Building a dynasty fantasy football team requires strategic thinking and football acumen similar to planning a long military campaign. You must intimately understand your leaguemates’ rosters and tendencies, diligently prepare for the rookie draft and waiver wire, and thoughtfully craft a balanced yet versatile roster aligned to your vision. Knowing when to push all chips to the table for a title run or temporarily rebuild for sustained excellence is equally critical. The finest dynasty owners combine sharp situational analysis with statistical rigor and old-fashioned football study to construct juggernauts that dominate their leagues for years.
This guide outlines core tenets to help you architect a formidable roster poised for both immediate and enduring success. By internalizing essential dynasty strategies around planning, preparation, roster construction, and pivoting between competing goals, you too can rule over your leaguemates year after year like a battle-tested emperor of old.
- Startup Drafts
- Roster Construction
- Ideal Archetypes
- Ship Chasing
- Iron Bank
- Rookie Pick Values
- Rookie Drafts
- Trading
- Roster Management
- Bayesian Inference
- Startup Supreme
- Roster Crunch
- Trade Assessment
- Productive Struggle
- Game Theory
Stockpiling the Iron Bank
Whether you’ve perfectly executed a startup draft, moving back for rookie draft capital, or traded away veterans for young building blocks and assets, you have a head start on stockpiling what Mike Liu has coined the Iron Bank. If you’re not familiar with Mike, you’re probably living under a rock as he is one of the sharpest fantasy football minds I know. He’s a great networker, thinker, and gamer. I have learned a tremendous amount from Mike including concepts I discussed in the previous chapter on Chasing the Ship and the Iron Bank discussed here. Check out his Patreon and join his Wolfpack here.
@RealRYNOS, another friend and respected fantasy player, has mastered the concept of the Iron Bank, and describes it as a store of value of top dynasty assets which include elite players and future rookie draft picks. Essentially, the Iron Bank is a storage of assets that can only appreciate in value and are (for the most part) immune to factors that negatively affect the value of those assets. Rookie draft picks, especially 1st round picks, are among the safest assets to own and are guaranteed to increase exponentially in value the closer you get to rookie drafts (see Chapter 6).
Whether a draft class is strong or weak, 1st round picks will always hold value and when a pick is on the clock, rookie fever inevitably reaches its peak. As I will later discuss, you can withdraw maximum trade values for picks during rookie drafts or add to your roster by making the picks following the Rookie Pick Cycle. Draft picks don’t get injured, lose their starting jobs, or don’t get publicly shamed/canceled. Consequently, draft picks are the safest asset to own and you always want to position yourself with as many appreciating assets as possible in dynasty fantasy football.
Trading is usually the quickest way to build a juggernaut roster but can also be a risky proposition if value is consistently lost in transactions. For example, many teams traded for James Robinson, giving up multiple draft picks in the process. If they were chasing a ship and were successful the point is moot. However, for those middling teams that just wanted to add depth or the next hyped player, they lost a decent amount of value in that transaction as time eventually proved. As we know, the Jaguars drafted Travis Etienne who has caused a dark cloud to loom over Robinson’s near and long-term fantasy prospects. I was bashed for trading JRob for a pair of 2022 2nds even though I knew my dynasty team would not compete last year.
The JRob move was risky but storing up iron assets for a quick reload has proved to be profitable, especially when I was able to snowball those picks during a recent rookie draft into more 2022 and 2023 picks. Now, I have the flexibility to either trade away those picks for elite veterans to make a title run or continue to build through rookie draft by trading or making picks. If you’re not a true contender, you need to recognize that and start building through Productive Struggle and Iron Bank principles. It’s all about the endgame and how you plan on getting there.
Rynos provides another tidbit when it comes to stockpiling rookie picks. Getting picks more than a year out can be easily obtained as throw-ins for every trade you make. Today, many teams are looking to trade their 2022 and 2023 picks. Because you can argue that distant future picks are worth less due to time/value principles, 2023 rookie picks can be acquired at a discount and will undoubtedly skyrocket in value over the next year or so. By the time that class comes around in one or two years down the line, you will have accumulated an arsenal of rookie picks, allowing you to take complete control of that rookie draft. That is the ultimate goal of storing assets in the Iron Back – having a stockpile of 5 or 6 1st round picks accompanied by multiple 2nds.
