A Rebuilding Tale: Part One

Jacob Feldman

As a lot of you know, a few years ago the DLF partners were kind enough to sponsor a pair of league just for the DLF writers. It sounded like a lot of fun, and I loved the opportunity to go head to head with some of the best in the business, so I immediately signed up for the offense only league. There was also an IDP league, but I had zero experience in IDP at the time. A few days later, when they were still trying to fill the IDP league, I begrudgingly signed up for the IDP league, figuring I would take my lumps and learn the format. I decided to chronicle the experience in a several part series.  You can check back on one of those parts here.

Over the course of that season as well as the one which followed it, I made a few moves and had a lot of luck. I finished both of the first two seasons as the league leader in points scored, tied for first during the regular season the first year, and was a middle of the road playoff team the second season. My team was very consistent, never having a down week but also lacking the high end production, so I knew the playoffs would need to bounce just right for me to win. Fortunately for me, that is exactly what happened, and I was league champion both of the first two seasons of the league!

Heading into the third season, which was 2015, I was hoping to make it a three-peat! I felt my chances were fairly slim as the off-season wasn’t overly kind to my roster, but there was a chance. During the previous two years, I had featured a starting lineup with the following players mixed in:

[am4show have=’g1;’ guest_error=’sub_message’ user_error=’sub_message’ ]

QB – Andrew Luck, Eli Manning

RB – Matt Forte,  Marshawn Lynch,  Jonathan Stewart

WR – Dez Bryant, Eric Decker, Michael Crabtree, Torrey Smith (Baltimore version)

TE – Jason Witten

DT – Dontari Poe, Kyle Williams

DE – Mario Williams, Sheldon Richardson, Fletcher Cox

LB – Derrick Johnson, Keenan Robinson, Paul Worrilow, Stephen Tulloch, DeMeco Ryans

CB – Adam Jones (his return yardage was huge!)

S – TJ McDonald, Ha Ha Clinton-Dix

Looking over the roster and thinking back a few years, you can see where this would be a high scoring but not overly explosive group. I was consistently a top four or five scorer each and every week. Looking at this list and thinking back to last year, you can start to see some of the problems I might have had. Key players on my roster were aging, so I knew the 2015 season was going to be it for my run. Before the year started, I knew I was either going to go all in for a third championship or blow the whole thing up. I decided to let the first few weeks make the call for me.

During the offseason, heading into the 2015 season, I did make a few key moves to help me out. Most notably I picked up Lamar Miller in a trade. Aside from that, the rest of my off-season moves weren’t very major because I wasn’t sure which way my team would be going. Then the season started and I was faced with the choice: blow it up or go all in?

How did I decide it was time to rebuild?

As I mentioned earlier, my team had always been one of the highest scoring teams in the league over the first two years. I wasn’t the top score very often, because I lacked the boom of some of the other rosters, but I was almost always a top four or five team each week. The first week of the 2015 season was no different. I posted 245 points in a league with the season average for all teams around 205 points. This was the third best total that week, but I had the unfortunate luck to be playing the top scoring team, starting my season out 0-1. It was disappointing, but sometimes you have those weeks. I was pleased with the point total and took it as a positive sign for my chances in 2015.

Unfortunately, one of my stars, Dez Bryant, hurt himself in week one. Week two saw me post my lowest score ever for the league.  Missing that stud as well as some down weeks from a few other players and just some bad luck was a terrible combo. My 166 points was actually only the second time I had every scored under 199 points in the first two plus seasons. This definitely made me a little worried, especially since Bryant was out for several weeks. I was now 0-2.

I entered week three in what I felt was a bit of a must win situation. The cutoff for the playoffs the previous years had typically been about 8-5, so starting 0-3 would have made it pretty difficult. In week three I lost by about six points, thanks a combined 28 points from Forte, Lynch, Miller, Crabtree, and Smith. My 197 points wasn’t a bad total as it was just slightly below average, but it wasn’t what I was accustomed to scoring. Even more depressing was losing Luck and Lynch to injuries in week three, meaning I was now down three of my best players for multiple weeks.

The 0-3 start, combined with being down three of my best players pretty much made the decision for me. I didn’t know how long my three stars would be out, and I probably only had at most two more losses to give on the final ten weeks of the season. I didn’t think it was possible to make the playoffs, so I made the difficult decision to end my run. The three-peat just wasn’t going to happen. It was time to get the dynamite and watch things go boom!

Time to tear it all down!

I’ve been playing in dynasty leagues for almost a decade now, and I’ve never had to do a true rebuild before. I’ve always been fortunate enough to be able to reload instead of rebuilding, very rarely missing the playoffs in any of my leagues. With the level of competition in this league combined with the state of my roster, that wasn’t an option here.

I put the word out to the league that I was open for business. Every defender was available and any offensive player older than 26 was available for trade. While this was definitely true, I think I made the right choice in being very careful about which deals I entertained. I also sent out a lot of emails to the teams I viewed as contending and made sure they know players like Forte, Lynch, Crabtree, and others were available if and when they wanted to secure their lineups. As the season went, I kept those discussions going and kept reminding the league who was available. Here is what happened.

