I wanted to look back at my Dynamo Dynasty League Startup Draft Grades and compare to where everyone is heading into the final 3 divisional games before playoffs and consolation bracket starts.
Look back at grades and whether I saw teams as Win Now, Win Later, Balanced, or Win Never:
Draft Grades In Order (Highest to Lowest)
- Mike B: A- (Balanced)
- Adam: B+ (Balanced)
- Colton: B+ (Balanced)
- Ian: B- (Win Now)
- Brad: C+ (Win Later)
- Daniel: C+ (Win Now)
- Oscar: C+ (Win Now)
- Ollie: C (Win Now)
- Cuz: C- (Win Never)
- Andy: C- (Win Never)
- Dom: D (Win Never)
- Mike D: D (Win Never)
From <https://fantasyfootballbrad.com/2023/07/12/dynamo-dynasty-league-startup-draft-grades/>
Of course here are the standings after Week 11 before the last 3 regular season/divisional games:
- Dom 8-3, 1291.16 PF
- Ollie 8-3, 1278.56 PF
- Adam 7-4, 1332.50 PF
- Andy 6-5, 1204.68 PF
- Cuz 6-5, 1184.48 PF
- Oscar 5-6, 1254.86 PF
- Mike D 5-6, 1254.32 PF
- Mike B 5-6, 1191.18 PF
- Ian 5-6, 1136.10 PF
- Brad 4-7, 1179.04
- Colton 4-7, 1054.02 PF
- Dan 3-8, 1088.38
Now let’s talk about the teams prospects and where I was wrong and where I was right.
1. Dom.
Dom was initially labeled “Win Never” and yet finds himself in 1st place with a playoff spot all but locked up due to his high Points For. Despite Garret Wilson losing Aaron Rodgers early in the season Dom has been playing great led by #1 Fantasy Wide Receiver Tyreek Hill. He also has James Cook, D’Andre Swift, and Jaylen Warren who are all Top 20 Running Backs. Of course early in the season he traded Kyren Williams to Dan for Keenan Allen. Allen is WR#2 in PPR on the season and Kyren got injured the week after the trade and went to IR. Dom lost Justin Fields for four games but was able to make it work and finds himself with a chance to compete. Dom was labeled as “Win Never”. With aging assets at Wide Receiver (Keenan Allen is 31 and has a weird ass shoulder thing, Tyreek is 29, Boyd is 29, Hopkins is 31) this status can hold true still. IF he doesn’t win it this year, it might not be pretty for the next couple of years. He is younger at RB with his trio of studs being all 24-25 years old. Warren is the 25 year old, but has the least amount of baggage.
Status? If he wins, he is Win Now, if he loses he stays in the Win Never column due to his aging assets.
PS: Dom is now on Fantasy Football Brad’s “Do Not Trade With” List. Dom and Brad were in negotiations late into the night on 11/20/2023 and Dom allowed a clerical error to cancel a trade that would help both teams. Due to this Brad is vowing to NEVER trade with Dom. If there is a creative multiple team trade proposed and Dom is involved it will NOT be accepted. Dom could offer me all his 1sts for peanuts and the answer is still NO. Lifetime Ban. Good luck on waiting for Arthur Smith to dial up plays for Kyle Pitts. Hope that works out for ya.
2. Ollie.
Ollie was labeled Win Now and it has held up. Led by his insane Running Back Monopoly of #15 Derrick Henry, #9 Joe Mixon, #3 Travis Etienne Jr, and Johnathan Taylor who is averaging 13.33 ppr points per game Ollie sits at 8-3 and in 2nd place with 3 regular season weeks to go. Despite his shallow Wide Receiver assets he’s had a sudden explosion from his Qb #1 Dak Prescott who now sits at Qb #6 on the season with Qb finishes of Qb1, Qb3, Qb2, Qb1, and Qb17 in his last five starts. With rumors swirling of Travis Kelce’s impending retirement, aging running backs in Henry (29) and Mixon (27), Ollie remains in the Win Now category.
Status? Win Now still.
3. Adam.
Adam was listed as balanced post startup draft and he has remained so. Currently in 3rd place but leading the league in points scored, Adam sets up to be a consistent playoff team in the league over the next several seasons. #1 Qb Josh Allen, young studs, #15 Brandon Auyik, #6 Amon-Ra St. Brown, #1 TE TJ Hockenson, and last night he obtained Zay Flowers in a package deal with Dan sending out stud rookie Tank Dell. Adam’s weakness is Running Back with aging assets like Conner (28) and Dalvin Cook (28), he’ll need to get younger to be able to compete for multiple seasons.
Status? Still balanced, but RB leans him closer to Win Now mode.
