in Weeks 7 and 8 after this -2.0 point outing (2 missed FGs of 39 yards or less and 4 made PATs).
Dishonorable mentions to Jake Elliott of the Eagles and Sam Ficken of the Jets. Both of them had -2.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 6 as they each missed their only FG attempt of 50+ yards with no PAT attempts. Few Dynasty Owners should be starting either one of them due to their team’s offensive challenges, but if an owner only had one kicker available to put in their Starting lineup, it’s possible they did damage with those performances. Hopefully their Dynasty Owners don’t need to start either one again as both are ranked very low among kickers so far this season (#24 for Ficken and #29 for Elliott).
Dynasty Owner Matchup of the Week Recap
It wasn’t as close as expected and neither team put up as many points as predicted, but that doesn’t matter to Dynasty Rewind who notched another victory, this week over DynastyPrice by a final score of 107.2-82.3.
With such a low scoring game, it’s not surprising that there were few standout performances. DynastyPrice had Trey Burton in their Starting lineup and started him over Austin Hooper to lead his team in scoring with 21.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. The Dynasty Rewind crew was led by Ryan Fitzpatrick with 22.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Both of them had some duds too as Mike Gesicki scored 0.0 points for Dynasty Rewind and Duke Johnson only had 2.1 points for DynastyPrice. Both of them also had only 1.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy point each from their Starting kicker.
In the end, Dynasty Rewind got revenge for DynastyPrice leaving their crew and improved their record to 4-2 on the season. They stay in third place, while DynastyPrice drops to 2-4 and now sits in last place in the league.
Chase for the Ring Leaderboard
Let the flip flopping continue as The Human Fund regains first place in the Chase for the Ring standings despite losing their weekly matchup. The Human Fund is in first place in the Chase for the Ring with 1016.7 points, but second place in their own league with a 4-2 record. Let Russ Cook is the leader of The Human Fund’s league with a 5-1 record, including a 115.2-110.1 victory this week. Congrats to @LASportsFan68 on the victory!
Out of the Top 10 teams in the Chase, only one (The Tough Guys) is undefeated. They also jumped up to third place from sixth place last week. Quaranteed for Greatness drops one place to fourth. Welcome to two newcomers to the Chase standings, just wanna win moves into fifth place and Mad Minshew’s Moustache sits in sixth place.
Conclusions
The running back issues will likely continue for many Dynasty Owner in Week 7 with the addition of Miles Sanders to the injury list and the return of none of the injured top RBs for at least another week. Both Alvin Kamara and Josh Jacobs will be back to help alleviate the issue for their owners. However, since it’s 2020, there will be other issues that arise between now and Sunday, whether it’s more running back injuries, positive COVID tests or something else.
Please read the preview article which comes out on Friday throughout the Dynasty Owner season to see how my Week 6 recommendations did and who should be a Starter and who should be on your Bench in Week 7. Besides the weekly recap and preview articles, we will also have at least one article every week from one of our other Dynasty Owner writers: Chris Wolf (@ckwolf21), Matt Morrison – The Jerk (@Dynastyjerk) or Jay Poundsee (@jaypoundsnfl).
The podcast series with myself and Dynasty Owner CEO Tim Peffer goes live this week at 1 PM EST on Wednesday and 10:30 AM EST on Friday (both times Eastern). You can catch up with older videos and tutorials there as well. If you can’t make it, then watch or listen to it anytime on the Dynasty Owner YouTube channel. Subscribe as well to receive notifications and make sure to “Like” all of the videos to help promote them. Dynasty Owner is up to 530 subscribers on YouTube. All of this great content is available to help you win your Dynasty Owner league and make your way into the Top 25 in the Chase for the Ring standings.
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