We’ve all been there.
The new season starts, expectations are high, and you feel great about your team. Then, after Week 8, the lights are off, your IR slots are full, and a combination of bad beats and underwhelming performance has left your team at the bottom of the standings. You’re stuck between feelings of hope that things are about to turn and the realization that a complete rebuild may be necessary. If you haven’t experienced this in the past, you are either just a casual dynasty player or living a charmed fantasy life.
I’m used to a high level of performance from my teams. I play in 14 dynasty leagues and maintain a high percentage of teams that reach the championship round. This year, however, the wheels have come off for some of my teams. If you don’t believe chance and luck play as much of a role as research and strategy, you’re creating your own reality — something I try never to do.
First thing first! Close your team page, take your eyes off the standings, put down the mouse, and give me five minutes of your time. If you have followed me for any length of time, you know what’s coming. We don’t perform knee-jerk reactions, rage-trade or mail in the second half of the season. Instead, we get to work.
Your team stinks! Now what? Here are the four initial steps I perform for each team. We’ll discuss No. 4 more at length following.
Free, daily sports updates direct to your inbox.
Free, daily sports updates direct to your inbox.
Sign Up
1. Assess — Bad things happen to good teams. Sometimes, good things happen to bad teams. The latter is, especially, something you need to identify quickly. While Lady Luck has a hand in our finish every season, you need to understand the true potential and power of your team(s). You always want to seek out “Power Rankings” if your league host offers it. This metric will help you understand if your team is punching above its weight or simply experiencing bad luck. If you’ve experienced injuries, are they of the long-term (season) variety or short (four games or less)? Do you have a significant deficit at a position that you must address if you hope to be competitive this year? Do you have players who just aren’t performing to their past standard? You need to understand the DNA of your lack of performance. Not the “what you hope for” but, instead, the “what is” of your situation.
2. Runway — How many games remain for you to close the gap and potentially still make the playoffs? I’ve seen some crazy bad runs and some crazy good ones. Not all is lost if the DNA of your performance to date is simply bad luck. If your performance is systemic due to build and you lack enough games to recover, you have another decision to make. Remember, objectivity is key.
3. Age — The topic of average positional age speaks more to your style as a dynasty manager. In my estimation, there are two camps: 1.) The need to trade away players who are “aging out” of their perceived peak-production years. That is now 26 for running backs and 29 for receivers. 2.) Win-now regardless of age. I’ve played fantasy football for over 25 years. I can confidently tell you that the win-now approach provides greater long-term results. But that doesn’t mean the peak-production approach can’t be successful. What is your style and your tendency? The writing may be on the wall if you possess an aging team that is not performing.
4. Rebuild or augment — After objectively determining the DNA of your performance via assessment of each position, depth, age and remaining runway, the result needs to be a concrete action plan. You will either embark upon a rebuild or augment your current build to address its deficit(s) in hopes of salvaging your season without undermining its foundation for future years.
Let’s discuss No. 4!
Remember one of my top rules for dynasty team building:
Be the best or be the worst! Do not be mediocre.
This rule primarily applies to rebuild situations. If rebuilding, do not get stuck out of the playoffs but with mid-round rookie picks. Your goal is to unload players who possess production value to competitive teams in return for some combination of rookie picks or upside potential. The return value is twofold: 1.) It provides future upside, and 2.) It removes current-year production from your team, hopefully increasing your draft capital. In situations like these, the trade deadline is your friend.
If rebuilding, do not give players away in return for too much future risk. I always value “known” over “unknown” in trade scenarios. Aging players still produce and can be important cogs in your dynasty machine, even if you are rebuilding. The key is to assess how many productive years the player has remaining. Running backs who are 26 and receivers who are 29 still have enough remaining production to be valuable, even in a rebuild scenario, but they also may have greater return value. It’s always a function of how much known value a trade offer returns to you when assessing whether a trade makes sense for your rebuild.
One of the biggest mistakes I see dynasty managers make is trading away high-level production simply because a player is nearing the peak in his age curve. As a general rule, I use three years. A player with at least three years of remaining production is one I’m willing to retain. In dynasty, a lot can change in three years, and producing players are always in demand. I’m never quick to trade away productive veterans simply because they are aging.
Realize the impact a single productive player can hold. I’ve seen this play out countless times on my squads. If my team suffers from bad beats or narrow losses, a single positional augmentation could return it to a competitive level. In such situations, I seek productive players beyond their age-curve peaks from managers embarking upon a rebuild journey. A popular tactic is to use social media’s herd mentality to my benefit, looking to add productive players who are popular sell candidates. Adding a key player in a deficit position can go a long way toward turning L’s into W’s.
Finally, young players in known situations are usually safer bets than rookie picks. But, in trade scenarios, rookie picks often take priority. Use this to your advantage! Outside of the top three rookie selections, often the top two, success rates fall precipitously. If I’m acquiring rookie picks in return for veteran players, I’m not committed to using those picks for anything other than trade negotiations to follow, usually just before next year’s rookie draft when those picks reach maximum value.
In summary, losing is never fun. But your losing record may not be an indication of a lost team. In most situations, it’s not. Resist the temptation to rage-trade, jettisoning all production for a collection of unknown risk capital. Doing so will likely make a poor situation much worse. Resist the temptation to accept your fate or disengage and not seek opportunities to improve your team. Opportunities always exist in the trade market or via the waiver wire.
In the next week or two, I’ll be identifying players to acquire (buy) or distribute (sell) as trade deadlines approach and deep sleepers to add now for 2025. I’ll also be updating my 2025 rookie draft rankings to help you identify the strength of next year’s income class.
As always, please comment below if you have any questions or comments. I look forward to interacting with my readers. Please give me a follow on Twitter and Threads: @DLF_Jeff
Be happy, be well, and please, be good to each other!
(Top photo of Bryce Young: Wesley Hitt / Getty Images)
