The base of every dynasty league is the startup. Auction or snake, Superflex (SF) or 1QB, rookies included or not, the startup is by far the most important area of a dynasty league. A lot of teams’ futures will sink or swim in the coming years because of how the players are distributed initially, and it’s incredibly important to have a diligent process. There have been a few subscribers who’ve reached out about a strategy article based around this topic, and that want and need for this type of strategy piece means thought processes are heading in the correct direction. A lot of the content created so far this offseason has been based around player evaluation, most notably with a draft position-based process behind it. But beyond the 2QB/SF article, there hasn’t been a significant amount dedicated to potential structural advantages.
Structural advantages (or disadvantages) have much more to do with the other owners in the league. If there’s a full league of 10,12 or 14 strong owners, who all have a thorough understanding of the format and sound strategy pertaining to player age, it’s going to be a grind the whole way through. However, a league full of sharp owners tends to be a rare occurrence. Generally speaking, there are usually AT LEAST one or two owners who are inexperienced or inefficient with their drafting/strategy.
As the corny (but true) saying goes, “if you can’t spot the inefficient drafters in the room, it’s probably you.”
The good news is, Guru subscribers are already smarter than their non-subscriber foes, so there’s already a huge advantage. Combining a structural base with solid player evaluation process would create a circumstance where league domination is inevitable. Ok, ok, maybe the last two sentences have been irrationally confident, but I believe in you guys!
Let’s get into it.
Position-Based Philosophy
It was broken down much more in the 2QB/SF piece (link above), but in those types of formats, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that QBs are the base of the league. While everyone doesn’t need to have Patrick Mahomes on their roster, there does need to be significant effort in acquiring three starter-level QBs. Unless this is a total tank scenario (Something I’d never suggest in a startup), then having three QBs is going to be just about essential to compete. Between bye weeks and the inevitable injuries, a significant portion of the QB will suffer, there should be an insurance policy behind the starters. It doesn’t have to be a strong option. Sometimes veterans like Joe Flacco, Philip Rivers or even Eli Manning could stand guard. Also, young players who may not start can be considered that insurance policy as well. Dwayne Haskins may not start the 2019 season as a fantasy contributor, but the avenues to him eventually getting snaps are very plausible. Based on my experience, teams that are not starting two QBs a week in SF leagues do not find much, if any, success, especially over a long timeline. There’s no need to go crazy and draft five valuable QBs, just makes sure to have three.
In single QB leagues, the logic is essentially the same for the QB position, only on a much smaller and less costly scale. There should, at all times, be two QBs worth starting on a roster. There’s really no excuse to be a bottom of the barrel team in QB scoring. Because of how little owners value the position, QBs fall down the boards in an extreme manner. Players like Matt Ryan, Matthew Stafford and Jared Goff are going to be around for many years to come and will be positive assets to use roster spots on, despite not costing much to acquire. If the rookies are in the startup pool, secondary QBs always tend to fall further than they should. Over the last couple of seasons, fantasy-relevant QBs like Goff, Mitchell Trubisky, Deshaun Watson and Josh Allen were all had for very cheap in their rookie startup draft years. Because of this type of inefficiency, it creates much less emphasis on acquiring top-end QBs in the early rounds. It’s an important position (they all are), but full-cost QBs in ADP tend to go in rounds where it’s very important to be collecting RB, WR and TE equity.
RBs and WRs can be viewed in a similar light. These two are the backbone of a dynasty roster, and there’s no secret about it. When evaluating where the fantasy points come from in a starting lineup per week, RBs and WRs will almost always be the highest scoring and most powerful drivers of successful team success. Players like Julio Jones, Todd Gurley and Odell Beckham have carried dynasty rosters for years, and truly changed the trajectory of dynasty leagues. Early round selections should be invested into RBs and WRs who can provide stable market value and production over a significant timeline. This sounds like a difficult task, and I’m not here to say it isn’t, but there will always be a plethora of sub-25-year-old RBs and WRs who have some sample of good-to-great production in the first two rounds of a startup. Those are the players to target.
Having done at least one startup for a decade, I’ve seen many once special players come and go. Over enough repetition, it becomes plainly obvious that paying market value for past production is almost never optimal, especially with older players. Much like in an individual season, a player only has so many potential fantasy points available to them in a career. Once a RB or WR has four or five seasons of good-to-high-end fantasy production, it’s tough to bank on them sustaining production beyond that. Players get old, lose market value, and, eventually, their athleticism and skill deteriorate. In 2018, Demaryius Thomas and Jordy Nelson are the latest in an unlimited amount of examples of once incredible players who simply fell off the ability cliff. Thomas and Nelson were once dominant outside WRs, known for their pure athleticism and amazing open field play, and were relegated to running 5-to-10 yard routes over the final couple of seasons of their careers. All your favorite fantasy players today will fall off that same cliff someday, and there’s nothing anyone can do it stop it. One or two players a decade, per position, will sustain themselves at a special level into their 30s, but the vast majority will drop off around 28 or 29. Again, these are general rules.
