Dynasty Fantasy Football 101

If you’re an experienced fantasy football player, you might already be well aware of what dynasty fantasy football is and just what makes it so fun. This article is for those of you who are either new to dynasty or might be considering getting into your first dynasty league. I’ll be breaking down just what dynasty is, how to get a dynasty league started, and some basic rules and settings to consider with Dynasty Fantasy Football 101.

What is Dynasty Fantasy Football?

It’s the beginning of the year and just after celebrating the turn of the calendar, you find yourself coming out of the last week of regular season football. Suddenly, all those fantasy football leagues you’ve invested the past five months in becoming obsolete.

That powerhouse team you think you win three more championships gets sent packing. That rookie you drafted thinking they’ll break out never gets the chance to prove your haters wrong. That running back who started off hot and got injured won’t get to come back and send your team to victory.

We’ve all found ourselves wanting more fantasy after the regular season ends. The NFL postseason provides some solace, but once the Superbowl ends, what are we to do?

Dynasty football takes all the fun of fantasy football but extends it year-round. That’s right, at the end of the season, you keep your entire roster, and instead of re-drafting your entire roster, you hold a draft including only rookies. This puts players one step closer to the feeling of managing an NFL team, pushing players to plan short-term and long-term, aiming to build winning teams year after year.

And yes, you can trade draft picks, which is one of my favorite aspects of dynasty leagues. Are you hurt from two years of Christian McCaffrey injuries? See if you can get yourself a first-round pick in exchange. Did you just watch C.J. Stroud and decide you must have him on your league? Make some trades for a 2023 first-round pick to make sure you get first dibs.

How to Get Started

As with any fantasy football, do what makes the experience most fun for you and your league mates. If you want to abolish the tight end position (another hill I’ll die on) go for it. If you want to have three starting quarterbacks, go for it. What follows is what I consider a typical dynasty league set-up.

For most dynasty leagues, I suggest around 300 total players rostered, particularly for standard starting lineups (1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex, 1 Defense, 1 Kicker). So for a 10-team league that’s 30 players per team. 12-team leagues will have 25-player rosters, and so on.

One of the biggest decisions you’ll need to make is whether to start your league with a draft that includes rookies or not. My personal preference is to host one draft with only veterans and then host a second draft later in the year to draft rookies. I like this because it gives managers the chance to trade draft picks before the rookie draft, immersing people in the full dynasty experience from the beginning.

If you choose to hold a veterans-only draft, you need to find a way to determine the draft order since you have no prior season to reference. In the Faceoff Dynasty league, we used kickers as a placeholder for draft picks. Whoever drafted a kicker first got the first draft pick, and so on.

Basic Rules

There are several parameters you should ensure to set for dynasty leagues you’re managing. First, you will need to decide how far in advance teams can trade draft picks. This is especially important for league with a buy-in. In buy-in leagues, managers typically cannot trade picks for seasons they have not paid for. Other leagues keep a simple two-year rule. Whatever you decide, ensure you’re clear from the beginning.

Second, you should make a determination on whether teams may tank or not. In dynasty leagues, teams who are unlikely to win the championship may logically decide to purposefully lose leagues to gain draft capital. Leagues may choose to make rules requiring managers to start their best lineup. Obviously, this can be a subjective measure, but it is pretty clear if someone is benching Jonathan Taylor, they probably are trying to lose.

Lastly, teams need to know how draft picks will be determined. There are several options. You may use the regular season finishing order to determine the order, with the last place team getting the first pick. You could use the regular-season standings for non-playoff teams and then final place for playoff teams. You could use a method similar to the NBA lottery system. Or you could do something fun like whoever best predicts the outcome of the Superbowl wins the first pick.

Keeper vs Dynasty

If you’re reading this article and you like the concept but are hesitant about diving into a full year-round fantasy football experience, I would recommend trying a keeper league. This is a happy medium between full re-draft and dynasty, where you keep a select number of players each season (typically anywhere from two to five). This allows you to get experience planning your team from year to year, but with less off-season work than a full dynasty league.

Fun Dynasty Variations

Devy Leagues

A fun spin on dynasty leagues are Devy (Developmental) leagues. In Devy leagues, you have a separate roster called your Devy or taxi squad. Think of it as your minor league team. Players who have been in the NFL for two years or less, plus any existing college players can be put on your Devy squad. You may promote any of these players to your primary roster at any time, but once you’ve done so they may not return to the Devy squad.

Do you think you found the next Patrick Mahomes before anyone else and want to claim him before anyone else can? Then a Devy league is the place for you.

Empire Leagues

One of my favorite takes on dynasty leagues is the Empire Dynasty model. This is a buy-in league, where each year half of the money pot goes towards a pot for that year’s winner (champion’s pot_ and the other half is set aside into a separate pot, the Empire Pot.

Each year, more money gets added to the Empire Pot until one fantasy manager wins the league in two consecutive years. Once someone wins in back-to-back years, they become the Emperor, take home all of the winnings in the Empire Pot (see, referencing Emperor Kuzco was actually foreshadowing), and the league is disbanded.

As an example, a 12-team empire league with a $100 dollar buy-in added $600 to the Empire Pot each season. If it takes five years for someone to win in consecutive years, the Emperor takes home $3,000, ten years $6,000, and so on.

When the league disbands, they may start over with a fresh pot or permanently end, but nonetheless, this is a fun spin on dynasty leagues.

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