On the most recent Fantasy Footballers Dynasty Podcast, we discussed a number of dynasty trade topics including when rookie picks and veterans are most valuable.
I decided to put this in chart form and give you a few helpful tips about player valuation as the calendar goes on.
Editors Note: Check out Andy, Mike, and Jason’s exclusive dynasty startup rankings found only in the Dynasty Pass, part of the UDK+ for 2025.
The Dynasty League Calendar
Heck, this is a deep thought not just for fantasy football but for life. Seasonality is a great way to view many things in your life noticing the series of times and predictable changes within a calendar year. (Bonus: highly recommend Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity as an offseason read on this concept.)
Knowing the season of your league gives you context for the players on your bench. Is it the off-season? Are depth charts still fluid in the NFL? Don’t drop that RB just yet knowing he could easily slide to 2nd in the backfield. Kyren Williams was a perfect example from a couple of years ago. Are your rookie drafts approaching? Everyone in your league has rookie fever and you might see some egregious drops with managers trying to make room for prospects who have yet to touch the NFL field. Is your league’s trade deadline approaching? Draft picks only gain value closer to April while players (both veterans and rookies) only gain value as they get closer to your league’s trade deadline.
Here is a general chart to file away, print out, and put on your fridge. Show your parents!
| Months | NFL Calendar | Rookies + Picks | Veterans |
| February | Coaching Hires + Rookie Scouting | Rising Value | Be willing to sell playoff darlings |
| March | Free Agency + Combine | 90+ % of value | Free Agency Boon |
| April | NFL Draft | Highest Value… maybe 120+ % | Overshadowed by rookies, undervalued |
| May | Post-NFL Draft | Post Draft Hype | Slight hit to older RBs and WR2s with incoming rookie hype |
| June & July | OTAs & Training Camp | Mix of summer hype + fluff pieces | Sell camp hype |
| August | Pre-Season | Depth Charts bring rookies out of the clouds | Backup RBs are volatile |
| Sept & Oct. | NFL Kickoff | Contenders can trade rookies/picks for productive vets | Now is the time to trade away before your league’s deadline |
| Nov-Dec. | End of Regular Season | Expect a sifting of your league: who is in and who is out for picks | Sell off aging or injured players for future assets |
| January | Playoffs | Get ready for things to rise | The value drops off a cliff |
Tips on Player Valuation
You’re not going to like hearing this off the bat: dynasty value is made up. Yup, imagine that. In a game predicated on being fantasy, dynasty values and tiers are made based on personal choice. This isn’t meant to belittle your decisions or somehow poo poo on the process of creating dynasty tiers. It is more holding with an open hand how exact and precise this endeavor is supposed to be.
In this format, you are projecting over multiple years starting a dance between talent, age, pedigree, production, team situation, and contract status. You might value one or two of those traits above the others but they all should be factored in.
Certain sites like KeepTradeCut (KTC) use crowd-sourced decisions to try and calculate perceived “value” of each players. We reference this site sometimes on the Fantasy Footballers Dynasty podcast and certainly find it as a valuable part of the dynasty discussion especially considering we’ve been doing a KeepTradeCut segment on the podcast since 2016. However, I do need to bring up the pros and cons of “dynasty value” sites. The values and figures (based on people voting on the site) eventually condense into one number. This value might feel like a true number and it is true to the site. However, it is an arbitrary value better used as a 3rd or 4th tie-breaker in evaluating trades rather than a set figure: “this is how much this player is worth!“.
It is a conversation about production and value. You can value a player a certain way, trade for/away for a certain value, and receive certain value based on their actual fantasy production. Those are three different ways to see one player and we’re not even discussing future production or future value or their age curve, etc. The point isn’t to dive too deep into player takes but rather hold loosely the defining structure of dynasty tiers. And consider how easy it is to airball in dynasty projections…
We need to be active rather than passive. You might be saying to yourself “I’m not ready to make up my mind”. Not making a decision is a decision in itself especially in a game environment such as fantasy football. The NFL is not held within a vacuum and your opponents in your dynasty leagues are not without their opinions. Don’t make a knee-jerk reaction but also recognize that nothing remains static in a league with turnover at the coaching, management, and player levels.
Trade Secrets
Over the years, we’ve had a number of articles written on our site about trading. One of the biggest tips that have helped me execute trades in my dynasty leagues: don’t overthink it. If you are aiming to trade for a certain player or rookie pick, it’s likely that you are going to make the first offer. Leading experts suggest that the initial offer should be tilted in your favor; there’s no reason to give unnecessary concessions right off the bat. For example, if you think that WR Rome Odunze brings the same value as a first and a second-rounder, it can’t hurt to ask for two firsts.
Here are some of my favorite tips given by our writing staff:
- Negotiation Strategy: Five Tips for your FF Trades by: Matt DiSorbo
- The Psychology Behind Trading in Dynasty by: Nick Beaudoin
- Tricks of the Trade by: Nick Beaudoin
- Dynasty Trade Secrets: 10 Tips for Successful Negotiations by Ryan DeVaney
- Fantasy Football & the Evolution of Trade Evaluation by: Nate Henry
- Fantasy Football Advanced Trade Strategies by Jeff Greenwood
- 10 Tips of Trading Etiquette & Strategy by Michael Wenrich
Valuing Rookie Picks
After the NFL season, we know the value in rookie picks only continues to rise. The NFL Draft capital is the piece of the puzzle we all speculating for months and for good reason. For every locked-in 1st round pick like Cam Ward, there are players such as Troy Franklin who are hyped in the fantasy space, routinely mocked in a certain places, and then we are left scratching our heads after he fell to the 4th round in the NFL Draft.
