Right after the season, recency bias is at an all-time high, as people overreact to what they just saw. It’s only human nature, after all. But this is how championship-worthy dynasty rosters are built. This is when the strong prey on the weak. You might say it’s even cruel to take advantage of someone the way you will, but hey, we’re here to dominate the competition, and that’s what we’re going to do.
As dynasty drafts rapidly approach, the trade winds will start to blow (if they haven’t already). Your inbox will be littered with offers for your best players while someone tries to unload depth to make room for their incoming rookies. Instead of just blowing them off, let’s take a look to see if there are certain players on their rosters.
Below you’ll find quarterbacks to target at their lowest point, as well as others you should look to get rid of before their stock trends in the wrong direction. And just because someone is here as a buy, it doesn’t mean that you give up the world to get them, because we are trying to buy low, remember? We’ll focus on the other positions throughout the rest of this week.
Quarterbacks to Buy
Andy Dalton (QB – CIN)
Bad offensive lines can affect a lot, and that seems to be the story of the off-season with Dalton as he lost two of his starting lineman, including Pro-Bowl left tackle, Andrew Whitworth. It’s definitely going to hurt the run game, but does it affect Dalton’s fantasy numbers? Not really, considering that four of the top eight fantasy quarterbacks from 2016 were among the top-seven most sacked quarterbacks. The Bengals re-signed Brandon LaFell and then drafted John Ross and pass-catching running back Joe Mixon, adding to Dalton’s arsenal. Not to mention he will finally have a healthy Tyler Eifert to start the season. We could see Dalton turn back time to his 2013 season where he finished as the No. 3 quarterback. Fun fact: He’s never finished worse than the No. 18 quarterback, yet his ADP is right there at 18.
Russell Wilson (QB – SEA)
Before starting this article, I started going around my personal leagues, seeing what it would take to acquire Wilson. I wound up getting him in one league as part of a huge blockbuster trade and it cost me roughly Drew Brees and Adrian Peterson. He’s 28-years-old and is coming off his worst season as a pro where he finished with 21 touchdowns and 11 interceptions while essentially playing on one leg for half the season. He also managed to throw for 7.7 yards per attempt (sixth in NFL) despite throwing to an incompetent Jermaine Kearse who is likely going to be booted from the starting lineup. Replace him with Paul Richardson, add in pass-catchers C.J. Prosise and Eddie Lacy, and Wilson might just return to the top-three quarterback he was the prior two seasons.
Quarterbacks to Sell
Cam Newton (QB – CAR)
Every time I look at dynasty ADP, I’m shocked that Newton’s name hasn’t moved down the board. He’s now finished as the No. 17 quarterback in two of the last three seasons, which is something that just doesn’t happen with elite quarterbacks. And it’s not like he missed many games (has only missed three games in his career), so that’s not the issue. Greg Olsen is getting older, Kelvin Benjamin is getting bigger (reports have surfaced that his weight is around 280), and the Panthers just essentially drafted two running backs in Christian McCaffrey and Curtis Samuel. It’s clear they want to re-establish the run as well as give Newton options in the passing game, but he’ll need to change the way he’s done things in the past. That includes subtracting a lot of his rushing totals, which takes away what he does best. He’s not worth anything near his No. 4 quarterback ADP.
Matt Ryan (QB – ATL)
Let me start by saying I love Ryan as a quarterback, just don’t love him in fantasy as much as most do after last year. Throughout his career, Ryan’s touchdown percentage has ranged anywhere from 3.4 percent to 5.2 percent, which isn’t the largest spread considering he had a decent sample size with eight seasons prior to 2016. He threw a touchdown on 7.1 percent of his throws last year, which was a 27 percent increase on his previous career-high. He’s a rock-solid quarterback for consistency, but don’t expect him to finish as a top-three quarterback in fantasy again.
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Mike Tagliere is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeTagliereNFL.