Dynasty fantasy football is much like war. You need to know your opponent, understand how to prepare and create a battle plan, how to construct a balanced roster with a defined vision, and know when to go for the title or (re)build for a future run. A deep and intimate understanding of both strategy and football is required to be consistently successful in a dynasty league. This treatise illustrates the fine art of building a true dynasty and maintain a top position in your leagues for a considerable time.
These are the 10 core tenets that I believe are critical to success in building a dynasty behemoth that will yield results year over year.
- Startup Drafts
- Roster Construction
- Ideal Archetypes
- Ship Chasing
- Iron Bank
- Rookie Pick Values
- Rookie Drafts
- Trading
- Roster Management
- Bayesian Inference
Targeting Ideal Archetypes
As Josh Larky noted on his recent appearance on The Undrafted, building predictive models is not the only way to find the players you want on your dynasty teams. In contrast, you want to identify the ideal archetypes of players who are proven performers. As such, Jax Falcone has done an incredible job outlining these archetypes in his highly-acclaimed Dynasty Anatomy Series.
You may want to research and develop your own archetypes but Jax has laid the foundation for us.
Anatomy of a Top 12 Dynasty QB
- 1st round Draft Capital
- 6’2” / 220 lbs.+ is the ideal size
- College Yards Per Attempt of 8.0 with at least one season with 8.5+ YPA
- College Completion % of 63% or better with at least one season over 65%
- Best College Season with at least 3,500+ passing yards and 35+ total touchdowns
- Best College Season with at least 400 rushing yards
- 600+ total college career passing attempts
- College career interception rate below 2.75%
- College QBR over 75-80 (with a seasonal best of 80+)
To see how Jax reached these conclusions and developed this QB archetype, check out his process here.
Anatomy of Top 24 Dynasty WR
- Drafted on Day 1 or 2
- 6’0” or taller
- Breakout Age of 18 or 19
- College Dominator Rating of at least 30%
- 4.59 40-time or better (with a speed score of 95+)
- Body Mass Index (BMI) over 25
- Sophomore season production
Read more about the Anatomy of a Top 24 dynasty WR in this thread by Jax.
Additionally, @DynastySFlex built upon Jax’s archetypes and broke WR criteria down based on size since we know that WRs in the NFL are increasingly becoming smaller (and faster), even though alpha dogs will always be highly desired and favored.
Criteria for WRs under 6’0″
- 1st or 2nd round Draft Capital
- Breakout Age of 20 or younger
- Body Mass Index (BMI) over 26.25
- College Dominator Rating of at least 35%
- Average Market Share of team’s receiving yards greater than 26.5%
- Throw out scat backs turned WR
A couple of observations: With shorter WRs, you’ll want them to have a higher BMI and to have more dominant college careers to offset for their shorter height. Check out Todd’s thread on the criteria for a WR under 6’0″.
Anatomy of a Top 15 Dynasty RB
- Drafted on Day 1 or 2
- Sub 4.60 speed with a speed score over 100
- Weighs over 205 with Body Mass Index (BMI) over 30
- At least 1 college season with over 20 catches
- Freshman or Sophomore season production of over 1,000 rushing yards
- Above-average Burst Score of 60%+
- 6.0+ college yards per carry
Check out Jax’s full breakdown of the Anatomy of a top 15 dynasty RB here.
With all this said about archetypes, I should be careful not to discount predictive analytics as they can also be useful in a process. David Willsey has done an incredible job with a unique approach to predictive models and has been generous enough to share his process and database. Check it out here.
Another friend and great analytical mind, David Zach, has developed the RB Fantasy Z-Score This model gives a comprehensive grade for rookie RBs, consisting of:
- Draft Capital
- Athleticism Score
- College Production (adjusted for competition)
- Yards Created
- Offensive Line
- Landing Spot
Dive into David Zach’s work here.
If you are interested in developing your own archetype and/or predictive model, I highly suggest utilizing a comprehensive database like the one Peter Howard has created and generously shared with all. Find it here.
