Dynasty Trade Value Chart: October

The Footballguys dynasty team had an interesting internal conversation this week about how often dynasty values should be updated during the season. There are real benefits to updating every week or two, since we learn so much once real games are being played, but there is also a cost, because a focus on constant updates can push you toward overreacting to one good or bad week. Different people will land on different answers. My own approach is to update my trade values weekly while staying extra aware that a weekly cadence makes me prone to over-adjusting to the normal ups and downs of a season.

That same tension sits at the heart of making good dynasty trades. You have to weigh the short-term outlook and what you are seeing each week against the long view of a player’s talent and pedigree, and neither side wins every time. If you got too caught up in the short-term feedback loop during Bryce Young’s first few seasons, you may have sold him near the bottom and are now watching from the sidelines as he puts together what looks like a true Year 4 breakout. On the other hand, Puka Nacua broke out immediately as a rookie and was still relatively cheap to acquire, because so many managers wrote off his hot start as a fluke (I traded a late future first for him in multiple leagues). Knowing when to trust the early returns and when to be patient is one of the hardest parts of playing dynasty.

One of the new things I have taken on for Footballguys this season is our rest-of-season projections. The first draft goes up each Tuesday morning, after a Monday night spent taking everything we just saw over the weekend and updating my assumptions about how good each offense actually is, its run-pass split, and how it projects against its remaining schedule. From there, I update each player’s availability (injuries), usage (carry and target shares), and efficiency (catch rate, touchdown rate, yards per target, and so on). It is a big task, but the changes in those projections from one week to the next have become the basis for the dynasty value adjustments I make every Tuesday afternoon. Since September 15th, I have updated more than 180 dynasty player values, and you can find the reasoning behind every one of them in the change log tab of the DTVC Plus tool.

This article is a good chance to take a further step back. Instead of focusing on any single week’s changes, I compared my preseason projections to my current rest-of-season projections now that we have reached the quarter point of the season, looking at the exact same stretch of games (Weeks 5 through 18) so the comparison is apples to apples. What stood out first is how much of the board held up. Twenty of my preseason top-24 running backs are still top 24 in the updated projections, as are 19 of my top-24 wide receivers and 9 of my top-12 tight ends. Quarterback saw the most turnover, with a third of my preseason top 12 dropping out. But where the projections did move, they moved a lot, and those players are where dynasty values have shifted the most.

That is the focus of this month’s article. At each position, I will walk through the biggest value movers since the September article was published, comparing each player’s value on September 1 to where he sits today, along with how his rest-of-season projection has changed and the reasoning behind the move. I also want to highlight one bigger-picture trend in the dynasty market at each position, because a few of them run against the conventional wisdom that has driven dynasty strategy the last few years.

Quarterbacks

We Know Less About Young Quarterbacks Than We Think

I have written about this idea a couple of times this offseason, and the first month of the season has only reinforced it. As a community, we tend to be far too confident in our evaluations of young quarterbacks, and that overconfidence cuts in both directions. After a season or two, we sort them into the sure things and the busts and then treat those labels as settled, when the history of the position says the range of outcomes is still very wide at that stage. 

Think about how quickly the dynasty market crowns young quarterbacks after a promising start. C.J. Stroud had a strong rookie season, and we decided he was worth the 1.02 pick in Superflex startups. A year later, we did the same thing with Jayden Daniels. Drake Maye took two years, but after a strong second season, he moved up to the QB2 spot in dynasty rankings. In each case, the market underestimated the risk that a young quarterback is not able to build on a promising start, or that NFL defensive coordinators figure out what he does well and find ways to slow him down. This season, Daniels is injured again, Stroud is averaging 17.1 fantasy points per game and ranks QB19 in my rest-of-season projections, and Maye is averaging just 11.9 after his breakout second season. I’m not writing off any of these three, but this is yet another reminder that we shouldn’t automatically rocket the hot young QB to the top of the dynasty rankings over more proven players who are safer bets for long, productive careers.

