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By Steven Van Tassell
After spending the past five weeks discussing the first-ever Dynasty Owner Tiers, I wanted to change things up this week and write an article solely devoted to helping all of the new Dynasty Owners out there with the most important task at the start of their Dynasty Owner career – their first start-up draft.
Everyone has their first Dynasty Owner draft, and it can be a daunting task. One of the members of my Beta league commented after our 2020 league draft that it was “the hardest draft I have ever been in. I was exhausted after it was done.” Any dynasty league draft can be a lot of work to determine who you want to draft, who’s projected to do well this year (and in the future), keeping track of your own roster and what positions you need, who’s still available, bye weeks, etc. What Dynasty Owner does is add contracts and salaries on top of all of that and make you stay under a salary cap ($127.75 million for 2021).
Those of you new to Dynasty Owner might not believe that it’s true. Especially if you’ve participated in dynasty league drafts before. My first dynasty league draft was an auction with a cap on how much you could bid overall on salaries. I thought keeping track of that was difficult, but Dynasty Owner was even harder. Participating in mock drafts will help and I urge you to do as many of those as you can, but unless you are mock drafting with a dozen active Dynasty Owners and not computer autodrafting, it’s not the same thing as your first Dynasty Owner draft.
Going about your first Dynasty Owner draft in the same manner as you would a “regular” dynasty league draft is a mistake. In the NFL and Dynasty Owner, it’s all about maximizing the value of the players on your roster. Having Aaron Rodgers and his $33.5 million salary would have been great in 2020, as he led Dynasty Owner with 517.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. However, for only $5.3 million in salary, Dynasty Owners could have had Josh Allen and his 516.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. However, the team with Allen would also have $28.2 million more left to spend on the rest of their Dynasty Owner roster than the team with Rodgers.
If you forget about value and just focus on points, you won’t be the first person to make that mistake. I’m here to help you avoid that scenario and be able to compete with experienced Dynasty Owners in your first draft. Earlier this off-season, I did a series of articles looking at how 2020 Dynasty Owner league winners drafted their teams and encourage all new Dynasty Owners to read those articles. These articles are based on a thorough analysis of all 2020 Dynasty Owner leagues in every type of league (Beta, For the Love of the Game, $600 Cash Prize pool and $1,200 Cash Prize pool):
- How to Draft a Dynasty Owner Championship Team – Part I
- How to Draft a Dynasty Owner Championship Team – Part II
- How to Draft a Dynasty Owner Championship Team – Part III
- How Many Quarterbacks and Kickers Should I Draft?
- How Much of the Salary Cap Should I Use in the Draft?
- How Much of the Salary Cap Should I Use in the Draft? – Part II
- League Winners and How They Used the Salary Cap
- League Winners Salary Cap Usage Versus Average Teams
In these articles, there are findings about how Dynasty Owner League Winners drafted in comparison to the rest of the members of their League. Some findings contradicted suggestions that I had made before the 2020 start-up drafts took place and some were new. Many of the other analyses in those articles were inconclusive and didn’t come up with any broad findings applicable to a wide range of League Winners. Two of the main highlights were:
- Dynasty Owners who drafted players with lower salaries in the first round were more likely to win their League title than those who drafted higher salary players.
- It is not necessary to outspend the other teams in your League to win. League Winners were actually more likely to be in the bottom half of spending in their individual league
With these findings in hand, let’s look at a few examples of how to draft and, more importantly, not to draft your first Dynasty Owner team. There won’t be player recommendations contained in this article, instead, it’s all about using the salary cap and player value to your advantage.
All 2021 projections come from Rotowire and are based on the Standard Dynasty Owner scoring system as outlined in the updated Dynasty Owner Constitution. Standard Dynasty Owner scoring gives you .1 points for every yard rushing or receiving, .1 point for every 2 yards passing, 1 point per reception, 6 points for a rushing, receiving or passing touchdown and 2 points for a successful 2-point conversion (rushing, receiving, or passing). Interceptions or fumbles lost cost you 3 points, while a fumble that is recovered by the player’s team is a loss of only 1 point. Bonus points are available for 100-199 yards rushing (2 points), 200 yards rushing or receiving (6 points), 300-399 yards passing (1 point) and 400 yards passing (4 points). There is also a 3 point bonus for clutch scoring, which is a score that results in a lead change in the final two minutes of the 4th quarter or overtime. Kickoff and punt return touchdowns are worth 6 points for the player and kickoff and punt returns are worth 1 point for every 40 yards.
All 2021 Dynasty Owner ADP and fantasy points projections were accurate as of the morning of August 11th.
A Look at Two Different Potential Dynasty Drafts
There are any number of ways that fantasy football managers can go about drafting their team. I firmly believe that for every 12-team Dynasty Owner draft, there are 12 different draft strategies. Despite what some analysts will tell you, there really is no magic formula since there are too many things out of your control when drafting.
