Week 1 Fantasy Football Dynasty Report
Week 1 is now behind us, along with all its insanity. This week saw Marquise Brown, Sammy Watkins and D.J. Chark go off for huge games, while Sony Michel, Aaron Rodgers and Matt Ryan struggled mightily.
While the other writers here at The Fantasy Footballers will recap and extract every last drop of fantasy information from the previous matchups in an effort to help your redraft leagues, I’ll be taking a different approach. Each week this season, I’ll be focusing on Dynasty Fantasy Football and how the previous week’s games impact your rosters moving forward. I’ll focus on a Dynasty Tip of the Week, a Stock Up/Stock Down report and a bonus College Football (Draft Prospect) Player to watch for next week’s games.
Dynasty’s a whole different ball game than your work redraft leagues and it requires an extra level of dedication. Are you ready?
By reading this article, I’m assuming you are…Hopefully this weekly article will serve as a guide for you and be a benefit for your teams to bring home a Dynasty Championship.
Dynasty Tip Of The Week
Be Patient. One of the key pieces of advice I’ve gotten over the past few years as I’ve ventured into Dynasty Fantasy Football is to be patient with players…Dynasty is completely different than redraft where we’re used to cutting players and utilizing the waiver wire for immediate help week in and week out.
Dynasty requires you to wait a little bit longer before cutting bait with a player, whether by dropping them to your league’s waiver wire or trading them away for pennies on the dollar. A prime example of not being patient came last season when I had George Kittle on my roster in my main Dynasty league. He started off the season slowly, if you remember, and I cut bait Week 3 and released him to the waiver wire for a player I don’t even remember at this point.
As you know, Kittle went on to break records in the NFL last season at the tight end position and helped many Fantasy Football rosters to a championship. I went chasing after the “new hotness” and completely disregarded talent, which led to me letting go of a top-tier player too early. Be patient with these players, especially the rookies that you drafted this offseason, and let them develop before shipping them off when their value is low.
Dynasty Stock Report
Stock Up: Terry McLaurin – Washington Redskins, WR
Terry McLaurin was criminally undervalued this offseason and going way later in rookie drafts than he should have been. He’s an excellent route runner with great speed and agility and he put those traits on display Sunday against the Eagles.
McLaurin finished with a 5-125-1 stat-line and showed great chemistry and connection with Case Keenum.
Terry McLaurin can just run past coverage #Redskins pic.twitter.com/LVrU78L3Sw
— Mark Bullock (@MarkBullockNFL) September 8, 2019
McLaurin’s chemistry with Keenum was the big question mark for the beginning of this season. With Dwayne Haskins and McLaurin playing together at Ohio State, there wouldn’t be an adjustment period for them to get used to playing with one another. But when Keenum was announced the starter, there was skepticism on how McLaurin would fare right out of the gate. We have our answer.
McLaurin’s stock is way up and the Redskins may have found themselves a star in the making. If you drafted “Scary Terry” in the later rounds of rookie drafts, take a victory lap. You earned one.
Stock Down: Mitchell Trubisky
Yikes. As a Bears fan, I’ll be the first to admit that this offense was atrocious on Thursday night. Hopes were high for Trubisky entering that game and people came away sorely disappointed.
Trubisky consistently displayed bad mechanics, poor decision making and locked onto his first read and never went through his progressions. The offense struggled mightily as a result.
Mitchell Trubisky struggled a lot lastnight and this is an alarming example.
His eye discipline and feel for route timing are still poor. His 👀take the free safety directly to the corner route. pic.twitter.com/uGabkYzDXI
— Jordan Reid (@JReidNFL) September 6, 2019
While I do believe Trubisky will bounce back from this performance when Nagy gets the offense into a rhythm and gets out of his own way as a play-caller, Trubisky’s long term Dynasty outlook took a hit Thursday night. At this point for Dynasty purposes, he’s most likely just a start candidate in plus matchups until he can turn things around.
Stock Up: Mecole Hardman
How is a guy who saw only one target and 0 receptions in Week One a stock up candidate?
Tyreek Hill is going to miss some time with an injury and could possibly be a candidate for IR/designated to return. While Sammy Watkins and Travis Kelce get a bump up, Hardman will step right into the Hill role in this offense.
While he may not put up the same numbers that Hill would week after week, Hardman has a great opportunity ahead of him on an offense that showed no signs of slowing down on Sunday. While Hardman hurt your lineups this week, moving forward he’s going to be a big part of the Chiefs’ game plan. Stock up.
Stock Down: Darwin Thompson
While Hardman’s stock is pointing up, Darwin Thompson’s stock is on an elevator that just had its cable snapped. Against the Jaguars, Thompson saw 0 carries and 1 target that he hauled in for 3 yards. With the addition of LeSean McCoy to the Chiefs offense, the need and opportunity for Thompson collapsed simultaneously.
Thompson’s value was skyrocketing out of control in the preseason and the hype train was in full effect. Now, Thompson is a backup at most with unknown upside. He’s still rosterable in Dynasty leagues, as Williams and McCoy aren’t exactly the most durable players, but his stock took a huge hit when McCoy came to town and it’s only going downhill from here.
Stock Up: Austin Ekeler
At this point, Austin Ekeler should have a shirt made that says, “Melvin Gordon who?”
Ekeler ran roughshod over the Colts defense on Sunday going for 58 yards on 12 carries and a TD, along with 6 receptions for 96 yards and another 2 TD’s through the air!
"GET OUT OF MY WAY." – @AustinEkeler 💪 #INDvsLAC
📺: CBS
📱: NFL app // Yahoo Sports appWatch on mobile: https://t.co/PoZiStO3mL pic.twitter.com/MEjRTQAf7h
— NFL (@NFL) September 8, 2019
Ekeler proved highly effective with the touches he received and he’ll remain a big piece of this offense moving forward. If Melvin Gordon does come back this season, Ekeler will still remain involved. And looking into the future of next offseason, if Gordon doesn’t re-sign with Los Angeles, there’s a great chance that the team moves forward with Ekeler and Justin Jackson.
Ekeler is a weekly start in your lineups until further notice.
BONUS: Draft Prospect To Watch
Each week, I’ll be looking ahead to the College Football games on the schedule and highlighting one 2020 NFL Draft Prospect you need to watch.
This week, Cam Akers gets the spotlight. Akers is a running back out of Florida State University, who was highly touted coming out of high school. He’s shown flashes, but struggled mightily last season behind a terrible offensive line. This season, Akers is gaining buzz again as he shows the talent that made people excited about him originally.
2️⃣4️⃣8️⃣ all-purpose yards.
1️⃣9️⃣3️⃣ rushing yards.
3️⃣6️⃣ carries (school record).
3️⃣ touchdowns.
1️⃣ Cam Akers!#DoSomething | #OneTribe pic.twitter.com/5jQjNS53lD— FSU Football (@FSUFootball) September 8, 2019
He’s fast, elusive, tough and excels out of the backfield as a receiver. Akers gets a tough task against Virginia this week and he’ll be asked to carry this offense again. Can he hold up and deliver another solid performance to continue to improve his NFL Draft stock?
The 2020 RB class is loaded, but Akers has the talent to rise near the top if he can put together a solid showing against a ranked Virginia team.
Comments
Looking forward to reading this each week, love the prospect tie in
Love this! Looking forward to next week! Thanks!