So, yeah. I was in the office in the 48-foot trailer (movie biz thing, hard to explain) in the middle of a lightning delay while working on a pilot for a Netflix reboot of A Different World. I paused, flicking my flip-up sunglasses upward with the back of my forefinger. No doubt, I had a glazed look in my eye, hair disheveled, reaching for and slamming my Gatorade to quench a sudden thirst I had developed. Was I about to do this? Was I about to light several picks on fire for one football player? Did it make sense, I wondered? Had I gotten lost in the excitement, tossing chips in on two pair because I’d already thrown the last two in? Was this the fantasy football equivalent of leaving five long messages on a woman’s voicemail the night you met her?
Maybe? Is that so bad?
I had made my peace. I was in. I sent the text. It was done.
CUT TO (FLASHBACK):
A TRIO OF CANDIDATES EMERGE
Weeks earlier, I had identified three promising candidates managed by owners who demonstrated a willingness to trade with me: Puka Nacua, Drake London, and Ladd McConkey.
To be clear, I like all three; they all fit the mold I’m looking for, but I have to be disciplined and recognize that they are in different tiers, so I can’t just play this as a first-come/first-served situation.
Nacua has recorded the best two seasons in terms of PPR/G, targets/G, receptions/G, receiving YDS/G, market share, and receiving EP/G. All three WRs are within seven months of each other in age, so there’s not a huge difference there. London and McConkey have superior real-world draft capital investments, but Nacua is already two-for-two on productive seasons and has surpassed them in every way.
RotoViz dynasty ranks have Nacua and London back-to-back, but in separate tiers — exactly how I’d have it, though I’d slice things a bit differently. For me, Tier 1 is Ja’Marr Chase, Malik Nabers, and Justin Jefferson. Tier 2 is CeeDee Lamb, Brian Thomas Jr., Nacua, and I actually have Amon-Ra St. Brown in that group as well.
RotoViz ranks have McConkey one tier down from London in Tier 3. Again, my tiers are narrower, so I have Nico Collins and London in Tier 3, and then it opens up. I would place McConkey in the next cluster, so I would agree that he is one tier down from London.
Based on RotoViz’s gold-standard valuations, Nacua is priced at three firsts, London at two, and McConkey at a first and a second. Even in my narrower quarter-PPR home league, I largely agree with these appraisals. This is due to two reasons: WR profiles are more stable year over year, with the same narrow band of players consistently appearing near the positional apex, making them more predictable. Additionally, the number of profiles that point to that sort of thing is scarce in almost any format that exists. All due respect to DeVonta Smith, who is a fine player; he is simply more replaceable in fantasy than the absolute league-crushers at the top.
This is a home league, so I can text or call every manager directly. I always try to open with a faithful offer, no matter what. Sure, I’ve sweetened deals before — but not because I lowballed, then became more realistic. It’s more about realizing what I’m actually willing to pay after a real negotiation has pushed me to an inflection point (spoiler alert: that is what happened here).
The London and McConkey owners, Anthony and Brian, initially fit the bill, but the more we talked, the more negotiations fell apart. I am less inclined to overpay the further I get from the positional apex, so I wanted these players at value.
By the time I was getting no traction from Anthony by “hypothetically” sending over Josh Downs and my next two firsts, I knew it wasn’t going to work out for McConkey.
As my conversations with Brian regarding London went deeper, he began to express an ever-deepening resistance to giving up on the season before it began and eventually changed his mind.
And so, it was Nacua or bust. It was fine; he was the one I wanted anyway.
Nacua has a very high chance at the positional apex if he can remain healthy. For a player like this, I’m always willing to overpay. Generally, my draft philosophy across all formats is apex drafting, which states that we should always be willing to vacate the middle of the field to take more shots at the top. There is almost no limit to how many middling assets I would give to have a player like Nacua, who could legitimately score the most points of any flex-eligible player in a single-QB league. Meanwhile, middling assets are attainable on the fly, and by the end of the year, I would fully expect to have rebuilt the floor at the back of my roster.
And so, I gave myself one hard-line thesis: I would avoid sacrificing three first-round picks (or breaking into my 2028 stockpile at all) if possible, even if it meant trading several, if not all, of the other seconds for the next two seasons. As far as thirds or fourths go? Forget it. He can have them all.
THE SUBTLE ART OF FANNING OUT YOUR WALLET SLOWLY, ONLY TO LAY EVERY BILL IN IT ON THE COUNTER ANYWAY
The Nacua owner, A.J., is a savvy manager; he’s just currently kind of stuck in dynasty purgatory. I didn’t want to insult him, but I aimed to open with an offer that, while fair, favored my own goals. With Nacua incoming, I’d have a WR surplus, and perhaps he’d be incentivized to attempt to offset some of the WR value he’d be sending away. Two firsts plus a young WR with real promise felt like a reasonable starting point. Since I wasn’t moving my top two WRs, Thomas or Rashee Rice, the candidate had to be Downs.
Evaluating Downs is tricky. His underlying metrics are borderline excellent, but his situation is complicated. He leads the NFL in slot rate, which can limit his routes in 12-personnel sets, and his QB play remains inconsistent. Still, his youth and efficiency suggest a brighter tomorrow. Even in a format where WRs are slightly deprioritized, I believe Downs could fetch a third from managers wary of his situation — or a second from those who see him as a young Chris Godwin in waiting. That value range made him a logical inclusion in a deal where I was already paying up with picks.
