Welcome back to part 3 of our continuing series on how to win your fantasy football league. So far we have discussed the basic tools you need to understand in order to win, and a few of the basic strategies that people use in most redraft, or seasonal leagues. In this article, we are going to be discussing how those strategies are going to differ when playing in keeper, dynasty, or auction leagues. While these leagues are not as common as the traditional seasonal league, they are growing in popularity, and it is important to understand how you can take advantage of the strategies we have discussed to win these leagues.

Firstly, we are going to get started by discussing keeper league strategies. To do this we need to define exactly what a keeper league is. In a keeper league, managers are able to keep a number of players that they have drafted in the previous year to begin building their roster for the current year. Depending on the format of the league, the number of players that can be kept can vary, and so can the “penalties” for keeping them. Typically, most keeper leagues have 5 or fewer keeper spots. And, the “penalties” for keeping a player usually include in increasing draft spot position for each player kept. What this means is that if you drafted a player in the 8th round last year, you would either give up your 8th round pick this year to keep him, or in an increasing value league, you would give up a 7th round pick for him this year. These valuations greatly impact your keeper strategy.

So, what is a good keeper strategy? Generally speaking, you want to keep the players that you have at the best value. Let’s use Puka Nacua and Kyren Williams as an example. In most leagues you were able to draft these players in the last couple of rounds of your draft last year. This year they are being drafted much higher. So, lets say you drafted both of them last year and you got Kyren in the 17th round and Puka in the 18th round. Being able to keep these two players who are being drafted as first round or second round picks this year will give you a huge advantage. In this example, even if you gave up a round of draft position and kept each player as a 16th round and 17th round pick, you are gaining 13-14 rounds of value on each of these 

players.

While this is a rather extreme example, it does a good job of defining a keeper value strategy. So, step one of your keeper strategy should be to keep the players that give you the biggest value advantage. Once that is completed it is time to move on to step two, which is to build your roster around your value keepers. Draft strategy in a keeper league should be very similar to your strategies for redraft leagues, you are simply starting from a slightly different foundation.

Now, let’s move on to dynasty leagues. Dynasty leagues have been growing in popularity, and it is one of my favorite formats to play. In a dynasty league you essentially keep your entire roster from year to year, and instead of drafting from the entire pool of players in the NFL, you supplement your roster with a rookie draft. This format is often one of the most trade heavy formats around because managers are either looking to “win-now”, or “rebuild”. Those who are in “win-now” mode are generally looking to acquire impact players, and are usually more willing to trade away draft picks in order to obtain them. Those who are looking to “rebuild” are usually looking to move aging veterans in an attempt to stockpile more draft picks.

The problem is that many players don’t know which mode they should be in, and end up middling around in mediocrity season after season.

When it comes to dynasty leagues, I usually play in 3 year windows. The reason for this is simple: if you have too many players who are middling around in mediocrity, you usually have 1 or 2 dominant teams that know how to manipulate trades in their favor, and managers begin to leave, which increases the likelihood of the league folding. The other reason I play in 3 year windows, is that it keeps me active. If I can’t build a winning roster with the players I have within 2 years from now, I will begin making moves to rebuild so that I will be competitive again within the window. This often means that I begin rebuilding while I am still a competitive team (but not a contending one). This is an important distinction. Competitive does not mean contending.

Knowing how to effectively draft in a rookie draft is also key to building a contender in dynasty drafts. Referring back to the first article, this is where it is important to understand coaching schemes. Some coaches have a difficult time trusting rookies with a large role, while others are known for being very reliable when it comes to utilizing them. Understanding who the rookies are, and how they fit into the schemes they were drafted into is also important. Sometimes, the most talented players get drafted into situations that are bad fits, which makes it difficult for us as fantasy owners to trust them. Bryce Young and CJ Stroud are two examples from last year. If you understood what was happening in Carolina and Houston, you knew that one was a good situation, and one was a toxic situation. These differing situations created vastly different outcomes for the two players. These are the kind of things that we, as fantasy managers, need to pay attention to. Don’t let yourself get caught overdrafting a player that you are counting on. Make sure you understand the situation, and draft carefully. 

Quantity does not always mean quality…but usually it does. Just because an owner in your league has half the first round draft picks, does not necessarily mean that they will make the best decisions with those picks, but simply having that many swings usually means that they are going to hit on more of them. This is why rebuilding teams try to acquire as many picks as possible.

For dynasty start-up drafts, I don’t change my overall strategy very much, except for the fact that I include an age kicker in all player valuations. For quarterbacks that age is 32, for wide receivers and tight ends it is 29, and for running backs it is 27. If a player is over those ages, they are automatically knocked down a value tier for me. It doesn’t mean that I won’t draft them, it simply means that I am going to draft them much later than I normally would in a seasonal league.

Finally, let’s discuss auction strategy. While I am not the perfect person to discuss auction strategies, I have played in several auction leagues…and have been successful in them. An auction league is very different from any other type of league that we have discussed. In an auction league, every manager has a budget that they can spend on players. They can spend as much or as little on them as they want, but at the end of the draft, you want to have built a roster that can be competitive. This means that every manager has access to every player. You are not limited in who can be on your team simply because you were assigned a certain draft slot.

In this format, players take turns nominating a player to be bid on, and then the league places bids until only one remains…the highest bidder. This format requires careful budgeting so that you can fill your roster with players that have a good chance of making an impact. A couple of strategies that I typically employ in auction leagues are this. First, I rarely begin auctions by nominating players or positions that I am overly interested in. For example, let’s say that this year I am not particularly high on the running back position, and Christian McCaffery specifically. When my turn to nominate comes up, I will likely nominate CMC so that my leaguemates can bid themselves up on him, which takes a large sum of one of my opponents budgets away, making it more likely that I will get a player that I AM high on, a little later, and for possibly a better value. Second, I have a budget chart with me that tells me how much I am willing to spend on each position. So for example, let’s assume a $200 budget for the auction. My spending limits might be: $16 for QB, $70 for RB, $100 for WR, and $14 for TE. This uses every dollar available to me in my budget. It also means that I am pricing myself out of a few players because I simply won’t be willing to spend what it takes to get them. This system works for me, but it might not for you. There might be a world where you absolutely want to have a certain player, and you will be willing to spend whatever it takes to get him. By all means, do it…just know that by doing it you are going to create a budget shortfall for yourself at another position, and you will need to be creative in your roster building.

While this format is daunting for some, I find it incredibly interesting, and I wish that it was more popular than it was.

There you go, basic strategies for how to win your Keeper, Dynasty, and Auction leagues. I know that there is far more to each of these strategies than I have discussed, but these articles can only be so long. I am more than happy to discuss strategy with you further, and you can find me on X(Twitter) @2fatguysff . You can also find me on Discord where I am active on The Sports Affiliation discord server.

I will be back next week for part 4 of this series where I will be discussing how we can put what we have learned in this series into practice with some basic discussion of how these strategies will work for this year.