Tight End is arguably the most complicated on when to invest. Since the position is scarce from a fantasy perspective, having elite options at the position can really set a team ahead. In certain scenarios, elite TEs can jump as high as round one in dynasty ADP AND be worth it. Hearkening back to 2012, Jimmy Graham and Rob Gronkowski sustained top end dynasty value for many years beyond their price tags that offseason. Other players, like Greg Olsen, Delanie Walker and Vernon Davis, never really cost a significant amount in startups because of the slow starts to their careers, and would consistently be in the middle rounds, despite consistently producing. I tend to approach TE from a “throw things at a wall” perspective. I want a constant churn of young TEs (of the top three NFL draft round variety!) On my roster. There will be a lot of misses because TEs have multiple roles behind catching the football, but it’s a position where finding a diamond in the rough can set the position for five or more years. Again, paying for past production isn’t optimal, but at the TE position, the ADP ding in value for playing that position can cause market inefficiencies in the middle rounds on consistent producers. Cheap veterans and developmental TEs is how I usually play it.
Top-Heavy vs. Depth
From my experience in 12 and 14 team leagues, top-heavy roster constructions are not sustainable over a long timeline. It CAN work, especially early in a dynasty leagues existence, but putting all the eggs in one basket is a big gamble. The biggest issue with being top-heavy is injuries are not only a real factor in fantasy football; they’re one of the biggest factors. Injury rates are stable, and and destroy almost all careers at some point. A lot of players, specifically at the skill positions, lose significant portions of their careers because of debilitating injuries, and there’s truly no way to project when that is going to happen. A major injury can strike at any moment in a season, and having no backup plan for elite players can cause an instant tumble down the standings. In the early years of a startup, a top-heavy team can GET AWAY with no depth, and think it was good strategy, but really, they just got REALLY lucky and avoided the injury atom bomb.
I could be biased in this analysis. I’ve been a depth over studs player for years, and because of the success I’ve found with it (specifically in best ball dynasty leagues), my views lean pretty strongly in one direction. Positive personal results, along with experiences in evaluating other leagues beyond my own, has created a solid base to lean even harder into a depth-based dogma. Especially if drafting players with NFL draft position in mind, stacking a significant amount of cheap, highly drafted players on a roster will almost always result in finding gems.
By stacking high round draft position players, combining high round investments, we’re taking control out of our own hands, and placing it in faith that player pools success probability odds are stable, which they are. In a given year, we know 75-to-80% of the top scoring players at a position are going to be top three round selections, and by filling a roster with those types of investments, there’s an inevitable success rate that follows. Because of this, having picks in the middle rounds of startup drafts are incredibly important. By trading up for a few players who’ve produced well already, you’re increasing odds on one roster spot, but severely decreasing odds of success with two, three or sometimes even four other roster spots. If a dynasty league has 25 roster spots as their limit, and a team trades four of their middle round (let say between round seven and 11) to move into round one, they’re giving up four chances at hitting multiple contributors for one. And that one player still has injury rates just as significant as the others. Based on current ADP and experience from the last decade, there’s a real dilution point around Round 15 in startup drafts, even with rookies included. Once that point hits, the likelihood of finding future contributors lowers significantly. Losing mid-round selections kills depth.
This is actually an important part of my process in determining which teams to target future firsts from. Teams with no insurance plan (Studs and scrubs roster) have high variance, and therefore, their future picks have latent value. Time and again paper champions go into the season with championship aspirations, only to lose too many players to injury and not even make the playoffs. In a competitive setting, taking advantage of those teams is how to create a dominant dynasty team. For a reasonable price, future firsts (the other picks aren’t nearly as important) can be one of the biggest profit-creators for owners who target teams who are irrationally confident in their drafting ability. Generally speaking, a future first should cost an 8th or 9th round rookie pick. For a quick visual, look at where the rookies ended up in post-draft ADP. That’s the type of return on investment you’ll see the following season. Rookies will always be highly valuable, the market is consistent in that way.
That’s two thousand words on startup strategy. There’s definitely more meat on the bone, and perhaps there will be a PART TWO to come. Is this a cliffhanger? Not a good one, but yes it is.
