The New Reality No.214: Lessons Learned, 2024 Strategy

With just one week left in the fantasy season, most are shifting their focus back to the NFL and away from their redraft teams in the closing weeks of the season. For dynasty GMs, it is time to get back to business - improving their roster through trades, rookie draft strategy, and proper player valuations for next season and beyond. Here are some lessons learned from 2023 and strategies for 2024:

2023 LESSONS

CONTEND UNTIL ELIMINATED

One of the bigger mistakes by dynasty GMs is throwing in the towel too early. Some lose in September and are already looking for the exit on the season. Others double-down on not contending in the offseason, viewing being stuck in the middle of the standings as the worst potential outcome and avoiding it even at the expense of contending seasons.

My take: Contend until you are officially eliminated. This is a very NFL-type take. Two games to play and need two wins? Try to win the first one and go from there. Need some wins and some help with a month to go? Take it week by week. Do things look rough in July? Wait until October to assess things, minimum.

The best team in a dynasty league does not always win the title. Fellow Footballguys staffer Adam Harstad has broken down the math of winning a title in a variety of circumstances in previous articles. In short, the 'field' has a better chance than any singular team, even once the playoffs start.

In a previous installment, I outlined a 2021 example of a team overcoming the categorical slow start to contend and finish in the money:

"To include one 2021 glaring example of not throwing in the towel from my own dynasty portfolio, one of my weakest teams is in the championship game this week. This team finished 7-7 with a tepid 60% all-play record. I needed a win in the final week to scrape into the postseason. After 10 weeks, I was 3-7. After Week 6, I was 1-5 and 0-4 after the opening month. These are woeful season starts. It is also easy (or easier) to throw in the towel in a devy league (with Superflex and 2TE with premium scoring dynamics) as the trade options are vast to acquire future picks or devy players in exchange for current production.

Instead, I held firm with Matt Ryan and Ben Roethlisberger as notable quarterbacks; James Conner and Alexander Mattison provided timely starts with point-per-carry for the stretch run. Mike Evans and Amari Cooper did the same as I rose in the standings. Having a strong corps of tight ends had a major impact as well, with Mark Andrews and Dallas Goedert, plus Zach Ertz, providing a punch at arguably the most important position in the format.

Both weeks of the playoffs, I had the highest score, including taking down the top seed in Week 16. Will I win against the No.2 seed this week? Only time will tell. While blowout outcomes happen all the time in fantasy football (most matchups are not overly close)."

Seek Elite

One of the themes Jordan McNamara and I discuss regularly is seeking elite results. This is on the micro-level of players, profiles, lineup setting, and the waiver wire. However, it also applies to your dynasty portfolio. More to come on this topic in future installments, but research into my own results has unearthed a huge edge for teams with a bye week in the dynasty postseason in the semifinal round. There is a substantial edge by merely avoiding playing in Week 15, as any head-to-head matchup is an opportunity to lose, regardless of the opponent. However, my results also show a significant edge to the bye week teams in the Week 16 matchup as well. Picture the first and second seeds in a dynasty playoff bracket. They were better than the rest of the league for more than three months to earn the bye. It is likely they are still decently (or more) better once the win-or-go-home matchup in December's postseason comes around. In short, the bye teams have a double benefit of avoiding a matchup in Week 15, plus they are hearty favorites most of the time in Week 16. Add those two factors together, and shooting for a bye should be the primary focus for our dynasty teams, as emerging through two rounds as a wildcard team to get to the finals is a low-probability play. As a wildcard team, you are likely somewhere in the 50/50 to 60/40 range of outcomes in Week 15. If you win, you are likely 40% at best, and more likely a deeper underdog than that. Compare that to sitting on the sideline with a bye in Week 15 and being a strong favorite in Week 16. These are divergent pathways and probabilties to a title and/or strong prize money ROI.

RUNNING BACKS: A WEEKLY GAME

Think of running backs like puzzle pieces. It can be difficult to see how they fit together in the offseason or even in September and October. The running back position is fitting together 14 weeks of lineups with two (or more as applicable) quality (and clarified) starters. While having the same options each week would make that puzzle easy to solve, the NFL regular season of matchups and injuries is far from simple with the information of August. This dovetails with the above contend-until-eliminated mindset. Rostering a significant volume of backup running backs requires patience to actually benefit from evolving depth charts and injuries around the NFL running back water cooler.

This is why looking at the seasonal PPG of running backs or their aggregate finish only tells part of the story and, frankly, for only the declared starters for most of the season. What about the rest of the position? These pockets of clarity, whether a single game or a handful of weeks, are hyper-valuable to the mechanics of navigating a successful dynasty season.

