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By: Jay Pounds (@JayPoundsNFL)
I am still in so much disbelief that the NFL season has seemed to come and go so much faster than normal. While the season was 17 weeks long, just as any other in recent years, it sure did not feel like it. I have to say I hate this time of year more than any unless the Steelers are still playing of course. The thought of only having 3 more football games left is dreadful to think about as a fantasy football lover.
Last weekend my son, old man, and myself (all die hard Buckeye fans) ordered pizza and sat down to watch the National Championship, we were all overly excited to watch the Buckeyes battle the Crimson Tide. The first quarter started with the two powerhouses matching each other touchdown for touchdown, until suddenly they did not. By halftime, the game was out of hand with the Buckeyes trailing the Tide big time and that’s when it really hit me that the best season of the year was almost over, and that’s football season.
It had me thinking back to when Covid blatantly ruined 2020 caused a worldwide sports cancellation that left me salivating to watch Korean Baseball by the time it was all said and done, which I pray never happens again. I bring this story up because here at Dynasty Owner football never really ends, even after football ends.
We as owners have so many things we can be doing to keep the offseason interesting from, deciding who to keep, trying to predict contracts, watching rookie tape, trading, free agency, and much more. Each of these things mentioned will give you advantages as an owner along with keeping football in our lives. While it’s extremely sad to see football come and go, it’s also exciting to see what fun the Dynasty Owner offseason will bring us as owners.
With the college season wrapping up last week I highly suggest checking out Nate’s articles on the incoming rookies to better prepare yourself for the upcoming draft. My last piece of advice is enjoy these last 3 games even if your team is at home watching with the rest of us. As we have already seen anything can happen and sports are a privilege that can be taken away in a second, and that alone should be enough to thoroughly enjoy these last few games as football fans.
In today’s article we will touch on a few more rebuild topics such as, where you should start when rebuilding, when the right time is to rebuild, why to rebuild, should you rebuild or retool, and why it’s important to be real with yourself about your teams outlook. At some point I will either have this entrenched in your head or you’ll get tired of reading it, but make sure you’re following the offseason content as much as you can these short articles and videos can make a world of difference for owners giving them an advantage.
The advantages may not be enough to win your league but in certain situations it could certainly happen, and they will always put you in better positions with a better understanding of what’s going on. Dynasty Owner can be a lot to take in at first but that’s ok and why Steve, The Jerk, Nate, and I are here to help anyway we can. I want to remind everyone as well please feel free to reach out with any comments, questions, or concerns to any of the Dynasty Owner team. We had one rebuilding owner reach out last week with a trade, which I will include below, check it out!
Breakdown of A Dynasty Owner’s Trade
Trade sent in by Taylor Bastedo
- Bastedo’s receives- Saquon Barkley, Jarvis Landry
- Owner #2 receives- Ronald Jones, Michael Gallup, Courtland Sutton, 2nd round pick
I do not have any insight on this trade outside of what you see here in front of us. My initial thoughts on this trade is that I feel both owners won. I would imagine that Bastedo’s is ready to make a run next year buying Barkley, and Landry. Landry is not a pretty name by any means but it is a consistent name and has been for many years. While Landry had a down year (by his standards) he looks to be the go to guy in 2021 for the Browns.
After OBJ went out Landry, and Baker took off and having that kind of stability is an especially important part when it comes to winning in the playoffs in fantasy football. He was also able to get the potential rb1 next season in Barkley, on top of Landry. Owner #2 is in a full on rebuild and trying to gain as much young cheap talent and cap space as possible.
The trio of Jones, Gallup, and Sutton all have solid potential moving forward, with Sutton being the key piece in the trade. Overall, both owners should feel they got the better end with Owner #2 getting out of an aging Landry’s contract for value in return, when it could be hard to trade this time next season.
Bastedo’s should also be thrilled about adding Barkley and such a solid Wr to his roster. At the end of the day I think owner #2 did well for a rebuilding team giving himself young assets to either trade, or keep as well as plenty of cap room moving forward, while Bastedo’s should be competing for a championship next season. It’s a rare trade where everyone win.
1. When is it time for a rebuild?
Owners who know when the time is right for a rebuild are owners who will always be one step ahead of the game. In Dynasty Owner you will need to look at things a little different because of the salary cap. What I mean by that is in regular dynasty leagues you can afford to wait a year for a player that gets injured and run at it again next year, but in Dynasty Owner you don’t have that luxury.
Imagine you had CMC this season and were hard up against the cap, when you lost CMC you pretty much lost your championship window. Next season CMC will cost roughly $12 million more in salary, so unless you drafted extremely smart you will lose some type of important piece because of that contract. I feel this is something that will get overlooked way too often in this format. Always pay attention to your studs and how long they have left on their deal as that will help greatly when deciding if you need to rebuild or not.
There is no perfect time for a rebuild but if you pay attention and realize you have 3 players heading for major deals at the same time it’s time to shake thing up and get your cap back in order. There are also other ways of realizing a rebuild is right for you but most are a bit more obvious (horrible team, zero cap space and a middle of the road team) than planning out how many players get raises at the same time.
