A Superflex Life, Volume III: Tao of Superflex
We laid the groundwork for your superflex startups, by dispelling those ugly myths about the importance (or lack thereof to way too many people!) of quarterbacks. So let’s take it a step further. Because not only are QBs vital in superflex, but pretending they aren’t actually defies the natural forces of superflex. The late-round QB approach in superflex is like jumping off a cliff, flapping your arms and expecting to fly. It’s like trying to swim upstream.
Here’s what I would say: if you read Volume II on QB depth and you are sold on the idea of a minimum of three QBs, please proceed. If you aren’t sold, read the article again. And again. And again, and again, until you’re ready to prioritize QB depth in your superflex dynasty startup.
READ: Volume I: Why Superflex? | Volume II: Mythbusters
I always say, “go all-in on your best ideas.” Don’t compromise, don’t pivot; do what you know is best and don’t let outside forces change your mind. There is a caveat, which is that I – an outside force – hope to change your mind on the importance of QBs in superflex. But once you are bought in, let that idea become your strategy, and let your strategy become your Way.
If you aren’t familiar with the Chinese philosophy of “Tao,” here’s a crash course on “The Way.” (And keep in mind that I’m not a Taoist either, but we can deal with some small misinterpretations when applying this to dynasty fantasy football. While this game is life for you and me, it has no bearing on the universe’s overall functionality, believe it or not).
“Tao” is the natural order of things. It’s that simple. It is the way things work. And in life – as in superflex – there are three different ways that life and the universe flow: The Road (the method; the energy that drives everything), The Path (the norm, the natural rhythm of the universe’s flow), and The Way (the combination of the two, as they come together into the peaceful – yet uncompromising – continuation of reality).
Whoa.
You thought you were reading a fantasy football strategy guide, and now you’re plummeting into an existential crisis.
Tao is a good thing, Tao brings balance. It does remove a little bit of the feeling of control that we love so much, but “control” is a somewhat arrogant concept, considering we are each one of seven billion control-starved people, in the middle of our brief, 100(ish)-year visit to this several-hundred-million-year-old giant spinning rock, compelled by forces like gravity, movement, temperature, life, and other variables that we are almost completely unable to manipulate… aka “control.”
Seriously, what the hell is happening here? SuperPhilosophyDude here, amiright? This is getting WAY too heavy. Back to superflex.
“Taoism: The Road, The Path, and The Way” applies to superflex as well. It applies to all fantasy and dynasty football, in fact, but it is most compelling in superflex. Check it out:
The Road
In Taoism, “The Road” is what drives everything. What drives everything in dynasty fantasy football? Value.
You have the first overall pick in your superflex startup, and you take Christian McCaffrey. Why? He was awesome the last two years, including being a literal league winner in 2019, but does that mean he’s going to repeat that production in 2020? It’s actually incredibly unlikely. But the team owner with the second pick in your startup complains “aw man, you sniped me!” And the team owner with the third pick says “I was hoping you would both go QB and McCaffrey would fall to me!” And suddenly you feel a sense of accomplishment by making that pick, because you just gained the envy of your entire league. And you begin to imagine the trade offers you’ll get for McCaffrey as the league falls all over itself to try to pry him away from you.
That is value.
Even if (when) he doesn’t produce anywhere near 2019 levels ever again, you get a far greater return value-wise than production-wise, and that makes McCaffrey worth the first overall pick.
So let’s play this hypothetical scenario out a little more. You already have McCaffrey on your roster, and the next two rounds are somewhat heavy on QBs and WRs before it snakes back to you for your second and third picks. Joe Mixon and Nick Chubb both inexplicably make it back to you, so you gladly pick them both and now you have both starting RB spots AND your flex spot filled with high-end RB1s.
But the draft takes a drastic turn as a massive run on QBs hits, some WRs and TEs are sprinkled in, and it gets back to your fourth and fifth picks with almost nothing left at QB, and the WRs are down to the fourth tier as well. But Jonathan Taylor and Clyde Edwards-Helaire are both available to you, while the best QB available is Jimmy Garoppolo and the best WR available is Tyler Boyd.
What do you do? Do you reach past the RBs to take a QB while there are still some starters available? Or do you take the supremely hyped rookie RBs?
Most of us would take the RBs, with the idea that we will trade them away later for depth at another position. We may even have to trade away both of them for one QB. Or, maybe we can trade McCaffrey for an elite QB, now that we have significant RB depth.
Either way, the strategy of drafting the best available players at a position that you don’t need, but knowing that they will be easier to trade to fill in holes later, is known as “Value-Based Drafting.” It is The Road in the Tao of Superflex. Everything we do, every decision we make is based on value.
Value is currency, production is utility… and we can’t buy utility without currency. As my good friend Russ Fischer (@DynastyOuthouse) likes to say, “draft for value, trade for need.” In other words, don’t think about setting a lineup and don’t think about production; just accumulate the most currency you can, so that you can buy production later. And the fact that we can exchange value for production shows that we all recognize and agree to the concept of value. There is a market for value, just as there is a market for production. We all make moves within the market, driven by the ultimate reality of value. That is the method. That is The Road.
