Fantasy Football 2018 - Trivia Time, Dynasty Startup, Krampus Released

start of the league in the sense that you don't have a team or players or anything until that moment. But I would wait until after the NFL draft to do your startup because the startup draft in a dynasty, it's going to affect the next 10 years. And so you don't want to just accidentally not know that so-and-so is going to be drafted by this team and then make mistakes. So in summary, the time is after the NFL draft to do your dynasty draft.

To do the draft. But like Jason's saying, you can get things started right now. Define what the league is. Get your scoring system intact. Half point PPR is the preferred scoring format for us. But things like... Not required. No, no, no. Of course. It's not required. But figure out what's the starting roster look like. In our dynasty league, because you have these huge rosters, we have one quarterback, two running back, two wide receiver, a tight end.

But we have two flex. Two flex and no kicker and no defense. And we also made the decision to go no kicker, no defense. Now, that's, you can have those. We have 16 bench spots and two IR spots to complete the roster there. Sure. So if you're getting all of those things worked out, I think that's fine to get it going right now. The commissioner of a dynasty league needs to be on top of things. Yes. That's one of the things. It is more demanding to be the commissioner of a dynasty league than it is to be the commissioner of a redraft league, right?

Yeah. There's a lot more to keep track of. There's a lot more to organize. And obviously your draft is going to be much longer. From an owner's perspective, it does take more dedication to be a member of a dynasty league. And I think that's why it's probably the most important part of starting a dynasty league is who you start it with. You know, if you don't have, you know, enough people that want to actually be committed to a dynasty league, that's tough to start one up with three or four guys. They're like, yeah.

Yeah, I'll try that out. I'm, you know, I might. But again, you know, Footclanleagues.com, we made that so that people can come together. And we've got resources there as well. For instance, Andy, you talk about tracking things. So you can play on different platforms. Yeah, let's go to that question. What platforms do you prefer if you're going to start a dynasty league tomorrow? Right. I prefer ESPN. We just, we play on ESPN because that's the system. We know.

We're used to. It's intuitive for us. So we just kept our dynasty league on there. Yeah. The problem you run into there is that there is the offseason and the draft picks and the trading of draft picks and future assets that are not tracked in ESPN. So you have to have a way to track that kind of off platform. We have a tool that we've made a kind of a Google sheet. And we have that at footclanleagues.com that you can kind of take a look there.

Or you can go with a platform that is made for Dynasty, made to be extraordinarily customizable. Like My Fantasy League, they do everything you can imagine, but it's much more work to figure it out. You have to learn how to use their system. So that's the deal with sites that are really made for Dynasty. They have to have everything customizable.

So there's a lot more leg work, and the learning curve is much higher. Startup rookie draft questions. In year one, you do the startup draft, and then how have we done the rookie draft? So the two main ways are you do the startup draft. You define how big your roster is, what your starting roster is. So it's maybe 30 rounds or so. And then just as a group, you decide, do you want the rookies already in the startup draft?

Because that changes things. The players like this year's running, like Sequin Barclay, he will go probably at the back of the first, early second, maybe even earlier if he lands in a really great destination. So you can do it that way with all the rookies involved. I've done both of these ways, which the second way being just veterans, and then you inverse the draft order and you have a rookie draft. So I don't think one is necessarily better than the other.

It's up to what your group wants to go with. When we did our startup, we had a random draft order, and then we reversed that order for the rookie draft portion. Right. After year one, we no longer did a snake draft, and we just did opposite order of final standings for the next year's rookie. If it's good enough for the NFL, it's good enough for me. Sure. I'm not sure who you were right there. I'm trying to place it. Just me, man. Just me.

And so, yeah, the ultimate draft kit will have the rookie rankings for 2018 in there as well before it even releases. Offseason waivers. Talk about in-season versus off-season fab or free agent acquisition budget. I'll say this. If you're in a dynasty league, you have to use the free agent budget. Please do not do a dynasty league with a waiver priority. You need to give everyone a chance because the waivers are so barren. And the ownership is permanent.

Yeah, it's so barren. You need to give everyone an equal shot to grab a new player. I mean, our Dynasty League, the way it works right now is when the league year starts, or I should say, after the NFL draft, everyone's given their fab budget. That's all you have for the entire calendar year. In my other Dynasty League we play, you have an off-season budget, and once in-season hits, it's reset once again.

So there's two options for that. And I prefer having the multiple budgets, an offseason and an in-season budget. A couple other questions that have come in from listeners. Number one, how do you integrate new players if somebody was to quit a dynasty league? Yeah. You have an orphan league is what they refer to it as and you just. Orphan team? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, usually you inherit that team. And usually when you're inheriting an orphan team, they're not.

great because people with just an unbelievable roster and they're so talented they can win the championship don't usually bail on that league they wait a couple years so you know but that's that's part of the fun is coming into a situation where you've got to figure out how do I make this over how do I what what great asset do I trade for a bunch of youth or or you know what veterans can I steal for cheap

You know, there's a bunch of difference. I would throw in another commission tip. Don't restrict transactions in dynasty leagues. Some leagues, I think by default for whatever reason, maybe because they're in the setup options of the league, you kind of see the question that says, how many do you allow unlimited transactions or this many? And you approach the question that you never would have thought of approaching just because it's in the settings. But allow people, especially in a dynasty league, to make as many transactions as they want to.