Week Four

Trade 1 –  I traded Adam Jones (who had been a top 5 defensive scorer in 2014 in that league) and a fourth for a second round pick.

Scoreboard update – Thanks to the injuries, including a game time decision by an NFL team to sit a player, I put up a new lowest point total on the year and was now 0-4.

Week Five

Trade 2 –  I traded Lynch and Brandon Williams for a 2016 third and a 2017 first from what was then the top scoring team in the league.

Scoreboard Update – I was back up to just below the league average, but the combination of bye weeks and injuries were making it tough. I lost by 17 this week, because Doug Martin put up 37 points against me. 0-5 on the season.

Week Six

This was a huge trading week. The contenders were starting to figure out what they needed and deciding it was time to go for it. I also think there was a bit of a domino effect as the top four or five teams would see others making trades and try to counter those moves. It was great for me as a seller!

Trade 3 – I traded Matt Forte and a fourth from a contending team for Eric Ebron and my own second, which I had traded away back in 2014. This is a TE premium league, so I was happen to get Ebron as a potential replacement for Witten long term, especially since I was also able to move up almost three rounds in the draft.

Trade 4 – I gave up Jason Witten, Vincent Rey, and a fifth from a contending team for a 2016 third and a 2017 second, both from a contending team. Witten wasn’t going to do me any good at his age, so I was happy to get a second and third for him, even if they were from contending teams.

Trade 5 – I sent Eli Manning packing along with my fifth for Matthew Stafford and a contending fourth. The draft picks were almost a wash, but this was more about getting seven years younger while not losing much production at the position. I have Luck as my starter.

Trade 6 – I was able to get a contender to give up their 2016 third for Derrick Johnson.  I was hoping for a little better here, but Johnson was worthless to me as I entered the rebuild so I wanted to get something for him.

Scoreboard Update – The mass of trades had depleted my roster a bit. Combined with the injuries and bye weeks, I was forced to turn to guys like Maxx Williams, Corey Brown, and Kendall Wright as starters this week. As you would guess, it didn’t go well. It didn’t help that I went up against a team with Devonta Freeman, DeAndre Hopkins, Greg Olsen, and Cameron Jordan who combined for 140 points that week! Those four almost beat my entire roster themselves. 0-6 on the season at this point.

Week Seven-Nine

At this point the trading stalled a little bit. Most of my most attractive assets had already been shipped off to contenders. I was trying to fill holes with waiver wire players, but it wasn’t going well. Injuries kept piling up, Dez was still out, and I didn’t have the depth to manage the bye weeks very well.

Scoreboard Update –I did have some solid performances, but things never went my way. I put up close to the league average in week seven, but I was playing one of the better teams in the league and I lost by 30. Week eight was a terrible showing by my depleted roster as the low score of the week. Week nine I was right back to the league average again, but matched up against the third best team in the league.

The home-stretch

I was frustrated at being 0-9 at this point, having lost more games in this partial season than I had lost for the entire previous two seasons. However, I was in a full rebuild, and I had to get over it. The trade deadline was nearing, and I was able to make one more deal.

Trade 7 – I still had Michael Crabtree on my roster and several teams were interested in him. I had several different offers, but ultimately decided to go with upside. I accepted a deal of Crabtree for Melvin Gordon. It was a risky move, but I was willing to gamble that Gordon might figure it out and come back as a starter in 2016 behind what I hoped would be an improved offensive line. Time will tell if this was a good choice.

At this point I also started dropping low value veterans for higher upside youngsters who might do something in future years. I picked up players like Danielle Hunter, William Gholston, JJ Nelson, Will Tye and others who might help me out in 2016.

The major youth movement did make it a little difficult to compete over the last few weeks of the season. It wasn’t for a lack of trying, I was just trying to build a roster which would be competitive in the future not in 2015. As a result, my starting lineup often featured young prospects who weren’t doing much at the time. This lead to some pretty terrible scores down the stretch.  It was also a winless season for my team which had been back to back champion over the previous two seasons. It is funny how quickly things can change. The only good news was I felt in good position to rebuild my roster. I entered the off-season with the following players on my roster:

QB: Andrew Luck, Matthew Stafford

RB: Lamar Miller, Melvin Gordon, Jay Ajayi, Jerick McKinnon

WR: Dez Bryant, Torrey Smith, Kendall Wright, Victor Cruz, Chris Conley, JJ Nelson, Bruce Ellington

TE: Eric Ebron

DT: Dontari Poe, Johnathan Hankins

DE: Sheldon Richardson, Malik Jackson, Danielle Hunter, William Gholston

LB: Paul Worrilow, Keenan Robinson, Manti Te’o, Pernell McPhee, Brandon Graham, Aaron Lynch, Bernardrick McKinney, Stephen Tulloch

S: Landon Collins, Ha Ha Clinton-Dix

Pretty much everyone has at least three years or more left at their prime and/or some decent upside. In addition, I was walking into the draft with the first pick in every round, an extra second, and four extra picks in the third. I was feeling fairly good about my rebuild overall.

Curious how this off-season played out? Check back soon for part two of this rebuilding tale!

[/am4show]

jacob feldman