DLF’s Reality Sports Online League: Ryan McDowell’s Review

Ryan McDowell

rso

As you might have seen in some recent pieces here on DLF, a group of our writers recently took part in a dynasty startup auction, hosted on Reality Sports Online. RSO is a relatively new platform catering to users looking for a more realistic experience. As an owner in an RSO league, you’ll have the chance to negotiate contracts, place franchise tags on players and more. It’s unlike any fantasy football experience I’ve had and truly a lot of fun.

When I was asked to join the DLF league, I jumped at the opportunity for many reasons. First, I like playing with smart dynasty owners and DLF is full of those. Secondly, I already knew I loved the RSO platform since I’d had the chance to play in another fantasy writer’s league hosted by Matt Waldman. This leads to the final reason I enthusiastically joined the league. With a group filled with newbies to the RSO platform, I thought I had an advantage over most others in this league and when I saw the group of players taking part, I knew I’d need it.

In case you missed it from some earlier articles, here are the basics of the league. It’s a 16-team league, requiring each owner to start QB/2 RB/3 WR/TE/ 2 FLEX (R/W/T) from a 25-man roster. There is a total salary cap of $143 million and owners could divvy out the following contracts: four four-year deals, three three-year deals, four two-year deal and the remainder of the team would be all signed to one-year contracts.

I want to explain some of my general strategies and thoughts I had in preparing for this auction, along with a reflection about the success of my plan. Spoiler: It didn’t go so well overall.

Rookie Draft Strategy

The RSO leagues are unique in many ways and this is another example. I’m sure all leagues are different, but each of my two RSO experiences began with a rookie draft, taking place before the startup auction. I drew the eleventh pick in the rookie draft, which featured a couple of unique rules. First, it was a snake draft, which is fairly uncommon for rookie drafts, but made sense considering this draft order was randomly decided, rather than being based on an order of finish. Another aspect to consider is that any rookie selected in the rookie draft would automatically receive a four-year contract and the salaries were slotted based on the selection order. The two players I acquired through the draft would make up two of my four players with four-year contracts. The other factor that set this draft apart from most was the lack of star power. The league decided any player selected in the top three rounds of the NFL Draft would be held over for the startup auction, and therefore, ineligible to be selected in the rookie draft. This obviously was a shot to the value of any picks outside of the top few selections.

With the assumption that rookies would have little impact on the immediate success of my team, I simply planned to take the best overall player when my pick came up. With the 1.11 pick, I chose Steelers’ wide receiver Sammie Coates. While Coates had not been a player I targeted heavily in my other leagues, I did feel he was the best player available and looking back at the draft, I would make the same pick again today. When my 2.06 pick came up, I had a difficult choice between Tre McBride and Cameron Artis-Payne. I felt like McBride was a bit of a reach, but he was a player on my typical target list for any rookie draft. At the time, Artis-Payne was a third or even fourth round pick in most rookie drafts I’d been following, so I went with my gut and selected my second wide receiver, McBride. If given a mulligan, I would have certainly taken Artis-Payne as my lottery ticket, given the importance and lack of depth at running back in a 16-team league.

In the end, I think I stayed true to my “best player available” strategy, but the problem is I should’ve adjusted that plan to account for the unique league settings. I’ll deem this strategy a MISS.

Following the rookie draft, we planned a multiple session auction.

Session One Strategy

With such a large league, I knew I wanted as many studs as possible, including one from the quarterback position. With the large number of teams and the increased quarterback scoring, including five points per passing touchdown, I did not want to use the popular late round quarterback strategy.

Early in that first session, quarterback Andrew Luck was nominated and I began clicking furiously, intent on using one of my remaining four-year contracts on the Colts’ signal caller. To the surprise of no one, I had competition for his services, but in the end, I came out the victor of the Luck auction, to the tune of four years and $103.5 million. That was more than I wanted to spend, but I was still happy with the acquisition. This will be a theme.

After that, I slowed things down as I tracked the top players in the game being won by the other teams in my league. The prices seemed very fair and about what I expected, but I was biding my time until my targets became available. We were nearing the end of session one, which would consist of 32 players, and I still had only Luck on my side.