The same mistake happens on the way down. Bryce Young was the first overall pick in 2023, and after a rough start to his career, much of the dynasty community was ready to write him off. Through four weeks of his fourth season, he is averaging 22.7 fantasy points per game, which ranks third at the position, and he has climbed from QB23 in my preseason projections to QB16 for the rest of the season. Cam Ward and Tyler Shough were both 2025 draft picks, with Ward going first overall and Shough lasting until the second round. Through four weeks, Shough is averaging 21.3 points per game (QB5) and has jumped from QB21 to QB7 in my rest-of-season projections, while Ward is averaging 14.2 and has slipped from QB26 to QB28. One month is not a career in either direction, but it is a good reminder of how little even the NFL talent evaluators know when it comes to QB scouting.

Where I think the market consistently gets it wrong is with the quarterbacks who have already proven they can do it, and then proven it again and again. Jared Goff and Brock Purdy have each been through the league multiple times, and every time defensive coordinators adjusted to them, they adjusted back and kept producing. Goff is averaging 21.5 points per game (QB4), and Purdy is averaging 25.1 (QB2). In Superflex leagues especially, there is real value in a quarterback whose floor you do not have to wonder about. The takeaway is that we should be slower to batch any young quarterback into the for-sure good or for-sure bad category, and quicker to give credit to the veterans who have already answered those questions.

Value Movers

Brock Purdy, SF (Superflex): 23 -> 28 (+5.0). Purdy ranked QB15 in my preseason projections and now sits at QB5 in my ROS projections heading into Week 5. He is a great NFL quarterback, and the fantasy production has been there too, with designed runs and scrambles adding a rushing floor. It’s all the more impressive that he has done this with a banged-up receiving corps.

Tyler Shough, NO (Superflex): 18.5 -> 25 (+6.5). The passing volume is up, he has real weapons, and the Saints are throwing it better than expected. When Jordyn Tyson returns from injured reserve (likely Week 9 or so), there is even more upside here.

Bryce Young, CAR (Superflex): 13.5 -> 23 (+9.5). The biggest Superflex riser at the position. He has strung together a long run of good games going back to the end of last season and looks likely to earn a big extension this offseason.

Jared Goff, DET (Superflex): 17.9 -> 20 (+2.1). Goff moved up to QB11 in my rest-of-season projections. He is 32, but my historical studies of QB longevity are very favorable for quarterbacks like Goff, who derive so little of their fantasy scoring from running the ball.

Cam Ward, TEN (Superflex): 17 -> 13 (-4.0). Ward has been the most disappointing young quarterback of the early season. He needs to show improvement in a hurry, or the Titans could be looking at other options as soon as next year. I don’t love the press conferences either. Bryce Young had similar struggles early in his career but seemed to handle them with more maturity and self-awareness.

Drake Maye, NE (Superflex): 48.8 -> 39.6 (-9.2). Maye ranked QB3 in my preseason projections and is down to QB10 in my Week 5 ROS projections. He is averaging just 11.9 points per game (23rd at the position), the offense has struggled badly without A.J. Brown, and the trade market has cooled on him. He is still only 24, so this is a value adjustment that reflects a more realistic appraisal of his risk factors and not a condemnation of him as one of the best young QBs in the league. Don’t panic, but don’t ignore that he has played below his usual standard in six of his last seven games, going back to the 2025 playoff run.

Justin Herbert, LAC (Superflex): 34 -> 26.5 (-7.5). Herbert dropped from QB7 preseason to QB22 in my most recent ROS projections. The offense has been downgraded across the board, the new scheme looks shaky so far, and he is averaging just 10.9 points per game. 

Michael Penix Jr., ATL (Superflex): 5.5 -> 9.8 (+4.3). Named the starter, and he looked sharp in his first start back. The job is his unless he gets hurt, and he could end up being one of those young quarterbacks that too many people wrote off too early.

Deshaun Watson, CLE (Superflex): 5.6 -> 7.2 (+1.6). He is running again, winning games, and looks likely to keep the job. Watson has climbed from QB31 to QB24 in my projections on the strength of his rushing.

Running Backs