2. Where should you start when rebuilding?
This is another question that has no perfect answer to it. While there is no perfect answer to the question most will have their own preference. In rebuilds that I plan to take longer than 2 years I start by trading every running back of value I have and the reason for that is because of the shelf life most running backs have, in essence move them before you can’t.
In football a running back is at their highest value the moment they are drafted until roughly 27 years old (if they’re lucky). The other 3 positions tend to age much better, which makes them the positions I always start with in a rebuild. The best way I have come up with (depending on your league) is to go in this order tight end, wide receiver, quarterback, and then running back.
I say start at tight end because they generally take at least 3 years to become productive fantasy options. Wide receiver is the next spot you look for because they generally produce early in their career and last much longer than the running back position.
The quarterback position is what I look to handle 3rd because you don’t want them to get a contract extension before you’re ready to compete, so take them after your tight end and receivers to try and keep your cap potential maximized. I like to look for running backs last barring a deal I can’t refuse and that is due to their shelf life and availability.
Most productive backs you find will come from the draft or trades (not many James Robinson type guys each year) and you rarely want to trade assets for running backs in a rebuild. Remember this is not a plan you need to live and die by, don’t turn down a great running back trade because you’re horrid at wide receiver.
3. Do you need to rebuild or retool?
This is one of the great questions most owners face and that’s should I really rebuild or can I just retool my roster. Again, this is another question without a perfect answer but there are plenty of things you can use to decide this.
The first thing I look at is the Quarterback position to figure out which route to go. Let’s say you went the route I did and did not place enough value on quarterbacks before you drafted. By doing so you leave yourself with Darnold, and Jones as your starters of the future at quarterback. In this situation even if you have a good supporting team it still may not be enough to win when all is said and done, and no one wants to be stuck in the middle of the pack.
At this point you have 2 options to retool and that’s trade for a top 10 quarterback or get lucky and find one in free agency. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but owners don’t trade their young star quarterbacks in this format, they are just too important. If you are able to trade for a young star quarterback you will more than likely destroy your team’s future, which no owner wants to do.
In this situation your best bet is trade those valuable position players while keeping any young receiver’s , or tight ends on your roster and load up on young talent and tons of draft capital. I always try to remind myself that retools are almost always caused by injuries to multiple players, or a player or two (who are replaceable)starting to show their age.
4. Be real with yourself about your team!
The expression be real with yourself about your team is something I heard a ton of as a new dynasty player and for years it didn’t make sense, until one day it just clicked. As owners we have what I like to call a “my team bias”, meaning you look at your team and think everyone is a superstar or is going to bounce back next season, when in all reality you know it’s a longshot.
This doesn’t tend to happen to owners who are finishing in the bottom 3 of their league, it tends to happen to the teams that just make/miss the playoffs. Having a “my team bias” is one of the worst things any regular dynasty manager can do, and it only gets worse here on Dynasty Owner. If you are not honest with yourself about the future outlook of your team it may set you back years.
If you are constantly picking 5-8 in the draft I can assure you 2 things, one being you will always pay a premium for your starting quarterback (or start a Darnold), and your team will never be elite. If you find yourself picking 6th 2 years in a row yet look at your team and say these guys are about to break out, you probably have a bad case of the “my team bias”.
Owners that do realize their team is not what they hoped when drafting tend to turn their team around much quicker because they were real with themselves about their team and went into rebuild mode at the right time. It’s never too late for a rebuild but you can make it take much longer than you’d originally hoped.
5. Why do owners rebuild?
I’m sure some are wondering why I would take the time to write about something obvious like why do owners rebuild. To be honest this wasn’t something I had planned on writing about, but I showed a buddy of mine what I’ve done so far to rebuild my team and his response was “why would you ever trade away CMC”.
His comments were obviously geared towards a regular fantasy setting but I’m sure there are plenty of Dynasty Owners wondering the same. As mentioned above picking 5-8 in your rookie draft every year is not good for the future of your team, this is no different than NFL teams picking in the middle of the draft, meaning they were not good, but they also weren’t bad enough to get a can’t miss prospect either. You either want to be successful making real runs at championships or picking in the top 3 where you can get a player that should turn into an absolute stud that will help you make runs at championships.
Go back and look through some recent rookie only drafts and you will see that the top picks tend to work out much better than the middle of the road picks, this is especially critical in the 2nd round where talent runs out fairly quick most seasons. My best advice is either be really good, or be really bad because the middle is worse than bad.
Conclusion
I just want to take a second and thank all of you who read these articles and/or watch the videos. The support you guys give Dynasty Owner is absolutely amazing and I can’t wait to watch everyone grow as owners, writers, and friends. Getting to play in Dynasty Owner has been one of the most enjoyable fantasy experiences I have ever had and I hope that is able to continue for many years to come.
As I always say please feel free to message any of us writers on Twitter with any questions, comments, or concerns. I would also like to encourage everyone again to tell a few friends about the format, giving them a chance to enjoy this game with all of us. I hope everyone enjoys the article and as always good luck on your 2021 Chase for the Ring!
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