Don't Let Go: Players Not To Drop Yet In Dynasty

September 6, 2021

Justin Carter identifies players to hold in dynasty leagues to start the 2021 season. These players could still have fantasy football value as sleepers and bench stashes.

It can be really tempting to drop an underperforming player in dynasty. That's not always the best decision, though.

Players who seem droppable on the surface sometimes aren't in the wild world of dynasty leagues, where a changing situation could suddenly give someone value.

Below, you'll find four players you may be dropping that you shouldn't in dynasty leagues.

Mitchell Trubisky, Buffalo Bills

In single-QB dynasty leagues, you may have been tempted to drop Mitch Trubisky after the Bears moved on from him. And hey -- I feel you. He wasn't very good in Chicago, and he wound up in a backup role.

But that backup role is in Buffalo, where he'll spend at least the next year working with a coaching staff that took another physically gifted but often inaccurate quarterback and turned him into one of the NFL's best players.

Trubisky isn't Josh Allen, but they share enough similarities that make me think he can be your Allen Lite if anything happens to Buffalo's starter. And a year with this coaching staff could put Trubisky in a position to find a starting job in 2022, though he'd obviously have to win a quarterback competition because no one is just signing him to be their starter.

Also worth noting, even if it doesn't mean much: Trubisky has looked good this preseason! Against the Bears, he was 20-for-28 for 221 yards and a touchdown, plus he added 11 rushing yards.

Trubisky has shown some foot speed in the past, and in 2018 he had 421 rushing yards and three touchdowns. I get that as a passer he's thrown too many interceptions, but he's still fairly young and...well, let's just say that there's a chance some of the blame for Trubisky's performance could be given to the Bears coaching staff for not taking advantage of the things he can do.

Dede Westbrook, Minnesota Vikings

Of the four players on this list, this is probably the one that'll get me the most hate. The other three players have better arguments for not being dropped. Westbrook...yeah, I don't know. Chalk this one up to a feeling.

We know that the Vikings are a bad landing spot for fantasy wide receivers, as this team has only sustained two fantasy-relevant receivers per year over the past few seasons.

But one of those receivers, Adam Thielen, just turned 31. He's under contract through 24, but his dead cap number goes down each year. Thielen isn't the most physically talented receiver, so I'm not going to sit here and be confident in his ability to be good for the rest of that contract.

That's why I'm just barely hanging onto Westbrook. He's three years younger than Thielen and has the ability to play in the slot, and while he's only under contract for 2021, once he comes off the PUP list, there's a very good chance he's instantly the third-best receiver on this team. Make a good impression. Stick around in the future. Have an outside shot at fantasy relevance on a team where being one of the top two receivers means you're going to get a lot of looks.

Cameron Brate, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Tight end is a wasteland. The Buccaneers have Rob Gronkowski and O.J. Howard, but Gronk's already retired once and Howard is trying to come back from an Achilles tear. Achilles tears are bad news for players who rely on athleticism, and athleticism has always been the thing that's given people hope in Howard emerging as a top tight end.

That leaves Brate in an interesting spot.

Sure, he just turned 30, and sure, he plays in an offensive system that traditionally hasn't been great for tight ends, but with Tom Brady under center, the Bucs were actually sixth in the NFL in targets to tight ends last year.

Brate was targeted 34 times, making him the 11th-most targeted TE2. Yeah, that's a super weird stat, but as long as Brate remains a reliable backup tight end on a team that is using the position more and more, he has to remain at least somewhat on your radar, even if you don't necessarily feel great about him.

Let's also not forget that Brate has two top-10 positional finishes, most recently in 2017. That wasn't really that long ago, was it?

Hold onto him for a little bit longer.

Josh Rosen - Quarterback, Atlanta Falcons

SUPERFLEX ONLY ALERT SUPERFLEX ONLY ALERT SUPERFLEX ONLY ALERT

In a normal, one-QB dynasty league, I'm dropping Rosen. But in SuperFlex, we landed in basically the one spot where I might have some interest.

Atlanta is still quarterbacked by Matt Ryan, a guy who is too good and too expensive to move on from. I mean, look at his dead cap number next year, per SpoTrac:

Additionally, Ryan's good enough to get the Falcons out of the race for the No. 1 overall pick, and the 2022 NFL Draft looks to be a pretty weak one at quarterback.

So with Rosen landing in Atlanta and looking solid in the preseason, there's some upside here. The former first-round pick is third on the depth chart right now behind Ryan and Feleipe Franks, but if you believe that Rosen would offer the Falcons a more solid choice at QB in the event of a Ryan injury -- and I do -- then you almost need to hold on if you have the roster space.

And with the Falcons not in a position to move on from Ryan without eating a ton of money until 2023, there's plenty of time for Rosen to do something he's never had the chance to do in the NFL: get comfortable in a system and get a chance to show why he was a highly-touted prospect out of UCLA.

If the Falcons can get back to being a team that finishes around .500 like they were in 2018 and 2019, then it'll be hard to find a can't-miss QB in the draft. Maybe that could allow space for Rosen to compete for the starting job in 2023.

Or I'm just blowing smoke here because I'm still refusing to admit how wrong I was when I thought Rosen would be better than Josh Allen. I don't know. Maybe it's a little of both.

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