The Path
“The Path” is the thing that everyone does; it’s the norm, and the natural rhythm of the universe. The rhythm in fantasy football is really pretty simple: it’s the competition. Scoring points. Winning games. And ultimately, winning a championship. “The Road” was value/currency, and “The Path” is production/utility.
Now, we don’t always agree on the path to get there, but that isn’t really the point. Take away positions, take away player names, and just look at our ultimate goal. How many points can you score in a week? You want as many points as you can get, and we all move rhythmically in that direction.
In a superflex redraft league, the doctrine is slightly different than in dynasty: who is going to be productive this year? We focus on the RBs because they have the easiest path to production; they touch the ball more than twice as much as any WR, and they score more each time they touch the ball than any QB (assuming normal four-point passing TD, one point per 20-25 passing yards scoring). Not only that, but the best RB scores significantly more than the tenth-best RB, where the best QB scores about the same as the tenth-best QB. So our rhythm tends to be RB focused.
Dynasty changes things a little, as our goal – our flow, if you will – is to win every single season, and RB longevity doesn’t really help us achieve that goal. As mentioned in the last episode of “A Superflex Life,” RBs rarely produce consistently over a period of more than two-three years. At the same time, WRs and QBs may not separate themselves in scoring vs. the rest of their respective positions, but they score well, and sustain it over the course of four+ years.
Do you want the player who will score 30 points per game this year, lead you to a championship, and then abandon you and leave you to pick up the pieces next year? Or do you want two guys who each score 15 points per game every year for the next five/seven/ten years without ever playing a starring role for you? There’s still ambiguity in the question, so there isn’t really a right or wrong answer. The point is that the existence of the dilemma is the change in our cadence from redraft to dynasty.
“The Path” is like a series of tributaries, all of which feed into the same collector. Once they all converge, they course together towards the same end. That end is scoring points, winning games, making the playoffs, and winning championships, every single year. There are many ways to achieve the goal, many ways to get to the destination… but there is only one destination. And it draws everything in like a magnet.
Sometimes we even leave The Road to follow The Path. We mortgage the future to win right now. We trade away a draft pick with increasing value (at an increasing rate, no less) or a young player with upside for a veteran player with a small window of productivity, just because that player helps us get to the ultimate destination. We know we’re giving up value, but we’re willing to do it to get the production. The Road takes you to the market, but The Path leads you home.
The Way
This is where The Road and The Path merge; the connection between how we think and what we do; the marriage between value and production.
“The Way” is like a river: it’s peaceful when you allow it to follow its natural path, and simply let it carry you wherever it is going, but if you battle against it or try to stop it, it is powerful and unrelenting. It doesn’t care where you want to go, it takes you where it is going.
The same is true in dynasty; we can’t change the currency, and we can’t change the utility. You can choose the river you want carrying you, but you can’t change course once you’re in the water.
Here, let me flesh out that analogy a little and see if I can make it make sense.
The different rivers are different strategies and/or roster builds. If you coast down the RB-heavy river, it will take you to a magical place, where your lineup piles up fantasy points every week, one of your RBs gets hurt and you replace him with another without missing a beat, and you go on to win the championship and all of the spoils that go to you, the victor.
But if you don’t pick a new river – fast – your stay will be short-lived, and the river will pull you back in and carry you downstream, over a raging waterfall, and leave your battered and drenched body at the foot of Rebuild Mountain, with it’s undefined elevation and unknown distance to the top. The climb is more palatable when you are drinking water from a champion’s cup, though.
The cold, uncaring truth of the RB-heavy approach is, your RB can get benched and/or cut, suffer an injury, or even just simply regress negatively, leaving you with neither value to spend nor production to utilize. It’s not guaranteed to happen in year one, and it’s not exclusive to RBs… but they have by far the greatest risk. Ignoring that risk is trying to swim upstream.
You can also jump into the WR-heavy river, with its relatively weak current, meandering through the value. It keeps you moving forward for as long as you want to travel; they start scoring points and they score roughly the same amount of points every year. They won’t win you a championship just by themselves; even an outlier season for a WR isn’t enough to make a strong playoff push. But they are steady. They keep you afloat, while you search for a gas-powered boat in the form of a stud RB, who will finally help you arrive at your destination with speed and power.
The real Way in superflex is through the QB position. The Tao of Superflex follows both value and production, both short and long-term. RBs have a ton of short-term value and a substantial amount of short term production, and WRs (and TEs, especially with a premium) have long-term value with objectively less production. But the QBs check all of the boxes: short and long-term value, short and long-term production.
In fact, both The Road and The Path are continuous and fluid through the QBs. The value becomes production, the production becomes value, and they seamlessly alternate over the course of many years.
You don’t have to acknowledge the power of QBs, with their immense production, sustained value, and, of course, scarcity. You also don’t have to acknowledge the power of the current as the river sweeps you downstream. It really doesn’t care if you acknowledge it or not, it just follows its natural path without any way to change it.
The Way is 15+ points, every single week, over the course of a ten+ year career. The Way is off-the-charts trade value, driven by scarcity, currency and utility. The Way is clear. The Way is quarterbacks.
And if you’re ready to stop trying to swim upstream and let the river carry you where it is going – if you’re ready to let the Tao be the Tao – then you are ready for Volume IV of “A Superflex Life.” It’s time to talk “QB-Xtreme.” Talk to you next week.
