Lineup Advice: Week 13 – Limbo Edition
Bye: Bills, Bears, Raiders, Vikings, Giants, Ravens
Anyone who follows my work here or at The Athletic understands my saying as it relates to the dynasty format: Be the best, or be the worst, don’t be mediocre.  Put another way:  Be in Heaven or Hell, not Limbo.
The problem with this saying is that it could be interpreted as meaning I believe you should go “all-in” with your dynasty build strategy, risking it all to win a title or, worse yet, treating your dynasty team like it’s a redraft team. If you’re a dynasty coach, and I’m assuming you are if you’re reading this, you are prone to falling in love with players, rookies or a specific strategy certain to return to fantasy gold. We’re all guilty of it, but some are just better at execution.
Over the last few years, I’ve seen an impact of the DFS (daily sports) movement in how dynasty coaches manage their teams. Bold statements, bolder moves and and that all-in mentality before kick-off of each regular season. In some cases, I’ve seen it work well. In most cases, however, it results in poor performance and subsequent league abandonment when the team doesn’t perform as hoped. It’s almost epidemic at this point and it’s hurting the game.
On the other side of the coin, there’s the coach who will trade away every draft pick to obtain veteran players to win now. To me, this flies against the main allure of the dynasty format, the building of a team over a long period of time to reach dynasty status. If a coach isn’t taking part in one of the primary aspects of the format, is it anything more than a redraft league?
In dynasty it comes down to one simple fact – Rookie/youth upside will always be more desirable to the masses than veteran production when building a dynasty team. It’s just the landscape we all live in. But there’s an important distinction between these two extremes. At least with the coach seeking veteran production, new currency (draft picks) is provided each year making the win-now strategy very viable. Overlay that with the fact that rookies bust at an extremely high rate, and you can see why the rookie/youth strategy is mostly doomed to fail in most cases. It’s all too easy to trade away all assets, acquire rookie players that don’t pan out and be left with a bare cupboard of few tradable players and no draft pick currency.
It’s not a zero sum game by any means. Having played dynasty almost exclusively over my fantasy career, it’s impossible to not see the benefits of the veteran strategy. In fact, in leagues where winning it all is the highest priority due to cost/purse, the veteran approach is clearly the way to go. For myself, rookies and youth are the true fun of the format. Dynasty fantasy football is a primary form of entertainment for me and I want to go all-in on “fun.” At the same time, losing isn’t fun either so there needs to be a healthy mix. To that end, as most of you probably already know about me, I have one league where winning is a VERY distant second priority to that of acquiring youth, draft picks and my favorite players. That aspect is what keeps me engaged all offseason, looking forward to declaration day, the NFL Combine, the NFL Draft, dynasty rookie drafts, etc. That single team of my 14 dynasty squads is the team I root for on Sundays. It’s actually a comical-but-significant point to note that this same team is also my oldest AND least successful, if you measure success by number of championships. That really says something about the strategy of building through draft picks and my favorite players.
But back to not being mediocre.
If you’re building through veterans, you best be winning it all. Or, at least making the playoffs each season. If you’re choosing to rebuild then do so with the mindset of being as bad as possible in the year ahead of your rebuild. Don’t allow yourself to be stuck in limbo. Rebuilds can take three years or longer to prove out. So, if an existing player doesn’t have a three-year runway remaining, it’s time to move him for compensation that can be redirected to your rebuild. Many still don’t understand that value and impact that a single player can have in your starting lineup. Dynasty managers rostering Christian McCaffrey or Justin Jefferson understand this all too well. Roster one of these top players at multiple positions and you’re golden for years to come. But rostering a top performing veteran on a rebuilding team could be the difference between a 2-12 finish and a 5-9 finish. In dynasty, where rookie draft picks are the coin of the realm, the difference between 1.01 and 1.04 or 1.05 is significant.
Limbo is a place where your team is competitive enough not to be in last, but not enough to make the playoffs. It can be a lengthy stay if you’re not careful. History shows that the “hit rate” of dynasty rookie draft selections drop significantly at 1.03, to less than 50% beginning at 1.04 and descending to essentially 20%-25% in the bottom-third of the first round. Those odds don’t portend great success if you aren’t augmenting your youth strategy with veteran/known production. If you find yourself in a long term stay at Limbo Hotel, you need to get worse, or get better. Drill down to the single issue that is causing your mediocrity and address it. If you find multiple areas of mediocrity, it’s time to rebuild.
Above all else, be smart with how you choose to use your upcoming draft picks. Resist the temptation to go all-in on a rookie class.
If your league allows trades of draft picks multiple years in the future, while fun, you also have to understand that you are allowing coaches to employ the two extremes in strategy I have laid out here, potentially to the detriment of league competitiveness over time. Sometimes commissioners have to enact rules to help protect coaches from themselves to preserve the competitive integrity and health of the league.
Week 13
It’s another brutal bye week just before fantasy playoffs are to begin. Good luck out there! Finish strong but, above all else, have fun.
No team tracking this week as this got too long, but I’ll follow-up in week 14.
Let’s get to the advice!
Lineup Advice Rules & Format
DLF continues to see growth in our membership and each year I continue to wonder how I’m going to keep up with all of your questions while also holding to a level of service and quality you’ve all come to expect from me. I’ve been VERY happy with my level of accuracy but, for that to occur, I need your help. Each question can take up to 10 minutes for me to research as I research up to a dozen different variables and trends. I do everything I can to get my answers correct. For that reason, I need you to read the following rules and guidelines to help me maintain efficiency:
- Please don’t ask me to set your entire lineup
- Put “TNF” as the top line for any question involving Thursday Night Football games
- Please also make sure to tell me who YOU would be starting if not for my advice. It helps me to understand your gut feeling(s).
- Include your scoring format (PPR, Non-PPR, etc.)
- Keep your questions as brief as possible – Story questions add a lot of time
- I prioritize questions involving the earliest (Thursday, etc.) games first. If I skip over your question, don’t worry, I’ll be back to it.
- It’s easy to miss responses to my responses in thread. When in doubt, always post a separate new question
Lastly, I work very hard to get my advice correct and I do not mail it in. When I’m wrong, I feel every incorrect answer so, go easy on me! That said, the DLF community has been absolutely fantastic to work with which is why I’m still doing this after so many years.
Have a great week! Have an even better season!
You can find Jeff on Twitter at @dlf_jeff
- Lineup Advice: Wrap-up, Thank You and Goodbye (TTFN) - January 1, 2024
- Lineup Advice: Week 17 – Championship Edition - December 26, 2023
- Lineup Advice: Week 16 – The “What is” Edition - December 19, 2023
