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By Steven Van Tassell (@SteveVT33)
NFL free agency has officially started with a lot of changes, surprises and twists and turns that nobody saw coming. It really started well before the official start as contract extensions, free agent signings, trades and player releases have been on quite the pace for about two weeks now. It began in earnest when the franchise tag deadline was fast approaching. Davante Adams, Chris Godwin and the TE trio of Mike Gesicki, David Njoku and Dalton Schultz were tagged, and the moves and countermoves haven’t let up since. Even when things appear to start cooling down, we have another signing or two, or a trade that dramatically changes things again.
The NFL trading market is something that has really been evolving since Dynasty Owner started. Back in 2020, there were 22 trades from March through the NFL draft with the biggest names getting dealt being all non-QBs (Brandin Cooks, Stefon Diggs, Rob Gronkowski, DeAndre Hopkins, Hayden Hurst and David Johnson). The only two QB trades involved Nick Foles and Kyle Allen. Fast forward to the same time period in 2021 and there were fewer trades (19), but we started to see bigger name QBs on the move (Matthew Stafford for Jared Goff, Carson Wentz to Indianapolis, Sam Darnold to Carolina and Teddy Bridgewater to Denver). So far just 21 days into March, we have seen a baker’s dozen of trades with five involving QBs, including two huge names (Russell Wilson to Denver and Deshaun Watson to Cleveland). In addition, three big salary, big name WRs have been traded (Davante Adams, Amari Cooper and Robert Woods). All of them make at least $16 million per season. There are bound to be more trades as Cleveland needs to kick Baker and Emily Mayfield out of their home. Those Progressive commercials are true, aren’t they? The number of trades might be about the same or go up, but the quality of the players being traded, and the salaries have never been higher.
What does all of this mean for Dynasty Owners who have to navigate this new era of NFL free agency and trading? In this hyper speed frenzy of an off-season player movement market, do Dynasty Owners need to emulate their NFL GM counterparts and make immediate roster decisions, or should they be more patient and wait and see how things evolve? If you saw the title of the article, you might think you know my answer to that question, but read on and see that it’s more nuanced than just a simple Yes or No.
All stats cited 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.
For the purposes of this article, all statistics, roster percentages and 2021 position ranks were current as of the afternoon of March 21st. All 2022 contract information is currently listed on the Dynasty Owner platform (number of years and salaries) and has been taken from Spotrac (https://www.spotrac.com/).
Weekend Update – Part II
Just like last week, there has been a significant amount of movement (free agent signings, contract extensions, trades and releases) since Friday through just this afternoon (so no Jameis Winston, Marcus Mariota or Matt Ryan listed here. Let’s quickly review three major moves and give a quick assessment:
Probably the biggest and most surprising move was Deshaun Watson getting traded from Houston to Cleveland and signing a new 5-year, $230 million contract ($46 million per year) with the Browns.
| 2021 Rank | Roster % | Age | 2021 Salary | 2022 Salary | Salary Change |
| N/A | 58.9% | 26 | $39,000,000 | $46,000,000 | + $7,000,000 |
Many things were surprising about this move, including but not limited to:
- Watson basically dictating to Houston what teams he would consider being traded to and meeting with multiple potential teams. He did have a no-trade clause, but it seemed to me like a high school senior picking a college rather than a professional team trading one of its players.
- After meeting with Cleveland, Watson announced on Thursday that the Browns were out of the running as a trade option, before to agreeing to be traded to them the very next day.
- Cleveland giving Watson a new contract to replace the $39 million per year (4 year, $156 million) contract that he had signed on September 5th, 2020. Obviously this had a lot to do with Watson’s change of heart.
- Cleveland trading three first round draft picks (one each in 2022, 2023 and 2024) to Houston in return for Watson. I think Tim disagrees, but this price seemed rather high to me.
In terms of a recommendation, I’m all over the place. I was a Hold on Watson for the entire 2021 season, keeping him in my Dynasty Owner beta league with an expectation that he’d end up playing again eventually. However, I didn’t anticipate that he’d get a new contract for $7 million per year more after sitting out an entire season. I waffled on that decision for a day or two, then actually dropped Watson for free and picked up Derek Carr off the Free Agent Auction and acquired D.J. Chark in a trade for a third round pick in the 2022 rookie draft. It’s a savings of $11 million dollars and I’m only attached to Carr and Chark for one year (barring any changes, after all it’s 2022) versus being tied to Watson for five years. Is it the right move? Talk to me after this season and again in a few years.
