Dynasty is a game of trial and error. There is no such thing as the “perfect strategy”. I can almost guarantee you will make mistakes. We are all relatively bad at this game we play, because predicting the future is hard. All we can really hope for is to be marginally better than our league mates when it comes to making decisions. This Refining Processes series is aimed at improving our decision-making processes through experimentation. Some avenues we explore may be completely fruitless, while others may yield useful results. Regardless of the outcome, there will still be many valuable lessons to learn along the way. It’s all part of the journey to becoming a better dynasty manager.
How It Started
In 2023, I had an idea: what if watching highlights and grading them could actually help in evaluating rookie prospects — at least in some capacity? The concept was pretty simple. I picked out multiple attributes that I believed were important for each position, then graded each player in those categories. From there, I applied some arbitrary weighting based on how much I thought each trait mattered, ultimately generating an overall weighted highlight grade for every player.
This wasn’t meant to replace more in-depth scouting or film study — it was just another data point to help round out my evaluation process. Over time, I started to see it as a kind of experiment. Maybe certain attributes will wind up correlating more or less with success in the league. Maybe the weightings I started with weren’t ideal. But with enough data, I could potentially adjust and improve them.
Now, I get it — this approach probably makes most film analysts cringe. After all, highlights are far from comprehensive tape. But they’re easy to access, quick to watch, and not as time-consuming as watching full games. Despite the clear limitations, I believe there's still some value here. And maybe, just maybe, building up a history of highlight grades could reveal trends that are worth paying attention to.
Watching The Highlights
