As you know I’m a big dynasty guy. I already gave you tips on starting your dynasty leagues and strategies to win in the Fantasy Alarm NFL Draft guide. However, far and away THE most popular dynasty fantasy football articles out there are “sell high” and “buy low” articles. These features are of course helpful, but they are also everywhere and at times they are too obvious or too “scary” because you’re giving up a real high-end player which makes it tough advice to follow. So in this version I’m going to give you a little different flavor of it. Advice that I feel you can be super comfortable acting on immediately. The dynasty “cash out”

Pretty much the opposite of this

The idea here is pretty simple. You are holding an asset that is towards the bottom of the hit rate and viability threshold for starting dynasty rosters. It’s not a “sell high” because this isn’t an asset that everyone is even buying. But, what we are basically telling you, is that you should be aggressively trying to “cash out” this player for anything at all because the fact that they have even have any hype at all actually defies the odds. You’ve actually already won and you might not even know it. 

With these guys below, my advice is to take whatever you can get in terms of future draft picks, current viable players, “buy low” players etc., and give yourself better long term odds to succeed. As crazy as it sounds, trading away these guys is actually the risk AVERSE move because draft picks hold their value longer and don’t get vaporized as part of a rebuild like Robert Foster or Preston Williams. The pick holds value until you make it and, assuming you can get a player drafted within the first three rounds of the NFL draft, the player has better odds of success. So let’s look at some guys you should be trying to cash out on right now.

Gabriel Davis

Some people aren’t going to like this one because he’s become a darling of the dynasty community. But let’s take a moment here to actually consider what Gabriel Davis is. He’s a 4th round NFL pick that plays backup wide receiver. “But Coop he scored some fantasy points last year”. Yes, I know he did - filling in for an injured John Brown. Here are some per game stats and percentages for Gabriel Davis in the games where John Brown was healthy vs games where he either got hurt or missed the entire game.

Are you guys seeing what I’m seeing here? When John Brown was healthy, he played an 80-90% snap share out wide opposite Diggs. Gabriel Davis primarily rotated in with Beasley while coming on as the extra slot guy for four wide receiver sets. Then, when John Brown got hurt, Davis moved to the outside as he’s the “next man up”. During that span DAVIS played a 90% snap share. But it’s not like Gabriel Davis took that job and ran with it. When John Brown came back for the playoffs, Brown played a 92.5% snap share in those three games and Gabriel Davis played a 39% snap share. And Davis went back to the slot as well - 68.12% of his playoff snaps were in the slot vs. 31.88% out wide. In the final two games of the playoffs vs. the Ravens and Chiefs, Gabriel Davis got 7 combined targets for zero catches. So much for a tryout. 

When the Bills cut John Brown in March it felt like there was a glimmer of hope for Davis. But by the end of the week they had already signed a replacement. The Browns cut John Brown with $1.6 mil in dead cap which saved $7.9 million. Brown then turned around and signed with the Raiders for $3.75 million. The Bills then took that $7.9 million and paid Emmanuel Sanders $6 million ($4.7 cap hit this year). So they cut one outside wide receiver (who could be had for under $4 mil apparently) and signed another outside WR with a combined hit this year from the release and the new deal of $6.2 mil. And, per John Brown’s camp, the day Emmanuel Sanders was released by the Saints the Bills cut John Brown without even talking to him about it then pursued Sanders. Even if it’s a “lateral” move, it seems like the Bills cut their WR that was playing 90% of the snaps to pursue another guy who plays the same role. I mean, hard to be confident in Davis after he caught quite literally none of his passes in the last two playoff games. And that makes it likely that Gabriel Davis is going back to playing the versatile “next man up” role just like Van Jefferson or Zach Pascal. If you don’t believe me, you can ask Bills beat writers.

You might think Zach Pascal is an unfair comparison but they both played the same backup role then came off the bench due to injury last year. And  they both scored EXACTLY 136.9 PPR points on a similar ~900 snaps. And here are the athletic profiles for the two players from PlayerProfiler.com. Can you guess which one is Gabriel Davis and which one is Zach Pascal?

Does it matter?

