Up to Eleven: The First Weekend of 2021 Dynasty Owner Start-up Drafts

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By Steven Van Tassell

Apologies to Nigel Tufnel for stealing his line and if you don’t get the title, then please go watch the classic movie This Is Spinal Tap. Dynasty Owner really did have 11 start-up drafts that took place this past weekend and hopefully everyone is excited to learn what happened in them. Let’s get going and take a look at the highs, the lows and everything in between.
All 11 of these start-up drafts happened on May 8th. Average Draft Position (ADP) was calculated from the results of these 11 drafts and may differ from the ADP that appears on Dynasty Owner when this article is published. All position ranking data and stats listed are from the 2020 Dynasty Owner season.

Who’s #1?
Last season, it was pretty clear that Lamar Jackson (QB – BAL) and Christian McCaffrey (RB – CAR) were going to be the top picks in Dynasty Owner as they finished 1-2 in Dynasty Owner fantasy points in 2019 and each had a very affordable contract ($2,367,912 for Jackson and $4,310,326 for McCaffrey). This season, it was an open question as there were only five players in the top 25 of scoring last with contracts of under $10 million for 2021: Josh Allen (QB – BUF), Kyler Murray (QB – ARI), Justin Herbert (QB – LAC), Lamar Jackson and Baker Mayfield (QB – CLE). However, the consensus #1 pick so far in Dynasty Owner start-up drafts this season is none of those players, nor is it anyone who finished in the top five in scoring at his position in 2020 (he finished sixth). That’s right, your consensus #1 overall draft pick so far is at a salary of $1.96 million for the next three seasons…Jonathan Taylor (RB – IND).
Taylor had an ADP of 1.9 in the first 11 drafts and was the first pick in six out of those drafts. His lowest draft spot was #5 in League #55319. He is easily the overall #1 pick as his nearest competitor (Christian McCaffrey) was drafted a full three spots later on average (ADP 5.1) and wasn’t even drafted in the first round in all 11 leagues (he was the #13 pick in League #58988). Only one other player, Dalvin Cook (RB – MIN) was drafted in the first round in every one of the 11 leagues (ADP 6.9). Lamar Jackson was close, but got drafted with the #47 pick in League #55319 that dropped his ADP to 11.4 despite only being drafted outside of the first round in that league.
For the record, we had four players taken with the #1 overall pick. The other three were: Christian McCaffrey (twice), Josh Allen (twice) and Justin Herbert (once).

First Round Draft Selections
Out of eleven initial start-up leagues, we had a total of 27 different players drafted in the first round. By position, most were RBs (13), followed by QBs (7), WRs (5) and TEs (2). In contrast to last season when there were no first round TE picks, Darren Waller (TE – LV) and Travis Kelce (TE – KC) were both drafted in the first round in one league (Waller with the #4 pick in League #53520 and Kelce with the #7 pick in League #55785).
The new contracts signed by many of last year’s first round draft picks increased the salary range for players selected in the first round so far. For all 2020 Dynasty Owner drafts, there were only 36 players drafted in the first round at least once and the average salary of those players was just a little over $8.05 million. The average salary of the 27 players taken so far in the first round is $8.27 million. In 2020, there were five players with salaries of under $1 million taken in the first round, accounting for 9% of all first round picks. There were no players with salaries under $1 million taken in the first round of these 11 drafts.
Earlier this off-season, I wrote some articles about the 2020 drafts. One of the lessons from an article in March (https://dynastyowner.com/2021/03/how-to-draft-a-dynasty-owner-championship-team-part-ii/) was to be wary about selecting a player with a high salary. The 2020 draft data showed that it’s easier to still win with a low salary #1 pick who gets injured or underperforms than a high salary top pick.
It appears that many of the people who drafted in these 11 leagues either didn’t read that article or ignored the findings as eight players with salaries of $10 million or more were drafted in the first round. These players accounted for three in ten (30%) of the first round selections in those leagues with a Dynasty Owner in all 11 leagues taking Dalvin Cook and his $12.6 million annual salary in the first round.
Last year, just 6% of the League Winners drafted a player with a $10 million or higher salary in the first round and won, compared to 12% of all teams who drafted those players. We will see if that rate improves or not in 2021, but it’s clear that many of the Dynasty Owners who drafted so far are not heeding the findings from last year.