However, if you go into your Dynasty Owner draft looking at consensus “regular” dynasty league ADP from 2021 drafts, you’re going about it the wrong way. Here is an example of a “regular” dynasty league draft from the #1 draft position using consensus ADP, 2021 salaries and projected 2021 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. We’ll call this Team X.
| Round | ADP | Player | Position | 2021 Salary | Projected 2021 Points |
| 1 | 1 | Christian McCaffrey | RB | $16,015,875 | 371.3 |
| 2 | 23 | Darren Waller | TE | $7,450,000 | 265.5 |
| 3 | 25 | J.K. Dobbins | RB | $1,432,359 | 269.7 |
| 4 | 47 | Cooper Kupp | WR | $15,750,000 | 268.8 |
| 5 | 49 | Chris Godwin | WR | $15,983,000 | 263.5 |
| 6 | 70 | Chase Claypool | WR | $1,654,156 | 250.2 |
| 7 | 71 | Russell Wilson | QB | $35,000,000 | 448.9 |
| $93,285,390 | 2,137.9 |
Personally, I believe Team X has a solid start for a “regular” dynasty team. Team X has a full complement of starters that you need in Dynasty Owner (1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 FLEX) minus the kicker position. The starting RBs are 22 and 25 years old and none of the receivers (WR and TE) are over 28 years old. Only QB Russell Wilson is over 30, but he’s not really “over the hill” at age 32 and has not missed a game in his nine-year NFL career. He’s also finished as QB5 (2020), QB3 (2019) and QB9 (2018) in the past three years using the Dynasty Owner scoring system and is projected as QB7 in 2021.
However, the problem is that Team X spent a lot of salary drafting Christian McCaffrey first. They also only have around $34.465 million to fill out the remainder of its roster. That’s 18 Bench and Practice Squad players, including a backup QB, left to draft.
In comparison, here’s an example of a Dynasty Owner draft from the #1 draft position using Dynasty Owner ADP, 2021 salaries and projected 2021 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Let’s call this Team Z.
| Round | ADP | Player | Position | 2021 Salary | Projected 2021 Points |
| 1 | 1.6 | Jonathan Taylor | RB | $1,957,287 | 283.0 |
| 2 | 26.8 | Kyle Pitts | TE | $8,227,624 | 208.8 |
| 3 | 27.1 | D’Andre Swift | RB | $2,134,728 | 276.8 |
| 4 | 44.1 | Davante Adams | WR | $14,500,000 | 330.2 |
| 5 | 46.3 | Trey Sermon | RB | $1,218,234 | 216.2 |
| 6 | 84.0 | Courtland Sutton | WR | $1,710,480 | 234.3 |
| 7 | 85.4 | Ryan Tannehill | QB | $29,500,000 | 426.9 |
| $59,248,353 | 1,976.2 |
While Team Z is projected to score 161.7 fewer Dynasty Owner fantasy points than the “regular” dynasty team, it still has a full complement of Dynasty Owner starters (minus the kicker position, of course). All three of the RBs are age 22, Adams is the same age as Kupp and Waller, while Tannehill is just one year older (33) than Wilson.
A solid start, but a couple of spots, WR2 (Sutton) and FLEX (Sermon), could be shored up. Fortunately, because Team Z has $68.5 million left under the salary cap, they can easily afford and are likely to be able to acquire the following player to upgrade their FLEX position over Trey Sermon.
| Round | ADP | Player | Position | 2021 Salary | Projected 2021 Points |
| 8 | 102.8 | Mike Evans | WR | $16,500,000 | 266.0 |
| $75,748,353 |
The addition of Mike Evans for $16.5 million and adding him to the Starting lineup of the Dynasty Owner roster above still leaves Team Z with slightly over $52 million to spend on the remainder of its roster and projected to score 2,026.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points with Evans in place of Sermon, or “only” 111.9 points less.
To summarize, at this stage, Team Z has one more player, spent $17.5 million less in salary and projected to score only about 7.0 fewer points per game.
| Team | 2021 Salaries | Projected 2021 Points |
| X – “Regular” dynasty | $93,285,390 | 2,137.9 |
| Z – Dynasty Owner | $75,748,353 | 2,026.0 |
With only $34.465 million to fill out the remainder of its roster, Team X has a difficult path left in their draft as they still needs an entire Bench and Practice Squad plus a Starting kicker. The difference between drafting the “regular” dynasty consensus #1 pick McCaffrey first versus the Dynasty Owner consensus #1 pick (Jonathan Taylor) is most of the difference in remaining salary and a good argument for drafting “value” with your first pick.
