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By: Jay Pounds (@jaypoundsnfl)
Dynasty Owners it is that time of the week again. I finally have some football news to talk about with a few players having already signed new deals. Of course, we also saw the modern day Brett Favre start his crap by coming out of retirement after announcing it just two months ago. As I am sure all of you have heard, Tom Brady will be back for another season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. While I don’t like it, this is excellent news for many fans, it is also great news here on Dynasty Owner as Brady has an affordable $25,000,000 contract. The Brady news will influence many of our Dynasty Owners as Chris Godwin ($19,179,600 contract for 2023) and Mike Evans ($16,500,000) lose zero value and it will also improve the value of any free agents who sign with Tampa. I do have two players I would like all of you rebuilders to keep an eye on and they are Jalen Darden ($1,044,476) and Tyler Johnson ($902,355). I believe one of these two players will secure the WR3 role during the pre-season and both can be had extremely cheap right now.
Let’s move on to the contract I hate for Dynasty Owner and if I am being honest a contract that highlights why Dynasty Owner is so great. One of the bigger moves that was made on Monday was Christian Kirk signing with the Jacksonville Jaguars for a reported $18,000,000 a season. In my opinion this makes Kirk virtually untouchable in Dynasty Owner. If I had to put a number on it, I am guessing Kirk will be owned in roughly 10-20% of leagues, which is way too high unless he puts up numbers we have never seen from him before. In your average dynasty league, Christian Kirk is someone most will target in the middle rounds in hopes he can be a high end WR3, but how many real teams were willing to pay Kirk the price tag he received? The answer is probably around 10% and you will see similar numbers here on our platform. If you are a first-time reader, these are just a few examples of what makes Dynasty Owner so much fun for fantasy football fanatics.
In honor of my favorite time of the Dynasty Owner year – free agency – I wanted to put together a quick guide on what to expect out of the free agency process as a rebuilding user. Dynasty Owner’s off-season is like nothing you have seen before as our users will need to make tough roster decisions based on the player’s actual contract. Dynasty Owner’s free agency closely mimics the decisions the 32 NFL GMs must make, giving you a small taste of what these guys go through and the decisions they are faced with daily. In today’s article I will be covering three things I feel are important for all newer rebuilding Dynasty Owners in the hope of helping you be better prepared for later this week.
Contracts to Target
In Dynasty Owner, there are two things that stand out above all else, a player’s production and the contract that he signs. In the off-season last year, I was shocked by the movement in Dynasty Owner’s free agency and the price some players can be had for. I know these are not the best names to bring up but last off-season I was able to target Keelan Cole ($5,500,000) for a third round pick and saw Kenny Golladay get moved for the same. On top of Golladay being flat out cut in another league because of his $18,000,000 contract paired with the fact he signed with the Giants. As a rebuilding owner you should not be targeting contracts like this, but it is ok to move them for less than you feel they are worth, after all contract price matters a ton. You will see many tempting big name players available and my best advice to you is hold off on these players if they are not extremely young. As of now there is one bigger contract, I feel all rebuilding owners should have interest in and that is Michael Gallup who just signed a 5-year deal at $11,500,000 per season. While the Gallup contract looks like a lot to take on, he will be an absolute steal as soon as this year and should be an incredible value for the life of the deal if he is able to overcome his knee injury from last season.
Now that we have covered contracts you should target, let’s cover those you should not. The types of contract situations rebuilding owners should avoid are that of Davante Adams ($20,145,000), who is on the franchise tag this season and will be signing a huge new deal come 2023 at an age that doesn’t fit on a rebuilding timeline. Overall, this comes down to finding young players who are getting paid below market value on long-term deals while sending away older expensive players who can help a contender. If you can pull this off, it will help your team become cap flexible, allowing you to take on a bad contract in exchange for extra draft picks.
What to Do with Your Rostered Players
The most obvious answer in this segment is to keep your players but I assure you there are plenty of different routes you can go. The best way to break this down quickly is to refer you back to articles I have previously wrote on how to rebuild some of our users’ teams (The Black and Yellow – League #27451 and Vantastics – League #30326). In these articles, I break each team down into four separate categories which are: Building Blocks, Players to Trade, Players to Cut, and Players to Hold.
If you look back, you should get a great feel of what players fit into each category but be sure you do not use the article on Eli’s Team unless you are contending. As much as I want to believe you will all go look for the old articles, I know it’s a pain so I will give you a brief description of each category before we move on to the next segment.
- Building Blocks – Building blocks will be the most important category for your team as they will be the foundation for your team moving forward. In most situations your building blocks will stand out as they will be highly productive on rookie contracts. There happens to be an outlier if you are just starting a rebuild and that is trade your running backs who are a year closer to a second contract. Yes, even Jonathan Taylor ($1,957,287). A building block is a player who you are certain will be producing at a high level when it comes time for your team to win. Players like Justin Jefferson ($3,280,701), Kyle Pitts ($8,227,624), and Joe Burrow ($9,047,534) are excellent building blocks to have.
- Players to Trade – Players to trade seems self-explanatory right? It is but I will break it down a bit further. Players in this category should be running backs who have finished a year in the league, unless you plan on winning within the next year or two. The other types of players you’ll want to include here are players who do not fit your rebuilding timeline. A great example of this would be DeAndre Hopkins who is 29 years old on a $27,250,000 contract. The average rebuild takes three years and that’s what you should plan for.
- Players to cut – I will not spend much time on this as these players are obvious. A player who does not offer any value in a trade is a player who can be cut.
- Players to Hold – The players to hold category happens to be my favorite because of the many differing opinions on players. Typically, a player to hold is a player who you believe has future value and has not broken out just yet. The other type of players you will want to hold are players whose trade value may be down. Never trade a slumping player on a discount unless you are sure they are on the way down permanently.
Getting Prepared for the Rookie Draft
The rules of getting prepared for the rookie draft are similar for all teams but there are a few things I try to do if I am rebuilding my team.
- Identify your Needs – Now is the time to start thinking about the upcoming rookie draft and filling out your roster. After the huge free agency surge, your needs should be obvious, and you can start building a sound plan towards the future.
- Identify your Targets in the Draft – After the NFL’s free agency, all eyes will be solely focused on the draft and getting to know the incoming rookies. You should be doing the same. The reason you will want to identify your targets beforehand is so that you can make trades, accordingly, meaning if you love the fit of Garrett Wilson and he is projected to go fifth overall, you need to trade back to the third or fourth spot and grab more value. A mistake I see a lot is, I didn’t trade back because the offer wasn’t good enough when they could have picked up a late second round pick to draft the same player. Lots and lots of mock drafts will help this process a ton!
- Don’t be Afraid to Trade on Draft Day – After you have the two things above handled it is time to start making trades. A lot of these trades will get rejected but don’t feel discouraged, just send it again on Draft Day. The time to take less in a trade is not now as your picks tend to hold the most value when you are on the clock. Rookie fever is real!
Summary
Free agency will be upon us in just a few days and as a rebuilding Dynasty Owner you better be prepared. Each of these categories will be crucial steps in your rebuilding journey and I encourage you to reach out on Twitter (@jaypoundsnfl) if you need any help. As I mentioned earlier be sure to check back to earlier articles of my Rebuilding with our Dynasty Owners series.
Thank you all for reading and be sure to check out content from my fellow analysts, Steve, Matt, and Nate. Stay safe out there and good luck on your 2022 Chase for the Ring!