Soon, my favorite player and a constant dynasty target was nominated – Randall Cobb. Everyone in the league knew I would be willing to pay the price for Cobb, but I was not alone. Packers’ fan Dan Meylor was there to make things interesting. I ended up winning Cobb, but it too was costly. Cobb was given my final four-year contract and $86 million, which is more than many of the receivers typically ranked and drafted ahead of him.

Finally, the first session was nearly complete and sophomore Mike Evans was up for bid. The good news for me is I love Evans as a dynasty target. The bad news was two fold. Former DLFer Nathan Powell, a Tampa Bay fan, also wanted Evans and I didn’t have a four-year contract to offer. In the RSO platform, a three-year contract offer can overtake a four-year deal, but it requires a steep overpay. My final offer to Evans, three years for $90 million drew jeers and surprise from my opponents and I knew I had messed up. In short, I paid more for three years of Evans than others did for four years of their stud wideouts.

Regardless, I had acquired three of the top 32 players, which could be a huge advantage in a 16-team league, but it had come at a large cost. I’d spent more than any other participant through that first session and knew I’d have to slow things down if I wanted to make my budget work for the final 20 roster spots I had available.

I’d call my session one strategy of targeting a quarterback and loading up on studs a HIT, just a very expensive one.

Session Two Strategy

[inlinead]A few days later, we got together again for another auction session. With the top players off the board and my wallet feeling the effects, my plan was to attempt to make others spend as much as possible, while I effectively sat on the sidelines.

Since I, and a couple of other owners, had left session one with multiple players, there were some who still had no players on their team and I correctly presumed they would come out swinging. I bid up nearly every player nominated in session two and didn’t win a single one. By the end of the night, my formerly small balance was middle of the pack and I still had my three studs to build around.

My session two strategy was simple but it worked, at least I thought it did at the time. What I failed to realize is how few good running backs were available, but I’ll get to that later. For my team, session two was a HIT.

Session Three Strategy

By the time session three rolled around, I’d taken a long look at the available group of running backs and it was not pretty. I knew this meant I had to load up on running backs, even if I had to overpay for them.

Entering session three, we also knew this could be the final step of the auction, depending on the pace. This meant I had to be prepared to end the night with a complete roster.

Even with my eye on all running backs, I was still failing to pay the price for what was left. I did end up grabbing Jerick McKinnon for a two-year, $20 million deal, but the rest was basically dregs.

We flew through this back half of the auction and by the time the night was over, our teams were complete. I was able to acquire some of my targets like Derek Carr, Jace Amaro and Kenny Stills, but overall, I was not happy with the way this final session played out. My plan to focus on running backs did not go well, and it also hurt some other positions, as you’ll see soon. Session three was a complete MISS.

Team Makeup Strategy

I had a couple of thoughts about how I wanted my team to look in the end. First, I was willing to punt the running back position. This is just what I normally do in a startup dynasty league and it generally works very well. The problem was this was not a typical dynasty league. The deep rosters, large number of teams, minimum two starting running backs and the relatively short contracts all give more value to the running back position. I somehow managed to overlook all of these as I prepared for my auction. While I was successful in my plan to ignore the running back position, I can already see the idea itself was a huge MISS.

Other than running back, I went in wanting a top quarterback and a reliable tight end. As I’ve already mentioned, Luck was the first player I acquired, so I could check that off the list. Unfortunately, my laser-like focus on running backs in session two left me scrambling at the tight end position, where I’m also hurting. I wanted to build around my wide receivers, awarding contracts to players I believe could help my team for years to come. That is the one portion of the plan where I was successful, landing Evans, Cobb and Stills. While I’m happy with my quarterback and receiver positions, the gap left at running back and tight end means this plan was another MISS.

The final part of my plan was to focus on loading up on older but steady players at all four positions. Since there was a limited number of long-term deals, I would be happy to give the Frank Gores and Roddy Whites of the league a one-year deal and worry about filling their starting spot a year from now. The idea was good, but also obvious even to the novice contract league player. Most of those types of veterans were signed to short-term deals and I missed out on nearly all of them, only grabbing Dwayne Bowe and Kenny Britt late in session three. Yet another MISS here.

Final Team

You’ve seen my thoughts and strategies and it’s pretty clear I am disappointed with how this turned out, but I’m always up for a challenge. Here is my final team, including their salary for 2015 and the total value of the contract.

rso_mcdowell

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