You have no reason to be sad if you own Davis and are reading this though - you acquired a wide receiver that was drafted on Day 3 of the NFL draft and now you can trade them for a real pick. It’s practically a miracle. When you look at the success rate of fourth round WRs (and we will next), that’s an absolute slam dunk. So you shouldn’t feel bad at all  - you should be pumped that this player’s value has increased and now you can cash out for a profit!

Amon-Ra St. Brown

So we just alluded to the “success” of fourth round wide receivers in fantasy. Here is one eye opening stat from Mike Tagliere.

I’ve crunched the numbers on this myself a bit and here are the hit rates of wide receivers going back to 2000 with a “hit” being a single top 24 wide receiver season in PPR.

  • 1st Round: 49%
  • 2nd Round: 33%
  • 3rd Round: 23%
  • 4th Round: 7%
  • 5th Round: 4%
  • 6th Round: 4%
  • 7th Round: 7%

As you can see, the odds fall off a cliff after the first three rounds. Which makes a lot of sense - not only do the elite players obviously go first but once you factor in the comp picks coming at the ends of these rounds, one round gets increasingly far from the previous ones. From the 3rd to the 5th round there were 25 comp picks in the 2021 draft so the 6th round in reality is actually more like the 7th round. If that makes sense.

The percentages above honestly speak for themselves but it gets even dicier once you start getting into these “success” stories. For instance, was Tyreek Hill really a fifth round talent that we should look at as a fifth round “hit” or did he fall to the fifth because he admitted to choking a pregnant woman?  Kevin Walter is technically a seventh round “hit” but did anyone draft and hold him for the first four seasons before he did anything at all?  In his first four years he played 59 games and had 47 catches and 1 touchdown during that span. Must have been an insanely deep league if you were stashing that dude. In the fourth round within that 7% we are talking about Jericho Cotchery, Shaun McDonald, and Brian Hartline here - if those are the “hits” you can only imagine the other 81 guys.

And the draft is only getting more efficient. Over the last decade in the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th round you basically have Tyreek Hill, Stefon Diggs, Marvin Jones then the next best seasons are Rishard Matthews, Travis Benjamin, Jamison Crowder, and Cecil Shorts. Last season by Russell Gage was the best season this decade by a 6th round WR. The next best was Quincy Enunwa. This is what we are working with.

So with Amon-Ra St. Brown you have the 17th WR off the board in the fourth round in 2021. Not even the first WR taken that round. The Lions picked four players ahead of him, including passing on St. Brown twice in the third round. I know what you are thinking - the Lions copied the Dolphins tank EXACTLY by firing their coach, trading their QB, letting vets leave, signing a skeleton crew (to maximize comp picks), they have the most dead cap, but the least active spending (to roll money forward) and so on and so on. It’s the same conditions that let Preston Williams get snaps. Jackpot right?

Except what ever did happen to Preston Williams when they started the rebuild? Oh yeah that’s right -  vaporized. Look at the formula pretty much all these teams are using. You tank and THEN you acquire the playmakers. The Bills didn’t roll with Robert Foster - they brought in John Brown, Cole Beasley, Stefon Diggs, Emmanuel Sanders. Same with the Rams (Sammy Watkins, Cooper Kupp, Robert Woods, Brandin Cooks). Same with the Browns (Odell Beckham Jr., Jarvis Landry, Austin Hooper). The skeleton crew doesn’t get to ride the rebuild wave to the fantasy promise land. The Lions are GOING to bring in a new split end and flanker. They didn’t want to risk messing up the comp pick formula so they signed Breshad Perriman and Tyrell Williams to cheap one year deals. Those guys are getting replaced with studs. That’s how it goes.

Even for just this year, Amon-Ra St. Brown profiles as a slot guy meaning that he’s likely the guy coming off the field in 2 WR sets just like Ceedee Lamb, Cole Beasley, Anthony Miller etc. did last year. His ceiling is already fairly capped. You have two options - trade him now while there is hype or wait and hope he gets some targets on this nightmare ghost ship of a team, gets a little bump, and then trade him. The best 4th round WRs drafted this decade are Jamison Crowder and Keke Coutee so you’re basically betting that he’s the best fourth round WR of the decade if you are playing the “long” game. I’d rather just cash him out now for a second round pick who could actually be a high end asset in fantasy. Yes, even if I drafted ARSB for a second round pick this season, I would turn around and trade him for any second round pick in the future. Re-rolling the dice on a WR drafted in the top three rounds is the CONVERSVATIVE play. You are taking your life in your hands holding onto the Keelan Coles and Preston Williamses of the world hoping they don’t turn back into a pumpkin.

