Hurts is 3 in ETR

AR is 7th there, but I completely understand grabbing Chase over him. I was considering it in mine if I got a later pick

Lamar over stroud imo but it’s close

I like drafting now mainly because it's fun to draft. I have found plenty of bad drafting going on. Today Kelce went pick 8. A guy in another league drafted 13 WR's and 4 RB's. Three of his RB's have week 14 bye's. Also, this is a good time to experiment with different roster constructions. It's also great practice for when the drafting heats up in August. You get a better feel for where players are going. You will also be more in tune with whether a player is a good or bad value. From a player exposure standpoint you might fade a player now who you think is being drafted too high and grab more of him when he falls. It's kind of like the stock market. You would like to buy low. You also have the opportunity to draft unique teams giving you leverage compared to just drafting in August.

I'm not saying it's necessarily better to draft now but there are advantages.

Finally finished the slow startup draft

Think I’m happy with it. Had literally no idea what to do in the later rds, just kinda threw a bunch of **** at the wall

If you had London and Pitts and someone sniped Cousins it's not all bad. If Penix is somehow the guy in week 17 and London and Pitts go off that would be ideal. A mistake I see a lot of people making is being overly concerned with correlation. They reach for players. They spend too much draft capital on QB's just for the sake of correlating their WR's. It's important for sure but you don't have to force it. Just have a plan for secondary stacks and let the draft come to you.

As long as you understand how to construct a roster and have a balanced portfolio you will be competitive. August is probably the sweet spot for drafting but I can tell you there are plenty of people making plenty of mistakes right now. Every team I've looked at after the draft has made mistakes. I've made a ton of mistakes.

Looks good to me !!

33 roster spots is DEEEEP haha. I really like the string of picks from Diontae through Dowdle.

I think your best bet is to roughly plan out your first 10 or so picks, to give you an idea of which position you want to be aiming for by round. I.e., do you like the combo of Chase/JJ round 1 + Kyler/Trevor/Love in round 2 or the combo of Burrow/Caleb/AR in round 1 + ARSB/Puka/Wilson/Nabers in round 2. Or maybe you start QB/QB to lock it up. I think you want at least 1 QB with top 12 scoring potential.

I mentioned it in one my posts for jimmy's drafts, but unless you land Bijan/Breece/Gibbs, I'd probably just punt RB to the later rounds and focus on QBs/WRs/TEs.

And rankings are a nice baseline, but dynasty is so fluid year to year, you also don't want to be rigid by viewing them in a vacuum of today. One thing I try to focus on in startups, especially in the earlier rounds is, will this guy be worth at least the same or more this time next year. Which makes taking someone like CMC or Reek in the early rounds riskier, even if it makes your roster better in year 1.

I think if I was doing a startup right now I wouldn't pick a RB into rounds 8-9 or so unless someone like Bijan or Gibbs had an absurd drop, and just load up on every other position, then take the likes of Kamara, Jones, Conner etc on the cheap and try to win now

Zero RB in the current landscape is definitely a good strategy. But I expect those 3 guys to be first/early second round redraft picks with 20+ PPR FPPG upside for the next 5 years, so I'm fine locking in that RB1 spot with one at current value. Breece and Bijan are both live to be the 1.01 next season. Gibbs is a little risker with his profile and likely never being a true workhorse, but he's so damn efficient and that Lions offense will remain good.

Thanks for all the feedback on the start of the 12 team Sflex dynasty.

One more question: in a startup draft if you are trying to upgrade picks this year do you think it is reasonable to value the 2nd pick of next years rookie draft as slightly better than wherever the 18th rookie is being drafted this year? According to fantPros the 18th rookie in this years startup is Blake Corum at 118th which is a 10th round pick.

So is it reasonable to propose my 2nd next year with my 8th this year (pick 90) for his 4th this year (44th)?

Because of the league structure coming in the top 1/3 of teams in total scoring regular season this year is incredible valuable. Im hoping others don’t realize the just how important this first year.

What's the mechanism for ensuring that the 3rd tier wants to come back every year? Lock up 4-5 years of buy-ins?


