Go for the Win: Selling Your Draft Stock

Hello and welcome to my first write up as a member of the Going for 2 team. As you continue to read anything I write, my goal is to get you to expand your thinking, offer up some aggressive (some may call it VERY aggressive…conformists…) dynasty advice, and help you take home your championship title as well as become richer. I also enjoy providing trade advice, so feel free to give me a shout if you’d like some insight.

This writeup discusses an aggressive strategy that’s paved the way for me to be in a championship game five times in three leagues over three years: selling your next year’s draft picks during or after a dynasty startup. Insane, right? Let’s take such an outrageous idea and simplify it. Would you rather have draft picks next year or, at the very least, have a shot at winning the title? For me, the answer is very simple.

Here is a list of players I’ve acquired by moving draft picks early and often over the three years in dynasty leagues, which involved 1-2 future first-rounders next year and occasionally mid-tier players thrown in:

• Nick Chubb
• Keenan Allen
• Christian McCaffrey (before he broke out)
• Davante Adams
• Allen Robinson
• Derrick Henry (before he broke out)
• Julio Jones
• Evan Engram
• Devonta Freeman
• Adam Thielen
• Michael Thomas

Lots of teams try to stockpile draft picks and trade them again for additional players or they get excited about the upcoming draft classes. Problem is that I am after the win, which typically makes these draft picks a late selection each round, limiting the rookie selections and their respective upside.

Major cons to this strategy:

• Being top-heavy, if injuries happen, lack of depth creates a huge hole
• Being top-heavy forces overpayment of future trades (i.e., a player poised to break out or one you want to gamble one)
• Receive bad trade offers more frequently
• Risking a major setback in your team’s future if it fails miserably (hasn’t let me down to that extent)
• If your team gets a lot of injuries early on, common sense says to avoid this strategy until next season

There are two MAJOR things to keep in mind if you are nervous about trading your capital. First, you can usually get the respective round draft picks you trade back at a later point—even draft day! Second, rookies don’t always hit or injuries happen. For example, let’s look at the 2018 draft class. How many drafts did you see Derrius Guice, Royce Freeman, Sony Michel, Rashaad Penny or Anthony Miller get taken within the 1.2-1.6 range and those same picks were acquired by seeing a few of the names mentioned in my list above get acquired in a deal? Ouch. You can argue that names like D.J. Moore, Michael Gallup, Courland Sutton, and Calvin Ridley went later—the same picks that I end up trading, and I’d tell you that you’re proving my point. It’d be a lot easier to trade back into those later selections in the draft than the first six selections mentioned, thus maximizing value in both trades you make.

You could make a similar argument for the 2019 draft class with N’Keal Harry, Parris Campbell, Noah Fant, T.J. Hockenson, Hakeem Butler, Andy Isabella, and even Deebo Samuel. Although there is some solid breakout potential left, a lot of these players are dismissed or can be acquired for a lot less than the price it cost to get rid of an already-established stud. You play the wait game, I’ll go for my championship run. None of those rookies got me into the championship prior to the respective year’s draft. Give me the surefire long-term talent upfront over buying into the rookie hype. If I like a guy, I’ll then have that talent on hand to trade and make my team younger, stay competitive, or start my rebuild (I’m yet to need to do this so far). In summary, you literally take control of your team’s direction with this strategy while procuring high upside building blocks.

Have you tried this strategy? What’s one of your dynasty strategies you enjoy using that’s been successful for you? Have you fallen victim to being the team who moves their stud for rookie selection(s)? Let’s talk about it.

Jarred (@ricco_3733) has over four years of dynasty fantasy football experience, including three years in full IDP dynasty formats. He’s been providing weekly start/sit advice for two years during the NFL season and is always one tweet or an email away (riccadonna3733@hotmail.com) for any advice. Be sure to follow him and the @GoingFor_2 team on Twitter.

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