Russell Gage

If your name has already been mentioned in this article, that’s probably not good.

 

And if you’ve read this far, you probably already know most of what I’m about to say. Russell Gage is a 25 year old 6th round pick career slot guy. Given the top-heavy nature of dynasty fantasy football with the competitive teams mostly starting studs, he’s likely never started for your fantasy team. And now, via the Julio Jones trade, you’ve been gifted a window of opportunity.

Here is the thing about fantasy football. The reality is that most teams can support two fantasy relevant pass catchers at the very most. Every once in a while a really productive, high end offense can support three. But more team support one or even none than two. There are 32 NFL teams which means the top three WRs for every team would be 96 - the number of relevant guys is closer to one per team than it is two.  And it’s pretty simple when you boil it down. There aren’t enough targets to go around for three guys to simultaneously maintain a 6 target per game pace. And 100 targets in a season is a pretty good barrier to entry for fantasy relevance. For instance, as long as we’ve been tracking targets, every top 12 WR has gotten 100+ targets and last season every top 24 WR got 100+ targets. So every WR1 and WR2.

You might say “hey the Falcons pass a lot” to which I’d say yes. But even in 2019 when they threw an absurd 684 passes (50 more than the next highest team) it actually wasn’t quite what you thought it was for the pass catchers. Let’s say you lump all the WRs and TEs into a bucket. Through the first 10 games when everyone was healthy, here’s how the top three Falcons would have ranked in PPR.

  • Julio Jones #8
  • Austin Hooper #12
  • Calvin Ridley #38

People forget but Calvin Ridley wasn’t really even a viable fantasy player that year until Austin Hooper got hurt week 11. Then, over the next 3 games while Hooper was out, Ridley got an absurd 32 targets which is a 170 target pace. THAT is why it LOOKED like all three guys simultaneously were good for fantasy football. But that’s not what happened. Julio was good all year. Hooper was good then he got hurt and Ridley was good then Ridley got hurt and Hooper was good. It was not actually a situation where three guys were simultaneously good starts in fantasy football.

And that’s where we are at now. If Julio Jones was traded and they were just rolling with it, I’d say that Russell Gage has a chance to beat out Hayden Hurst and the other WRs to be the second target after Calvin Ridley. But then they took Kyle Pitts with the 4th overall pick. It doesn’t matter that Pitts will only play some snaps at WR and some snaps at TE  - when you draft a guy like that he’s going to be a focal point of the offense. With Ridley and Pitts, that leaves Hurst and Gage on the outside looking in. Just like with the other guys, if you own Gage you should be pumped that the Julio trade has gifted you this window to potentially trade a 6th round WR for a 3rd round rookie pick.

Jakobi Meyers

I’m a Patriots fan at heart so this one pains me. I obviously think Jakobi is a solid real life football asset and I’m rooting for him to succeed. But let’s look at the reality of the situation. Last year was a “bridge year” of sorts for the Patriots while they burned dead cap and moved money to 2021. It created the perfect environment for Jakobi Meyers to play a bunch of snaps. And he did and he put up some pretty okay numbers. Didn’t catch any touchdown passes because there weren’t many to be had but he had 700 yards which is cool. You were smart to roster him. You done good.

And now you’d be smart to trade him. The Patriots went on a crazy spending spree, bringing in not one but two high end pass catching tight ends. Both Jonnu Smith and Hunter Henry are getting $12.5 million per year. They are giving Nelson Agholor $11 mil per year. They even brought in another slot guy in Kendrick Bourne at 3 years, $15 million. Not to mention, this isn’t the Falcons we are talking about throwing a bazillion times - every indication for this Patriots offense with the stable of RBs, Cam Newton, and the bulk of lineman up front (Trent Brown and David Andrews return) suggests that they will once again be one of the more run heavy teams. Last year only Baltimore threw the ball less per game than New England. So, on this team, it’s not even a question of “who the top two targets are?” It’s more about whether ANY of these players can be fantasy relevant. And then you have to guess if it’s going to be Henry, Jonnu, Agholor, Bourne, or Jakobi. Do you really want to hang onto this undrafted free agent investment for the long haul or should you just try and get a draft pick?

