By Matt Morrison (@dynastyjerk)
Hello Dynasty Owners. My New Contract Spotlight series will continue today as I talk about a massive salary increase that started impacting Dynasty Owners’ salary cap this off-season. The player is Deebo Samuel ($23,850,000). I will get to the big details later, but Deebo had a down year in 2022. He finished as the WR40 with 162.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. This finish was actually pretty good value for his salary at the time. He was making less than $2,000,000 per year. The draft capital you invested to obtain Deebo (either through trade or draft) did not provide a very good return though. Dynasty Owners with Samuel on their rosters were looking for a repeat of 2021 when he was the WR3 and ended as one of the best values on the entire platform.
Like I said, I’ll get to the full breakdown on Deebo later. First, I’m going to continue my pre-season Top 5 rankings. Wide receiver is on the docket for today’s article.
Top 5 Wide Receiver Rankings
| Player | Team | Age | Salary | Years |
| Ja’Marr Chase | CIN | 23 | $7,704,910 | 2 |
| Justin Jefferson | MIN | 24 | $3,280,701 | 1 |
| Garrett Wilson | NYJ | 22 | $5,138,502 | 3 |
| Chris Olave | NO | 23 | $4,817,969 | 3 |
| Amon-Ra St. Brown | DET | 23 | $1,066,313 | 2 |
Chase swaps places with Justin Jefferson when you compare this to my list last year. Here is my rationale for putting Chase #1…
- Younger
- One more year on rookie deal
- Same upside as Jefferson
- I project they will be within 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points of each other in 2023.
Taking all of those points into account, I have to rank Chase higher. If you told me that Jefferson will have 30.0+ more Dynasty Owner fantasy points than Chase this year, then I could understand the argument for having Jefferson first, but I don’t see it shaking out that way. While Jefferson should be the higher volume and more consistent asset, Chase will make up for that with long, home run plays.
The fact of the matter is that you can’t go wrong with whichever of those two you have at number one. As it turns out, the Dynasty Owner consensus disagrees with me. Jefferson is currently ADP 2.2 while Chase has an ADP of 3.4.
All those points I made for Chase shouldn’t take anything away from Jefferson. If this was strictly a 2023 fantasy finish, then I would agree that Jefferson is the pick. But as you know here at Dynasty Owner, we constantly search for value. A young, stud wide receiver on his rookie deal is so valuable that Jefferson falls behind because his rookie deal is up after this season. Either way, I expect Jefferson to put up 1,500+ receiving yards and 8+ TDs once again.
Garrett WIlson is a new face to this Top 5 list. I can see the argument that I’m too bullish on him, but I expect him to take a significant leap up from where he was in 2022. Last year, Wilson finished as the WR19. He was WR19 with Zach Wilson ($8,787,670), Mike White ($4,000,000) and Joe Flacco ($3,500,000) facilitating his receptions. He now has Aaron Rodgers ($50,271,667) throwing him the ball. I don’t think this needs to be said, but I’m going to say it anyway…Rodgers is BY FAR the best quarterback that has ever delivered passes to Wilson. It’s obviously not even close. We also, historically, see a production jump for sophomore wide receivers. I am very excited to see what Wilson will do this year, and I project a Top 7 WR finish.
Chris Olave falls right behind Wilson. I can see the argument against Olave as well as the argument for others to be in his place. I will say this…the wide receiver list was much harder for me to formulate than the other three positions. There is so much great young receiving talent in the NFL that I literally went through more than 10 iterations of these final two spots. At the end of this segment, I will mention all the players that I considered yet were left off the list. The truth is that Olave is 23 years old. He has three years left on his rookie deal. He finished as the WR25 last year despite poor QB play and playing in only 14 games on Dynasty Owner.
The final player on my list is Amon-Ra St. Brown. He is one of the greatest values in all of Dynasty Owner, and I expect that this season will be no exception. He was WR7 last year and he projects to be WR9 this year. That combined with a salary barely above $1,000,000 and two more years on his rookie deal makes him the fifth most valuable WR.
As I said earlier, there are a handful of players that I considered putting in this Top 5. Here are the honorable mentions…
- Tyreek Hill ($30,000,000)
- CeeDee Lamb ($3,502,503)
- Jaylen Waddle ($6,771,498)
- Devonta Smith ($5,035,348)
- Cooper Kupp ($26,700,000)
New Contract Spotlight
Deebo Samuel ($23,850,000)
Here is my repeated recap from earlier in this article…
“Deebo had a down year in 2022. He finished as the WR40 with 162.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. This finish was actually pretty good value for his salary at the time. He was making less than $2,000,000 per year. The draft capital you invested to obtain Deebo (either through trade or draft) did not provide a very good return though. Dynasty Owners with Samuel on their rosters were looking for a repeat of 2021 when he was the WR3 and ended as one of the best values on the entire platform.”
So, in addition to this information, what do we need to know? Well, the fact that his salary has decupled (increased times 10) is very significant. He is now getting paid $23,850,000 per year in Dynasty Owner. The question becomes, “Is he worth rostering?” The overwhelming majority agrees that he is worth rostering as a Dynasty Owner team in 99.19 percent of Dynasty Owner leagues continue to employ him on their team. The fact is that I agree with the consensus here. Deebo is just too explosive, athletic and talented to drop. He doesn’t need high volume (which he hasn’t gotten recently) to put you ahead of your opponent in the WR2 slot. This is what I think about Deebo going forward…
First off, he is going to remain a low volume player. There are just too many top tier mouths to feed in San Francisco currently. He is competing with Christina McCaffrey ($16,015,875), Brandon Aiyuk ($3,132,836), and George Kittle ($15,000,000). In fact, last year Deebo had fewer receptions and receiving touchdowns than all three of these players. Yes, he did miss four total games, but injuries have been an issue for him in the past as well. I don’t expect that to be the case this year, but Dynasty Owners need to come to terms with the idea that they will likely never see a year like he had in 2021.
Here is my projection for Deebo this season…
| Receptions | Total Yards | TDs | DOFPs |
| 66 | 1,201 | 9 | 240.1 |
This puts him as a mid-level WR 2. That’s exactly what I think he is at this point in his career and with the teammates he currently has. I would be confident in starting Deebo as the second best receiver on my team, but I’d be hesitant for him to be leading my Dynasty Owner crew.
In my next article, I will wrap up my Top 5 Rankings series, and I will continue with the New Contract Spotlight aspect. As always, thank you for reading. 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