Week 9 Preview + Dual Tight Ends

Heading into Week 9 we’ve seen chaos, comebacks, and a few reality checks. From backfields in flux to breakout tight ends… to Dynasty Detour John explaining to us why fantasy football fortune favors the bold (with a bit of a history lesson in between). Let’s hit the Detour.

🔮 Traffic Forecast

The RB market is shifting fast, so we’re breaking down three backs whose dynasty value is either climbing or crashing. ⬇️ 

• Jordan Mason – Stock down in Minnesota

  • Mason’s fantasy momentum has come to a screeching halt. After a 23.6-point breakout in Week 3, he hasn’t topped 60 rushing yards or 12 fantasy points in any game since. With Aaron Jones Sr. healthy again and reclaiming lead-back duties, Mason’s workload cratered last Thursday with just five touches for six total yards as the Vikings offense sputtered through another uneven performance. Unless Jones misses time, Mason looks locked into rotational duty at best.

  • Dynasty Take: Mason’s value has cooled off dramatically, and his window for long-term relevance might already be closing. At 26 years old, he’s past the age where most running backs build lasting value, and his dynasty appeal is tied entirely to opportunity rather than talent. For contenders, he’s a bench stash with hopes of him regaining significant touches.

• Tyrone Tracy Jr. – An injury opens a runway

  • Last season, Tracy fended off Devin Singletary for the starting RB spot in New York. He managed to be a real fantasy asset averaging 13+ PPR points per game after taking over. With Skattebo in the fold, Tracy was demoted to the #2 in a committee. Now that Skattebo is out for the season, there is real reason for optimism with Tracy. The Giants offense is much improved under Dart, and we know Tracy will be dominating touches.

  • Dynasty Take: As gruesome as the Skattebo injury was, there is hope he will be ready before the start of next year. The question is: will he be able to regain enough explosiveness and speed post-injury to start at an NFL level? I’m not going to doubt the guy that headbutts a brick wall, but concerns are legitimate. Tracy is a good option for contenders in need of an RB2/3, and for rebuilders who have little faith in a Skattebo renaissance.

• Chase Brown – Flacco delivers hope in Cincy

  • Brown put up double digit fantasy points on the Bengal’s first drive of the season, flashing the league winning upside that led me to label him as one of “my guys”. Since then, it’s been a tumultuous journey with Burrow injured. That was until Sunday, when Brown exploded for his first 15+ point game of the season, with 25.5 points. Brown’s success clearly predicates itself on the Bengals ability to generate offense, and the upgrade from Browning to Flacco has helped big-time.

  • Dynasty Take: Ugh… it pains me to say this but I’m trying to sell high on Brown’s most recent performance. His breakout in 2024 was led by dominance of the running back snap share, with over 80% of the touches once he took over. In 2025, he has not cracked the 80% mark once. I’m not sure if Burrow will be back this season if the Bengals continue to lose, which leaves his upside capped. Sell while you can… begrudgingly.

-- Dynasty Detour Tom

🎖️ Fortune Favors The Bold

A bold new dynasty trend is emerging: starting two tight ends might not be crazy anymore… it might be genius.

Not to go too deep into a tangent on this quote, but do people know the history behind it? I always figured it came from some general before launching into battle where their forces were outnumbered and the odds stacked against them… but no. It is actually first attributed to Pliny the Elder, who said this to his men before they rowed headfirst into the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and were all killed by the pyroclastic flows and debris coming from the eruption. Basically, this would be the equivalent of saying fortune favors the bold before throwing Taysom Hill in your lineup every week praying he gets thrown in as an emergency QB (which after the performance last week, does not look like a crazy idea).

A new strategy has emerged in fantasy football that is becoming less and less bold by the week, and that is the double TE start. I remember when I used this strategy a couple years ago, I got comments from my league mates about it for weeks. That same year, I finished first in points scored and made it to my league championship. Fast forward to this week where I saw 4 teams in my 12-person league utilize the double tight end strategy. Teams across the NFL are incorporating tight ends more than ever and continue to evolve how they are used. Historically, TEs have been popular and valuable weapons due to their ability to block and receive at a high level. TEs these days have become even more freakish in their ability to do both, and the most dynamic offenses in the league rely on their TE to be the Swiss Army Knife that can adapt to whatever is needed for a given play. For fantasy purposes, this could be a way to alter what has been considered conventional dynasty strategy.

✍️ Drafting

This last year, there were 6 TE’s projected to be taken in the first 3 rounds of your average dynasty rookie draft (3 in 2024, 6 in 2023, 3 in 2022, 3 in 2021). Compared to the other positions, this is not the most highly valued because, objectively, their ceiling is much lower than other prospects. The TE1 in a given year, usually does not finish within the top 15-20 position player season, and normally, the race for TE1 is not super clear cut. This means there is less of an advantage by having the TE1 as compared to the TE5 as there would be for RB or WR. Last year, the difference between the TE1 and TE5 was 24.8 points, that is about 1.5 per week. It was about 90.2 for WR and 65.2 for RB. Getting a valuable player at that position is infinitely more beneficial to a team. However, that condensed finishing is what makes the dual TE strategy so valuable from week to week.

🏃‍♂️ In Practice

So, should every fantasy player just go out and grab a bunch of TE’s to round up their rosters before the trade deadline. If you are in a 12 team league that features 2 RB’s, 2 WR’s and 2 flex positions, the group of position players (especially rb’s) starts to wear thin pretty quickly. The RB3 cutoff last year was 7.3 PPG last year (the 36th best rb) and the RB4 cutoff was 5.6. For WR3 and WR4, the floor is actually raised to 8 PPG and 7.4 PPG, respectively. In 2025, we have 19 different TE’s who would crack the floor of the last RB4 and there are 9 who would crack the floor of WR4. This list also does not include some TE’s like George Kittle or Mason Taylor, who due to a slow start or injury, have not had the chance to get their averages up.

Although these numbers may not seem to point to the 2 TE strategy being valuable to a majority of teams, I think the depth and lower value of TE’s can help a lot of dynasty teams weather the storm of bye weeks, and on a lot of occasions, they can be acquired without having to give up extremely valuable picks or parting with young players. Let’s take the list of top TE”s from this year. Some of the big winners so far this year came from guys like Tyler Warren, Tucker Kraft, Jake Ferguson, or Darren Waller, Oronde Gadsden, guys who before the season were either worth a late first round flyer in drafts, you could get for a late pick, or were just left on waivers. These guys could have seriously filled in for what might already be a complete team and provide an extra boost for minimal pay.

These TE’s, even though they are not being given high regard, can become instant impacts for a team that just needs an added depth piece for a championship run. And for rebuilding teams, a good set of TE’s can become a way to stabilize your record and march towards the playoffs. This week, I scoured the NFL.com fantasy rankings and only 1 TE was even able to crack the top 50 in the flex rankings. However, from 50-80, there are 11 different TE’s listed. That is right in the range where people in leagues will be looking for flex plays and right where a lot of people lose games by making the wrong choices.
 
 
Just remember the words of Pliny: “Fortune Favors the Bold”, and start reaching for those Tight Ends.

-- Dynasty Detour John

We’re officially in the swing of things, so be sure you follow us for all the must see events and reactions of every week. Follow us @dynastydetour on Instagram and X/Twitter to get our reactions and opinions in between write-ups, as well as email us with any questions at [email protected]. See you out on the road 🚘️.