Darnell Mooney

This is probably the player I’d be most hesitant to move right at this very moment because I think he has the most upside for 2021. It’s been clear from the very beginning that Matt Nagy has wanted to replicate that Chiefs offense he ran in Kansas City. That offense uses the following: a versatile back (Nagy traded Jordan Howard who couldn’t catch then traded up for David Montgomery), a big split end (Allen Robinson is an upgrade over Sammy Watkins), a pass catching tight end in the slot (Jimmy Graham at first and now transitioning to Cole Kmet), and a speedy flanker (Matt Nagy tried Taylor Gabriel to be his Tyreek Hill and has now settled on Darnell Mooney). Wait, the Tyreek Hill role in Matt Nagy’s offense? That sounds pretty good no?  Why would I say to sell Moon Dog?

The IDEA of that situation is good. And, if it’s Tyreek Hill catching passes from Patrick Mahomes then yes, it’s great. Same goes for a speedy field stretching flanker in Tyler Lockett catching passes from Russell Wilson. Hill and Lockett are actually two of the few players that managed to crack the top 24 WRs in fantasy without 100+ targets in recent years. That’s the kind of player that can accomplish that without high volume. It’s these high efficiency, explosive players. However, I’m sure you’ve probably already figured out the rub by now - Mooney doesn’t have Patrick Mahomes or Russell Wilson throwing him the football. Not even close. 

Mooney is essentially the ultimate high risk play in fantasy. He’s a fifth round pick like Tyreek Hill and he’s fast like Tyreek but he also didn’t have the issues that Tyreek had that caused him to slide in the draft. Mooney just slid because other teams didn’t want him. So the “same draft capital as Tyreek” argument is out the window for me. This is basically the bet you are making. You are betting that one of Andy Dalton or Justin Fields can figure out Matt Nagy’s offense which means that Matt Nagy keeps his job and the “Tyreek Hill role” in Chicago continues to exist. You are also hoping that, after Allen Robinson, Darnell Mooney is the second target on the team ahead of the tight ends - they want Cole Kmet to be their Travis Kelce. Which is fine when it’s Kelce and Tyreek Hill but what happens when it’s Kelce, Allen Robinson, and Tyreek Hill?  Even with Mahomes that would be an interesting target distribution and there is no Mahomes here - Andy Dalton will start and then maybe a rookie will take over if he’s terrible. All it would take is the for targets to be flat between the tight ends and Mooney for him not to get a high enough target share.

For 2021 alone, I don’t think it’s too bad of a bet because Nagy is there and they are going for it now. But, if Nagy loses his job and another regime comes in, the wheels can fall off pretty quickly for a field stretching flanker with fifth round draft capital. And, regardless of who is GM or coach, if they go after one more high end WR opposite Allen Robinson, the dream is over. That’s why, being a risk averse fantasy gamer myself, I’m cashing out for a second round rookie pick if possible to lock in some value. Given the inconsistency of field stretching speedsters, Mooney needs to be DIALED IN to be trusted on a competing dynasty team. It’s already kind of hard to trust Tyler Lockett and he’s one of the best in that role.

Conclusion

I can already see the top comments on reddit now. “No one is buying these guys tho ho hum woe is me”. And to that I’d say well yeah - you have a bunch of late round wide receivers on your team with terrible historic success rates, what exactly do you expect? If anything, that should be a wake up call for you to start maneuvering to get more desirable assets. Stop going after fourth round picks and UDFAs. 

This article is about one thing. You basically were able to get a free lottery ticket by adding a late round WR at some point who defied all odds and now has some hype. Now is the time to take that hype and see if you can flip these guys for real tangible assets. As I said, fantasy football is top heavy and the likelihood of these guys even being a WR2 is bad - most of the teams competing for a dynasty championship are starting true high end WRs. If you can, flip these guys for draft picks that have high odds of success long term. Every person rostering Preston Williams right now is wishing they could go back and do that.