Nobody wants to have a losing season in their dynasty fantasy football league. And NOBODY wants to have consecutive losing seasons to their name. Luckily, we have seen countless fantasy managers enter into a rebuild with their dynasty team and come out the other end with a championship contender for years to come. It isn’t impossible, but it does require a good bit of hard work and dedication.
Rebuilding framework
For some people, rebuilding isn’t fun. However, it could be quite exciting. See, the first step that you have to take to successfully rebuild is to completely sell your roster. Of course, if you have some above-average young talent, you should keep them. The players that you need to sell are good veterans, who just aren’t helping you win fantasy matchups. For example, someone like Mike Evans might be fantastic for you this season, though your team drastically struggles anyway and he’s getting up there in age. It makes sense to trade him for whatever you can get and hope to fill the hole he leaves behind elsewhere. You should essentially do this for anybody that you don’t deem untouchable, bundling as many draft picks as humanly possible.
The bottom line here is that you want youth. This doesn’t mean that you only need rookies on the roster because that strategy doesn’t always work either. You want to have a strong mix of young players and rookies, setting yourself up for years to come. A great example is a guy like Justin Jefferson or Ja’Marr Chase. Both players are young and have produced stellar season after stellar season since entering the NFL. These players should be sought out on top of rookies and eventually, your team will look a whole lot different.
Plus, another area to really dive into during a rebuild is the waiver wire. Not only can great hidden gems be found there, but when a rookie draft ends, a ton of players hit the wire who might be of value. For some dynasty leagues, you could have some extra roster spots. This would be a great time to add a ton of undrafted rookies and see if they can make some noise during the off-season, you never know who you might find there.
Trading for future assets
It was already briefly mentioned, but now we’re going to dive further into trading. It is easy to sit back and say that you need young talent and draft picks in exchange for veteran players. Unfortunately, it isn’t a guarantee that you will get that. Negotiating in good faith is an extremely important factor in any dynasty league, especially when you are rebuilding with your eyes toward the future.
There is one strategy that always seems to work with trades when it comes to rebuilding teams. You start by shipping off a ton of veterans that have value left to contending teams. In return, you stack up a ton of draft capital. Save those picks until the NFL Rookie Combine. It is around this time that all of the hype starts to skyrocket for certain rookies, and it usually opens the door for even more value via trades. Let’s say you have multiple first-round draft picks in one season. There is a genuine chance that you can trade multiple away (while still maintaining some) and be able to acquire multiple fantasy stars like Joe Mixon or David Montgomery. Sometimes, trading for multiple established fantasy stars in their prime could be better than two unknown first-round draft picks. This is really where value comes into play and understanding the best time to ship away a player, as well as the perfect time to try and trade for another.
Everyone’s situation is going to be different, but thankfully, anybody has the potential to break out of a rebuild. This isn’t a fast process, though it certainly could be with calculated moves and patience with your roster. Without a doubt, trading for future assets will be critical in coming out the other side on top.
Identifying undervalued players
Lastly, we need to have a conversation about undervalued players. We see it every season, with certain players getting severely undervalued by their fantasy managers. It can be very easy to try and just get all young talent and forget that veteran playmakers can still be extremely helpful in turning your team around. You don’t want your whole team established with veterans, but that doesn’t mean you need to avoid them at all costs when they are available. For example, Deebo Samuel and George Pickens were very undervalued heading into this season according to their average draft position. If you closely watched either of these players before the season, you might be confused as to why others weren’t high on them. This opens the door for you to begin trade negotiations when the opposing manager values them low, and hopefully, you can get yourself a steal.
There isn’t a single best way to identify undervalued players, though a lot of it comes from situations. Another great example is Kyren Williams. We saw a ton of fantasy managers perceive his value as a little lower than the previous season because the Los Angeles Rams drafted Blake Corum. Instead, Williams has dominated the backfield, shutting out all doubts about his place as the starter or his entering a committee. In the offseason, Williams was valued lower than he is. These are the types of situations that you can attempt to gamble on. Hitting on some of these risks could pay big dividends for your rebuild.
This also applies to rookies. Not every rookie coming into the draft will have huge hype behind them. Some of them go undrafted and then make names for themselves during training camp. Too often, people judge a player by draft position rather than situation. If a receiver goes in the seventh round of the NFL Draft but heads to a team with little depth at the position, he could be undervalued in fantasy. Puka Nacua was an afterthought thanks to his draft position, but some took a chance at him given his situation and wound up with a young fantasy superstar. Perhaps this can be your future by the end of this rebuild.