• Gus Edwards: Essentially a whole season of clarity wwith J.K. Dobbins out in Week 1. Edwards had 11 rushing touchdowns over the following 13 weeks.
• Chuba Hubbard: Miles Sanders exited in Week 5, and Hubbard ran with the starting job even after Sanders returned to the lineup.
• D'Onta Foreman: Khalil Herbert and Roschon Johnson missed Week 7, fueling Foreman to 120 total yards and three touchdowns.
• Jerome Ford: Nick Chubb went down in Week 2 as Ford was the clarified starter for most of the season.
• Jaleel McLaughlin: Javonte Williams missed Week 5, and McLaughlin hit 89 total yards and a touchdown (17.9 PPR points). Samaje Perine also hit 13.5 PPR points in the game.
• Devin Singletary: Dameon Pierce exited in Week 8, and, a la Chuba Hubbard, Singletary garnered clarified starts and never gave the starting job back.
• Zack Moss: Jonathan Taylor's holdout, plus Deon Jackson's Week 1 flop, turned into Moss' extended run as the clear starter and fantasy impact player.
• Clyde Edwards-Helaire: Isiah Pacheco missed Weeks 14 and 15 as Edwards-Helaire had a flop in Week 14 (13 touches, 68 yards) but a win in Week 15 with 101 total yards, a touchdown, and 20.1 PPR points.
• Kyren Williams: The biggest impact of this list was the Rams' backfield leaning on Cam Akers for a meager 22-29-1 rushing stat line in Week 1, turning into Akers being out in Week 2 and Williams running with the workhorse role.
• Zamir White: Josh Jacobs missed Weeks 15 and 16 to allow White to pop with 17.5 PPR points and emerge in Week 16 with another 145 rushing yards.
• Ty Chandler: After a meager season as the starter, Alexander Mattison missed Week 15 to fuel Chandler's 24.7 PPR points and a clarified start. Chandler has been the starter since, even with Mattison back.
• Ezekiel Elliott: Rhamondre Stevenson missed Weeks 14-16. Elliott had 29, 16, and 21 touches in the three starts since, with 27.0, 9.6, and 21.0 PPR points, respectively.
• Zach Charbonnet: Ken Walker III missed two games, and Charbonnet optimized one of them into 16.9 PPR points.

PAY ATTENTION TO THE DETAILS

Whether in one league or 20, the weekly player churn through the waiver wire and first-come, first-serve avenues are critical to improving your team. To use one league as an example where players are unlocked when dropped through waivers, etc., and available for pickup, here are some of the adds and flips I was able to execute as a result of the shallow-moderate rosters and attention to detail.

Acquired, from September forward, in one league (24-man rosters)

• Gus Edwards
• Zamir White
• Kyren Williams
• Chuba Hubbard
• Rico Dowdle
• Keaton Mitchell
• Emari Demercado
• Royce Freeman
• Ty Chandler
• Clyde Edwards-Helaire
• Chris Rodriguez Jr.
• Chase Brown
• D'Ernest Johnson

EARLY 2024 REGRESSION CANDIDATES

Kyler Murray: Arizona's season has been a dumpster fire on many levels. Murray missed more than half of the season, the pass catchers (outside of Trey McBride's emergence) have been dismal, projecting toward 2024, and Murray posted his lowest passing fantasy points per dropback (0.29) of his career and his lowest TD-INT ratio. Arizona is trending towards being in a position to replace Murray in the NFL Draft with a high position. Still, the upside is Arizona is in a good cap situation for the offseason. They have Trey McBride under contract as a building block, clear Marquise Brown as a slated free agent, and could land Marvin Harrison Jr.. high in the first round if Murray stays with the team. Even if Murray is on the move, which is a poison pill from a cap standpoint with the dead money involved, Murray is a highly mobile quarterback who would be a virtual lock to have a better supporting cast elsewhere than the 2023 version of Arizona next season.

Patrick Mahomes II: This season has been a poor one for Mahomes when compared to his typically supersonic elite personal threshold test. Since Mahomes started in full in 2018, Mahomes has easily had his worst season in passing fantasy points per dropback, passing points per game, his lowest aDOT, his longest average time to throw, and his lowest yards per attempt. An aging Travis Kelce has been supplemented by a rising Rashee Rice. However, the rest of the wide receiver bets, especially pedigree ones like Kadarius Toney and Skyy Moore, have been dismal results. The Chiefs have built their franchise on defense, assuming Patrick Mahomes II will smooth any offensive deficiencies. 2023 has highlighted that even elite quarterbacks can use some help to be elite producers. Even with things crumbling around Mahomes, he is in the QB7-8-9 range of PPG through Week 16, which speaks to the greatness of Mahomes as a fantasy quarterback.

Garrett Wilson: Wilson has mired through one of the worst quarterback situations in the NFL over the past two seasons, and his touchdown rate (through Week 16) is a meager 3.4%. This after 4.8% last year. Both are significantly below the NFL average for wide receivers. Aaron Rodgers merely playing as scheduled in 2024 will aid Wilson's breakout journey on the touchdown front. Despite the poor situation, Wilson has 171 receptions for 2,061 yards over his first 32 career games.

Chris Godwin: Godwin has a single touchdown this season (1.4% touchdown rate), with his career rate at 6.3%. Baker Mayfield is gaining momentum to return as the 2024 starter for Tampa Bay, which would stabilize the quarterback pairing for Godwin. Plus, Mike Evans is a slated free agent. Godwin is also a profile bet, with four career top-24 seasons under his belt and, with a hot finish to 2023, could hit for his fifth such season.

Trey McBride: Since Zach Ertz's midseason injury, McBride has been the TE1 overall in PPG, including 4-of-8 games of hitting at least 20 PPR points. This is with only two touchdowns and over 72 receptions (through Week 16) on the season. McBride's 2.9% touchdown rate for his career is less than half the NFL average for tight ends. McBride's volume, plus touchdown regression in 2024, makes McBride an elite upside proposition.

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