Dynasty is a game that requires you to buy low and sell high. Here are a few of my top dynasty players to avoid in 2020.

Dynasty players to avoid in 2020

Davante Adams

Do I think Davante Adams is likely to have a good, if not great, 2020 season and possibly even be a top-two wide receiver this year? Of course, I do. Do I think that you should be avoiding him in dynasty startups and selling him if you have him on your team outside of very specific circumstances? Absolutely.

What a player like Adams does to your team when you take him in the late first-round or early second round in dynasty startups can really hurt your team’s building process and pigeonholes you into making what I would consider sub-optimal decisions in later rounds as you progress through your draft.

One of my rules in dynasty drafts is that I typically try to avoid players that are reasonably likely to see a value or ADP drop in the next one or two seasons. Adams is going to be 28 years old when the 2020 season ends and is going to be on the wrong side of his peak production years. Having your early-round picks rapidly depreciating on you in terms of ADP or trade value is a near surefire way for your dynasty team to end up looking rather horrific a year or two in the future.

The PFN rankings have Adams listed with a very late first-round dynasty ADP as dynasty’s WR3. Adams, to me, is about a full round too high in value here and makes much more sense at the very end of the second round or early third in a SuperFlex startup. He is much closer to WR 6-12 for me personally instead of a top-three dynasty WR.

As far as pigeonholing you into sub-optimal moves, when you invest in the older players in the first two rounds of your startup, you are basically forcing yourself into a win-now team. This is fine if you know what you are doing, but in reality, most fantasy players will make mistakes over the next 20+ rounds of their draft that will land them in the absolute worst spot to finish in dynasty.

This will likely result in either a first-round playoff exit with no money coming back to them that will also result in a middle round rookie pick for next year. This is not good for a team whose star assets are on the downswing of their careers. My philosophy in dynasty is to play for first place or last place and do everything you can to avoid finishing in the middle of the standings.

Fantasy uncertainty past 2020

The Green Bay Packers signaled loud and clear in the 2020 NFL Draft that Aaron Rodgers’ stay in Green Bay is on notice when they traded up to select Jordan Love with the 26th pick overall pick. Head Coach Matt LaFleur is in his second year as the Packers coach, and it seems like he has had enough with Rodgers’ arrogance.

In addition, Green Bay also drafted RB A.J. Dillon, who in college once ran the ball 300 times in a season while catching exactly ZERO passes that year. Sounds perfect for today’s NFL! Keep in mind that when he was in Tennessee, LaFleur chose to give Dion Lewis 222 opportunities in 2018 when he had Derrick Henry on the roster.

Add it all up, and you have a team building for the future with a coach that can make some head-scratching personnel moves, which makes for a very dicey situation for what is going to occur in Green Bay past the 2020 season.

I’m moving Adams to a team that is in the hunt to win in order to get a nice return before his value dips next off-season unless your team is 100% in the race and an absolute lock to make the playoffs when your survey the landscape of the league.

Odell Beckham Jr.

Reading OSELL’s (Yes I did that on purpose) injury history might take you longer than this entire article, and with him being 28 years old at the end of this season, it’s time to unload him while you can and allow someone else to be the sucker. The dude even hates WATER!

Not only is he going to be on the wrong side of the age curve with a laundry list of injuries, but he is also going to be competing for targets in an offense that has upgraded talent with Austin Hooper coming to town, while also switching coaches to Kevin Stefanski, who was the offensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings last year.

I mention this because the Vikings ended up running the ball on 48% of their plays last season, which was the fourth-highest rate in the NFL. With the Cleveland Browns having perhaps the best overall backfield in the league in Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt, it is hard for me to project anything but a strong overall run percentage for the Browns in 2020.

Cleveland also has an on-paper favorable schedule in 2020, and while I hate nearly all strength of schedule fantasy talk this early in the year, the Browns are close to the most favorable schedules out there based on opponent’s projected Vegas win totals. If that does hold true, we can expect some late fourth-quarter rushing from the Browns instead of Odell targets, if he is even on the field to begin with.

Contract and Future

Odell can be cut with ZERO dead cap after this season, and he seems to always be looking for trades if the season or situation is not going exactly as planned. Would you be surprised if the Browns start out slow at 1-3, and Odell is out there on social media demanding a change? A change of teams would most likely be another hit to his value, whether it’s in season or next year, as it historically does not create fantasy value. A diva QB paired with a diva WR is an extremely volatile pairing if things turn south for a second year in a row.

The rankings I talked about above have Odell as the 28th pick in ADP in a SuperFlex startup and as WR10 overall. I’d take ironman teammate Jarvis Landry straight up over Odell in dynasty and about ten other players listed below him at the position such as Calvin Ridley, D.K. Metcalf, DJ Chark, and Terry McLaurin. I am about as down on OBJ as anyone you will come across, but there is simply no room for him on any team I own. Shop him in your league as I can guarantee there is still someone living in 2016 and thinks he is a premium asset.

I’ll even give you a trade idea if you have Odell on your team, and I’ve swayed you. Go find the Tyler Lockett owner, add something good from his team to the offer, and send him Odell. Enjoy the extra fantasy points, and thank me later.

Stefon Diggs

Diggs finds himself on the Buffalo Bills for the foreseeable future, a team that logged the seventh-highest rushing percentage on plays last season. Receivers changing teams generally do not see an uptick in fantasy which should spell trouble for Diggs, who saw eight or more targets just once last season in games Adam Thielen played in on a similar run-first offense in Minnesota. To make matters worse, Diggs also goes from one of the more accurate passers in the game in Kirk Cousins to one of the more inaccurate per Pro Football Reference in Josh Allen.

Inconsistency

Diggs makes a little more sense in a best ball format as he will have a few spike weeks here and there, but you couldn’t pay me to roster the guy in a league where I have to set my lineup every week. He has John Brown on the other side to compete with for deep plays, and while you may laugh, Cole Beasley is very good at his job on short routes and saw over 100 targets in 2019.

Giving Diggs anything over the 115 targets John Brown saw last year seems extremely aggressive, and I would not be surprised at all to see him hover around 100 targets on the season. Add in the fact that likely eight of his sixteen games will leave you wishing he was on your bench instead of your starting lineup, and you have a fantasy nightmare I am avoiding at all costs.

These are some of my top dynasty players to avoid in 2020, and hopefully, you can unload these players to your unsuspecting league-mates before it is too late.

Brit Devine is a fantasy contributor at ProFootballNetwork. Follow him on Twitter @brit_devine as well as @PFN365 and @PFNDynasty for all the latest fantasy news.

Dynasty players to avoid in 2020