Dynasty Rebuild: From Pretender To Contender
The dynasty rebuild is a tricky process. Don’t be the person who has a perfectly solid contender that tries to blow it up because your team isn’t quite as good as the top one or two teams. Fantasy football is a weekly game and if you can make the playoffs, you have as good a shot as any to win the championship. You’re more likely to make your team worse by prematurely rebuilding. This is for the teams who have a few good pieces but a team full of garbage otherwise. Thanks to some bad injury luck, I had one of those teams in 2018. My team looked like this in a 12-Team 0.5 PPR league:
QB- Jimmy Garoppolo (Torn ACL)
RB- Todd Gurley
RB- Jerick Mckinnon (Torn ACL)
WR- D.J. Moore
TE- Hunter Henry (Torn ACL)
FLEX- Sammy Watkins
Key Reserves- John Brown, Randall Cobb, Chris Herndon IV
I knew had to make a change, so I followed the following steps.
Step 1: Throw Away Your Pride
Look at every team in your league and then take a long, hard look at your own. If you’re not firmly in the playoff conversation or loaded with high-upside players or draft picks, then you might need to make a change. There is no point in being mediocre for five years while your young stars turn old.
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Step 2: Be Prepared to Make Mistakes
Especially early on, you might make mistakes when trading. The important thing is to not compound those mistakes. You can’t win every trade and you must be okay with that. For example, I made the mistake of trading for Jarvis Landry in the beginning of the 2018 season when he was racking up targets. I believed he could be a rock-solid WR2 on my team and I hadn’t yet seen the promise of D.J. Moore, who was already on my team. Therefore, I made this trade:
Traded: DJ Moore, 2019 2nd (2.01), 2019 3rd (3.01)
Received: Jarvis Landry
Despite clearly losing this trade I learned from my mistake. I needed to be more patient with my young talent instead of overreacting to a small sample size. A few weeks later I was able to put my self-reflection in action. I made this trade:
Traded: Jarvis Landry
Received: Aaron Jones, 2019 1st (1.06)
Landry was still a target machine and Aaron Jones was a few games removed from his suspension and still not the starter in Green Bay. I bet on the talent and upside of Jones despite the risk. It paid dividends when Jones was named the starter mid-season and excelled in the role.
Step 3: Sell Your Stars
“But Lee, you need stars to win in fantasy football, everybody knows that.”
I 100% agree with you, concerned fantasy football player. However, your stars have fantastic value on the fantasy football marketplace, especially for teams convinced they are one piece away from contending. Why would you let Deandre Hopkins, a 27-year-old receiver, play out his last three prime years on a team that isn’t all that close to contending for a championship. Hopkins can fetch you a large amount of assets, one of which might even be the next great receiver. A Hopkins trade will put you in a much better position for the future. I addressed this step by trading Todd Gurley after the second round of the NFL playoffs (so yes, my timing was extremely lucky). The trade was:
Traded: Todd Gurley
Received: Mike Evans, Kerryon Johnson
Some of my league mates thought I was crazy because at that point Gurley was still the dynasty RB1. I knew it was a risk, but I wanted to acquire multiple high-upside assets and I had done my research on both Kerryon Johnson and Mike Evans.
Step 4: Sell Assets At Their Peak
This is more or less the “sell all your old guys and one hit wonders” step. In a rebuild, we always want to look to acquire ascending assets. This is where all of your research comes in. Scour twitter, read all the articles you can (especially from createarank.com), and identify the guys you really believe in and want to acquire, and the guys you think have already hit their ceiling. Right after the Super Bowl was when I went to work on deciding who I needed to sell and who I wanted to acquire. The trades looked like this:
Traded: Damien Williams, Jerick Mckinnon, 2020 2nd
Received: Brandin Cooks, Mark Ingram
Traded: Sammy Watkins, Mark Ingram
Received: D.J. Moore, 2.04 (Marvin Jones), 2021 2nd
Damien Williams had a strong end of season and playoffs and I capitalized on that. Mark Ingram was a little off-brand for my rebuild but I truly believed he would be signed to be the feature back somewhere. His signing with the Ravens hiked his value so that I was able to acquire Moore once again. I was able to capitalize on selling players at their peak.
Step 5: Buy Assets at Their Floor
In order to truly be great, risks need to be taken. Some can be small risks like trading players for draft picks. Others can be larger, like buying players amid serious legal investigations. I’ll say it again: ascending assets are key. Just like in finance, the riskier the investment, the greater the return. My small risk was:
Traded: 1.06(Parris Campbell)
Received: Tyler Boyd
I traded the 1.06 directly after draft pick order had been determined and when draft fever was high. I had done little research on the class but had done extensive research on Boyd and believed in him. The pick ended up being Parris Campbell and I was extremely happy with my risk. The riskier move occurred after the Boyd trade:
Traded: Brandin Cooks, Tyler Boyd
Received: Tyreek Hill, 1.10 (Deebo Samuel)
This trade happened while the Tyreek Hill investigation was still in full swing. I had heard inklings about a four-game suspension and decided to pull the trigger on a guy who had finished as a top-three WR. My risk paid off (for the time being).
Step 6: Keep Trading
This advice applies to all dynasty players. Never stop trading despite how good your team might be. Everybody values players differently and some of those values might even surprise you. Here are some trades I made which I felt I was capitalizing on differences in valuation.
Traded: Mike Evans, 1.01 (Josh Jacobs)
Received: Nick Chubb, Travis Kelce
Traded: DJ Moore, 2020 1st, 2020 2nd, 2020 4th
Received: Keenan Allen
Traded: 2020 1st, 2020 2nd
Received: Derrius Guice
Traded: Derrius Guice
Received: Andrew Luck, 2.05 (Devin Singletary), 2021 2nd, 2021 2nd
Traded: Jimmy Garoppolo, 2021 2nd
Received: 2.02 (Andy Isabella)
Believe it or not these aren’t even all the trades I made in this league. However, these are the trades I believe I was able to capitalize on differences in value.
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Step 7- Enjoy the Spoils of Your Rebuild
At this point you have either destroyed your team (but hey at least that means plenty of 1.01 picks in the future) or have built a contender. My case was a bit extreme because of my uncanny timing of trading for guys or trading them away before breaking news–but if things work out, at least you should be left with a contender in a year or two. Here is my team after the rebuild, side-by-side with my old team.
New Team Old Team (Last Place)
QB- Andrew Luck QB- Jimmy Garoppolo
RB- Nick Chubb RB- Todd Gurley
RB- Kerryon Johnson RB- Jerick Mckinnon
WR- Odell Beckham Jr WR- Odell Beckham Jr
WR- Tyreek Hill WR- DJ Moore
TE- Travis Kelce TE- Hunter Henry
FLEX- Keenan Allen FLEX- Sammy Watkins
Key Reserves- Aaron Jones, Key Reserves- John Brown,
Hunter Henry, Kareem Hunt Randall Cobb, Chris Herndon IV
If you’re looking for one major takeaway: take risks and trade as much as you can. Trading is what makes fantasy football so fun and it also is how you win your leagues and build a dynasty.
Comments (1)
Thurston Wellington III
Absolutely brilliant content! I always come quite close to winning but can never win my league. Let’s hope this helps! Cheers.