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By Matt Morrison (@dynastyjerk)
Hello Dynasty Owners. Week 3 is in the books, and we currently only have two NFL teams that have won every game they’ve played.
Those teams are the Eagles and Dolphins. This isn’t the beginning to the season that I predicted, and I seriously doubt anyone did. Regardless, the Buccaneers, Bills and Chiefs have each lost one game while those other two teams remain unbeaten. I don’t have any team running the gauntlet and finishing 17-0 in the regular season, and we may never see it in our lifetime, but it’s fun to think about. Of these two, I’d say the Eagles would have the best chance. At this point in the season, they seem to have the best combination of quarterback, running back and receiver play. As I said, I highly doubt they remain undefeated over the next month, but we will have to wait and find out.
Today, I will be starting a Blind Player Comparison series. As I have done in the past, I will run through all four major positions where I give a single comp. The goal of these articles is two-fold.
First, these articles hopefully give you a new way of looking at some of these players. We, as Dynasty Owners, have many different biases when it comes to fantasy football (Hometown biases, previous season biases, injury biases, trade biases, etc.). In these articles, I’m going to be giving you mainly the stats and facts with a little opinion. I think you may be surprised with some of the outcomes.
Second, and most importantly, I think seeing these articles is a lot of fun. I love writing them, and I hope you enjoy reading them.
Quarterbacks
The question is…Who would you rather own in Dynasty Owner?
Player A (Alpha):
- Between 27 – 33 years old
- 22.3 fantasy points/game in 2021
- 16.4 fantasy points/game in 2022
- 743 passing yards – 2 touchdowns – 1 INT – 0 fumbles
- 22 rushing yards – 0 rushing touchdowns
- Salary is over $30,000,000 per year
Player B (Bravo):
- Between 27 – 33 years old
- 18.1 fantasy points/game in 2021
- 24.6 fantasy points/game in 2022
- 748 passing yards – 7 touchdowns – 2 INT – 1 fumble
- 15 rushing yards – 0 rushing touchdowns
- Salary is over $30,000,000 per year
I am purposely not giving you all the info you need on these players. So, given this limited info, who do you want on your team? Let’s look at it.
We have two “middle age” quarterbacks who are on at least their second contract given their salaries. I think the clear choice right now is Bravo.
We have Alpha who seemed to have an above average 2021 season. I’ll tell you right now that Alpha missed three games with an injury, and he finished as QB15. This finish would have obviously been higher if he had stayed healthy for all 17 games. It also appears that Alpha is far less productive in the first three games of this season when compared to last season. Is that age related? Is it team related? We’ll get to that later.
We also have Bravo. Bravo is in the same age range, same salary range, and in relatively the same production range. We can see that they have essentially flip-flopped stats from the past two seasons. Bravo was less productive in 2021, but has increased his efficiency so far this year. I will also tell you that both of these quarterbacks have been known more for what they did in the 2021 season than what they have done so far this season. That’s to say that Alpha has always been considered a very productive, efficient quarterback throughout his career. Bravo has been the opposite, at least for fantasy production. That begs the question…why are they seemingly having outlier seasons? Let’s talk about it.
Alpha switched teams this off-season. This is his first year with his current team. This off-season move was widely considered a positive move for both the QB and the team in general. It was such a big upgrade, that many experts considered it possible that Alpha would have his best season ever and even have a chance at a Super Bowl. Clearly the first three weeks haven’t shown that potential yet.
Bravo did not switch teams this season, but he did only recently join his current team. He has also had some growing pains. Although not entirely his fault, the team has historically struggled to put together an adequate season. Bravo’s team has done remarkably well at rebuilding his team and putting together a Top 3 scoring offense for 2022. That’s right, Bravo’s team is the second ranked team in terms of points per game. To put that into perspective, they ranked 25th last season. So, are these first three games a fluke, or is it a sign of a positive shift for this team?
I’m assuming you still want to own Bravo right? Yes, their stats aren’t largely different other than the touchdowns. But any quarterback who can get 7 touchdowns in a three game span has to be more than a fluke, right?
Well, here is the “kicker”…
- Alpha is rostered in 94.47 percent of Dynasty Owner leagues
- Bravo is rostered in 7.43 percent of Dynasty Owner leagues
How can that be? The answer is salary and previous production.
Bravo is Jared Goff ($33,500,000). When you think about Goff, you think of an average quarterback on a bad offensive team that wants to run the ball. Well, I think that idea is slowly changing. The emergence of DJ Chark ($10,000,000) and Amon-Ra St Brown ($1,066,313) have really changed the touchdown and winning potential for the Lions. Goff also has one the best pass catching running backs in the entire league in D’Andre Swift ($2,134,728). We also haven’t seen rookie first round pick Jameson Williams ($4,365,448) take a single NFL snap yet. I can’t advise that everyone immediately go out and pick up Goff. I will say that people need to be aware and keep an eye on him. He is currently QB10 on the season.
And what about Alpha? If you haven’t figured it out by now, Alpha is Russell Wilson ($35,000,000). Russ is having a tough start to his tenure as the Broncos’ QB. I think he will get his rhythm and this offense figured out. However, just like with Goff, you should be closely monitoring the situation. I’m starting to worry that winning a championship with Russ as your starting quarterback may be tougher than I initially thought.
I summarize it best like this when talking about Jared Goff…
- Should he be 100 percent owned? “No”
- Should he be owned more than Russell Wilson? “Of course, not”
- Should he be owned in more than 7.23 percent of leagues? “Probably”
- Should people start paying attention to what is happening in Detroit? “Definitely”
I thank you all for reading and for continuing to support Dynasty Owner. Next week, I will be doing a running back Blind Player Comparison article.
Message me on Twitter (@dynastyjerk) and let me know if you have any questions or concerns. I would appreciate it if you followed @Dynasty_Owner on Twitter as well as subscribed to Dynasty Owner on YouTube. Thank you all. Take care and be safe.
TheJerk