What Malik Willis Is Teaching Us About Dynasty Right Now
Kevin dives into how one quarterback’s situation reveals a bigger Superflex truth: backup QBs aren’t long-term bets, they’re timing assets, and knowing when to move them is the real dynasty edge.
Earlier this week, clarity began to form around Malik Willis’ offseason outlook when Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst acknowledged that the team is unlikely to retain him. As Matt Schneidman of The Athletic reported, Gutekunst expects Willis to land with a team that will at least allow him to compete for a starting job.
That comment matters, not because it guarantees anything, but because the quarterback free-agent market this offseason is thin. Opportunity scarcity is exactly what creates dynasty interest, especially in Superflex formats. Willis enters the offseason as a backup, but one who impressed evaluators when he was forced into action behind Jordan Love.
In limited work during the 2025 season, Willis completed 85.7% of his passes, accounted for five total touchdowns, and posted a 93.1 QBR, per ESPN. His lone start, a strong performance against the Baltimore Ravens, showcased the exact profile teams look for in short-term solutions: functional passing, composure, and rushing ability that can stabilize an offense. It’s no surprise that Pro Football Focus ranked Willis as the top quarterback in its 2026 free-agent class, citing his low turnover-worthy play rate and flashes of efficiency despite a limited sample size.
At just 26 years old, Willis checks every box that tends to inflate dynasty value: age, mobility, recent production, and uncertainty about his next landing spot. That uncertainty is the key. In Superflex leagues, managers aren’t just evaluating whether Malik Willis is “good”, they’re asking a different question entirely:
Is this the kind of backup quarterback I should be holding right now?
That’s the real point of this exercise. This isn’t about believing in Malik Willis as a long-term starter. It’s about using one player’s situation to understand why backup quarterbacks get priced the way they do in dynasty, when that value actually matters, and how sharp managers think about these assets before the window closes.
Malik Willis isn’t the lesson.
The way the market is reacting to Malik Willis is.
How Dynasty Managers Treat Backup QBs in Superflex
In Superflex leagues, backup quarterbacks are rarely ignored. If anything, they’re often treated as quietly essential pieces, the kind of assets managers convince themselves they need, even if they’re unsure why.
Most commonly, backup QBs are:
Hoarded as “insurance” against injuries
Overvalued during starter injury scares
Held for years waiting on chaos to create opportunity
Finally traded only after the value window has already passed
The logic is understandable. Quarterbacks touch the ball on every play, Superflex scoring amplifies their importance, and recent NFL history has shown us that not every starter emerges as a first-round savior. Reclamation projects have become real again. Teams are more willing to give second and third chances. And with NIL encouraging college quarterbacks to stay longer, the traditional rookie pipeline has slowed just enough to make short-term solutions more attractive.
On the surface, that seems like a strong argument for valuing backup quarterbacks more aggressively.
But here’s the missed strategy point:
Dynasty managers are often right about the macro trend and wrong about how to apply it.
Backup quarterbacks do matter more than they used to. The league has proven it’s willing to start them. But that doesn’t automatically make them long-term value holds. What’s changed isn’t the importance of backups, it’s the timing of their usefulness.
Most Superflex managers treat backup QBs like lottery tickets: hold indefinitely and hope the right numbers hit. In reality, they function more like short-dated options. Their value isn’t tied to development curves or insulated roles — it’s tied to moments. Injury news. Depth chart ambiguity. Free agency rumors. Training camp buzz. That’s when the market moves.
The mistake isn’t valuing backup quarterbacks.
The mistake is valuing them statically.
When managers hoard multiple backup QBs waiting for chaos, they often end up with:
Dead roster spots during non-event weeks
No leverage when certainty returns
Assets that were valuable in theory, but never in practice
Superflex doesn’t reward managers for owning backup quarterbacks.
It rewards managers who know when those quarterbacks matter — and are willing to act before the window slams shut.
That’s the disconnect. And it’s exactly why players like Malik Willis spark debate every offseason: not because the profile is wrong, but because most managers are asking the wrong question.
The question isn’t “Should backup QBs be valued more?”
It’s “When should I be holding them and when should I already be selling?”
The Mistake: Confusing Access With Upside
The most common error dynasty managers make with backup quarterbacks in Superflex is assuming that access to snaps automatically creates long-term value. It doesn’t.
Access creates liquidity. Upside requires insulation. Those two things are often mistaken for each other, especially at quarterback.
When a backup QB steps into the lineup, whether due to injury, rotation, or short-term opportunity, the dynasty market reacts immediately. Trade interest spikes. Prices rise. Managers rush to “secure a starter.” But that reaction is driven by urgency, not conviction. It’s a response to uncertainty, not a belief in the player’s long-term role.
That’s why spot starts matter but only briefly.
A handful of starts can create a temporary liquidity window, where a backup QB becomes tradable at a premium. What it does not do is create insulation. Once the uncertainty resolves, the starter returns, the depth chart clarifies, free agency ends, the market cools just as quickly. The same asset that felt essential a month ago becomes optional again.
This is where dynasty managers get trapped. They see the spike and assume it’s the beginning of a value curve. In reality, it’s often the peak.
Backup quarterbacks rarely appreciate in stages. They spike once, sometimes twice, and then fade back into replacement-level territory. The market remembers the opportunity, but it doesn’t reward the memory of it.
That’s the lens to apply to Malik Willis.
Any value spike Willis experiences this offseason won’t come from a slow developmental arc or growing insulation within an offense. It will come from opportunity-driven uncertainty: a thin free-agent market, a potential competition for snaps, and the possibility, not the promise, of starts. That’s enough to move the Superflex market. It’s not enough to sustain it.
Once his situation becomes clear — whether he wins a job, lands in a short-term bridge scenario, the mystery disappears. And when the mystery disappears, so does the premium.
That doesn’t make Malik Willis a bad asset. It makes him a situational asset.
The mistake isn’t rostering backup quarterbacks like Willis.nThe mistake is treating temporary access as if it’s permanent upside and holding through the very window when the market is actually willing to pay.
In Superflex, value isn’t created when a backup QB plays. It’s created when everyone else thinks they might have to.
