RADIO
Ahh, the NFL preseason. It's a great time to watch third-stringers play football and to fill in the gaps on your dynasty rosters by picking up players off of the waiver wire who are having good camps/preseason.
There's a downside to that, which is that to add a player, you have to drop a player. And sometimes, those players that we're dropping are players who we probably shouldn't be dropping.
Below, you'll find five players who are currently at the tail-end of dynasty rosters and might be on your chopping block, but who you should try to hold onto if possible.
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N'Keal Harry - WR - Chicago Bears
Alright, let's start with an easy one. You probably aren't dropping Harry in dynasty right now. If you did drop him, you did it before he was traded to Chicago. Now you're holding him, and you aren't feeling great about it because of his past production issues, but you're still doing it.
And that's what I'm here to tell you: keep doing it. Harry has been a disappointment, but two of his three NFL seasons have come when playing for the post-Brady Patriots. That wasn't a team that had a great passing game. Sure, Harry not being on the field much shows that he couldn't beat out other players for playing time, but it's hard to know how to really make sense of his lack of numbers and his 18.1 yards per game over his three seasons.
What we do know is this: Harry's a 24-year-old former first-round pick who is heading to a new situation. That new situation has huge holes at wide receiver. Harry could finally get a chance to see the field. Once he's on it, I'm not sure I trust him to do much with it, but there's at least enough intrigue here to hold onto Harry if you have the roster space for it.
Jonnu Smith - TE - New England Patriots
I've long been on the Jonnu Smith bandwagon, even after I should have gotten off of it. He's now played five NFL seasons and has yet to do much, topping out at 41 catches for 448 yards and eight touchdowns in 2020.
Smith looked like someone who had a breakout in him after that season, and then he signed with the Patriots for 2021 and it looked like it maybe could have happened...if the Patriots hadn't also signed Hunter Henry. Instead, Smith's 2021 season was another disappointment. He was targeted 45 times, catching 28 passes for 294 yards and a touchdown.
However, Smith is still a fast player who had some interesting metrics last year. Per PlayerProfiler, he was sixth among tight ends in fantasy points per route run — when he was on the field and was out there in the passing game, he produced. That just didn't happen enough.
Will that change? Who knows, really. It's probably unlikely, but with tight end being such a desolate position, I'm holding on a little hope...and keeping him on the end of that bench.
Ameer Abdullah - RB - Las Vegas Raiders
It's hard to know how much to read into this thing Albert Breer said about Raiders camp:
If there's some truth to that, the "James White" role is a really intriguing role to have. White had five seasons in a row in New England with at least 62 targets in an offense that featured a ton of designed pass plays to target the primary passing-down running back.
Josh McDaniels, who had a huge role in shaping that Patriots offense, is the Raiders head coach, so if someone is really going to have a role that resembles White, you probably want to take notice.
Abdullah is already 29 years old, which is probably why he's out there on the waiver wire in so many leagues. If he's still on your roster, hold on. If he can prove to reliably work in that James White role, he could theoretically hang on in this offense for a few years. It's a big if, but with how deep some dynasty rosters are, I'll take a wait-and-see approach with Abdullah.
Gardner Minshew - QB - Philadelphia Eagles
Note: This is exclusively about Superflex dynasty leagues. You probably can drop Minshew in one-QB dynasty leagues, unless the waiver wire is just completely barren there.
One of the worst things you can do in a Superflex dynasty league is to drop a solid young quarterback just because he's no longer starting. A great example of that is Gardner Minshew from the Eagles. Will he start for Philly? Not unless there's an injury to Jalen Hurts, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have long-term value.
Last year, Mitchell Trubisky ended up in Buffalo, backing up Josh Allen. If you had dropped him at that point because you thought "well, no way he ever starts over Allen," you would have been dropping someone who is now a starter somewhere else one year later.
Minshew is in a little different situation than Trubisky is, as he's entering his second season as a backup. A path for Minshew to a starter job somewhere else looks pretty murky, especially when you factor in that Trubisky's free agency this offseason happened during a down year for rookie quarterbacks.
Still, Minshew looked good in his limited action last season, completing 68.3% of his passes with four touchdowns and one pick. He's also been pretty good at avoiding turnovers. Minshew could definitely land somewhere in the future where he can be a bridge QB, kind of like Jared Goff in Detroit right now. In Superflex, that would be a really valuable role.
Kene Nwangwu - RB - Minnesota Vikings
The Vikings have a problem. It's called "having too many good running backs but not being able to use them because their No. 1 running back is Dalvin Cook."
There's really no fantasy value for Nwangwu this year. Cook is the starter. Alexander Mattison will see Cook-like usage if Cook goes down with an injury. Nwangwu needs two injuries to have any fantasy relevance. But here's the thing: if you watch Nwangwu play football, you can see the talent.
Nwangwu had just 13 carries as a rookie. He's third on the depth chart with no path up this year. However, Mattison is a free agent after this season and will definitely entertain offers elsewhere. Nwangwu has an easy path to the best handcuff role in football in 2023. Don't drop him just because 2021 was bad and 2022 will likely be bad too.
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