Building a Dynasty – First Year Strategy
Posted: 8/22/06
Unlike keeper and redraft leagues, extra planning and strategy must be put into your initial dynasty draft if you hope to have any degree of success. Simply put, it is the single most important event in your dynasty coaching career, and a misstep here could put in you in the cellar for years to come. Take the time, do the work, reap the rewards.
So where does one start? Those who are migrating from redraft leagues, and rely on similar research, are easy to spot on draft day. These are the coaches who have the likes of Priest Holmes, Tiki Barber and Curtis Martin at, or near, the top of their lists without any regard to age. While players in the twilight of their career can add much needed production, you must have a strategy in place before blurting out their name. That strategy is what we need to discuss.
Long before your draft, you must decide whether you are going to draft with the intention of winning “this year” with established fantasy producers, whether you are going to attempt to build a future dynasty with a foundation of youth, or whether you are going to build a balanced team … perhaps hedging one way or the other. There is no “correct” way to build your team but it is a question, nonetheless, that must be answered long before draft day.
Realize that regardless of your strategy, you are going to be tested multiple times during the draft and it is quite common to abandon the strategy for a round in order to snatch up a value that can't be passed up. What is most important is that you stick to your overall plan or theme and do not abandon it halfway through the draft.
While I mentioned earlier that there is no single “correct” strategy, that is not to say that I don't believe there is a suggested course of action. If I am not willing to go on record (and stand behind) my own suggestions and strategies, then you would have to question your own involvement with DLF. After all, we are a dynasty oriented fantasy football site and you are here to get a leg up on your competition.
Allow other coaches to draft the aging studs of the present while you take a walk with the ghost of fantasy football yet to come. As you have chosen the dynasty format, a single ring in the first year, on the backs of established veterans, serves little purpose … unless you are also fortunate enough to have a significant bench of younger talent waiting in the wings. But trying to accomplish both tasks in a single draft is not often successful. This is not to say that you can only draft players under 25 years of age, but you need to pick your spots. Once you are of the mindset that a ring in year one is not your main goal, the draft becomes much easier and you can use your new found comfort to your advantage.
If you find your self picking in the top 4-5 spots, certainly you understand that the first 3 picks will be used on Larry Johnson, L.T. and Shaun Alexander. While I would not begrudge anyone using the #1 pick on L.J., or even L.T., realize that within those first 4-5 selections, only one is likely to be less than 27 years of age, one named Clinton Portis. Other such players as Tiki Barber, Edgerrin James and Lamont Jordan are crowded in the middle as well. They're all followed by the young talent that includes Reggie Bush, Ronnie Brown and Cadillac Williams. The point here is that if you have a top 4-5 selection, you have trade leverage that would allow you to trade down, or out of the first round altogether, in order to pick up extra picks from which you can build a foundation of quality youth. In most cases, I would recommend trading down in the first round and picking up an extra second round selection. If you could, for example, trade out of the #3 spot into the #7 spot and also pick up the #17, you then are still able to acquire one of the top 2 nd year backs, or Reggie Bush, and then follow up the second round with two picks consisting of, possibly Reggie Bush and Laurence Maroney, or perhaps Fitzgerald and Maroney. The choice would be yours at that point.
Note that youth for the sake of youth is not a good strategy and that is where your research time needs to be spent, in identifying quality and productive youth. While you will need to take some chances, make those chances reasonable gambles based on all available information. Running backs with clear lineage to the top of their respective depth charts are what you are looking for. RBs with good size and little physical risk, in good offensive schemes, should receive your focus. Current year products that are immediate intriguing fantasy prospects include Joseph Addai, Laurence Maroney and Reggie Bush. Just slightly below them are young notables such as DeAngelo Williams and LenDale White. I immediately lower the values of RBs when they are not ideally sized, as is the case with both Williams and White. Both have enormous potential, but in the RB world, size most certainly does matter.
To recap, I do suggest an eye towards quality youth when building your dynasty roster from year one. Be prepared to jump on the veteran that receives no love on draft day to support your young squad and you could find that, not only do you have a potential dynasty team in the future, that perhaps you can raise the trophy in year one. But with your expectations and vision clearly beyond year one, there is no disappointment present if you finish in the middle of the pack … thus also nailing down a relatively high pick next year.
The choice clearly is yours and there truly is no ‘correct' plan of action. Regardless of your plan, you will NOT be successful unless you put in the time and effort ahead of your draft. You must realize that you will not be the only one with your plan … but you can be the most prepared. Leverage your draft position to your advantage where you can and put yourself in position to take advantage of the coach (and there is always one or two in every draft) that abandons his/her plan early on due to circumstances that they did not plan for. It is all about timing and seizing the opportunities presented when they occur.
On draft day, you have no friends.
[Read the second article in this series]