The Dynasty Owner community seems to be all over the place too based on his roster percentage. His Dynasty Owner roster percentage is 59.5% today, but yesterday it slightly lower, so more Dynasty Owners are picking up Watson than dropping him right now. Clearly some people are onboard with this move and taking on that contract. In two of my leagues, someone picked him up after a Texas grand jury declined to indict him on criminal charges and both have held him even after the trade to the Browns and the $7 million per year salary increase. Last year, Watson was rostered in roughly the 20% to 30% range for most of the season so interest in him has definitely increased, but he still isn’t at 99% or 100% like Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen.
JuJu Smith-Schuster finally made the move out of Pittsburgh and signed a one-year deal with the Kansas City Chiefs.
| 2021 Rank | Roster % | Age | 2021 Salary | 2022 Salary | Salary Change |
| WR149 | 99.4% | 25 | $8,000,000 | $3,250,000 | – $4,750,000 |
Dynasty Owners with Smith-Schuster on their roster received a salary savings of $4.75 million by keeping him on their team for the 2022 season. What should his Dynasty Owners do?
Current Recommendation: Hold him.
There is no doubt that Dynasty Owners with Smith-Schuster should hold on to him. The contract is small and short, the landing spot is really good, and he has value to your Dynasty Owner team regardless of your expectations for the 2022 season. There is zero reason to drop him for free due to the contract change and in fact, his roster percentage is at 99.4% now.
Finally, the Falcons retained the services of Cordarrelle Patterson for another two seasons.
| 2021 Rank | Roster % | Age | 2021 Salary | 2022 Salary | Salary Change |
| RB8 | 98.7% | 31 | $3,000,000 | $5,250,000 | + $2,250,000 |
Patterson signed a 2-year, $10.5 million contract, or $5.25 million per year for Dynasty Owner salary purposes. Dynasty Owners with Patterson on their roster currently will have to pay him $2.25 million more in salary to keep him on their team. What should his Dynasty Owners do?
Current Recommendation: Keep him
At the end of January, Patterson was listed as “Hold for now. Value depends upon who signs him” in my High Salary QBs and RBs article. His market value was estimated at $9.142 million per year, which is almost $3.9 million more per year than he finally re=signed for with the Falcons. Patterson was a keeper in my eyes if he re-signed with the Falcons and Coach Arthur Smith. The fact that he was signed for significantly less than expected solidifies that recommendation and makes it better for his Dynasty Owners. His decline in production at the end of the 2021 season is worrisome, but the price is better than anticipated so Patterson is worth keeping on your Dynasty Owner roster.
New League Year Tips
There are many tips that people are going to offer on what to do with certain players, like “Drop Player A” and “Pickup Player B now that Player C was traded to Team A”. This isn’t what I’m going to discuss here. Instead, these are going to be tips on how to handle the first Dynasty Owner off-season for many Dynasty Owners.
Tip #1 – Don’t Panic
The email that went out to Dynasty Owners on the Saturday before NFL Free Agency started said “Don’t panic” five times. For good reason, because inevitably somebody is going to panic and make a bad decision right at the start of the new Dynasty Owner league year.
For example, when new 2022 contracts and salaries became active on the Dynasty Owner platform on Friday at Noon, many teams started dropping players for free right away. Not a problem if the player is Will Dissly (TE – SEA) who had his new 3-year, $24 million contract ($8 million per year) with Seattle take effect on Friday. In 2021, his salary was only $777,568 when he scored a mere 49.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and finished the season as TE53. He is only rostered in 24.7% of Dynasty Owner leagues now, so it was unlikely that those remaining Dynasty Owners with Dissly will find a trade partner. Dropping Dissly for free right away to be able to make other roster moves is a wise decision, even if the salary savings are meager because that roster spot can be used in other ways. No reason to wait and hold Dissly to see if a market develops. It likely won’t happen for a backup TE on Seattle. There are dozens of other players out there who I could have used for this example, so hopefully you get the idea.