4. Andy.
Defense wins championships I guess. Andy was listed as a “Win Never” but here he sits as the 4 seed. A big reason why is his young core that he established in Herbert-Gibbs-CeeDee have exploded over the past few weeks. Justin Herbert is Qb #2, Gibbs is now RB #7, and CeeDee is WR #3. Even aging asset Alvin Kamara is RB #8 on the season despite missing the first 3 weeks due to suspension. In those 7 weeks he has 50 catches! Andy has struggled to find consistent scoring from his WR2 Calvin Ridley and his flex positions, but his core has him competing this year.
Status? Still win-never, not deep enough to compete this season, not enough to rebuild in next season either.
5. Cuz.
Cuz was originally labeled as Win Never. He currently sits at 6-5 and on the fringe of making the playoffs. The problem is he lost Joe Burrow. Surprisingly he did not trade for a Quarterback before the trade deadline to try and make a run at this thing. So one of two things will happen. Either Cuz makes the playoffs and gets knocked out early or he misses the playoffs and has to try and retool next year. His team is a bit of a mixed bag with young RBs in #4 Brian Robinson and #11 Breece Hall and a couple young wideouts in George Pickens and Romeo Doubs and #14 Michael Pittman, but his big assets are getting older with #4 WR Stefon Diggs being 29 and #3 TE George Kittle bing 30. They could have a couple of years left, so Cuz could find himself around the same place next year. But does he have enough? Can he go the distance this year without Burrow? Can he go the distance next year after adding a few younger assets?
Status? Closer to balanced then win-never due Brian Robinson and Michael Pittmans’ emergence.
6. Oscar.
Oscar was Win-Now and this remains for me. He has his franchise Qb in #3 Jalen Hurts and a interesting group of Running Backs: #5 Josh Jacobs(25), #24 Isaih Pacheco (24), #2 Raheem Mostert (31), #29 Najee Harris (25), and #21 Jerome Ford (24). He has been getting great production from Mike Evans who sits at WR#11 in his age 30 season. Amari Cooper is 29, but sits at WR#23. Cooper takes a hit rest of the season due to Deshaun Watson going out due to karma and injury. Maybe if he jerked off himself he’d have the shoulder dexterity needed to stay healthy and play the rest of the season. Cooper Kupp has been on and off the injury report at age 30. Same with Odell Beckham who is 31. One nice surprise has been Colts rookie WR Josh Downs. With Oscar’s middle aged running backs and aging wide receivers he remains in Win Now mode. If he doesn’t win this year look for him to unload some aging assets to get younger and construct a minor rebuild to try and stay competitive.
Status? Win Now still.
7. Mike Dickinson.
Mike was listed as Win Never but he sits in a good position to either make the playoffs or get a first round bye in the consolation bracket. The main reason is #1 RB Christian McCaffrey. While Brad elected to go with 21 year Bijan, Dickinson traded up for CMC and it was been beautiful for him. He has also had two huge breakout seasons by rookies QB#8 CJ Stroud and #28 Devon Achane who is averaging 20.64 ppr points per game. Dickinson has also relied on aging veterans that have come on strong in 2023 including 33 year old WR#10 Adam Thielen and 28 year old Kareem Hunt who is averaging 9.66 ppr points per game. Trevor Lawrence has played like shit, Trey Lance is still a backup, and Drake London still plays for an Arthur Smith team. Does he have enough to make the playoffs this season? Does he have enough to retool and rebuild next season? His winning window is CMC. How long does he have left?
Status? Despite his record he remains in the Win Never category. For now.
8. Mike Bellocq.
Our fearless commissioner loves to wheel and deal and finds himself looking up towards the last three weeks of the season. Mike was listed as Balanced and he remains there. He has the depth to make a run at this thing either in the playoffs or the consolation bracket. Lamar Jackson is Qb#5 and he seems to know exactly when to plug in Qb#9 Brock Purdy (which is insanely lucky) as evident of last week here he Started Purdy (26.72) over Jackson (23.96) and won by 0.92 points. He has 26 year old Tony Pollard and 25 year old Rhamondre Stevenson as his top two running backs and a plethora of wide receiver talent. Him trading for Trey McBride was bad news for the rest of the league. Mike has a chance to win now and should compete for the next several seasons.
Status? Balanced. Will compete now and for next several seasons.
9. Ian.
Ian was listed as Win Now, but he has to be concerned sitting as the 9th seed with 3 weeks to go. His season has been a bit all over the place. He loses Justin Jefferson to an IR stint due to hamstring injury. It has been lingering. His Qb situation was a mess for a while, but he finally has Kyler Murray back and Josh Dobbs backing him up for depth. 30 year old Davante Adams has been up and down and got his coach fired. 28 year old Mark Andrews was just lost for the season. 26 year old David Montgomery has missed time due to injuries and may now be supplanted by Gibbs. And now Kenneth Walker is injured. I’m sorry Ian. With JJ still out, Andrews out, Walker looking to miss a couple weeks… it’s not looking good brother. I see Ian missing the playoffs and if he can’t get healthy, possibly having a short exit in the consolation bracket as well.
