For the 2023 season, the Dynasty Commander, Curtis Patrick, will be bringing you his weekly must-read musing on the state of the dynasty landscape and how you can exploit it on the macro and micro levels.
With redraft, best ball, DFS and more, the NFL season is a riot of color, information, and scoring, but we know that for many of our subscribers, their first love is still dynasty. As a result, I’ve set myself this goal for the new season: write the best damn dynasty article in the business every week. That’s right, the Dynasty Commander is BACK.
Dynasty fantasy football will be my entire in-season focus, at least from a written content perspective.[1] Faithful listeners of the RotoViz Fantasy Podcast can still get my redraft takes, start-sit opinions, and weekly player projections review in audio form.
Dynasty Command Center will be my weekly workshop that helps bring readers championship strategies from the pod, the DCC community, and the RV lessons. Dynasty Command Center is about helping you find those next superstars before their price spikes in trade discussions. I’ll hit risers, fallers, trade targets, waiver priorities, future prospects, strategies, tactics, and also share random thoughts and observations. It’s everything dynasty all-in-one place.
Let’s level-set on a key point before we start.
With the fantastic game providers over at the FFPC, I put together the RotoViz TriFlex Dynasty Leagues, the premier high stakes dynasty format in the industry. I’ll commonly refer to TriFlex in this series. TriFlex is similar to a traditional superflex dynasty league, with a few key caveats:
- TE premium scoring
- slightly shorter benches
- mandatory cut-downs
- more rounds in rookie drafts
- opportunities for high dollar buy-ins
If you’re not already familiar with the full league settings for this format, I’ve included a more robust rundown at the end of this article.
Our dynasty ADP tools at RotoViz also default to this format, though you can change the settings to a “myfantasyleague” style league with the toggles.
I also play in many non-TriFlex dynasty leagues and will cover strategies and tactics for those formats, too.
Now, let’s get to it.
Dynasty Command Center: 2023 – Week 1
Risers
2023 Rookies
A few things will happen in Week 1 that will increase the dynasty value of many 2023 NFL rookies.
Early-round rookies who earned starting roles are going to start scoring fantasy points, so they’ll get a “lineup value” bonus that dynasty managers give without realizing it. This lineup value bonus is that confidence you have when submitting your lineup each week with a strong idea in mind of what certain players will probably bring to the table.
Rookies who are the most mis-priced in the market will rise most sharply. This will eliminate gaps between the elite rookies at the same position.
Bijan Robinson has been commonly selected in the first round of TriFlex dynasty startup drafts on FFPC since April. Jahmyr Gibbs closed the gap between the two players after being selected in the first round of the NFL Draft, but is still routinely falling into the third round of late summer startups. While Robinson is probably already near his value apex (he’s valued above all non-quarterbacks except Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase), Gibbs has plenty of room to run. All Gibbs has to do is play his first game and be deployed in a prominent role and he’ll accrue something like a round and a half of dynasty startup value. Talk about instant roster equity.
This same dynamic is going to occur with the top wide receivers.
Because of the depth of the wide receiver room in Los Angeles, I don’t expect Quentin Johnston to break out in Week 1, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he made a splash play or two. Seasoned dynasty managers know premier rookies usually hold their value throughout their first season regardless of production, so even if he starts slow, there’s no cause for concern.
However, Zay Flowers and Jordan Addison are expected to be deployed as their teams’ No. 2 or No. 3 passing weapons immediately. If we see five or six targets and some meaningful fantasy production from either of these players, expect them to climb towards Jaxon Smith-Njigba rapidly.
Another group that could compress in value after our first glimpse of real action? The rookie quarterbacks.
Anthony Richardson’s price is insane right now. I love his rushing upside and his strong arm has the potential to generate tons of big plays on the indoor fast track in Indianapolis. However, he’s still a huge unknown from a floor perspective,[2] and the Colts seem to be a team with misaligned priorities among various levels of brass. Because he’s already priced as a first-round startup pick, this is a situation where if he comes out and looks really bad, he will fall a bit towards Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud, who are underpriced in comparison given the relative strength of their prospect profiles versus Richardson’s.
The latter pair will definitely climb towards Richardson with merely decent play.
Rookie tight ends are going to be watched with tons of anticipation as many are primed for usage immediately, including Dalton Kincaid, Sam LaPorta, Michael Mayer, and Luke Musgrave.
I’m particularly interested in Musgrave, and so are many others based on his late summer steam in redraft and best ball ADP. I received three dynasty trade offers for Musgrave in different leagues over the past month.
2024 Rookie Picks
With the college football season underway, future prospects are no longer just names on message boards, they are players putting up stats and filling up highlight reels. This creates dynasty fantasy football buzz.
- Generally, rookie picks will gain more value every week of the fantasy football season, with an appreciable spike around trade deadline time, for a few reasons:
- We’ll have almost an entire additional full season of college football to analyze by then.
- The more information we gather on players, the greater confidence we gain in projecting NFL Draft capital for the following season.
- As more offensive skill players build Day 1 and Day 2 resumes, the more value dynasty rookie picks gain.
- From an in-season competitive standpoint, non-playoff dynasty managers for the given year start to de-prioritize players nearing or beyond positional age cliffs, which creates trade activity.
From this week forward, picks will be worth more and more, so pay attention. Even if you don’t watch college football, you’ll want to start familiarizing yourself with the biggest names in the sport.
Check out this pair of 2024 draft-eligible prospect quarterbacks to get you started on 2024 rookie draft prep.
