Now that the calendar has flipped to July, we’re officially less than a month away from professional football players taking the field in a “professional” game. On August 6, the Cardinals and Panthers will kick off the NFL preseason in Canton, OH in the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame Game. The game helps to honor the Class of 2026 inductees, including Larry Fitzgerald and Luke Kuechly, who played their entire careers with these two teams. It’s a rare feat, to be so great and play your entire career with the same team, but there are a couple of potential future Hall of Famers in the league who could share that honor! On the Chiefs, Travis Kelce is on the verge of ending his career in Kansas City, while his QB Patrick Mahomes should be in KC for his entire career. George Kittle is another fantasy-relevant player who is on the Hall of Fame track, and he’s played his whole career so far in San Francisco. The best thing about dynasty fantasy football is that if you land on a Hall of Fame player, you get to keep them on your team for their entire career as well. A manager in my league just refused to part with Patrick Mahomes in a trade, and told me it was because he’s had Mahomes on his team since his rookie season! This is supposed to be a fun game, so if you have sentimental reasons to buy, sell, or hold a player, then feel free to do so! Just make sure you aren’t hurting your team too much with your heart!

Players are off prior to training camp, so the headlines around the league tend to be speculation by beat writers or off-the-field changes. In Houston, RB coach Danny Barrett said that David Montgomery is a “three-down back.” Woody Marks had an exciting mini-breakout in his rookie season last year, but the Texans prioritized the position in the off-season. They traded for Montgomery and appear ready to give him the lion’s share of the load. It’s another reminder to sell-high on late-round running backs when you get a chance to do so! They’re very easily replaceable, whether it's in the Draft, free agency or in a trade such as this one. Montgomery is a great dynasty buy right now for contending teams. He could finish as an RB1 this season, especially in half-PPR and standard leagues, but he’s the RB26 in ADP. 

Staying in the Lone Star State, one of the biggest dynasty busts of last year’s rookie class was Jaydon Blue. The Cowboys had a weak RB room, and Blue was an exciting rookie selected in the fifth-round of the NFL Draft. The hype around him skyrocketed, and his Dynasty ADP peaked at 117 overall, but now it’s down in the dumps at 224. Instead of a Blue breakout, Javonte Williams had his best season as a pro and stayed healthy most of the season! Blue recently admitted that he “wasn’t really there” for the start of his NFL career. He said he wasn’t practicing right, and wasn’t there on a maturity level, but he thinks he’s “ready to go” for his second season. He’s a talented running back, but maturity issues were a concern for him, and may have pushed him down the board. Dallas, once again, didn’t do much to address the position, so Blue could have serious handcuff value this season behind Williams. 

We’ll wrap up our headlines with another running back from the class of 2025. Giants head coach John Harbaugh believes Cam Skattebo is “a top tier back, and he’s planning on playing that way this year.” He’s recovering from an injury that ended his rookie season, but he’s already taking 11-on-11 reps and is expected to be a full participant for training camp. He was off to a blazing hot start to his rookie season, capped off by a three-touchdown game against their rivals from Philadelphia. He had double-digit PPR points in seven straight games after the first game of the season, but then the ankle injury knocked him out for the season. Skattebo isn’t cheap in dynasty leagues, he’s a young and exciting player on an up-and-coming team. But he’ll need to prove this season that he can stay healthy for more than a handful of games. 

World Cup fever has engulfed the sports media landscape, seemingly pushing NFL off-season news and headlines to the background. With the Cup on home soil, and Team USA making a run to the Knockout Stage, it’s tough to get excited about Brandon Aiyuk’s career spiral or rumors about Rashid Shaheed. Combine that with some world-shaking trades in the NBA and NHL, and the MLB season rolling along, and it’s easy for your dynasty leaguemates to take their eye off the ball with their dynasty rosters. It’s a really great time to make some moves, take advantage of the lack of attention, and make your team better for the 2026 season. 

As the month of July goes on, fantasy football will start to be on the top of more and more people’s minds. As the attention racks up, you need to work even harder to stay a step ahead of the competition. Check out the DLF Expert Rankings and find the diamonds in the rough, the players that are undervalued by the public, but the experts are most excited for. Then use the DLF League Sync and Trade Analyzer tools to craft the perfect trade to acquire that key player. There is no off-season in dynasty fantasy football, so we’re always working to help you win your league, no matter the time of year!

