The Trey Lance dynasty hype will never end! After he was the third overall pick by the Niners in 2021, Lance has jumped around from team to team, waiting in waiting for a chance that has never come. He’s likely still toiling away on benches in the deepest superflex leagues, but his dynasty value and fantasy production haven’t come anywhere close to living up to his draft day potential. Now, in 2025, he’s starting to be picked up again after a solid performance in the Hall of Fame Game. In the victory over Detroit, Lance threw two touchdowns and 120 yards on 20 attempts. While the upside is tantalizing, as it always has been, he’s still a long way away from becoming a starter. He’s competing for a backup job against Taylor Heinicke, and even if he wins the job he’ll need an injury to Justin Herbert to ever consistently see the field in LA. For the Trey Lance stans (myself included), it was fun to see him back on the field, but you can’t get too excited about a Hall of Fame Game performance. 

With the first official week of preseason action on the horizon, the Bengals are making waves with their strategic pivot this August. After several slow starts under Zac Taylor, the Bengals are going to play their superstars in preseason games. That means Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Chase Brown will all be suiting out and playing “several” series tonight against the Eagles, with an even larger workload coming next week against the Commanders. As a dynasty manager, nothing good can happen when your key players play in the preseason. It’s possible that they do better in the early weeks, but the downside is obviously so much larger than any potential upside. 

The first of two anticipated disciplinary sentences has been handed down by the NFL this week. Vikings wide receiver Jordan Addison has been suspended for the first three games of the season for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy. Addison was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, but agreed to a plea deal on a lesser charge. TJ Hockenson should be the primary beneficiary from Addison’s absence, while Jalen Nailor will see more snaps than he usually would. There’s still no word from the NFL about Rashee Rice’s potential suspension. Rice pled guilty to two third-degree felony charges related to a multi-car accident that occurred in Dallas during the 2024 off-season. His suspension is expected to be longer, due to the severity of the charges. 

Business season in the NFL is typically in March and April, but for James Cook the season has extended much further into the summer than anyone had hoped. He’s sitting out practice and reportedly wants $15 million a year, citing “business” as the reason he isn’t practicing. At this point, with week one of the preseason on the horizon, your concern has to be mounting. The closer we get to the regular season, the harder it is for a player, especially a running back, to get up to speed and ready for the start of the season. Not to mention the mounting threat that he actually misses game time, either because he’s still holding out or he just isn’t ready to go yet. Meanwhile, Ray Davis and Tyler Johnson are getting plenty of action with the offense filling in for Cook. 

While Cook remains sidelined, the Rams have avoided any contract standoff with their running back Kyren Williams. The two sides agreed to a three-year, $33 million extension this week, making him the seventh-highest paid running abc in the league on a per-year basis. Despite the draft picks of Blake Corum last year, and Jarquez Hunter this year, it’s clear that the Rams expect more 1,100 yard seasons from Williams in the years to come. He was the dynasty RB11 in July ADP, I could see that number rising in the August ADP after this news. 

The training camp headlines and rumors are everywhere you look on social media, so you need to be vigilant with what you believe and what you don’t. Make sure the report is coming from a reputable source. If the headline is coming from an aggregator, click on the full story to double check the context of the report. Oftentimes, a passing comment buried deep in a beat reporter’s story will get blown out of proportion by the NFL community, and especially the fantasy football community. For the in-depth dynasty analysis on all of the training camp headlines you should be paying attention to, be sure you’re checking out the DLF Player News page. Don’t make a drastic trade offer, pickup or drop in the preseason without checking this page first for our take on the latest news!ust getting started, we haven’t stopped because there is no off-season at DLF. 

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One of the typical training camp headlines that you can typically ignore are the “unofficial depth chart” nuggets. These depth charts are usually put together by the team’s communication departments, and don’t necessarily mimic the beliefs of the coaching staff. With that being said, there is one unique depth chart situation that could massively impact your dynasty fantasy football season. In their first unofficial depth chart of the season, the Jaguars listed Travis Hunter as a starting receiver, and a second-string cornerback. That’s the best case scenario for dynasty managers who invested an early pick on Hunter in rookie drafts this off-season, but nothing is written in stone here. With this latest news, let’s take a look at Hunter’s value in dynasty fantasy football leagues. 

After Hunter was selected, the Jaguars said they were going to focus on the wide receiver side of the ball to start, and then work him into the defense. That caused his dynasty ADP to skyrocket, from 85 overall all the way up to 24 in the month of June. His ADP has gone down a bit since the initial hype, but he’s still holding massive value at 27.83 (WR17) off the board. In the DLF Expert Rankings, he’s valued a bit lower at 31 overall and WR18. 