On the other hand, there was a league in which someone dropped Josh Allen. Not the Jaguars defensive end/linebacker who isn’t in the Dynasty Owner database, but the Bills QB who finished 2021 as the overall #2 player in Dynasty Owner with 503.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Admittedly, his 6-year, $238.034 million contract ($43,005,667) kicked in on Friday, but dropping QB Josh Allen is a complete panic move when you have 30 days to try and move him if you don’t want him at that salary. If you can’t do it within that time frame, you still can drop him for free.
In that league, at least two teams put in Free Agent Auction bids for Allen. This means that there was a trade market for him. Both bids were over $1 million so both Dynasty Owners who bid anticipated competition from someone else. Why else would they bid more than $1 million Dynasty Dollars? It seems like a complete misread of the situation in this league and pretty much every other Dynasty Owner league out there.
The team also didn’t make any immediate moves to compliment the dropping of Allen, like picking up a couple of players for slightly less than Allen’s 2022 salary to reduce their salary cap. They did release a few additional players at the same time and made some trades over the next couple of days. Could they have made those moves and kept Josh Allen on their roster? Most likely Yes based on my analysis of the roster changes in the league.
Tip #2 – Wait for the Official Contract Signing
This tip is similar to “Don’t Panic” in that it’s advising Dynasty Owners to pump the brakes a little bit, take a moment to reflect and wait until the official contract figures are posted on Spotrac, then updated in Dynasty Owner before deciding what to do with a player. Even if the contract is updated, it can be revised after additional information is reported.
There have been too many initially reported contract figures that have been wrong this off-season already for anyone to take an initial contract report as the gospel truth. Even Spotrac has revised some contract figures originally posted later on. It’s not just the Aaron Rodgers contract, which changed at least three times, that I’m talking about here. Here are some players who had contract news reported, then the report changed before it was published on Spotrac (as well as afterwards) and updated in Dynasty Owner:
- Aaron Rodgers (QB – GB): The initial reporting of a 4-year, $200 million contract was disputed by many, including Rodgers himself. The contract was briefly revised to a 2-year, $123,844,412 contract extension and finally settled in as a 3-year, $150,815,000 contract extension. The annual salary amount for Dynasty Owners bounced around from $50 million to almost $62 million back to the final amount of $50,271,667.
- Christian Kirk (WR – JAC): It was a 4-year, $84 million contract for Christian Kirk in Jacksonville at first, but it ended up as a 4-year, $72 million contract. Dynasty Owners saved $3 million in annual salary with the final amount.
- Michael Gallup (WR – DAL): Gallup’s 5-year, $62.5 million reported contract extension fell by $5 million from a 5-year, $57.5 million contract. That’s $1 million less in salary per season for his Dynasty Owners in the end.
- JuJu Smith-Schuster (WR – KC): Most recently, JuJu Smith-Schuster’s contract started off as a one-year deal for $10.75 million. It was changed the next day to just a one-year deal for $3.25 million, saving Dynasty Owners with Smith-Schuster $7.5 million for the 2022 Dynasty Owner season.
Right now, Dynasty Owner is doing daily updates of contracts which can mean that an initial report might be revised. In the next few months, these updates will be coming every couple of days or even just once a week. This will give Dynasty Owners even more time to deal with a contract change and might prevent them from overreacting to an initial report that is later corrected. It might not, but you’ll always have enough time to at least wait for the official contract announcement from Spotrac to make a roster move.
Tip #3 – Don’t Drop Players Until You Win the Free Agent Auction Bid
This has probably happened to you or someone in your league. You bid on a player in the Free Agent Auction and get outbid. It sucks that you don’t get the player you wanted, but otherwise, nothing bad happened. If you had a roster spot and salary cap room, you didn’t need to do anything other than make the bid and see if you won it. If you lose, there’s always going to be someone else to try to acquire. As Bill Belichick would say, “On to Cincinnati”.
However, if you don’t have a free roster spot or enough room under the salary cap to fit the player you are bidding on, you have two options. First, you can drop a player (or two, or more) to create the roster and/or salary cap room you need, then make the Free Agent Auction bid. The second option is that you make the Free Agent Auction bid but set it up, so the player or players are only dropped if you win the bid. It’s kind of a way to “act fast”, but also hedge your bets.
This is particularly important in the off-season when you can bid on Free Agents as they become available. Especially in the current period we are in with teams allowed to be over the cap, it’s important to put in these “conditional” Free Agent Auction bids so you don’t lose a player unless you win the bid. As long as your team isn’t going up in salary after the transaction is completed, it’s ok.
