How to build a dynasty... your best advice

[Ryantacular]

Lots of good info here and this being my first year doing dynasty, I want to mention that I think it's a good idea to give your players some time before selling them especially since its not a redraft format. A player could have a down week or two, but I would say absolute minimum should be three weeks to a month before you even consider moving or dropping them. I ended up trading howard when he had a couple down weeks earlier and its hurting me a lot now.

3 weeks minimum before dropping? I wish you were a gurley owner. in my leagues. all of them.

[bruiser]

Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

It is ALWAYS better to be lucky than good. Any wise gambler would tell you this.

[lukkynumber13]

Lots of good info here and this being my first year doing dynasty, I want to mention that I think it's a good idea to give your players some time before selling them especially since its not a redraft format. A player could have a down week or two, but I would say absolute minimum should be three weeks to a month before you even consider moving or dropping them. I ended up trading howard when he had a couple down weeks earlier and its hurting me a lot now.

3 weeks minimum before dropping? I wish you were a gurley owner. in my leagues. all of them.

Haha I'm assuming he's not referring to stud talents who are underperforming. Probably flyer types who flash with some opportunity and then fall off

[The Black Swordsman]

Lots of good info here and this being my first year doing dynasty, I want to mention that I think it's a good idea to give your players some time before selling them especially since its not a redraft format. A player could have a down week or two, but I would say absolute minimum should be three weeks to a month before you even consider moving or dropping them. I ended up trading howard when he had a couple down weeks earlier and its hurting me a lot now.

3 weeks minimum before dropping? I wish you were a gurley owner. in my leagues. all of them.

Haha I'm assuming he's not referring to stud talents who are underperforming. Probably flyer types who flash with some opportunity and then fall off

Of course, some players are obvious non-drops, no matter what. However, I did mention the words consider and moving as well as saying that the window was an absolute minimum. As an aside, I didn't touch gurley this year in any format(after owning multiple shares last year), as I strongly suspected what would happen, and I don't see things getting much better in the short term either.

[amazehayes]

I think a sneaky play that some people don't always consider is when you're in a situation where most of your team or even your core guys are injured and out for the year. Don't trade for the win-now or just because you hate losing every week. Take the losses and get a top first round rookie pick that you can use to strengthen your team for the following year. The prefect example of this in my opinion in real life was the Cowboys last year... no Romo no Dez for majority or all of the year and they were a playoff team last year but with injuries they dropped low and got Zeke and look what they're doing now. There's one team in my league who has Keenan Allen Sammy Watkins Adrian Peterson Eric Decker and Danny Woodhead and now he's in line for a top 3 rookie pick right now WITH THAT TEAM already. Imagine his team next year with those core members and either Cook Fournette Williams or Davis.

[sloth8u]

^^^ this is what makes buying/selling future picks so interesting/strategic/valuable. You never know how the new owner of any asset will handle their team going forward.

[Factory of Sadness]

If you're joining an existing league, you need to be patient before you make any trades. You will likely get a number of terrible offers whilst some of the existing owners try to take advantage of you. Hold very firm to your valuations as if you take a lowball - even if it is a deal where you prefer the guy you're getting and it would make sense in another league - you're going to get nothing else coming your way for a long time. That doesn't mean you have to be paranoid as there are lots of good owners who will offer you win-win deals too, but you do need to understand that until you've said 'no' a few times to offers that are vaguely close, you won't get anybody's best offer.

[steelman]

Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

It is ALWAYS better to be lucky than good. Any wise gambler would tell you this.

Absolutely. In a redraft I'm in my draft went like this

1. CJ Anderson (on IR)
2. Matt Forte
3. Brandon Marshall
4. Donte Moncrief
5. Marvin Jones
6. Christine Michael
7. Blake Bortles (dropped him)
8. Zach Ertz
9. Gary Barnidge (dropped him)
10. Steve Smith (dropped him)

The rest doesn't matter. Either way, just imagine what my starting lineup is and not only am I in the playoffs, but I won my playoff matchup last week and am somehow in the semi finals. I'll take luck over skill all day long

[stoneghost28]

I think a sneaky play that some people don't always consider is when you're in a situation where most of your team or even your core guys are injured and out for the year. Don't trade for the win-now or just because you hate losing every week. Take the losses and get a top first round rookie pick that you can use to strengthen your team for the following year. The prefect example of this in my opinion in real life was the Cowboys last year... no Romo no Dez for majority or all of the year and they were a playoff team last year but with injuries they dropped low and got Zeke and look what they're doing now. There's one team in my league who has Keenan Allen Sammy Watkins Adrian Peterson Eric Decker and Danny Woodhead and now he's in line for a top 3 rookie pick right now WITH THAT TEAM already. Imagine his team next year with those core members and either Cook Fournette Williams or Davis.

