Incorporating Dynasty
Posted 7/14 by Jeff Pasquino and Jeff Tefertiller, Exclusive to Footballguys.com
You've been playing fantasy football for a few years now - you're addicted. It's fine; we all are. As of now, you've mastered the basics of drafting a dominating team, trash-talking the other owners in your league and collecting your prize money. Year after year it's the same: draft a great team, pray for no injuries and try to catch a good run in the playoffs. And the following season, it's rinse and repeat.
But there is more to fantasy football than just drafting a new team every year. Do you want to be fully rewarded for the time and dedication you've put into your team while other owners are put at a disadvantage for just ripping a cheatsheet out of a magazine on draft day? Then you're ready to play in a keeper or dynasty league.
Keeper Leagues
Keeper leagues are leagues where an owner keeps a certain number of players from last year's team. In most cases, keeper leagues range from keeping one to keeping eight players. The fewer the keepers, the more the owner should look at redraft rankings, while bigger keeper leagues should tend to look at dynasty rankings for advice. Keeper leagues offer the year-round appeal of a dynasty league with the ability to draft well and make a bad team into a contender in one year. For keeper owners, it is the best of both worlds.
There are only two goals in a keeper league: win the championship and upgrade your keepers. Everything a keeper owner does is with one of these goals in mind.
Many keeper leagues trade more often than redraft or dynasty leagues because owners are either trying to load up for a title run or to make quantity-for-quality deals to improve their keepers. Other trades involve selling players that will not be kept for next year in exchange for future draft picks. One key point that surprises many is that each keeper league has its own economy for trades involving draft picks and players. Many trades happen right before the keeper deadline. As the deadline approaches, more and more players become available to teams without good keepers, so they are worth less in trade. It becomes a simple issue of supply and demand.
There are three primary types of keeper leagues:
- Keep fewer than three players
- Keep three players or more
- Give up the keeper's assigned draft pick
So how do you decide who to keep? That depends on the type of league you are in. In leagues that keep three players or fewer, the key is to figure out if those same players would be drafted in the first three rounds of a redraft league. For example, if a league keeps two players, each player should have an ADP of 24 or higher. In the leagues that keep three or fewer players, keeping a quarterback or tight end is a bad idea, even if their names are Tom Brady and Antonio Gates. Why is this so? Most teams will keep at least two running backs, depending on starting lineup requirements. If every other team keeps two or three running backs, and you do not pick early in the first round, you will lose the chance at having a Top 20 running back. You are already behind the curve.
One rule of thumb is that you should try to keep (depending on your choices) as many running backs as you are able to start each week. If your league starts two backs plus a flex player, you should try to keep three running backs. The ability to start a RB in the flex, while some start a receiver, is a big advantage for you. This is assuming the back has an ADP equal to the pick given up to keep the player. Other than being behind the curve in finding running backs, value is another reason to keep as many backs as possible. Occasionally, the best candidates for keepers on a given team may not be running backs. In that case, there will be an even heavier burden on finding quality RBs early in the draft.
If you are in a keeper league that keeps three or fewer players, you should try fervently to improve your keepers each year. This comes from quantity-for-quality trades, working the waiver wire and drafting well. In leagues that keep just one player, that player is of the utmost importance. You should always try to trade for a stud running back in these leagues. If you acquire a top back, you would be wise to avoid trading him. In a keep-one-player league, LaDainian Tomlinson has more value than in dynasty or redraft. His owner gets to keep him indefinitely like in a dynasty league (provided there are no limits on the years he can be kept) and start each year with a huge advantage. If the 2008 season is like 2007, Tomlinson will outscore most other keepers by more than 10 points. This advantage is hard to overcome for the other teams in the league.
An owner is wise to keep a wide receiver if the league keeps four players or more. Once the number of keepers gets to six or more, quarterbacks become keeper candidates. Many times, it is still best to only keep running backs and receivers in leagues that keep six or seven players. Every year there are startable tight ends and passers that are great values who are available in the draft, so an owner who keeps six strong backs and wide receivers gives their team a huge advantage over the teams that feel like they must keep their starting lineup. It goes without saying that defenses and kickers should not be kept unless the league keeps at least eight, and probably not even then.
In these larger keeper leagues, it is very important to draft well and improve the keepers. With most of the better players kept, the draft becomes even more important for poor teams to compete. In these leagues, rookies are invariably drafted much too soon. Since few rookies will be kept the following year, each rookie drafted has to make an impact. Solid, steady veteran players are often overlooked in these leagues. Most owners want to take a chance on striking gold forgetting that there are veteran players available that have both solid statistics and experience behind them.
In some leagues, owners must give up the draft pick that was used to pick that player last year. That means if you drafted Ahmad Bradshaw last year in Round 20, you can keep him for this year and only lose your 20th pick. As you might imagine, running backs are usually in great shortage in this format. These leagues have Willie Parker, Frank Gore, Brandon Jacobs and Marion Barber locked up at a very cheap price. This is why many times it is wise to take chances on high upside players late in the draft. With these good players already on rosters, the talent drop-off in the draft will come sooner than normal. This makes the higher picks more valuable.
So, the big question is how to interpret the Footballguys.com rankings into a keeper league. First of all, know your league's rules inside and out. Next, to get a feel for value, put all of the rules into the Draft Dominator. The rankings that are derived will be tailor-made for your league. Also, the Draft Dominator will allow an owner to input keepers. The Dominator is also a great tool in leagues where each owner has a choice of keepers but must give up a draft pick assigned to that player.
