Week 9 Dynasty Fantasy Football Stock Watch: Justin Fields, Jonathan Taylor

Two young 23-year-old players rising and falling in dynasty trade value, yet they're both buys.

At roughly the midpoint of the 2022 fantasy football season, we should know whether our dynasty teams are contenders or pretenders. We can see how injuries are affecting us and others. What kind of depth we have at our disposal for these upcoming bye weeks. Whether we've been lucky or unlucky with scheduling.

Speaking of which, head-to-head scheduling can sometimes put you in a tough spot where you're among the top scorers in any given week, yet you just so happen to play a higher scorer. Those are always the toughest Ls to take. If you're going to lose, it's nice for the sweet relief of being down big heading into Monday Night Football. You can mentally move on, so to speak.

Rather than hit refresh incessantly waiting for Harrison Bryant to do ANYTHING against the Bengals on Monday night. David Njoku averages over seven targets per contest in Cleveland's last five games, yet Bryant gets no targets in the Browns' 32-13 drubbing of the Bengals—go figure. I digress.

But that aforementioned unfortunate scheduling is just the luck of the draw and it's out of our control—to an extent. I recommended setting up a extra game system. In Sleeper leagues, it's possible to set up your league to enable "Extra Game Each Week Against League Median." As explained in Sleeper support:

This option allows the top scoring teams of the week to gain an additional win, while the other half gets hit with a loss.

The purpose is to help create a fairer option for those times where you finish in the top half of scoring, but you still lost to someone who scored more than you. You would at least go 1-1 for the week instead of 0-1.

You can read more here about the specifics of how this works and extenuating circumstances that can occur like ties and how it doesn’t affect the playoffs.  I think this is a very reasonable option to limit the likelihood of luck affecting regular-season wins and playoff seeds. It also rewards teams that are really good and really bad as a streak of 2-0 or 0-2 results in consecutive weeks adds up fast.

As always, it's best to implement dynasty league changes during the offseason only after consulting your leaguemates with voting options. While you may not feel it necessary to have a league constitution (link to template), as it may feel a bit silly and overkill for a fun, mostly casual league, commissioners need to consider it, especially in leagues with cash prizes. Issues do tend to arise on a long enough timeline. Let's get back to the dynasty stock watch...

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QB Justin Fields, Chicago Bears
In a recent bold fantasy predictions for the second half of the season (written a few days before the Bears' Week 8 game against the Cowboys and published Sunday), I went against my own evaluation and said:

Fields turned a corner in Week 7. I'll admit I have an inflated sense of player evaluation, but the Bears never quite groomed this offense to fit his skill set. That is, until they did in Week 7 against the Patriots with RPO, moving him outside the pocket and using play action to challenge the defense to either respect the run game or challenge the secondary. I'm expecting an exciting second half and Chicago will push past the Packers in the NFC North standings—perhaps even into an NFC Wild Card spot.

I also talked about Justin Fields in my Week 8 cheat sheet. Now the former Ohio State product was already on a bit of a hot streak coming into the Dallas game, but given that the Cowboys have one of the best pass rushes and the Bears’ propensity to allow a ton of sacks, Fields didn’t figure to have a great game. But he did. I still feel Fields is a decent value as we’re witnessing a bit of a parallel to Jalen Hurts. Over a year ago, the Eagles were a run-centric team with limited talent at wide receiver. They drafted Devonta Smith and traded for A.J. Brown and now the Eagles have turned it around very quickly. Can the Bears follow the same trend? Maybe. They’re just two star receivers away after all (that’s a tongue-in-cheek joke, they are miles away from where the Eagles are now).

I’m willing to buy in because, as Fields has shown, we don’t need him to pass for 300 yards every week. When he can contribute 50-plus rushing yards with the occasional rushing TD, we only need something like 100 passing yards and one TD pass to break even every week. I go into slightly more detail about my thoughts on Fields in my Week 8 cheat sheet, but the gist of it boils down to an evolving offensive game plan that had failed him up to this point in his career. There’s been such a shift in how the Bears’ offense uses him, that my previous disdain for Fields has gone right out the window.

Fields has seen his superflex and 1QB dynasty trade value rise about 25% of the last month on FantasyCalc.com. Now, you can only put so much weight into trade calculators and such but Fantasy Calc does provide trade data points so you can see what a player is being traded for. Where the rubber meets the road if you will.

I recently traded an early 2023 1st for Fields in a superflex, which is a fair value, maybe even a borderline good deal in the coming days as Fields's value climbs. I'd stick with that as a price baseline.

Update (11/1, 1:30 p.m. ET): The Bears traded for Chase Claypool and while he hasn't been great lately, we quickly forget the fast hype surrounding him last season. Definitely a big upgrade to Chicago's receiver group and a natural fit as a vertical threat.

Price check: 2023 first + tack-on pick or player in superflex
Win-now: Hold
Rebuild: Buy

RB Jonathan Taylor, Indianapolis Colts
It doesn’t take long for the fantasy community to turn on a guy, does it? I suppose Jonathan Taylor has been mediocre and underwhelming according to our high standards for almost the entire season. But he’s coming off back-to-back monster seasons. He’s not even 24 yet! He’s only human, of flesh and blood he’s made.

The Colts have been a hot mess and after a great Week 1 against the Texans (31-161-1), it's been more lots of duds and no touchdowns. I believe, based on no evidence, that Taylor tweaked something in Week 2 when he only rushed nine times for 54 yards against the Jaguars. Then, he probably made it worse by playing on it for a couple weeks after feeling the pressure to perform. Then, he sat out a couple games because the injuries weren’t getting any better. Now, Taylor is in an offense that just fired its offensive coordinator, Marcus Brady, earlier Tuesday morning and is relying on a 2021 sixth-round, second-year quarterback.

Now, did Taylor suddenly lose a quarter of his talent? No. So why is trade value down the drain at that rate? Every player experiences in-season performance volatility and this is a team sport. The Colts are the problem, not Taylor. So in case it's not clear, I'll say it more clearly: Taylor is a hold or buy. He's still a few months away from his 24th birthday and he's a couple months removed from being the top dynasty running back commodity. Is Nyheim Hines going to take over this backfield? Deon Jackson? Are the Colts going to use high draft capital to displace Taylor? Of course not. He's still got another year on his rookie deal. We can't just think about right now, we have to try to maintain a long view, which includes Taylor having another presidential term's worth of prime seasons. Even though Taylor's trade value is the sixth-highest on Fantasy Calc, it's fallen sharply and he remains a buy across the board. Your mileage may vary of course, as some managers may be more or less bought into Taylor's short-term struggles and unreal expectations.

Price check: Two 2023 firsts (on the high-end of a low-ball but we don't want to overpay here)
Win-now: Hold/Buy
Rebuild: Hold/Buy