Consider that months of preparation and prospect analysis can be emotionally affected within a three-day span in April. The values of certain players skyrockets. Consider someone like RJ Harvey who went from “maybe he is taken in Round 4” to a top-15 dynasty RB in a short span.
Don’t let draft capital be the ONLY thing that influences you. It is a huge part of the process and what the NFL thinks based on real money spent tells us a ton. However, before the NFL Draft, give a range of outcomes of where players might be drafted so you aren’t surprised. We don’t want #TakeLock. Draft Capital is a huge piece of the puzzle but perhaps you’ve never considered HOW much of a percentage. Is it 25% for you? 50%? We want to find the right blend of not over/under-reacting to someone’s draft capital in such a short window of time.
We can input “projected draft capital” now using a “wisdom the crowd” approach. You can use consensus mock drafts from places such as NFL Mock Draft Database and Grinding the Mocks to give you a ballpark of projected draft capital. There is an element of groupthink/copying off people’s papers that occurs but it is a data point worth filing away. I wrote a massive article (Projecting NFL Draft Capital for 2025 Prospects) in the week leading up to the NFL Draft that highlighted this process.
The cheapest rookie picks to acquire are further in the future. We love what is right in front of us while often assuming things will turn out better in the future. Rookie picks are a double-edged sword knowing how valuable AND fragile they can be. The cheapest first-round pick you can get would be a year or two in advance. For instance, heading into the 2025 season, the next rookie draft will be your 2026 picks. While making trades, 2027 and 2028 rookie picks will be considerably cheaper than 2025 picks. In a dynasty league, investing in these assets (in exchange for expiring veterans) at their price is good for rebuilding because they are guaranteed to gain value as time passes. However, the future classes might be seen differently based on different positional strengths. The 2024 RB class was very different than 2025s and 2024s historical WR crop should cause you to pause and consider if you are trading away that type of class.
Create a list of future draft assets and compare how the rookie drafts have fared recently in your league. Future picks can be alluring but putting actual names and a range of outcomes to these players takes you out of fantasy land.
Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
As you inch closer to your rookie draft, your 3rd and 4th round picks get more and more valuable solely on the merit of NFL Draft hype. The hit rate of these players is downright abysmal, especially at the WR position. Going back to 2015, the “hit rate” of 3rd round WRs producing at least one top-36 fantasy season in their career is below 17 %. For every Terry McLaurin, Stefon Diggs, and Diontae Johnson taken in the third round of rookie drafts… You likely won’t be kicking yourself for not taking your shot on this year’s Javon Baker, Malachi Corley, or Dylan Laube. Chances are those 2024 rookies are buried on your bench or maybe even your league’s waiver wire right now.
Cashing In On Veterans
For your team, are you rebuilding? Are you a contender? Does it make sense to hoard a 27-year-old WR on his 4th team on your bench knowing your bench lacks any upside? Calvin Austin III might have a shot to be the WR2 for Pittsburgh. However, he isn’t helping your team at all. Dropping players is often a fear-based game (“you can’t cut that guy!”) while recognizing 85% of your roster while be turned over within 3-4 years.
We often see managers mistakenly label their teams as rebuilding or “must-sell” without realizing the context of league turnover and not taking advantage of windows of opportunity.
- Create a simple list and assess where each member is: Juggernauts, Contenders, Wildcards, Rebuilds
- Identify archetypes of players or positions you need: Studs for Sale, Insurance RBs, Lottery Ticket WRs, QB2/3s
- Make sure you are not just honing in on ONE player/team.
Find a range of what a player might be worth. I mentioned on the recent podcast that someone like Terry McLaurin might be worth a 1st + another young player to you while someone in your league might see it more as a young player (RB/WR) and a 2nd round rookie pick. What is his exact value? No one knows but starting the negotiation asking for more than what you think is a good starting place.
Comparing players across positions is what ultimately allows you to “see the draft board” in a dynasty startup draft or in trades. You might have three WRs available in tier 2 while only one RB is left in your tier 3. Based on your roster construction so far in your draft, identifying who is “left” in that tier is quite easy. Some tiers are larger than others. While Tier 1 might only include 3-4 WRs, the third tier might have up to 12 names! Depending on where you feel comfortable, these tiers allow you to stretch yourself in the draft (or in trades) and gain an edge over your opponent.
There also will be a juxtaposition of both young players and old guys next to each other. There is nothing wrong with that! Are Garrett Wilson and A.J. Brown in different stages of their career? You bet. The question of tiering them together is assessing what value both have in trades AND on a starting roster. Are they similar? These are different career arcs, player types, and ages and yet they might fetch the same value. The keyword there is might because (going back to Point #1) dynasty values are arbitrary.
Conclusion
Have conviction and a plan in place for trading. Getting into the playoffs can be the springboard for your team making an awesome playoff run. Ask someone in our Discord to evaluate your team and see if you are seeing your team in the right light. You might think you need to rebuild when the assets are there for your team to go for one more championship run. All you might need is another bench piece or two to take your team over the top!
The biggest issue in dynasty world is the level of groupthink running rampant. You saw one tweet from one list and forever this player is entrenched in a certain tier. We are quick to make up our minds and too slow to change them. This is true in almost anything in life. We tend to want to hear what we want to hear from the news sources, Twitter accounts, and friends that sound most like us. For players, we love what they could be and fall in love with potential or we close the door too early.
from Fantasy Footballers Podcast https://ift.tt/i89LfRz
Reviewed by Admin
on
June 18, 2025
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