THERE IS NO-OFFSEASON

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Rookie draft season is absolutely the best time of year for dynasty fanatics like myself. The picks, analysis, trade negotiations, and trash talk cannot be matched at any other time of the year or with any other format of fantasy football. This is truly the time to plant your flag and make your dynasty team your own. You want Ashton Jeanty? Then go make an offer for that first overall pick (but it better be a really good one). You think Cam Skattebo is going to be a star? Who cares about his late-second-round ADP, be aggressive and make sure you draft him!

Speaking of drafts, the NFL announced this week that the 2027 NFL Draft will take place in Washington, DC, on the National Mall, a mere mile-and-a-half from where I write this newsletter right now! I’ve personally never attended an NFL Draft, but it’s way up there on my “Sports Bucket List.” I can’t wait for the festivities to come to the Nation’s Capital in a few years!

Fifth-year options were picked up or declined by NFL teams for players who were selected in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft. With that story, it’s always a fun exercise to go back four years and check out the studs and duds from that class, as teams decide the 2026 contract status for these players. 

The lone QB of that first round, Kenny Pickett, did not have his option picked up by his third NFL team, the Browns. Despite that, Pickett is considered the leader to start the season for Cleveland this year. Of course, Joe Flacco and Deshaun Watson are both on the team, along with rookies Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders. This should be one of the most interesting Quarterback position battles of camp this season, as it wouldn’t surprise me to see any of those quarterbacks, other than Watson, start the season under center for this team. 

There were no running backs or tight ends in the first round that season, but there were six wide receivers. Fifth-year options were picked up by the Falcons for Drake London, Jets for Garrett Wilson, Saints for Chris Olave, and Lions for Jameson Williams. All of these players will continue to play on their rookie contracts through the 2026 season. Meanwhile, the Eagles and Titans declined the options for Jahan Dotson and Treylon Burks, respectively. They’ll both need to be re-signed before the end of the league year, or they’ll be free agents in 2026. 

Finally, the Ravens have decided to release kicker Justin Tucker after 13 seasons with the team. Baltimore called it a “football decision,” but there are also ongoing investigations into allegations of his improper conduct during massage therapy sessions in Baltimore at the beginning of his career. The team spent a sixth-round pick on Tyler Loop, a placekicker out of Arizona. If you play in a league that uses kickers, one of the most reliable fantasy kickers of all time can be dropped, and Loop needs to be on your radar in rookie drafts

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Ashton Jeanty is the first overall pick in 99% of rookie drafts (in IDP leagues, I’d consider Travis Hunter over him) after he was selected sixth overall by the Raiders in the NFL Draft. It’s the highest a running back has been selected since 2018. That year, Saquon Barkley was selected second overall by the New York Giants. Seven years later, Barkley is on another NFC East team, he’s a defending Super Bowl champion, and he was last year’s RB2 in fantasy scoring. Going into his age-28 season, with an influx of young, stud running backs in recent years, what really is the value of Barkley in dynasty leagues? 

At the start of the 2024 season, Barkley’s ADP was down at 32 overall, a few picks ahead of his career low (40.5). He was coming off a decent fantasy season, but another one that saw him miss time with an injury. He was going to a new team in Philly, a team best known for QB sneaks at the goal line, not handoffs to their running backs for touchdowns. Despite all of that, he had his best fantasy season since his rookie year. With career highs in rush attempts (345), yards (2,005), YPC (5.81), and rushing touchdowns (13), Barkley is back in the first-round discussion. He’s going off the board right now as the RB4, 13th overall off the board. Jahmyr Gibbs, Bijan Robinson, and Ashton Jeanty are the only running backs going ahead of him. Amongst the top 15 backs, Barkley (28), Jonathan Taylor (26), and Christian McCaffrey (28) are the only players above the age of 25. 

Despite his age and his position, Barkley is not cheap to acquire in dynasty. He still demands a mid-to-late first round pick, or an equivalent package. When you’re on the clock, take a look at the running backs available to you, especially if you’re in “win-now mode.” In that range, the running backs available are likely RJ Harvey, Cam Skattebo, and maybe the pair from Ohio State. In a loaded running back class, it’s tough to justify moving on from a rookie running back to acquire one who is on the back-half of his career. But, Barkley proved last year to be a league winner, a status that none of these rookies will likely get to claim in their career. It’s a bold, win-now move that carries plenty of risk with it. 

According to the DLF Trade Analyzer’s Value Chart, Barkley is valued between the 1.01 and 1.02 picks in 1QB, and SF leagues. The DLF Expert Rankings place him at RB5 and 22nd overall in one-QB startup drafts.

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WHY AND HOW TO TRADE BACK IN DYNASTY ROOKIE DRAFTS

For many of us in the dynasty community, the end of the NFL Draft signals the official beginning of rookie draft season. The NFL Draft ends on Saturday, and many leagues start drafting on Monday morning. I’ve heard of some who start as early as Saturday night.

I know it can be enticing to mortgage your future and trade up for a top-three pick, but sometimes it’s important to act like an adult and think of all possibilities. Trading back and acquiring future second-round picks might not be the sexiest approach to dynasty, but it might just be the most profitable.

Why Trade Back?

Asking why is a fundamental truth of human existence; we’ve been asking why for thousands of years, and it is one of the main reasons we developed into who we are as a species. Understanding “why” allows us to truly master a concept. Many dynasty managers will tell you that trading back is good with one breath, but these same people, with their next breath, will also insist on trading up to acquire an “elite” prospect. That’s because they haven’t bothered to ask why.

I know we play a silly, little game based on the NFL, but I think we can learn about constructing a fantasy football team by the way in which NFL GMs construct their real-life teams. One of the seminal pieces of research on the draft was “The Loser’s Curse,” written by Cade Massey and Richard Thaler. In that article, they identified the surplus value of real-life NFL draft picks by position and found that the most valuable picks were not the ones at the very top of the draft, but rather near the end of the first round. A similar study conducted by Timo Riske at Pro Football Focus in 2020 found similar results, even with the new rookie contract structure.

The important conclusion from both papers is that the first overall pick in the NFL draft equates to roughly the same surplus value as the 56th-60th pick in the NFL draft. This is true for two reasons: first, the cost associated with the first overall pick is high, and second, the player taken at first overall is not guaranteed to be better than one taken later in the draft. Timo found that the selection with the highest surplus value is the 11th overall pick due to the relatively small cost of acquisition compared to the value that the player brings to the team that drafts him.

Based on these conclusions, NFL teams have discovered that the best approach is to usually trade back and acquire more picks, especially in the first two rounds of the draft. When identifying good NFL prospects is as difficult (or lucky) as we’ve seen over the years, it’s wise to give yourself more attempts at landing an impact player. Trading back gives you that opportunity.