Salary Cap Usage
Since we are on the topic, let’s talk about how much of the new $127.75 million salary cap that the Dynasty Owners in these leagues used. Did most of them go right up to the cap or did they hold back the 8.7%, which would be $11.1 million, that the average League Winner did in 2020?
The average amount of the salary cap used was $117.405 million with $10.345 million held back, pretty close to the $11.1 million recommended based on the 2020 draft data. The median was higher at $121.58 million, meaning half of the teams spent more than that amount, and half spent less.
Overall, three-quarters (75%) of the teams drafted under $127 million and left themselves room to pick up at least one additional player from the Free Agent Auction, while a quarter (25%) left themselves less than $750,000 in salary.

Congratulations to miserable f in League #55319 for spending the least in the draft ($62,818,097). That’s under half of the salary cap. Congratulations are also in order for The Mantis Toboggans in League #55784 who spent $127,743,987 and left only $6,013 of the salary cap in reserve. We will see if either of those teams win their league with their extreme usage of the salary cap.

What About Deshaun?
What to do about Deshaun Watson and his $39 million annual salary for the next four years? That’s a great question and right now, nobody really knows the answer. The Texans appear to be hedging their bets by acquiring Tyrod Taylor (1 year/$5.5 million) and Ryan Finley (2 years/$827,414) and drafting Davis Mills (4 years/$1.304 million) with their first selection in the 2021 NFL draft. Some Dynasty Owners in existing leagues held on to Watson and his $39 million salary when his salary was updated and they had seven days to release him without a drop fee, while others dropped him free of charge. His current ownership in Dynasty Owner sits at 44%.
For the 2021 start-up leagues, Dynasty Owners were either in on Watson early or not at all. He was drafted in 8 out of 11 drafts with an ADP of 30.9, just behind Joe Burrow ($9.047 million) who had an ADP of 30.2 but was obviously drafted in all 11 leagues. Watson went completely undrafted in three leagues. He was drafted in the 2nd round with the #17 pick in League #55318 (bold move, North Dallas Bulls), but never later than the 5th round. Overall, Watson was drafted in either the second or third round in seven leagues.
We’ll find out over the next few months and years whether those Dynasty Owners who gambled and drafted Watson were right or wrong, but either way, it’s fascinating to see what happened with the #4 overall player in Dynasty Owner in 2020.

Fan Club Presidents Meeting
There is a running joke on dynasty fantasy football Twitter that if you really like a guy and draft him early, you are President of his Fan Club. Back in 2019, I was the President of the Jimmy Garoppolo Fan Club since I was in four leagues (two redraft, one regular dynasty and Dynasty Owner) and had him in all four. In last year’s original five beta league drafts, which occurred in June with all Dynasty Owners who had played in 2019, the undisputed #1 Fan Club President was CyberFire who drafted Carson Wentz and his $32 million salary with his 4th round pick (#47 overall). Wentz went undrafted in one league and had an ADP of 118.0 in the four leagues he was selected in after being selected in the 10th round (#115), 13th round (#151) and 14th round (#159) in the other three leagues.
In the same spirit, I would like to nominate the following Dynasty Owners as President of the Fan Club of the following players. To be nominated, you had to draft a player at least one full round before he was drafted in any other start-up draft. You also had to draft him a full round ahead of his ADP. For example, if you took Player A in the first round with the #10 pick and based on the other start-up drafts, he would have been available with your #34 pick and his ADP was 22.0 or higher, then you’re nominated for President of that guy’s Fan Club. Without further delay, here are the nominees:

• Richie Incognito (League #53520) – Julio Jones (WR – ATL)
• Carr Insurance (League #53520) – Thaddeus Moss (TE – CIN)
• Superman (League #53521) – Cam Newton (QB – NE)
• the oracle (League #53521) – Kirk Cousins (QB – MIN)
• Team Heimbaugh (League #53522) – Sam Darnold (QB – CAR)
• SKOL Vikes (League #53522) – Stefon Diggs (WR – BUF)
• Culpeper Shockers (League #54157) – Leonard Fournette (RB – TB)
• benchwarmers unite (League #54160) – Michael Pittman (WR – IND)
• Beaumont Riders (League #54168) – Hunter Henry (TE – NE)
• North Dallas Bulls (League #55318) – Todd Gurley (RB – Free Agent)
• jetskii (League #55319) – Michael Gallup (WR – DAL)
• Luck Dynasty (League #55784) – Dak Prescott (QB – DAL)
• Gold Rush (League #55785) – Aaron Rodgers (QB – GB)
• NOBRADY_NOPROBLEM (League #58988) – Ronald Jones (RB – TB)