Zay Flowers may have had one of the quietest breakout seasons in fantasy football history last year. In his third year in Baltimore, Flowers finished as the WR7 in PPR leagues, catching 86 passes for 1,211 yards (both career-highs) and five touchdowns (matching a career-high). So, why isn’t Flowers being talked about amongst the elite fantasy football wide receivers? He’s the clear number one pass-catching option on a great offense with an MVP-level QB. He’s only 25 years old, and he’ll be in Baltimore for at least the next two seasons. Let’s dive into his Dynasty ADP and try to figure out if Flowers is being disrespected in dynasty leagues. 

Flowers has been a top-50 dynasty player since the end of his rookie season, but he’s never really made the jump into the elite tier. It peaked at 25.5 back in December of 2024, but quickly came back down (probably after a terrible fumble to lose a playoff game against the Chiefs). Right now, he’s down at 38.67 overall, and he’s the WR23 off the board, just barely WR2 status. The DLF Expert Rankings are even lower on the Ravens’ best receiver. They have him at 46 overall and the WR27 off the board. In the DLF Trade Analyzer, his value is about the same as AJ Brown, Brian Thomas, or the 1.05 pick in rookie drafts this season. 

The reason why Flowers isn’t being treated like he finished WR7 last year is because of the way he got there. He was too healthy, too consistent, and didn’t put up very many matchup-winning performances. He only had three top-10 WR finishes all year long, and he never had a game with more than 30 PPR points. With that, he only had two games that were major duds, where he finished outside of the top 40 at the position. He was a consistent WR2 or 3, he played in all 17 games, and that added up to a nice fantasy finish by the end of the season. He’s a fine player to have on your team, but he isn’t a player that you want to invest too much in. Every team needs a solid, consistent, boring wide receiver option, but they’re often not the piece that helps your team cross the finish line and win the league.

Get access to everything at DLF for just $5…Our partnership with NoVig gives you a FREE DLF membership with your first $5 purchase at NoVig.

This is an awesome way to start enjoying the games at NoVig and get an annual DLF subscription valued at $59.99, for only $5.

Here's how:

We begin with our 2026 “Perfect Draft” strategy series, focusing on how to win your startup dynasty drafts. Anyone who has followed us for any length of time knows you can’t enter a draft without a strategy, but which strategy you choose will directly affect who you want to target. With that in mind, these are the strategies we’re going to cover:

Today, we’ll begin the series with a “win now” strategy in a single-quarterback format. This is an extremely bullish strategy, and one with a razor-thin margin. To be clear, this doesn’t mean you’re pushing for a roster of 30-year-old players. Rather, you’re looking for those who are established, typically eschewing the unproven and thereby capping theoretical upside.

If you nail this draft, it places you at an advantage as you will have targeted players with known ceilings. You also have the potential to gain bargains on these types of players solely due to their ages. However, the downside is extreme – many of these rostered players are likely to be considered as depreciating assets, meaning if you don’t win it all, the dynasty value of your team has the potential to crater for year two, meaning a partial or full rebuild might be necessitated.

So, by using DLF’s June 2026 1QB Dynasty ADP let’s have the perfect dynasty draft implementing the win now strategy:

Nothing screams “win now” more than taking a running back in the early first round! But there is a method to the madness here – Robinson scored more points than all but one wide receiver in 2025, and on average he was scoring around seven PPR PPG more than a low-end RB1. In truth this pick will be chalk across Robinson, Jaxon Smith-Njigba or Ja’Marr Chase regardless of format, so it likely comes down to preference.

Yes, Jefferson is indeed human, after all. But instead of the rotating clown car of quarterbacks he was forced to catch passes from in 2025, stability has arrived in the form of Kyler Murray. With even quasi-competent quarterback play, Jefferson threatens for overall WR1 viability. You’re not getting this type of upside for a player still in his prime with anyone else here except for Amon-Ra St. Brown or CeeDee Lamb.

Bowers was the overall PPR TE1 as a rookie, and was the TE4 in PPR PPG despite fighting through injury last season. If I can get a trump card at the position that falls off the quickest, I’m doing so. The Raiders will feature Bowers in the passing game, and the attempts from either Kirk Cousins or 2026 #1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza will be of significantly higher quality than the young stud is used to.

The PPR RB5 in successive seasons, Achane was just made rich with a new contract in Miami. Similar to Robinson above, he’s going to be the engine of the offense, and quarterback Malik Willis’ legs give defenses another threat to worry about. An already very high ceiling may just become elite in 2026.