It will be fascinating to see how the Jaguars play Hunter in Saturday's opener and the rest of the preseason. There are opportunities for Liam Coen to get creative, maybe having him play on each side of the ball separately through the first two games, before combining them for the third game. He could run a few series with the offense, before switching over to defense for a few more series. Or they could play him going both ways right from the get go this weekend. No matter how he’s used in the coming weeks, it doesn’t matter until week one, when we get the first real look at how the team truly plans to use him. Hopefully, he’s worth the early pick it took to draft him.

SIX DYNASTY STARTUP MISTAKES TO AVOID

We have a lot to offer for dynasty managers here at DLF. While there are many valuable tools and great information, my favorite is our historical dynasty ADP. I’m probably a little biased, as I have hosted mocks to curate that data for more than ten years now. Anyway, I find that looking back at past data can help me look ahead when it comes to player value. It becomes so easy to see trends and apply those to the players currently on dynasty rosters.

Recently, I was looking back at our superflex startup ADP from last July, one year ago, and many things stood out. Mistakes we (the dynasty community as a whole) were making last year that we will hopefully not repeat in late dynasty startups this summer.

1) Non-rushing Quarterbacks

A year ago, Patrick Mahomes was still the QB1 and the 1.01 overall in our superflex ADP despite coming off a QB8 season in 2023. CJ Stroud was fresh off an impressive and somewhat surprising QB10 rookie season, and he was being drafted as the QB5 and 1.05 overall. Finally, Packers quarterback Jordan Love snuck inside the first round, drafted at 1.12 overall. Love had finally gotten a shot to be Green Bay’s starter in 2023 and finished as the QB5. Each of these players felt like safe picks, but there was a problem. None of the trio offered much upside as runners, which limited their fantasy production and ultimately caused them to lose value over the past year. Mahomes dropped ten spots, Stroud fell 19 places, and Love tumbled down 20 places when compared to our current superflex ADP.

In full transparency, Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow is another passer who rarely runs the ball and he gained value, moving up three spots to the current 1.06 pick. All Burrow had to do in 2024 was throw for over 4,900 yards, nearly 300 more than any other passer. Burrow’s 43 passing scores also led the league. Burrow set new career-high marks in pass attempts (652), completions (460), passing yards (4,918), passing touchdowns (43), while totaling just over 200 rushing yards.

Outside of last year’s first round, other signal callers who rarely leave the pocket also lost value over the past year, including Justin Herbert (down one spot), Trevor Lawrence (-12), Dak Prescott (-21), and Tua Tagovailoa (-20). There has been some impact in our current ADP where nine of last year’s top-12 rushing quarterbacks are being drafted as QB1s, with the exceptions being Burrow, Herber,t and Stroud. At their current cost, I am staying away from that trio and targeting their elite rushing counterparts or much cheaper quarterbacks who also offer rushing upside, like Justin Fields or Daniel Jones.

2) Injury Risks

I know, I know, this is the ultimate hindsight take. Stay away from players who get injured, they almost always lose value. Obviously, there are many players who get hurt every year that are simply impossible to predict or avoid, but there are also injury trends worth noting as we build our teams. We should’ve been avoiding these players last year, given their lofty cost in 2024 dynasty startups.

Anthony Richardson was a top-six overall player one year ago, based on the elite-scoring upside he had displayed as a rookie. Of course, the other narrative surrounding Richardson since he entered the league was his health and availability. Fantasy managers were mostly willing to ignore that last year, but following another injury-plagued season, he’s among the biggest fallers over the past year. Richardson’s ADP has dropped over 100 spots since last July.

Rookie running back Jonathon Brooks was coming off an ACL tear, and there were concerns about when he’d be able to see the field. That didn’t stop dynasty managers from drafting him as a top-ten running back and top-50 overall player. Of course, Brooks’ NFL debut was greatly delaye,d and when he did return to the field, he unfortunately tore up the same knee. He’ll miss the 2025 season and is the biggest faller of all, dropping 187 spots since last July.

Tank Dell doubters were quieted after a successful rookie season, but he did suffer a nasty broken leg late in the regular season. Again, dynasty managers fell for the hype and openly ignored Dell’s history of injury, along with his small frame, which could lead him to other injuries. Obviously, that’s what happened as Dell suffered an ACL tear late last year. He’s now expected to miss the entire 2025 season, and his ADP has dropped a massive 166 spots.

Nick Chubb (-82) and Christian Watson (-129) were other players with known injury concerns who were hurt again last season and suffered major dynasty value loss as a result.

Dynasty managers have shown much better decision-making this off-season, but there are still a few players coming off of serious injuries or with a checkered injury-history still being valued very highly. Rashee Rice is currently the WR13 and 36 overall despite his injury (and off-field) concerns. Vikings quarterback JJ McCarthy missed his entire rookie season and has actually gained nearly a full round of value over the past year. Christian McCaffrey is always an injury concern and is being drafted as the RB10 and inside the top-50 overall. Same for Tua Tagovailoa, the current QB21 and 51 overall.