What Not to Do (2020 Version)
This example of how not to draft your Dynasty Owner start-up team comes from my own experience last year. I was in a league and almost everyone in it hadn’t played Dynasty Owner the year before. However, everyone in the league has tremendous knowledge of the NFL, dynasty fantasy football, etc., and in one particular case, the lack of Dynasty Owner experience clearly showed as the draft moved along. The Owner was clearly going with a “Stars and Scrubs” philosophy and likely ignoring the salary cap ramifications of the roster that he was drafting. Here are the first five picks for this team, which will be referred to as Team F from now on.
| Round | Pick | Player | Position | 2020 Salary |
| 1 | 9 | Alvin Kamara | RB | $964,443 |
| 2 | 16 | Davante Adams | WR | $14,500,000 |
| 3 | 33 | Josh Allen | QB | $5,295,760 |
| 4 | 40 | DK Metcalf | WR | $1,146,513 |
| 5 | 57 | Todd Gurley | RB | $6,000,000 |
| $27,906,716 |
Keep in mind that all of the salaries listed are for the 2020 season. In terms of salary, Team F ranked in the middle of the pack at $27.91 million in salaries through the first five picks. They went for a value pick in the first round (Alvin Kamara) and didn’t load up on big salaries. All in all, it seems like a pretty solid start. However, the salary cap appeared not to be consulted for Team F’s next three draft picks.
| Round | Pick | Player | Position | 2020 Salary |
| 6 | 64 | Julio Jones | WR | $22,000,000 |
| 7 | 81 | Russell Wilson | QB | $35,000,000 |
| 8 | 88 | Le’Veon Bell | RB | $13,125,000 |
| 9 | 105 | Sony Michel | RB | $2,406,674 |
| 10 | 112 | Jonnu Smith | TE | $776,572 |
| $73,308,246 |
With just three picks (Jones, Wilson and Bell), Team F spent over $70 million, or nearly 64% of the $110 million salary cap for 2020. After the first ten picks, Team F had exceeded $100 million in salaries ($101,214,962) and spent over $20 million more than the second place team in spending (Team Y with $81,107,064). Since $110 million was $110 million salary cap for 2020 was for a 25-player draft, Team F only had $8.785 million to spend on 15 players, or just around $585,667 per player, for the rest of their draft.
Since this draft was held in the middle of August, some players had opted out of the 2020 season due to COVID-19 concerns and had their salaries for the 2020 season assigned as $150,000. Out of the five players drafted in this league’s draft with $150,000 salaries, Team F drafted three of them (Damien Williams, Devin Funchess and Marquise Lee). That means, Team F had three players who were automatically not going to give them any Dynasty Owner fantasy points for the entire 2020 season.
In addition to spending too much, too early, Team F also made the mistake of using almost all of their $110 million salary cap during the draft as the chart below shows. Here’s the league salary situation after the draft (in draft order) along with after the first five and first ten picks:
| Team | Top 5 Picks | Top 10 Picks | All 25 Picks |
| Team J | $32,655,794 | $60,543,353 | $109,841,235 |
| Team R | $6,179,809 | $45,676,281 | $91,067,685 |
| Team P | $46,322,490 | $65,443,695 | $102,569,131 |
| Team T | $31,924,897 | $64,713,394 | $106,197,584 |
| Team A | $27,119,918 | $75,575,718 | $107,201,237 |
| Team C | $30,681,851 | $47,120,660 | $108,465,903 |
| Team S | $8,353,418 | $23,648,825 | $104,544,978 |
| Team V | $28,030,028 | $58,171,664 | $102,611,258 |
| Team F | $27,906,716 | $101,214,962 | $109,797,716 |
| Team Y | $19,423,892 | $81,107,064 | $105,920,673 |
| Team D | $14,001,295 | $26,492,585 | $85,797,466 |
| Team Q | $50,452,958 | $77,132,314 | $100,464,522 |
By drafting so close to the $110 million salary cap, Team F left themselves with little flexibility for post-draft moves. In Dynasty Owner, each team drafts 25 players, but can have a 30-player roster. By only having a little over $200,000 left after the draft, Team F was stuck with their roster as is unless they dropped a player to add someone else.
If Team F wanted to drop someone, it would cost them either an amnesty provision or 25% of the total remaining salary for the player’s contract in Dynasty Dollars. For example, Team F drafted Qadree Ollison (RB – ATL) who had a 3-year, $707,891 salary for a total $2,123,673. In order to drop Ollison, Team F would have had to spend $530,918 in Dynasty Dollars to shed him from their roster. At that point, Team F would have had $910,175 in salary cap room to bid on another player in the Free Agent Auction.
Despite drafting the QBs (Allen), RB1 (Kamara) and WR1 (Adams), Team F finished in third place and lost in the first round of the playoffs. For the record, the team that spent the least overall in the draft and second least through the first ten picks (Team D) was the League Winner.