Richie Incognito would apparently like to block for Falcons WR Julio Jones. How else to explain taking Jones and his $22 million annual salary for three more years with their fifth pick (#51 overall) when he wasn’t drafted until the 10th round in any other league and went undrafted in two leagues? Unless it’s not the Raiders offensive lineman who owns the Dynasty Owner team named after him.

I love me some Thaddeus Moss ($768,333 through 2022) as I drafted him last year in Dynasty Owner and another dynasty league, but not as much as Carr Insurance does. They drafted Moss with their 13th pick (#148 overall) even though they took Darren Waller (TE – LV) with the 4th overall pick. Moss was also a Solitary Man as Carr Insurance were the only team to select Moss in all 11 initial start-up drafts.

The appropriately named team Superman acquired the services of Cam Newton ($5.1 million salary for one year) who used to do the Superman pose after scoring TDs, but they drafted him far earlier than anyone else. Superman used their 4th round pick (#43 overall) on the Patriots QB when no one else drafted him with a double digit overall pick. Newton’s ADP is over 100 spots higher (149.0) than when Superman drafted him.

With the final pick in the 3rd round (#36 overall), Team Heimbaugh selected Sam Darnold. Pretty much in line with his 2020 performance as the #33 QB in Dynasty Owner. Oh wait, he was the #36 overall pick?!? That’s a lot higher than anyone else drafted Darnold in the other 10 leagues (#71 pick was the next earliest) and five full rounds earlier than on average (99.0 ADP). It’s tough drafting from the turn as Team Heimbaugh did, but they could have waited at least one more turn before grabbing Darnold.

Stefon Diggs had a great season for the Buffalo Bills last year. He was the #3 WR and #21 overall player in Dynasty Owner with 331.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. He was also drafted by 19% of 2020 League Winners, one of the highest percentage of any player last season. All valid reasons to draft Diggs and his $14.4 million salary with a high draft pick. However, SKOL Vikes loves Diggs so much (and probably misses him being on the Vikings) that he drafted Diggs with their 1st round pick (#7 overall). That’s 16 picks before anyone else drafted him.

Culpeper Shockers probably shocked the rest of the teams in their league when they grabbed Leonard Fournette with their 4th round pick (#39 overall). Especially with Josh Jacobs (RB – LV) and Mike Davis (RB – ATL) still on the board. Both of them are less expensive than Fournette ($3.25 million for Fournette; $2.98 million for Jacobs; $2.75 million for Davis) and outproduced him in 2020 (134.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points for Fournette; 236.2 points for Jacobs; 205.5 points for Davis). Fournette was available until the 7th round in every other league that drafted that weekend.

Michael Pittman ($2,153,212 for 3 years) was the first pick of the 5th round (#49 overall) by benchwarmers unite. That doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch, until you look at the rest of the leagues that drafted and see that they could have drafted Pittman with their next pick (#72) in every other league. Here’s hoping that Pittman and new Indianapolis QB Carson Wentz have a great connection or else this pick might not look good at the end of the year for benchwarmers unite.

Not sure if Bill Belichick has any connection to the Beaumont Riders, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did because they drafted new Patriots TE Hunter Henry and his $12.5 million salary for the next three seasons with the last pick in the 7th round (#84 overall) of the League #54168 draft. Henry has an ADP of 166.1, wasn’t drafted in one league and was taken with a pick in the 200s in four other leagues. They also drafted Sony Michel with the #133 pick, which was 18 picks before anyone else, so maybe there is at least a New England connection.