Dynasty Leagues
If you are looking for an even bigger challenge, there is another option out there for fantasy players - dynasty leagues. Do you like the sound of a keeper league, but the idea of keeping just some of your players from last year not quite enough? Have you ever thought that you could be an NFL GM and run a team? In dynasty leagues, you get that chance.
The draw of dynasty leagues is that it goes even further than the keeper leagues. Sure, both leagues are open for business all year long, but there are very big differences. In keepers, you focus on a select group of players that will be on your club for next season, and that's about it. You may have the chance to work out a trade with another owner to improve your draft picks, but for the most part you are limited to focusing on improving your keepers and working on the upcoming season.
With dynasty leagues, you get to keep all of your players (in most leagues) year after year, so there really is an emphasis on picking out the best talent and acquiring them either by drafting or trades. There are also several periods of activity before the next NFL season. Every dynasty league has a rookie draft, which is usually held shortly after the NFL Draft in April, but could be as late as July or August. This is where most of the new talent for dynasty leagues comes from, so it is a key part of building a team.
There are also leagues that try to get even closer to the NFL ownership/GM experience. They have expanded offseason rosters, free agency periods, roster cutdown days, and some even have contract and salary cap features. If you want more fantasy football interaction in your league and a reason to stay on top of the NFL all year long, these leagues are just what the doctor ordered.
Dynasty leagues often start out in just the same way as a redraft league - with a player draft or auction. Some feel that auctions are preferred because everyone gets a fair shot at every player, which is important considering that you could have that player for the rest of their NFL career. Auctions can take a while to complete, as they are often much deeper drafts (more rounds and players) than in a redraft league. Just keep in mind that the league will only have one initial draft or auction, so choose your team wisely. A good mixture of younger, talented players, players with upside and a few veterans that are still producing is a good starting point.
Some leagues have more than one initial draft or auction - one for veterans and one for rookies - while others mix the two. Both are acceptable, but it really depends on the members of your league. Another consideration is the ability to trade draft picks for upcoming seasons. Some owners will sell a first-rounder from next year to move up in the draft, while others will seek out those picks to possibly get the next Adrian Peterson or Calvin Johnson. If your league allows for this, make sure that the owner giving up future picks will stick around or else your league must deal with an abandoned franchise and tainted rookie draft.
Dynasty team rosters are usually several players deeper than in redraft leagues because teams need room to stash away prospects that will hopefully be moving up their NFL team's depth chart in the coming years. Many first-time dynasty players are amazed at the number of players that are rostered. The most common way for a dynasty team to be dominant for several years is to develop talent. Therefore, many players that would never get any attention in a redraft league are already known commodities to dynasty leaguers. That extra knowledge can be quite valuable to those who still play in redraft leagues since their familiarity with the younger talents who have not had their chance to perform gives them a leg up either at draft time or with midseason pickups.
It may take a year or two for a new dynasty franchise owner to get used to owning players for more than one season. Quite often an owner will collect older players that deplete the talent of the team in a few seasons as the team ages. Others will acquire lots of prospects and overvalue youth, always seeming to build for the future. After some practice, most owners will get the idea of a balance of the two and start to build a very competitive franchise for several years to come.
Trading is a crucial part of any multiyear league. As mentioned earlier, there are just three ways to add players in an established keeper or dynasty league - the rookie draft, the waiver wire and trades. While sometimes it is hard to put together a trade in a redraft league, keeper leagues and dynasty leagues both have future rookie picks to help put together that extra "little something to make that deal even." If two owners are close on a trade but one feels that they need just a bit more, throwing in a third or fourth round pick from the next year could get that deal done. Having extra items of value to make trades happen helps in both types of leagues.
One of the nice things about dynasty leagues is that there are often two teams that are heading in different directions in the league at any given moment. Some teams build for the present and will mortgage the future to win now, while others focus on acquiring young talent to build for future dominance. Either strategy can work out just fine, but the important thing to note is that with two (or more) teams looking to build differently, trades are often much easier to put together. While the team looking for younger talents will have no interest in a talented but aging veteran, the team in the "win now" mode will certainly be looking to acquire that type of player. Often you will see two teams come together and trade a player like Terrell Owens or Edgerrin James for draft picks and/or younger players. Who wins these types of deals? Sometimes both teams do, since one does well for the coming year and the other receives younger players with upside. Only time will tell.
Once you have decided that you are ready to step up to the next level with a multiyear league, jump in with both feet into a keeper league, a dynasty league or both. The learning curve may seem a bit steeper than you might have guessed at first, but the rewards are even bigger - especially during the NFL offseason when the NFL Combine just won't scratch that football itch. Remember that Footballguys.com is here to help you both in season and in the offseason - with articles during the year on deeper prospects to watch and stash on your roster ("Dynasty Mall"), players to trade for and trade away ("Buy Low/Sell High") and even trade advice ("Trader Joe's") from Week 1 to the Super Bowl. For keeper leagues, the Footballguys.com Draft Dominator has features to allow you to keep track of your draft like usual and also to input the keeper players as well. There are also Dynasty Rankings all year round for offense and IDP, and the only Dynasty Calculator ever invented to help you with draft pick values. If you are into the NFL all year long, Footballguys.com is a helpful place to be.