Status? Injures and circumstance has moved Ian from Win Now into Win Never mode.
10. Brad.
Brad was listed as Win Later. The only one who got this title suspiciously. His prediction appears to be coming true despite fireworks mid-season when he traded for Patrick Mahomes. Brad is set at Qb now and in the future with 28 year old Patrick Mahomes and 21 year old Anthony Richardson. At Running Back he has 21 year old Bijan Robinson and then a hodge podge of terrible. He’ll ride the hot hand of Alexander Mattison/Ty Chandler and look to waiver wire ROS. Look for him to add RB in the offseason. At Wide Receiver he has a young stud in 21 year old WR#13 Jordan Addison. But he is surely disappointed in Tee Higgins disastrous 2023. First Burrow was immobile and injured. Then Tee Higgins was injured. Then they played in two healthy games together and now Burrow injures his wrist and is out the rest of the season. We’ll see in the offseason where the 24 year old stud winds up. 25 year old DK Metcalf has also disappointed, but boasts a favorable schedule rest of the season and could make up for the slow start if he’s able to bring Brad a Top 4 pick in next year’s rookie draft. At Tight End he is deep and young despite trading away Sam LaPorta in the Mahomes deal. 24 year old #10 TE Jake Ferguson benefiting from Dak Prescott’s hot run, 24 year old #18 TE Cade Otton who plays almost every snap for the Bucs, and rookie freak 23 year old #21 TE Luke Musgrave who has shown flashes in his rookie campaign. Brad also has aging Darren Waller.
One more thing to mention is Brad has Dan’s 2nd round pick meaning he’ll have 3 picks in the Top 16 picks in the 2024 rookie draft. (pending Brad and Dan in fact missing the playoffs).
Status? Win Later still. It as an appropriate title and look for Brad to compete beginning in 2024.
11. Colton.
What happened? Colton was balanced meaning he could compete this year but also could compete in years to come. So what happened to this season? Busts and Injuries. Ekeler missed 3 weeks early in the season. Aaron Jones has missed 3 games and was just injured again. Zay Jones has missed 6 games. Dameon Pierce has missed 3 weeks and has been supplanted by Devin Singletary’s emergence. Treylon Burks has missed five games. Christian Watson busted. Skyy Moore busted. JSN has had a typical rookie WR season, but is suffering by some slight performance regression by Geno Smith. Colt does have #10 Qb Tua Tagovailoa (25) playing at a high level this season. #5 WR AJ Brown (26) has been balling out. And the Gus Bus has been keeping Colton in games as he is currently #10 RB and has scored 10 rushing touchdowns including 9 in the past 5 games?!? Colton has aging RB’s in Jones, Ekeler, and Edwards. All his young wideouts look bad right now.
Status? Win Later. An argument can be made that Colton is a Win Never, but I believe his season has been extremely unlucky. If his aging assets can hold for another season or two he might be able to compete and make the playoffs next season if his luck changes a bit.
12. Dan.
Post draft Dan was labeled as Win Now. Then he started to lose. Realizing this he began his rebuild early. Sending away 28 year old Patrick Mahomes, 31 year old Darren Waller, and oft injured Jerry Jeudy, and his 2024 2nd for young studs Zay Flowers and Sam LaPorta. He got Kirk Cousins and Kenneth Gainwell as well, but Cousins was lost for the season with an achilles injury and Gainwell is merely a high value handcuff. Dan later shipped out aging wideout Tyler Lockett and 26 year old Tony Pollard to get slightly younger Rachad White. But he also included Trey McBride, which I think is going to hurt him in the long run. On trade deadline night he traded away James Conner and the young stud Zay Flowers for a different young stud in Tank Dell. Looking at Dan now his build will be around Rachaad White (24), Kyren Williams (23), Chris Olave (23), Tank Dell (24), Sam LaPorta (22). He’ll hope to get Nick Chubb back sometime next season and still has his 1st round pick which is looking like a Top 6 pick where he could potentially draft his QB of the future.
Status? Win Later. At times his trades appear like he is losing and giving up too many assets. But his young core is impressive. Despite losing his 2nd pick in 2024 he does have the pieces to potentially compete in Year 3.
I hope you enjoyed the write up and best of luck to all of you the rest of the inaugural season!
-Fantasy Football Brad
fantasyfootballbrad 