Earlier this week I talked about joining an ongoing contract dynasty league. Quick update: I put restricted free agent tags on Shane Vereen and Roddy White. Barring a trade I plan to franchise Marques Colston. Three to four years ago these might appear to be excellent tag candidates. In 2015, uh… less so.

One thing I distinguished in my last article was what I called a “true dynasty” and a hybrid. The contract league is less hybrid than I would have thought from reviewing the rules. There are a lot of veteran players under contract. Good thing I’ve got Odell Beckham Jr. and Melvin Gordon for the long haul.

True Dynasty With Deep Rosters

The league I’m going to discuss this time is my definition of a true dynasty – no dollar or contract cap, every player carries over on the roster every year, with only an annual rookie and very limited veteran free agent pool draft to acquire new talent outside of trading and playing the thin waiver wire.

You want to talk deep rosters? This is a 12-team league with 40-man rosters. It includes individual defensive players (IDP), but only 7 IDP starters. I think we should increase to 9 or 10 IDP starters, but in the current setup most teams carry less than 15 defensive players each, meaning 24 QB, RB, WR and TE per team are accounted for, plus a kicker.

This is another dynasty league that already had some history when I joined, so I didn’t take part in the initial draft, but rather inherited an abandoned team. When I took over the team I was so-so about its immediate prospects. It didn’t help I was in a division with what was clearly the top team equivalent of Bill Walsh’s San Francisco 49ers.

I finished second in record, third in points in the league that season (2012), but second in the division to the powerhouse and a wild-card playoff spot. Three division winners and one wild-card team make the playoffs. I think I managed the team well that first year, but it overachieved to a degree too.

In 2013, another second place finish in the division but no wild-card as the team started to show its true colours having some depth and overall talent deficiencies. Last season, a 5-9 record, third from the bottom after “winning” a tie-breaker (third instead of fourth). It is time to turn things around!

Competing Dynasty Philosophies

When playing in fantasy football dynasty leagues such as this one, there are generally two main, competing philosophies. One, sell all short-term assets for long-term assets, be patient and reap the rewards of those one-time top rookie picks and prospects coming into their own and becoming fantasy studs to form a team similar to Mr. Powerhouse mentioned above.

The second philosophy takes a less patient approach, more or less trying to “go for it” most seasons. Proponents of this philosophy feel rookie picks are risky and overvalued, while reliable but unexciting veterans are undervalued, and therefore the fantasy owners tries to take advantage of that.

There are new surprise players every year in fantasy football, even if they only get hot for a month of so, that carry teams to and through the playoffs. Maybe you need to do a little retooling once in a while, but hey, you just need to get into the big dance to have a chance, am I right?

I definitely lean more to the second approach. While I can appreciate the success of pulling off the, “burn it to the ground and start from nothing” philosophy number one, I think it succeeds less than many are willing to admit. When it goes on and on and a team is seemingly spinning its wheels, I call that the perpetual rebuild.

This is fantasy football. I’m in this to win games, and I don’t have enough patience to wait on multiple first round rookie picks to pan out. More importantly, I feel the risk does outweigh the reward most of the time.

It probably doesn’t help I’ve never been big on trading, either. Wheeling and dealing is probably my least favourite aspect of fantasy football. Some people are extremely diligent and good at it, but it is not my cup of tea, so the haggling involved acquiring those multiple first round picks through a total rebuild approach is outside my comfort zone.

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

In analyzing my current roster and what steps to plan out heading into this season, I thought it would be interesting to look at how my roster transformed since I acquired this team, and over the three years I’ve been in the league.

You can see from the end of the 2013 to the end of the 2014 seasons, I acquired an early first round pick to draft Sammy Watkins. In fact, it was pick 1.01. In doing so I traded away Cam Newton, who I was never that keen on from a fantasy perspective, but in another deal acquired Ryan Tannehill at QB which worked out decently.

Given the ongoing presence of the powerhouse team in my division, I’m sure I had a sense of, “I don’t have a great feeling about the upcoming year”, and therefore acquired a key rookie pick, used my own and overall sat on some prospects to see what would happen with them.

The problem is, Watkins was less effective than Mike Evans and both were completely overshadowed by Beckham. Watkins’ future is clouded by a shoddy QB situation in Buffalo. I used my own first round pick on Cody Latimer, and his value has certainly gone down. Okay, lets call a spade a spade – that looks like the worst pick of the first round last year at this point in time.

I knew I should have traded Rueben Randle a year ago as other experts were certainly more keen on him than I was, but I held on (again, not much of a trader). Markus Wheaton came over in the rookie 1.01 for Newton deal, but didn’t impress as much as I would have liked.

I still think Doug Martin can be an extremely good RB if he gets on a team that will use him the right way. He definitely should not have as much workload as under Greg Schiano, but deserves a lot more respect for his skills than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers coaches gave him last year. Devonta Freeman could have done much better with his opportunity a year ago.

Yeah, it wasn’t a great season last season. But, where the original roster had difficulty filling six combined RB, WR and TE spots with acceptable starters a lot of weeks, I think I’ve got the makings of some decent depth and weekly choices to help be competitive.

Now it will be a matter of perhaps combining a pair of mid-tier players (Torrey Smith + Randle? Freeman + stud DL or LB) for a higher-tier offensive player. Easier said than done, as everyone prefers the “1” in a “2-for-1” deal. Plus that means I’m throwing on my trading hat again.

Most of these players are still pretty young, so I think strategy-wise I’m not considering wholesale changes. Play a little more of the patience game. I’ve got my own first round pick this year – 3rd overall – which needs to be a good pick that works outs. It will be a big turning point for this team’s future success.

I could acquire some veterans via trade that represent value but I don’t want to go too heavy in that direction, knowing what I have to give up, and because I don’t feel the team is going to be exceptionally competitive in the short-term. If the veteran still has a 3-4 year career trajectory of decent fantasy performance, sure, but a 1-2 year window I’ll have to be cautious.

In terms of soliciting advice, I’m all for that. Take a look at the current rosters and feel free to comment with some suggested trades, or just general strategy thoughts for managing this team. Are you a proponent of the, “burn it to the ground” approach, or more of a stay competitive, get in the playoff dance philosophy? You know where I stand.