Feels like it'd be too easy for folks who make it to 3rd tier to throw in the towel in year 2 if they know there's a hard cap on future winnings, but maybe I'm missing something (top league is never getting true "firsts" in rookie drafts as balance?) or you have an awesome pool of players who will stick with it?

Evidently the guy who runs this league runs others with similar rules and it has worked, but I was kind of thinking the same thing. We are paying 3x BI year one and then of course 1x BI each year after that so you give up 2x BI by quitting.

Rookie draft will be non-snake and the bottom tier will draft what 1-8 (out of the 24 teams that are choosing between all rookies and there duplicates) in all 5 rounds. Also, 2 of the 8 teams in that bottom tier getting promoted next year along with 2 of the mid tier getting promoted.

It does sound like an interesting format. That format also makes evaluating your trade proposal above tough. Generally, when making trades in a startup, if moving up, the expectation is to overpay, even if slightly, due to the exponential increase in pick value from back to front.

In a regular 12 team dynasty league, I don't think a future 2nd plus an 8th round pick would be enough for a 4th round pick. You'd need to give up something more like an 8th and a 6th for the 4th and a 12th-14th round pick. Or, in your scenario, it'd cost more like an 8th and a future 1st for the 4th.

But with the promotion/relegation structure plus the fact that each player can be owned twice across the 24 teams, I really have no idea how to evaluate it haha. And obviously, future picks of the top tier teams are worth way less than future picks of the bottom tier teams. So if you're expecting to be in the top tier and you're offering future picks, they aren't going to be worth the same thing as they would in a normal 10 or 12 team league.

At the same time, if you're thinking on a different level than the other teams with regard to those type of strategy decisions, the startup draft is really the time to take advantage of it. Like you said, you're hoping other teams don't realize the value of being in the top tier after year 1.

I assume once the league gets going, all 24 teams are eligible to trade with each and that trades aren't limited to teams in your tier, correct?

Yes, all teams can trade between the 3 tiers.

The slow drafted started: allen, pat, pat, allen, CMC, stroud stroud, hurts, burrow & love. 1 more hurts, 2 lamars, 1 burrow & all the WRs left. I'm leaning lamar or hurts.

10 picks in after 7 hours.

Love at 10 is a choice. I slightly prefer Hurts, but you can’t go wrong with either.

Just offered: my 2nd & 5th this year (my picks are 1/2 way in each round) + 2nd & 4th rookie draft next year for Jefferson + 9.01. Should I pull it back or is it ok since there is a big incentive to win this year with the tiered leagues?

I’m guessing my 2nd I’d end up with what is leftover from Marvin Harrison, hall or Garrett Wilson.

We start: QB/superflex/2rb/2wr/te/3flex

The guy said he is going to sleep on the offer.

Yo what's good? Looking to chat about the upcoming NFL season. I expect my bread and butter to be the weekly contests, open to discussing other formats. Two picks I feel are undervalued in Best Ball = Browns RB D' Onta Foreman and Bucs TE Cade Otton. Can't wait for preseason to get underway to begin applying some AI-esque approaches to playcalling

What ended up happening? The offer is probably fine since JJ is such an elite asset, but you're certainly giving up a lot with those 2nd/5th picks with the format of players being picked twice. Things will probably be pretty close to the vest in the first few rounds, but I imagine nice values will emerge as the draft continues due to that structure. 9.01 could be decent. If you're committing to being in the top tier, then your 2025 rookie draft picks should be low valued, but it could be disaster if you ship them all and end up in the bottom tier, especially your 1st round pick.

I've been clicking both of those guys.

It's tough not to go overboard on Foreman, as he's one of the late round guys I expect to have a guaranteed role in week 1 if he's on the 53 man. At the same time, his contract was only $335k guaranteed and he's not even a lock to be on the week 1 roster. I think the odds are certainly in his favor, and I think he's a decent RB, but the NFL doesn't really seem to value him given his journeyman adventures the last few seasons. But with Chubb very likely to not be ready by week 1, the Browns should still value Foreman pretty highly.

