Fantasy Football Game Theory – The Revolving Door

Throughout my years of fantasy football I have slowly evolved with how I approach roster construction. When I was a rookie, I was sure to draft a backup at every position, to make sure I had a replacement player on my team; even if it was a league with only 8 or 10 teams and injury replacements were readily available on the waiver wire.

This approach, while safe, severely limited the upside of my team. This led to my rosters no longer having backups at the deeper positions. What I found in doing that, is I soon found myself with extra bench spots to work with. Originally when I transitioned to this strategy, I simply drafted players late. I left them on my bench hoping they would hit or that I could drop them for someone who might return minimal value.

The next step in my process led to me determining how to maximize the potential in my bench. The standard bench size in the majority of leagues is 6 players. I still like to use 4 of these spots on players that I like; players that I can start need be due to injury or bye weeks.

The other two spots are what I like to call my “Revolving Door” spots. This approach will admittedly require lots of work and isn’t for the causal fantasy football manager. On a year to year basis I typically have more add/drops than the rest of the league combined. I am a hyper active fantasy football manager.

You may have guessed that my revolving door strategy consists of me add/dropping my final two bench spots;searching for hidden gems. But here is where the prep and hyper active part come into play:

Step 1: Determine your weaknesses

This step requires you to honestly assess your fantasy football teams strengths and weaknesses. If you can’t be objective, I recommend using one of the many team analyzer tools available online. You don’t want to be adding just any players at the bottom of your bench. You want to add players that fill your specific deficit in the event that they hit. As I stated before, I rarely look at quarterback, tight end, kicker or defense for these spots. They can be easily acquired at any time on waivers in most leagues.

In leagues where I am weak at running back, I like my last two bench spots to be high upside run running backs. Those that could skyrocket in value if something were to change in their situation. Two examples of this would be Jeff Wilson and Sony Michel.

Wilson gained value due to the Elijah Mitchell injury. Meanwhile, Sony Michel who gained value because he seems to be the Chargers goal line back. Not all of these are huge wins. Stashing Wilson obviously holds a much higher value than stashing Michel;  but you take what the waiver wire gives you.

In leagues where I am weak at WR, I target players who are behind injury plagued or aging receivers; who could see a huge spike in usage and value in the event of an injury. Joshua Palmer would have been a prime example of this from the Thursday Night Football game.

Step 2: Checking the NFL Schedule for the Week

When I began using this strategy, I would find the best two players available on waivers, stash them on my bench, and pray. While this occasionally paid off, I found that it just wasn’t good enough to rely on consistently.

Since the NFL doesn’t play every game at once, I could essentially exploit this to take 10 weekly bench dart throws instead of 2.

I will lay out the rest of my strategy below using Week 2 of the 2022 season as my template. Bear in mind that I am writing this after Thursday Night Football, so those stashes will be easier since they are made in hindsight.

Step 3: Thursday Night Football

Going into Thursday Night Football, I knew that I had two players on my bench that I no longer wanted. I drafted Isaiah Spiller and Jalen Tolbert late in my rookie draft; but they were both healthy scratches in Week 1 and no longer needed to be rostered. Once I knew who it was I wanted to drop, the next step was looking at the first primetime matchup on the Week 2 schedule; it was Chiefs vs Charger on Thursday Night.

This part is league-specific, as some of these players may not be available on your leagues waiver wire. Having said that, your league could be shallower and even better options could be available that I haven’t listed. But for the sake of this article, I will present what was available to me. You can make your choices based on your league.

I was not particularly weak at WR or RB in this league, so I decided I wanted to target the two best “lottery tickets” I could find in this game. The first choice was obvious.

I stashed Isaih Pacheco of the Chiefs. After that, I was torn between Sony Michel of the Chargers and Skyy Moore of the Chiefs. I decided to go with Skyy Moore so that I had one of each position; and because he’s younger with a much higher potential ceiling.

This game ended and neither Pacheco or Moore provided any return. Had one of them hit, they would now be anchored to the end of my roster and I would keep them as long as I saw fit. In this case they are now waiver wire fodder and will be dropped in the next step.

Step 4: The Sunday Early Slate

The early slate of games can be the toughest part of this strategy, but also by far the most profitable. In this stage we do the same thing as above – except with a much larger slate of games. After looking through the 1 PM EST schedule, I decided that Saturday morning to drop Pacheco and Moore in order to add Ashton Dulin of the Colts and Jaylen Warren of the Steelers.