When you're in a dynasty league, it's all about that. It's all about making transactions, trying to see the future, trying to act like a general manager in much more of a real sense than a regular redraft or keeper league. Now you have the question of, let's say your roster is full, and now you're doing the rookie draft. You have these new players. How do you handle that? It's simple. You have to make cuts. Every rookie draft season, you have to make cuts to your roster.

Generally speaking, when you have a team of 25 to 30 NFL players, you have some guys that you can let go because they're just sleepers. You're hoping something breaks right. I just put Brett Hunley back on the waivers. So yeah, you got guys you can let go of. Or you can have what is called a taxi squad. Now, what a taxi squad is, it's you set the number, you know.

Maybe it's three guys, maybe it's five guys. And these are all players that you draft in the rookie draft. And either when they're in their rookie or sophomore year, they can stay on this taxi squad. Obviously, you cannot actually use them in your real starting roster. So you cannot acquire points from these guys. It just gives you a chance to have a deeper league without having to make.

make those cuts you get a longer chance to see if these the brave heart hold yes you got them hold you get to see if they develop uh and then at any point in the season if you want to move someone from your taxi squad then you'll have to make the cut because your active roster can only have the 30 people

So if we were to move a little bit more from a structural commission league setup standpoint and then finish this conversation now with some dynasty strategy. Circle back to some of the things Jason was touching on earlier. Let's say you're joining a league. You've been invited to a dynasty league. This is their first season. I mean, I guess I should be asking myself the question because I'm the dynasty league champion. Yeah, how did you do it?

What do you think are some of the more important things to remember when you're a dynasty owner? And let's only say the things that compared to a redraft league. We're going to spend months and months and months talking about redraft strategy. So what are some things that adjust for a dynasty league? I would say the first tip I would give anybody going into a startup draft is running backs are not diamonds. I mean, they do not last forever. Running backs change so quick.

that you, you know, I go into a redraft league and I think I want running backs. My first round, my second round, I want the running backs. No freaking way for me in a dynasty do I really want to focus there? Because even with a good option, I mean, there's great running backs. They're going to be valuable. Zeke is a great option. But where he's going, I'd rather get a wide receiver that I know I'm going to have seven, eight years, who's also great.

That's one thing. Well, it's interesting, though, because we did reflect on the dynasty landscape in the last three years. He's comparing rookie wide receivers, though. What do you mean? The rookie running backs have been hitting very quickly. You're saying in general draft pitch. I'm sorry. Yes. I was referring to rookies specifically. Recently, the running backs have performed. In your startup draft, when you're drafting vets. I mean, yes. Generally, you see wide receivers. Yeah.

They take the cake. I mean, the number one draft picking a dynasty league right now is probably Odell Beckham or Hopkins. Or DeAndre Hopkins based on their age and the fact they play the wide receiver position. I will say I'm with Jason that generally in the early rounds of a startup, I'm going wide receiver. But I will not ignore talents like David Johnson and Levi-on-Bell who get that workload where they get the receptions of a wide receiver. So even though that the shelf life for that player will be smaller.

It doesn't bother me because I don't overvalue youth. Yes, that's another huge. So do not overvalue youth. In every dynasty league is going to have one to two owners who love youth. They love the upside and the hope that these rookies are going to bring because in three years, when all of their rookies hit and are superstars, their team's going to be unstoppable, except that's not going to happen. So my actual, my real first tip is play to win.

not just now every single year make moves and try to win because i i don't believe in throwing a season now the only exception to that would be maybe you take over an orphan and there's just absolutely no chance and you go full rebuild you have to rebuild it i get it then but if you're in from the beginning i'm playing to win this year and every year and if and people overvalue youth and they let veterans drop

If that veteran still has a shelf life of three years, three years is forever in football. Yeah, and then the only, you know, the last major tip that comes to mind is you do. Don't play me in the title game. You do need to, no, the tip would be play Mike in the title game. Yes, that's actually the last two years and you get to be champ if you play Mike. No, it's to pay a little bit of attention to contracts.

Because just like age matters, you know, how many years do they have left at an elite level, looking at contracts is something I don't ever think about for redraft because or even for keeper leagues. But in a dynasty, I mean, you've got to pay attention where you go, oh, it looks like Doug Martin will probably get released because they can get out of his money this year. Who's the backup there who might have a chance, you know, to.

to be a starter and you grab a Peyton Barber cheap or, you know, something like that. So I would say just pay attention to those type of pieces of news. All right. I want to give you some resources. We brought it up before. Join thefoot.com. You get access to Footclan leagues. You can find dynasty owners. We've seen a lot of Foot Clan listeners find great, a great group of serious owners, great people.

where you can, you know, because that's the part that's hard to capture in a regular league, but in a dynasty league, it's essential to being able to function. There's a great article on our website, the fantasy footballers.com to kind of add to some of these overview points. It's written by Corey Evans. It's called an introduction to dynasty fantasy football, and you can go read that. I highly encourage that. And again, I'll remind you the ultimate draft kit will have rookie rankings so that I'll help you in your rookie draft. Anything you guys want to add before we close things out? No.