NFL Dynasty: Why Rookie Draft Tiers Are so Important

In dynasty fantasy football, rookie drafts are one of the best times of the year. Fantasy managers wait for months during the offseason evaluating prospects, identifying sleepers, and trying to plant their flag on “their guys.”

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Identifying Rookie Tier Breaks

While it is very important to be aware of which prospects you like and dislike, I believe the most important aspect of rookie drafting well is identifying tier breaks.

Tier breaks are a crucial part of drafting for a few reasons. One, you can identify players that are in tiers that you like more than consensus or less than consensus. This thought process allows you to decide whether you need to trade up, trade back, or stay put based on how you value the tiers versus ADP.

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Second, tier based drafting is huge for understanding trade value for trading rookie picks on draft day. For example, in this year’s draft there is a pretty sizable tier drop from the 1.03 to the 1.04. At picks 1-3 you’ll likely be seeing Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields, and Najee Harris off the board as of now.

The tiers there are very important because those 3 are by far the most sought after in this draft class. Applying this knowledge, for example you have pick 1.02 in your rookie draft but you really love Zach Wilson or Kyle Pitts. In this scenario you’ve done your research and discovered you like these players more than ADP consensus, so it would benefit you more to trade back to around pick 1.06-1.08 and you’ll likely still have your favorite players on the board.

Trading Up/Down in Your NFL Dynasty Draft

Why is trading up, or back so important in understanding tiers? The answer is simple really, think of the real life NFL draft. Every year we see teams evaluate in tier based systems and rankings similar to how we evaluate for our rookie drafts in fantasy football. Teams see where other GMs are valuing players around the league and move up, or back accordingly.

The biggest thing I want you to come away from this article with is, TRADE BACK IF YOU CAN!!! The Miami Dolphins are a prime example of how to maneuver in this territory. The Dolphins had the 3rd overall pick in the draft, but they knew that a QB hungry team like SF would be willing to trade up to the 3rd pick to take their new franchise guy. They managed to get an extra first round pick, to move back just 3 spots to pick number 6 and they’re likely in striking position to draft the same player they wanted all along. In other words, be like the Dolphins.

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One pick I really have my eye on is number 3 overall. Here are the current odds:

Mac Jones (Alabama) -230

Justin Fields (Ohio State) +180

Trey Lance (North Dakota State) +400

Zach Wilson (BYU) +2000