Earlier in this article, I mentioned that I dropped Deshaun Watson for free and picked up Derek Carr off the Free Agent Auction. Because Carr is rostered in 88.6% of Dynasty Owner leagues, I was concerned that another team might put in a bid on Carr. Instead of dropping Watson and then bidding on Carr, I did it as a “conditional” bid. If I won the bid for Carr, then Watson would be dropped in a corresponding move. If I lost, I’d keep Watson and continue to have the flexibility to trade or drop him for another player. Finally, doing it this way also has the advantage of helping to conceal your bidding.
Tip #4 – Put Calvin Ridley on Injured Reserve Now
Calvin Ridley has been suspended for the 2022 NFL season. He is officially listed as Out. This designation means that he is eligible, right now, for the Dynasty Owner Injured Reserve. You can park him and his $2,725,178 salary for 2022 there for the entire season. This frees up an extra roster spot for your Dynasty Owner team if you need or want it. It’s an extra roster spot to use on a potential break out player who’s still sitting out there on the Free Agent Auction, or an extra player who you can hold and not drop just yet from your roster. Maybe you can work out a trade for that player now.
Ridley seems to still be a desirable player to have on your Dynasty Owner roster as his roster percentage is 99.4%. Yes, his salary will still count against your $145.74 million salary cap, but it’s less than 2% of the entire cap. Your team can also fill that spot with a rookie. That leads us to the next tip.
Tip #5 – Save Room for Rookies
Just a quick tip that you can’t forget to save room for rookies, or at least have a plan for those rookie draft picks. You’ll need both roster spots and salary cap room to fit in as many rookies as you have draft picks. Unless you plan on trading those draft picks away. I’ll have more on this tip sometime before the rookie drafts start just as I did last year.
If you had a rookie draft last year, you know what’s going to happen, but a refresher isn’t a bad thing. If this is your first rookie draft, check out the article from last year to start getting familiar with what’s going to happen. The salary amounts for draft slot are going to change, for the rookie picks, from last year’s amounts. However, those salaries by draft slot will still be set before the draft.
Based on mock drafts, it looks like there will be fewer position players drafted early in the 2022 NFL draft, so the salary amount you need should be less than last year. Don’t count on it yet though. The full details will be shared in an article either closer to the NFL draft (April 28th to April 30th) or in the month after the NFL draft, but before Dynasty Owner rookie drafts start on May 27th.
Conclusion
It’s been a whirlwind of activity for NFL General Managers and Dynasty Owners since the calendar turned to March. There is always activity ongoing, but it has ramped up over the past three weeks with the NFL combine, followed by franchise tags, early announcements of contract extensions and signings, then a flurry of big name players getting traded and then finally, the official start of NFL free agency. With everything going on, it can be difficult to keep up and potentially overwhelming.
As the article says, “Don’t Panic”. You have plenty of time to make roster moves now and don’t have to do everything at once. In some cases, you might need to act right away, but still do so in the proper way. For a few Dynasty Owners, these tips are unfortunately a couple of days late. Not really, as we have been discussing these tips and topics on the Livestream for a few weeks now and an email highlighting what to expect when the new league year starts was sent out to all Dynasty Owners almost a week before last Friday. Two follow up emails were also sent out to reinforce the message. Hopefully you were paying attention and didn’t panic.
We will cover these tips, analyze recent trades and free agent moves, plus discuss plenty of other things on the weekly Dynasty Owner livestream with myself and Tim Peffer on Wednesday at 4 PM (Eastern). Set the timer on YouTube so you don’t miss it live, or make sure to watch it afterwards. Either way, don’t forget to smash the Like button. You can also listen to it afterwards wherever you get your podcasts.
Please read all of the off-season articles from our Dynasty Owner team as well. On Mondays, I write about players, salaries and contracts to help new and returning Dynasty Owners navigate how to play our unique game. Jay Pounds is writing about everything on rebuilding your Dynasty Owner roster and his articles usually appear on Tuesday. Nate Christian is back for 2022 and will do prospect previews every Thursday. Finally, Friday is Free Agent Friday with articles from Matt Morrison – The Jerk.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!
Steven Van Tassell is the Head of Content for Dynasty Owner Follow us on Twitter: @SteveVT33 and @Dynasty_Owner