Be a year early: Sell these players before their value drops

We’re still a couple of months away from fantasy redraft season, but dynasty drafts are in full swing, and the life of a dynasty league owner never really rests. In order to compete year in and year out, you need to have a solid balance of youth and age on your team. It’s easy enough to compile a win-now team in dynasty, but the real challenge is finessing your team to always be competitive.

So, basically, be more like Bill Belichick when managing your dynasty squad. It’s okay to get rid of some of your great players who might have a big year left before that year so that you can capitalize on them before they fizzle out. Here are 10 players you can go all Belichick-ian on, get value in return while you can, and sell a year early — including two players from Belichick’s own team.

Tom Brady, QB, New England Patriots
Drew Brees, QB, New Orleans Saints

Brady and Brees and in similar boats, so I’m grouping the reasoning together. Both have said they want to play until they are around 45, and with Brady at 40 and Brees at 38, that means they envision themselves playing for another half-decade or more. Obviously, history is not favorable to quarterbacks near the age of 40, let alone over the age of 40.

Brady seems primed to smash the 40-year-old quarterback narrative in 2017, and Brees still has a couple of more seasons until he reaches that mark. But Brees (8,758) has actually thrown more career passes than Brady (8,224) — not including the playoffs — so from a wear-and-tear standpoint, they are similar.

If you dump off either Brady or Brees now, odds are that you’re giving up a top-five quarterback season in 2018. You might even be giving up a top-five quarterback season for several years. But the fact that these quarterbacks are so elite also means that you can get a fair return on them now instead of needing to cut them from your team when they surprise us with retirement any year now.