Joining A Keeper Or Dynasty League

By Staff Writer John Belaska               

Keeper and dynasty fantasy football leagues offer a fun and exciting alternative to the standard league formats. Unlike like standard leagues that offer owners complete new rosters each season, these leagues allow an owner to keep players from year to year. One of the best things about these leagues is their high level of competition which develops over time. Over the years, team will develop and rivalries will be sparked. They are also nice because they are typically open year round for trading, which makes for a very exciting offseason.

Joining a keeper or dynasty league is not easy. Usually these types of leagues have been in existence for a while. The owners who are already in the league know how the league works and understand the rules. This knowledge provides them with an opportunity to know what type of players to target in order to have the best chances of winning. Many times when you first join an established league, your team will not be very good. After all, there is a reason why the old owner left. Due to their difficult nature, it is not suggested to join a keeper or dynasty league if you have never played the game before. You need to take time and learn how a simple redraft league works first before attempting this.

Before joining a league, you need to decide what type of league you wish to join. This means you must understand how these leagues operate. In a dynasty format, owners keep their entire rosters from year to year. Instead of having an annual player’s draft, the draft only consist of incoming rookies.

Keeper leagues are a bit different. In a keeper league an owner is allowed to keep only a certain number of player and the rest go into a pool to be drafted before the beginning of the NFL season. Keeper leagues operate in many different fashions. Some allow you to keep only your studs and some have a requirement on the round players were drafted in. They all have a certain number of players you can keep. That number was pre-determined from when the league first began.

The goal of these leagues is to build a strong roster over time in order to be highly competitive for multiple years. This is what makes these leagues formats most exciting. In order to do this, owners try to get players who are not just good, but are also very young. The younger a player is the longer he can play for a team. This is because eventually all players will retire. The further away from retirement a player is, the higher is value is.

Keeper and dynasty leagues are normally open all year long. Unlike redraft leagues, you will not have to wait until website open their fantasy league sign-ups. Instead, these leagues are already established and can operate year round. This allows owners to trade at any time. Because trading opens early and rosters are carried over, owners are normally allowed to trade their draft picks. Trading picks is a great way to improve your team’s future.

Remember, since you are new your team is not going to be very good. You are going to want to trade to put yourself in a position to win. Unfortunately, the other owners know this. Since they have played in the league for a number of years, they have a better understanding of which players perform better and what picks are the most valuable. Therefore, they are going to try to take advantage of you. Do not let them do this. Study each trade offer you receive and make sure you are getting a fair deal. The ideal way to do this is look at the league’s history. Normally, you will be allowed to look at season past and the transactions that occurred during those years. This will give you an idea of what the value is for certain players and picks. If the league does not offer a way to look at prior season, then you need to be even more skeptical when dealing with trade offers. Eventually you will make a bad decision. It happens to everyone even guys who have played in the league for years. The objective is to use what you got from poor trade to somehow improve your team.

Winning a championship does not happen over night in these leagues, but obtaining one is much more rewarding than in other formats.

This is not too difficult. In keeper and dynasty leagues, all owners are searching for different ways to improve. Owners all have different philosophies on the best way to give them success. Some owners will want to load up on keeper picks. Some will want to upgrade all their picks in order to build the best roster for that specific year. These owners are playing for a championship that year. Their chances of winning that year are better than others, but they are forced to sacrifice long term success. Some owners will want to improve the position in a rookie draft. Some will want to load up on established keepers. Due to all these different methods, there is always a way for you to strike a deal to improve your chances of winning. You can easily turn a bad decision into one of the best moves you will ever make just by making a few more trades.

If you consider yourself a veteran fantasy football player, you should definitely consider joining a keeper or dynasty league. It will offer new challenges that you will not find in standard redraft leagues. These leagues will test you and show you how good you truly are at this game. If you are committed to playing for a few years and are focused enough to build a roster from scratch over a number of years, you can turn a terrible team into a year in year out contender. Just know what you are getting yourself into before you sign up for one of these leagues.