Dynasty leagues aren’t as popular as the traditional season-only version of the game, but they have a loyal following. And it’s a style of fantasy football that brings different strategies into play.
Youth movement
In redraft leagues, everything resets at the end of the season. If you draft an incredible team in redraft, all those guys that you spent a year cheering for will be gone after January. In dynasty leagues, they’re yours until they retire (or you do).
This changes the valuing of players drastically. For example, on keeptradecut.com (a popular dynasty site that uses crowd-sourced rankings) Drake London is currently the 14th wide receiver, two spots ahead of Cooper Kupp (and Kupp will likely drop a little now, following his hamstring injury). Now, the track record of these players could hardly be more different; London is an unproven sophomore who finished outside the top 30 at his position last year, while Kupp turned in one of the best receiving seasons ever in 2021. The difference in dynasty? Kupp is 30 years old, while London is 22. If you believe in London’s talent, those extra eight years of production are worth a lot more than whatever Kupp has left in the tank.
While that’s one of the more egregious examples of the difference, it’s a point that you should keep in mind during your startup drafts. More productive years means a bigger window for your team. Landing an elite receiver for five years is significantly better for your franchise’s future than an elite WR for 1-2 years.
Running Backs
Running backs are a complicated topic in dynasty. If you’ve been paying attention this summer, you’ve heard all about how elite running backs’ careers are significantly shorter than other skill positions. Dynasty players have been debating this topic for years. The general consensus is that the position is less valuable in dynasty.
On average, running backs spend less time producing at an elite level than players at other positions, and running backs are more likely to be injured. Both are, of course, a product of ball carriers taking a pounding on every play.
Because of this, it is generally considered that age 28 is the fall-off year for running backs (more in-depth analysis of this to come in a future article). So, keep that number in your head when drafting running backs.
Superflex
The Superflex concept (allowing quarterbacks to be used as flex players) is growing in popularity – even more so in the dynasty version of the game. The vast majority of dynasty leagues have a Superflex spot, so it’s necessary to understand how it affects quarterback values.
In a typical redraft format, with each team selecting one quarterback, there are only 12 starting every week in a typical league. That leaves 20 other NFL starters on benches or the waiver wire – enough for every team to have a backup and then some.
In Superflex leagues, there are going to be 24 starting most weeks. That leaves only eight NFL starters (not even enough for every team to have a backup behind their two starters). Because of the scarcity this introduces, quarterbacks become exponentially more valuable, and securing two good ones is your most important priority in startup drafts. The current ADP indicates that 8 of the first 10 players selected in startup drafts for dynasty Superflex leagues will be quarterbacks.
I hope these ideas make you feel a little more confident heading into your first dynasty draft. It can seem daunting with the possibility of your mistakes looming over you for years. But I can tell from experience, the pride from drafting Justin Herbert in the second round of a rookie draft far outweighs the pain of second Henry Ruggs in the first. Give it a shot.
—Billy Olsson Olsson plays in 20 money dynasty leagues, as well as drafting best-ball teams. As a proponent of the statistical aspect of fantasy football, he uses machine learning and AI tools to build models that predict the performance of incoming rookies. A native of Dallas, he is a Cowboys fan.