What Not to Do Versus What to Do (2021 Version)
For 2021, let’s look at how two Dynasty Owner teams drafting next to each other approached their 2021 start-up draft.
| Round | Team | Player | Position | 2021 Salary | Projected 2021 Points |
| 1 | A | Kyler Murray | QB | $8,914,504 | 473.8 |
| 1 | B | Patrick Mahomes | QB | $45,000,000 | 524.2 |
| 2 | B | Trey Lance | QB | $8,526,319 | 369.2 |
| 2 | A | Antonio Gibson | RB | $1,233,159 | 279.0 |
| 3 | A | Joe Mixon | RB | $12,000,000 | 269.0 |
| 3 | B | Austin Ekeler | RB | $6,125,000 | 280.5 |
| 4 | B | George Kittle | TE | $15,000,000 | 263.5 |
| 4 | A | Tyreek Hill | WR | $18,000,000 | 328.3 |
After the first four picks, Team B has spent over $34 million more in salaries, but is only projected to score 87.3 more Dynasty Owner fantasy points.
| Team | 2021 Salaries | Projected 2021 Points |
| A | $40,147,663 | 1350.1 |
| B | $74,651,319 | 1437.4 |
However, since Team B drafted QBs with their first two picks (Mahomes and Lance), they won’t even get the full compliment of Lance’s points from the Bench, just 25% of his points.
One change in Team B’s draft could make a big difference in their salaries, but with minimal impact on their 2021 projected points. That change would be to draft Justin Herbert (QB – LAC) and his $6,644,688 salary in place of Mahomes. Even though Herbert has a better ADP than Mahomes (8.3 vs. 24.4), he was available for Team B to draft in the first round.
| Round | Team | Player | Position | 2021 Salary | Projected 2021 Points |
| 1 | B | Justin Herbert | QB | $6,644,688 | 461.8 |
With that change, we see a dramatic difference in salaries as Team B actually has spent less than Team A at this point, while maintaining a slight advantage in projected points.
| Team | 2021 Salaries | Projected 2021 Points |
| A | $40,147,663 | 1350.1 |
| B | $36,296,007 | 1375.0 |
Team B continued their high-spending ways and was considerably ahead of Team A in spending after the first five, ten and fifteen picks as well as only having $15,880 in salary left after the draft, compared to just over $4.8 million for Team A.
| Team | Top 5 Picks | Top 10 Picks | Top 15 Picks | All 25 Picks |
| Team A | $67,397,663 | $74,024,527 | $85,346,016 | $122,942,288 |
| Team B | $75,303,013 | $103,752,403 | $121,803,299 | $127,723,412 |
In fact, Team B was so close to the salary cap after its first 15 picks that they could only draft players costing less than $700,000 in salary for all of their final ten draft picks. This included drafting three kickers in the final three rounds who are unlikely to help their team (Cole Hedlund, Ty Long and Sergio Castillo).
In contrast, Team A had enough salary left to draft a projected Top 20 WR (Adam Thielen and his $16.05 million salary) in Round 20. While Team B could end up having a better 2021 season than Team A, Team B painted themselves into a corner at the end of the draft by spending too much of their salary cap in the first ten to fifteen rounds. Team A did this while spending in the middle of the pack (sixth) in their league, compared to Team B who spent more than all but one other team.
Conclusion
Looking at a couple of real Dynasty Owner drafts, we see that Team F in 2020 and Team B in 2021 both didn’t draft for value at the beginning of their drafts and ended up having severe salary cap restrictions on the players who they could draft by the end. As a result, both teams are very shallow and ended up with several players at the end who could not help (Team F in 2020) or are highly unlikely to help (Team B in 2021) their teams. In contrast, Team A was able to pick up a Top 20 WR due to their savvy salary cap usage.
Hopefully all Dynasty Owners found this article helpful in getting ready for their 2021 start-up draft. Dynasty Owner has plenty of other great content to help you draft your dynasty. We can also provide guidance as you continue to tweak your roster after your rookie or start-up draft is over so you can win your league. My articles and videos to get you ready for your 2021 Dynasty Owner start-up league team are being released on Wednesdays. Keep an eye out for new articles from the rest of our team of Dynasty Owner writers as well. Matt Morrison – The Jerk (@Dynastyjerk) is doing a deep dive on individual teams that you can check out on Mondays, while Jay Pounds (@jaypoundsnfl) looks at how to rebuild your Dynasty Owner roster on Fridays. All of the articles will be released at 1 PM (Eastern) with videos and podcast released at 3 PM (Eastern).
Please read all of their articles and follow all three of us plus Dynasty Owner (@Dynasty_Owner) on Twitter. Hopefully this article is helpful for everyone who has a 2021 start-up draft coming soon, and at least interesting for those of you who have already drafted or have an established team. 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