Once again I chose to go 1 WR and 1 RB. Michael Pittman is dealing with an injury and Dulin could see an increased role if Pittman is out or limited. The same can be said about Warren backing up the injured Najee Harris.

Step 5: The Sunday Late Games

As I’m sure you have figured out, these picks rely heavily on the success of the players in the early slate. For this step, we will be waiting until the 4th quarter of the early games to pull the trigger on these moves once it is likely that they are busts. If Dulin or Warren hit in any significant way they stay. In the event they are busts as Pacheco and Moore were, I will then be replacing them with the best stash of the 4:00 games.

For Week 2 my late game stash choices are Tyler Allgeier of the Falcons and Nico Collins of the Texans.

Allgeier was a healthy scratch Week 1. But due to the injury of Damien Williams, Allgeier figures to be active and could see his value rise. As for Nico, I was high on him in the preseason, but he didn’t produce in Week 1. He may not return value here but he is the target I chose.

Step 6: Sunday Night Football

From here we move into the Sunday Night Football game between Chicago and Green Bay. Barring any crazy overtime scenario from the 4:00 games, we typically have some downtime to drop our previous stashes for the targets we want in the Sunday night game.

Assuming neither of my above stashes hit, I would prefer to target Khalil Herbert of the Bears and whichever WR is available in my league out of Doubs and Watson.

These are all home run swings. These players could see their fantasy football value soar at any moment. All it would take is a David Montgomery injury or a big game from one of the receivers and they would triple in value. This is one of my favorite type of games; as there are going to be plenty of stash options available on waivers because both teams are a mess offensively.

Step 7: Monday Night Football

This step is typically straight forward; dropping my Sunday Night stashes for Monday Night stashes. But in Week 2, we get the unique scenario of having a Monday Night Football game at 7:15 and 8:30; so this will require you to be on top of things in that time frame.

As per usual, we drop the bust players if they underperformed, and we add our lottery ticket players from the 7:15 game.

My choices are Kyle Philips of the Titans and James Cook of the Bills. Philips was somehow the WR1 in Tennessee in Week 1. Even more surprisingly, he is still available in most fantasy football leagues. Cook is a straight forward injury stash; add him and cash in on the value if Singletary or Moss goes down.

You will likely get a couple quarters out of the early game before the late game starts. In that time you will have to assess how Philips and Cook are looking. If they look good than keep them and ride it out, if they aren’t producing than you drop them for players in the later game. My targets are Kene Nwangwu and KJ Osborn of the Vikings. Both Nwangwu and Osborn have great skill and an injury prone vet in front of them. They could both instantly spike in value in the event someone goes down.

Step 8: Assess your Roster

The key to the final step is to not be complacent. In the event that you didn’t cash in on any of your winning lottery tickets, you simply repeat the process in Week 3. With all of the darts I’ve thrown, I typically hit on at least two of these by mid-season; leaving me with a loaded bench that I can package together for higher level players.

However, in the situation where you were able to grab ahold of a player who gained value as I did last week with Jeff Wilson after the Mitchell injury, you then have to determine their perceived value vs their actual value.

In the case of Wilson, I don’t trust Kyle Shanahan. I believe it is just as likely that TDP or Mason is the 49ers starter as it is Wilson. I used this strategy with the 49ers a few years again and stashed JaMycal Hasty who then sky rocketed in value. However, I overvalued Hasty, got greedy, and turned down several great offers to hold Hasty who didn’t produce at all.

This time I learned my lesson. After cashing in on the Jeff Wilson lottery, I immediately packaged him with Courtland Sutton and was able to turn them into Michael Carter, James Robinson and Aaron Rodgers  – who I needed to replace Dak Prescott.

Conclusion

This fantasy football strategy may not be for everyone. It definitely is targeted towards ultra active fantasy football managers. It will fail multiple times; and you will spend weeks looking like the lunatic rookie manager who add/drops 10 players every weekend for nothing.

But when the lottery ticket hits and Elijah Mitchell carries your team to a title, it will all be worth it. In the end it’s all about the quantity of darts you throw. Most of them are going to miss, but the fact that you are throwing 10 darts while every other manager in your league is throwing 1 gives you 10 times the chance of finding that waiver wire diamond in the rough. That’s what it’s all about. It’s about working hard to give yourself every little edge. When you combine all the little edges you’ve given yourself it is a surefire formula to be a contender.