I've been adding Foreman in builds where I have a bunch of rookies or guys who project as 2nd/3rd on the depth chart and may not have a big role to start the season. One downside to Foreman is he's live to not even be active in weeks 15-17. On the flip side, if Chubb never gets right or Ford falls out of favor, Foreman could also be the starter by then. Ford isn't a great runner, so I wouldn't be surprised if the Browns split it with Foreman on early downs and Ford on third down/passing situations.

I like Otton. He has no competition on the depth chart too, which is nice. He also showed some spike week potential. And then he has some contingent value if Evans or Godwin get injured.

Great info shared about D' Onta's contract. The only contrarian take to consider I believe could be that he may realize what's at stake and chalk this season up to a prove it year. Otton playing well in playoffs and Baker seeming really poised at the present moment leads me to think he could be an asset in Best Ball at least a week or two at TE for a bargain.

EDIT: more players I like: Sam Darnold, Ryan Flournoy, Dotson, Gabe, Bowers, Rondale Moore

Is it a lock Chubb isn’t ready week 1?

A lock? No. Highly likely to start season on PUP? I think so. It was a multi-ligament tear that required two separate surgeries. He's also a 28 year old back who has lived off of being the most efficient, best runner in the league. Even if he is healthy enough to play, it's a tough bet assuming he'll be the same player. I've seen plenty of people with medical knowledge saying both that he's unlikely to be ready by week 1, and even once he's back on the field, there is a good chance he's not the same player.

He was also willing to restructure his contract to avoid being cut. He was originally projected to have a $15 mil cap hit. The Browns would have saved $11 mil by cutting him. The restructure lowered Chubb's cap hit from $15 mil to $6 mil and added incentives. So basically, the restructure cost the Browns an extra $2 mil baseline. For comparison, they gave Foreman $1.3 mil with $335k guaranteed.

The only place I'm willing to take Darnold is superflex. Even if he starts the season, I think it's highly unlikely he's the starter in weeks 15-17 without a JJ injury.

I'm mostly just avoiding Flournoy and Tolbert and just playing it through CeeDee, Ferguson and Cooks. I think Ferguson and Cooks are undervalued.

Dotson is tough to get behind, but maybe a change in coaching will help. With JD expected to be a rookie run first QB, I just don't think Dotson has a great projection. I'll stack Dotson with JD or add Dotson as a Falcons bring back, but that's about it. I've also been mixing in some Sinnott and McCaffrey in both stacking/bring backs. I do like Terry in the 5th, as I think he's just way better than any of the other pass catchers.

Gabe, Bowers, and Rondale, I am in on.

Gabe fits Trevor's play style.

Bowers is the best TE prospect ever on an offense where he can easily be the #2 target and is simply being suppressed due to landing spot. Bowers was going 30 picks higher pre-draft. And speaking of Bowers, I've been mixing in Mayer sometimes in the 18th. He mostly goes undrafted when guys like Chig, Gesicki, Jelani, Kraft, Knox, and Parkinson are being drafted. That just seems bad. I know the Raiders took Bowers, but Mayer was also a really good prospect. The Raiders didn't take Bowers because they don't like Mayer, imo. The Raiders took Bowers because he was the best value on the board. I think they're going to do their best to give both guys snaps.

I think Rondale is a nice round 18 pick who has a chance to be the #2 WR in the offense, as I don't think much of Mooney. The Falcons are pretty consolidated. But I will take Mooney occasionally on stacks/bring backs.

Rondale goes round 20 and even undrafted in some . I like his upside .

Definitely. I mainly play Underdog, so mostly post through an 18 round lens. I'd estimate he's drafted 25-50% of the time. His ADP is 211.4.

I also quoted and added info about Chubb above. But I know you're into his upside haha.

Lol I think he’s a guy that could win me 1.5 million for 9th round draft capital . Im def gonna make sure he’s a luxury pick on my teams though . He’s usually my rb 3 or 4 and i make sure I end up with 6-7 rbs depending on who else I have .