Todd Gurley may be a NFL free agent, but he has a home with the North Dallas Bulls. The former Rams and Falcons RB and his placeholder $5.5 million salary was the highest drafted Free Agent player with an ADP of 144.4, underscoring the need that teams always have for RBs. However, I’m not sure that the North Dallas Bulls needed to draft him in the 6th round (#65 overall pick) like they did when he went undrafted in two leagues and no earlier than the late 8th round in any other draft.

With all of the playmakers that the Dallas Cowboys have, sometimes Michael Gallup (880,995 for one year) gets lost in the shuffle. He was the #39 ranked WR in Dynasty Owner in 2020, but that was still far behind Amari Cooper (#15 ranked WR) and CeeDee Lamb (#22 ranked WR). Of course, Gallup’s salary over $19 million less than Cooper’s and over $2.6 million less than Lamb’s. Still, it was surprising to see jetskii draft Gallup with the #41 pick in the League #55319 draft when Lamb was still on the board (and scooped up two picks later by one of the owners in my beta league – Dirty Hippie Farmer). Gallup has an ADP of 105.2 in the first 11 league drafts, so he was likely to be available much later on.

Gallup’s teammate in Dallas, Dak Prescott, got a $40 million annual salary contract a couple of months ago. That caused Dynasty Owners in two of the 11 leagues to not draft him at all and for his ADP to be 119.3, which is crazy when compared to Deshaun Watson who was drafted much higher (ADP 30.9) for only $1 million less. Anyways, Prescott and his contract was worth a 3rd round pick (#30 overall) to Luck Dynasty, a full ten picks before Patrick Mahomes, but eight picks after Watson. Not sure if Luck Dynasty is overrating Prescott or the Dynasty Owners in the rest of the leagues are underrating him.

Do you want to know what’s going to happen with the Aaron Rodgers and Green Bay Packers situation? I’d ask Gold Rush in League #55785 if I were you. They must know. Otherwise, why would they draft the reigning NFL MVP with their 4th round pick (#42 overall)? Similar to last year when he was drafted in only 35% of Dynasty Owner leagues, Rodgers was drafted in 5 out of 11 leagues (45%) and no one took him higher than Gold Rush did. They must know how that situation is going to turn out. They must.

In a return to this list from last year, it’s Ronald Jones. Last year, Fumbled Dreams drafted Jones with the #48 pick and that was good enough to make him the Fan Club President. NOBRADY_NOPROBLEM said “Hold my beer” and drafted Jones and his $1.77 million contract with their 3rd round pick this year (#31 overall). Nobody else drafted him before the middle of the 5th round in any other draft and his ADP was 83.3, or the end of the 7th round. In other league news, NOBRADY_NOPROBLEM didn’t draft Tom Brady.

Those are all fine Fan Club Presidents, but we have a winner, and it wasn’t even close. You may have already guessed who it is since we skipped them in the order. The undisputed #1 Fan Club President so far this year easily goes to the Oracle. Hate to break the news to the Oracle, but you were the only team to draft Kirk Cousins. That’s right, 11 leagues and in only one was Cousins drafted. And you took him in the 6th round with the #69 pick. Now, it’s true that he was the #10 overall player and QB in Dynasty Owner in 2020, but his ownership right now is below 1%. Sadly, that’s higher than it was for most of 2020 when he was not owned for most of the season and only drafted in one league with the #187 pick. Just to let the Oracle know, the only team that drafted Cousins last year (Dynasty Owner super fan PACKER-H8TER). He ended up immediately regretting that decision, dropped Cousins using an Amnesty Provision, which cost $5 million Dynasty Dollars, a little over a month after the draft and finished in last place with a 3-10 record.

