Hi, All it’s @LiveFromTheBen here ready to give you his Dynasty Hot Takes for the 2021 season. These takes are so spicy they’ll even give you a leg up on your redraft leagues!
- At the end of the 2021 season, Ceedee Lamb is Dynasty fantasy football overall wide receiver one after in SF PPR after finishing the season as the redraft fantasy WR1. Maybe I’m buying the hype from Hard Knocks watching Ceedee make those spectacular catches, but this is a take I’m all in on. I’m not going to go into the prorated numbers from when Dak Prescott was healthy because at that time, Dak was on pace for over 6000 yards passing, and that wasn’t going to hold up. When I watch Ceedee play, he looks like a more dynamic version of Deandre Hopkins at his best. Combine that with a Quarterback entering his prime and another WR in Amari Cooper who is good enough to draw plenty of attention himself; it’s wheels up for Ceedee. Ceedee is a buy high, pay the price now, pay the price plus if you have to because 12 months from now, his value will be plus, plus, plus!
- Antonio Gibson finishes the 2021 season as a top-three running back in SF PPR. I was going to say top five but based on what I see on Twitter, I had to up it for the take to be scorching. For a talent like Gibson, who finished as the PPR running back 13 despite learning the RB position and only playing 37% of the Washington Football Teams offensive snaps, I’ll do that. In 14 games last year, Gibson rushed 170 times for 795 yards, 11 Touchdowns, and 36 catches from 44 targets and 247 yards. Despite primarily playing WR in college and people thinking he would make his most significant impact catching passes, JD Mckissic held that role for the Washington Football Team, catching 80 balls from 110 targets and 589 yards. With a more typical offseason where he can learn and get better at pass protection, I expect Gibson to take a good chunk of those targets that went to Mckissic. Then when you factor in more time learning the nuance of the running back position, the ceiling for Antonio Gibson is HUGE. The haters will say that 20% of his fantasy points last year came from one game. Week 12 against the Cowboys, I take it as a sign of things to come.
- TJ Hockenson breaks into the Tight End one-tier. TJ finished the 2020 season as the TE 5 overall in PPR. He has a stat line of 67 catches from 101 targets and 6 TDs. Now it might not seem that hot to say that tier two TE will break into tier one. However, the difference between a tier two TE and a tier four TE is pretty small, but the leap from tier two to Travis Kielce, George Kittle tier is a Grand Canyon. I’m confident Hockenson makes that leap. Jared Goff, who got traded to the Detroit Lions this offseason, loves to target the TE, and last year, the Rams primary two TE’s, Tyler Higbee and Gerald Everett, combined for 85 catches from 122 targets for 938 yards. Firstly Hockenson is way more talented than either of those TEs. Second, with the lack of talent at WR for the Lions, Hockenson is a pretty safe bet to see more than the 122 targets that Higbee and Everett got combined. I’m comfortable projecting Hockenson for 140 targets, which would project 93 catches for 1004 yards and 8 TD’s based on last year’s efficiency. A TE3 finish in PPR leagues. However, Hockenson has been lighting it up in camp, and those efficiency metrics are going to jump, leading to an even more productive season and Hockenson firmly establishing himself in that TE one-tier.
- Matthew Stafford finishes as a top-five quarterback. The arm strength and arm talent, the throwing angles, people forget that Matthew Stafford was Pat Mahomes before Pat Mahomes. His arm talent is that kind of crazy. The Detroit Lions were never able to harness it, never surrounded Stafford with a good enough roster. Forget what he’s done recently. Stafford is a QB who threw for over 5000 yards and 41 TD’s in his age 23 season. Maybe the arm isn’t quite as strong now as it was then, but he’s a better QB in every other way. Whilst he doesn’t have Calvin Johnson as he did back then, he has does Sean McVay. That might be even better. With the weapons at his disposal and McVay calling the plays, I think Stafford will have a year that approximates Aaron Rodgers’s 2020 season with the Packers. The efficiency won’t be at the Rodgers level, but the raw numbers will be. 4800 yards passing for 45 TDs and 10 interceptions are within reach. At only 33 years old with three to five years left playing QB, Stafford is a colossal buy-in dynasty at this current price.
- Denver wide receiver Jerry Jeudy finishes as a top 10 WR in SF PPR. When it comes to young stud WR emerging, we’ve all been ridiculously spoilt. Usually, the hype on a WR that finished his rookie season with 53 catches and 856 yards and 3 TD’s would be through the roof. However, he only had a 46% catch rate, with those 53 receptions coming on 113 targets. He has a total of 12 drops. His 17.6% drop rate is the highest of any receiver with at least 100 targets. Firstly Drops don’t matter. Second, 5 of Jerry Jeudy’s drops came in one game in week 16 against the chargers. He went 11 consecutive weeks without recording a single dropped pass. Jeudy was also extraordinarily unlucky, leading the league in targets deemed uncatchable with 26. That was 24 % of his targets.
47% of his 14 deep ball targets were considered uncatchable, and a massive 81% of his wide-open targets. This information comes from Pro Football Focus, who considered Jerry Jeudy the most unlucky WR of 2020. While Terry Bridgewater being named the Denver Broncos’ starter might stifle the Broncos offensive ceiling, I see it as a massive boom for a precise route runner like Jeudy. Check down Teddy is going to be throwing to Jeudy early and often. In the latest Sleeper SF PPR dynasty, ADP Jeudy is WR23, going off the board at 68.5 in the 6th round. Of all my dynasty hot takes, I think this makes him the steal of steals, buy him now for pennies on the dollar. You will get a top 10 WR finish in 2021, and you’ll have him next season when Aaron Rodgers is the Broncos is the starting QB.
