Lineup Advice: Week 1 – My Last Ride

Jeff Haverlack Posted On September 8, 2023

PLEASE READ ALL OF EACH WEEK’S POST

Late in 2005, three fantasy football nerds gathered at my house to watch football.

We had a relatively new dynasty league which had started a couple years earlier and we asked ourselves, “Why are there no other sites focusing on this format?” Dynasty was relatively new in the online world, but obviously gaining momentum. An hour or two later, the three of us huddled around my kitchen island and DynastyLeagueFootball.com was started on top of a pizza box.

How I wish I would have had the foresight to keep that box top. I’ve thought about it many times over the years, rotting away in some landfill as the crudely drawn structure, site design and plan slowly faded from view.

Early in 2006, DLF was formed and the site launched. We started with a crude site backed by a free forum, still available in its mostly original form today. Regardless of our future plans for the site, we knew we wanted to offer the community forum as a free resource so all dynasty fans could have a place to talk about our favorite format. In fact, DLF remained a completely free resource until 2012 when we launched our first premium subscription offer, a $14.99 annual plan. Simply put, if we didn’t start generating some income, we wouldn’t be able to grow the site and the “DLF Widows,” as we called them, would start making some demands to get their husbands back. The site took a tremendous amount of time and all of us had real jobs already on top of it.

The rest, as they say, is history. Through it all I look back and smile at what we created and those who helped us along the way. Good ol’ American capitalism and the ability to take an obscure idea and turn it into a business for the good of many. But even more than that, I have such great pride in the way we ran the business. Those who know me know I’m most proud of our foundation of values and ethics. They are the core of everything we’ve done. I’ve always believed if you start a business and run it the right way, with a focus on core values into a good value proposition, people will support you.

If you build it, he (they) will come.

18 years later, this is my last ride at DLF.

The 2023 NFL regular season will be my last as a significant contributor here at DLF and, in all likelihood, this will be my last year of lineup advice. I imagine I’ll still be lurking around the dark halls of DLF corporate, engaging in the forum or on our Dicscord server from time to time, perhaps even continue with my rankings. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that I may be asked back next year to run this series. I don’t know what to expect if I’m being honest.

I’ve always been one to seek personal growth and new vistas to gaze upon. I believe discomfort is a great platform, and catalyst, for growth. Unless you get out of your comfort zone and realize new and unexpected feelings, you are doomed to walk the same path every day, staying within the bounds of what is known, what is comfortable. It’s time for me to walk a new path.

I’ve never been one to seek the limelight here at DLF. It’s not how I’m built. I’ve never cared overly much about follower counts though I did start to realize the benefit of having a greater number. I’ve never desired to get gratification based on how many followers I have or how large my audience is. The only thing I’ve cared about is that we run DLF in a way that provides value, with values, to those interested. I love the fact that we’ve accomplished that and have a membership spanning the world. I love hearing from our international members and seeing the NFL grow in popularity.

I don’t know what this new path will look like at this time, and there are still months ahead of my nose being to the grindstone to help, and interact, with all of you. Maybe I’ll become a solo act. Maybe I’ll start a podcast or YouTube channel. Patreon? Maybe I’ll even consider joining another site as a fantasy analyst. I’m still a writer for The Athletic and don’t see that changing anytime soon. Or, maybe, I’ll simply fade away from organized fantasy and simply be a dynasty coach for a change.

In the end, DLF is all about people and I’ve never lost my focus or desire to interact with as many of our readers and members as possible. It’s what motivates me every day. It was that way on day one, and that ideal persists today. I imagine it will continue into next year. In what form, I don’t know. We’ll see.

So, I hope you’ll tag along on my last ride, chime in to say a few words, continue to support what we’re doing here and maybe even seek a little advice. Beyond that, let’s simply be the architect of our future and see where it leads us.

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Every year it seems we have to wait so long to say: It’s here!

How I love this time of year! I’m sure you all share in my enthusiasm. But that is what’s so great about the dynasty format, as we say around here: “There is NO offseason!”

Please read the rules and format below so that I can help as many of you as possible in the most efficient way possible. We’ve only grown over the past year so I imagine there’s going to be even more questions. As always, I will endeavor to be at my best to help you.

Note: I will be traveling internationally from weeks 3-6 and largely off the grid. We will have someone else covering those four weeks. I will return in week seven.

Once again, I will be tracking my dynasty teams just so you can see my record, the moves I’m making and any news/notes related to my teams. For the first time since I started tracking my teams here, all 14 will be tracked. In recent years I had picked up some poorly performing orphan teams and gave myself two years before including them in the tracking.

Those teams are made up of (11) on MFL, (2) on RTS and (1) on ESPN.

I’ll get into some general build strategy and thoughts this time next week as I start tracking and reporting on their performance.

Let’s do this..

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.
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!

Author
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Jeff Haverlack

Co-Founder at Dynasty League Football

Appreciative husband and proud father who poorly attempts to balance family life with his passion for creating the largest, most helpful and most impactful fantasy community on the planet! DLF was created for the community and we're committed to each member within it! Hope anyone playing this great game will call DLF home in some way!

You can find Jeff on Twitter at @dlf_jeff

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