Starting a dynasty league doesn’t need to be difficult. It also doesn’t need to be more involved than your league wants. Some leagues will never want to switch off- constantly making trades, waiver wire claims etc. Others will take ome time off after the playoffs until after the NFL draft. There is no ‘one-size fits all’.
What is a Dynasty League?
Instead of a traditional redraft league, where you start with a blank slate each season, you have players for as long as you want to hold them for. That means that there are more opportunities. Are you rebuilding? Are you contending for the title? It all changes your mindset, forcing to think about multiple years in your decisions.
League Settings
League settings are as varied as you like. And we could definitely write about it for as long as we wanted! The main things to consider are scoring and roster set up.
Scoring
Scoring in itself won’t change that much from your normal redraft leagues. However, you need to maybe give it more thought at the start of your league, as it’s harder to make changes.
PPR and 0.5PPR scoring tend to be the most popular.
Roster
This is up to you. Alot of leagues are pushing towards Superflex, but really it’s up to you how you manage the roster.
The biggest thing will be the roster size. Each team will likely roster 20+ players on their active roster. So you’ll have alot of names rostered that you wouldn’t see in redraft leagues.
Taxi Squad?
A taxi squad isn’t something that you would’ve come across in a redraft league. It’s a way of extending your roster. But the players that can be on it are restricted. That restriction can be set to whatever you want, but normally its set to rookies.
The purpose is to allow you the chance to let the players on it to develop before they form part of your roster.
Where to Play
Choosing where you play comes down to a personal choice. If you are asking me- I would use Sleeper. The interface is nice, and the development team constantly look to make improvements.
Sleeper
Sleeper are new to the scene, but the willingness to understand what people want and then support it is great.
New for this season is auction drafting, which can be a fun way to kicking off a league if you can pull it together.
Sleeper doesn’t have the same level of customisation as some other platforms, but it has enough for the vast majority of the leagues that you are going to play in. It’s free to use too!
MyFantasyLeague (MFL)
MFL has the most customisation of any platform I’ve seen. The trade off is that the interface isn’t he easiest to navigate. That can put off some users, especially as they don’t have an official app.
To get the full experience in your league, there are also yearly fees to pay.
FleaFlicker
FleaFlicker is something inbetween to two mentioned above. They have an app that you can use, but there are some features that are locked unless you pay for premium.
There area still options to customise your league to fit what you want to do if it’s out of the box.
Others
There are other platforms that you can use, but they can be expensive or need some other work to be done. Truly the only platforms I’d consider are the ones listed above.
Time to Draft!
Once you determine your league settings- it’s time to draft! You’ll have one main draft to get the season set up and then
Startup Draft
Your startup draft is probably the most important that you’ll do. The reason is two-fold:
- It will form the majority of your roster
- If you draft badly, it’ll affect you for years
Rookie Draft
Each year you will also draft from the incoming rookie class. You can do them at any time, but often they are done after the NFL draft.
Rookie drafts typically are performed in a linear order, rather than the normal snake drafts you’d be used to.
Normally the worst team is awarded the first pick, the league winner the last pick etc
If you need more help in starting a dynasty league, or some advice just reach out. Remember you can always have a look at our analysis in our dynasty section of the website.
Image credit: Kevin Jairaj – USA TODAY Sports