This is kinda what I did in my very first dynasty last summer. I had a bad feeling that the '17 firsts I traded for via trade downs during the '15 start up ended up being picks from teams that would be picking quite low in the '17 rookie draft, and I had concerns that I had way too many players that carried a serious risk of missing a lot of '16 due to their injury history (Effect, Watkins, and Allen were three of my best four players, the other being Gurley) so last spring and summer I ended up doing a pile of trades to acquire more '17 and '18 assets (anticipating some players going back to school) with teams I projected to suck in '16, selling off players that would be roster cloggers, or I anticipated declining in value and it ended up working perfectly.

The Deals:

February 2016: Traded '16 1.3 for '17 1st and '16 3rd: '17 first ended up '17 1.3: in retrospect this was highly risky and kind of stupid, should have asked for more, but it ended up working out anyway.

February 2016: Traded '16 2.12, '18 1st and '18 2nd for '16 4.10, '17 1st, and '18 3rd: '17 first ended up '17 1.5: ended up pretty good for now.

May 2016: Traded Eddie Lacy, Sammie Coates, and '16 4.3 for '16 2.4, '17 1st, and Martavis Bryant: '17 1st ended up 1.2 overall: ended up working out brilliantly.

July 2016: Traded Duke Johnson, '16 2.4, '17 3rd and '18 5th for '16 2.9, '17 2nd, '18 1st: '17 2nd ended up being 2.3 overall: ended up working out brilliantly

September 2016: Traded Theo Riddick after he blew up in week 1 for '17 2nd: ended up being 2.1 overall: ended up working out brilliantly

I also made some incredibly stupid trades, the worst of which was Crowder and '17 and '18 2nds for John Brown back when Crowder had had back to back disappointing games early in the fall, and Brown's value was seemingly at bottom (until it got worse). The '17 2nd ended up slotting in at 2.3 overall.

That looks like a horrible, horrible trade right now, but at least the other deals end up canceling it out, for the most part and I currently own the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 8th, 11th or 12th, and 13th and 14th picks in 2017 through round 2, and I have a core that includes Dalton, Garappolo, Gurley, Prosise, K. Allen, S. Watkins, J. Brown, M. Bryant, and Eifert, plus solid depth at WR, but not at RB.

Being honest about where you stand can really help, and not throwing away the future for at best,a minimal chance at winning is a key in this game to me.

[moishetreats]

Word of caution: Projecting future picks is a dangerous game. A great team on paper can miss the playoffs with just a couple injuries while an average one can win a title. This is something that is a safer way to go about midseason. Never, ever make projections past the following year.

The guy who finished last in our league last year is currently in the semi-finals this year.

I think that we need to clarify the value in projecting. If I trade for a first-round pick in 2018 projecting it to be, say, top-3, then that is a VERY dangerous game: I'm paying the price of a top-3 pick -- or, more likely, just a hair under that price -- without knowing if it will be.

Projection is VERY valuable, though, in the right circumstance. If you see a team "projected" as a bubble playoff team that you believe will bottom out, then you trade for that first-round pick, paying the price of, say, 1.05 (whereas the team sees himself as having a pick around 1.07), and then you might get even a better pick.

Two examples. This off-season, I traded with a team who made the playoffs last year, and his team improved coming into this year. Realistically, he would have around pick 1.06-1.08, and I "overpaid" by most league accounts for his first-round pick. Not by a lot, mind you, but by a little bit. My projection came true, as he fell to 1.02.

Another owner did something even more shrewd two years ago, simply swapping 2016 first-round picks as part of a deal. The shrewd owner had the best team in the league, and the other owner had a slightly-above average team. But, the shrewd owner saw the ship sinking; it sank to last place, and the best team then added Zeke to his roster.

Bottom line: find the owner optimistic about his squad. He'll see a trade with you as improving his team thereby worsening his projected first-round pick. You can use their projections against them. If/when they slip, then you have a better pick than you anticipated.

[jetsfan5757]

I would say to be patient, and also to not let the opinions (and jokes) of league members get to you.

My first year of Dynasty football (2012) I thought I had a team that could compete for the Championship but was a RB short. I had Shonn Greene I think and when he got injured I felt really short at RB and saw playoffs slipping away, so I traded Randall Cobb for Bilal Powell. Needless to say that was bad for me.

Also, stick to your gut and convictions. I drafted Antonio Brown in 2012 really believing he would break out in a big way that year. He actually took a step back, statistically, and still desperate for RB help, I tried to move him for an RB headed into 2013. Our league WAYYYYYYY overvalues RBs (1 QB, 3 WR, 3 RB, 2 TE no flex no PPR made everyone struggle to field 3 strong RBs) and everyone ridiculed me for asking for a decent RB in exchange for Brown. I ended up thinking I must be wrong, and unloaded Brown for Darren Sproles.

Sometimes it's better to just wait, to wait for better injury luck, and DEFINITELY to stick to your convictions if you have high hopes for a player. Give them time. (That's why I am still holding onto Josh Gordon )