Solitary Men
In contrast to the Fan Club Presidents, we have the Solitary Men who were only drafted in one league. The next paragraph is what I wrote last year as the introductory paragraph to this section. Since I wrote it, it’s not plagiarism. Just laziness or recognition of good writing. Your choice.
Raise your hand if you’re a Neil Diamond fan and got the headline reference to his 1966 song Solitary Man. I prefer Sweet Caroline myself, but nobody with the name Caroline is currently on an active NFL roster so I couldn’t use that. Shout out to my friends Scott and Kerri Bernstein who are huge Neil Diamond (and fans of the Neil Diamond cover band Super Diamond as well) for being the people who introduced me to Neil and Surreal Neil.
Not every good NFL player will be on a Dynasty Owner roster in every league. There are many guys out there who were only drafted in one of the 11 start-up leagues that drafted already. We already mentioned Kirk Cousins and Thaddeus Moss, but there are some other guys who were only selected in one of the first start-up leagues to draft in 2021.
Jimmy Garoppolo (QB – SF): #186 pick by Gold Rush in League #55319
Andy Dalton (QB – CHI): #197 pick by Irish Vader in League #55785
Corey Clement (RB – Free Agent): #203 pick by Game Over in League #54168
KeeSean Johnson (WR – ARI): #217 pick by Fantasy Footballers in League #58988
Joe Flacco (QB – PHI): #232 pick by Yoba Goya in League #53521
There were 61 players in all selected in only one league, but many of them were low salary free agents who many Dynasty Owners (including myself) have no idea who they are, what position they play or if they are on a NFL roster or not, such as Drew Belcher (TE – Free Agent) and Seth Williams (WR – DEN).

Random Facts
Finally, here are some random and interesting facts about the first eleven 2021 start-up drafts. Please be warned that several of these facts involve kickers.
Player with highest ADP drafted in all 11 start-up drafts – Jalen Guyton (WR – LAC), ADP 244.3, $540,000 salary for one year, scored 97.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in 2020
Kicker with the lowest ADP – Tyler Bass (K – BUF), ADP 143.9, $869,804 salary for three years, first kicker drafted in 9 out of 11 leagues, was the #7 kicker in Dynasty Owner in 2020 with 124.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points
First kicker drafted in any league – Younghoe Koo (K – ATL), drafted #90 overall in League #53520 by Canadian Steelers (only league in which he was the first kicker drafted), $920,000 salary for one year, was the #2 kicker in Dynasty Owner in 2020 with 139.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points
Total number of players drafted in all 11 start-up drafts – 443
Number of players drafted in all 11 start-up drafts – 196

Conclusions
What did we learn, if anything, from this analysis of the first weekend 2021 start-up Dynasty Owner league drafts?
The main lesson learned is that no two leagues are the same. No player was drafted in the same draft slot in all 11 leagues. While Jonathan Taylor is the consensus top pick with an ADP of 1.9, the Dynasty Owners with the first pick in five leagues didn’t draft him and in one league, four Dynasty Owners passed on him before he was selected with the fifth pick. With 132 Dynasty Owners drafting, you’re likely to have 132 opinions on what to do at any single draft slot (probably less since I have a feeling that at least one Dynasty Owner drafted multiple leagues that day). That goes for the first pick salary and salary cap usage recommendations as well. Some Dynasty Owners appear to have taken the lessons learned from the 2020 drafts to heart, while others ignored (or didn’t know about) them.
Some Dynasty Owners love a player more than anyone else, those are your Fan Club Presidents, while other players get little or no love and are only drafted in one league. Or drafted in none, since we have 1,404 players currently in the Dynasty Owner player pool, but only 443 were drafted at all.
Regardless of your league and if you’ve already drafted, waiting to draft or just waiting for the rookie drafts to start, Dynasty Owner has great content coming to help you win your league and a new publication schedule for the weekly articles and videos that will provide the information you need. A few new videos to accompany the weekly articles have been posted and more are coming every week from now on. All of the articles and videos will be released at 1 PM (Eastern). My articles and videos to get you ready for your 2021 Dynasty Owner start-up league team will be released on Saturdays throughout the off-season. Keep an eye out for new articles from the rest of our team of Dynasty Owner writers as well. Nate Christian (@NateNFL) will talk about rookies on Tuesdays. Matt Morrison – The Jerk (@Dynastyjerk) is doing a deep dive into contracts by teams that you can check out on Wednesdays. Jay Poundsee (@jaypoundsnfl) looks at how to rebuild your Dynasty Owner roster and everyone will get his insights on Fridays.
Please read all of their articles and follow the four of us plus Dynasty Owner (@Dynasty_Owner) on Twitter. Hopefully this article is helpful as you prepare for an upcoming Dynasty Owner start-up draft or maybe even a rookie draft, which start on May 28th. Thanks, and have a great day!

Steven Van Tassell is the Head of Content for Dynasty Owner
Follow us on Twitter: @SteveVT33 and @Dynasty_Owner