Building a dynasty fantasy football team requires strategic thinking and football acumen similar to planning a long military campaign. You must intimately understand your leaguemates’ rosters and tendencies, diligently prepare for the rookie draft and waiver wire, and thoughtfully craft a balanced yet versatile roster aligned to your vision. Knowing when to push all chips to the table for a title run or temporarily rebuild for sustained excellence is equally critical. The finest dynasty owners combine sharp situational analysis with statistical rigor and old-fashioned football study to construct juggernauts that dominate their leagues for years.
This guide outlines core tenets to help you architect a formidable roster poised for both immediate and enduring success. By internalizing essential dynasty strategies around planning, preparation, roster construction, and pivoting between competing goals, you too can rule over your leaguemates year after year like a battle-tested emperor of old.
- Startup Drafts
- Roster Construction
- Ideal Archetypes
- Ship Chasing
- Iron Bank
- Rookie Pick Values
- Rookie Drafts
- Trading
- Roster Management
- Bayesian Inference
- Startup Supreme
- Roster Crunch
- Trade Assessment
- Productive Struggle
- Game Theory
- Startup Trades & Pick Swaps
- Winning the Offseason
- Rebuild Roadmap
- Revanche
- Kingdom Come
Targeting Ideal Archetypes
Building predictive models is not the only way to find the players you want on your dynasty teams. In contrast, you want to identify the ideal archetypes of players who are proven performers. As such, Jax Falcone has done an incredible job outlining these archetypes in his highly-acclaimed Dynasty Anatomy Series.
You may want to research and develop your own archetypes but Jax has laid the foundation for us.
Anatomy of a Top-16 Dynasty QB
- (Early) 1st round Draft Capital
- 6’2” / 220 lbs.+ is the ideal size
- College Yards Per Attempt of 8.0 with at least one season with 8.5+ YPA
- College Completion % of 62% or better with at least one season over 65%
- Best College Season with at least 3,200+ passing yards and 35+ total touchdowns
- Best College Season with at least 300 rushing yards
- 40-Time of 4.80 or faster
- College career interception rate below 2.7%
- 600+ total college career passing attempts
To see how Jax reached these conclusions and developed this QB archetype, check out his process here.
Anatomy of Top-18 Dynasty WR
- Top 100 NFL Draft pick
- 6’0” / 205 lbs.
- Breakout Age of 20 or younger
- College Dominator Rating of at least 30% in best college season
- Posted at least one season with 600+ receiving yards by sophomore year
- Posted at least one season with at least 5 TDs by sophomore year
- At least 2.50 yards per team pass attempt in best college season
- At least 30% touchdown market share in best college season
- 4.60 40-time or better
Read more about the Anatomy of a Top-18 dynasty WR.
Additionally, @DynastySFlex built upon Jax’s archetypes and broke WR criteria down based on size since we know that WRs in the NFL are increasingly becoming smaller (and faster), even though alpha dogs will always be highly desired and favored.
Criteria for WRs under 6’0″
- 1st or 2nd round Draft Capital
- Breakout Age of 20 or younger
- Body Mass Index (BMI) over 26.25
- College Dominator Rating of at least 35%
- Average Market Share of team’s receiving yards greater than 26.5%
- Throw out scat backs turned WR
Ron Stewart has also done studies on smaller WRs and recently developed a concept called “dynamic betas”. I love his work so make sure to check him out.
Criteria for Dynamic Betas
- Beta WR (fails to meet 5’11+, 195+ ibs, 26+ BMI)
- Between 5’9″ and 5’11”
- 175+ lbs.
- 25+ BMI
- Dynamic Score (per Breakout Finder or Ron Stewart) of at least 10
A couple of observations: With shorter WRs, you’ll want them to have a higher BMI and to have more dominant college careers to offset for their shorter height. And of course, speed and athleticism will be important for these WRs to be successful. Strong kick and punt return and rushing yards are indicators of a high Dynamic Score.
Anatomy of a Top-16 Dynasty RB
- Drafted on Day 1 or 2
- Early Declare
- Weighs over 210 with Body Mass Index (BMI) over 30
- Sub 4.55 speed with a speed score over 100
- At least 1 college season with over 25 receptions
- Freshman or Sophomore season production of over 1,000 rushing yards
- Above-average Burst Score of 120+
- 6.0+ college yards per carry
Check out Jax’s full breakdown of the Anatomy of a top-16 dynasty RB.
With all this said about archetypes, I should be careful not to discount predictive analytics as they can also be useful in a process. David Willsey has done an incredible job with a unique approach to predictive models and has been generous enough to share his process and database. Check it out here.
Another friend and great analytical mind, David Zach, has developed the RB Fantasy Z-Score This model gives a comprehensive grade for rookie RBs, consisting of:
- Draft Capital
- Athleticism Score
- College Production (adjusted for competition)
- Yards Created
- Offensive Line
- Landing Spot
Dive into David Zach’s work here.
If you are interested in developing your own archetype and/or predictive model, I highly suggest utilizing a comprehensive database like the one Peter Howard has created and generously shared with all. Find it here.
Anatomy of a Top-8 Dynasty TE
- Day 1 or 2 Draft Capital
- 6’4” / 245 lbs.
- Sub 4.70/40-time
- 100+ Speed Score
- 14 yards per reception in best college season
- 1.50 Yards per team pass attempt in best college season
- 20%+ TD rate in best college season
Check out Jax’s full breakdown of the Anatomy of a top-8 dynasty TE.
