At least as far as the DFWC goes, despite the loss of Josh Gordon in 2014, I am comfortable saying that I have put together the two strongest dynasty teams in the competition (out of 144 teams going up to 218 teams). Here they are:

League #1

Philip Rivers, Jay Cutler, Ben Roethlisberger
Trent Richardson, Shane Vereen, Alfred Morris, Mark Ingram
AJ Green, Julio Jones, Demaryius Thomas, Alshon Jeffery, Josh Gordon, Cordarrelle Patterson
Jimmy Graham


League #5

Ryan Tannehill
Christine Michael, Bishop Sankey
Calvin Johnson, Julio Jones, Dez Bryant, Josh Gordon, Percy Harvin, Antonio Brown, Cordarrelle Patterson, Sammy Watkins and Mike Evans
Jimmy Graham

Each team boasts a deep set of 1st, 2nd and 3rd round startup players. Aside from still needing to prove that these “strong on paper” teams can actually win, the question now is, was this a fluke or can I take the same formula and do it again in 2014 with another DFWC startup?

Confident that I could, I signed up for a new 2014 DFWC startup (League #15) and went to work from the #6 hole.

Here is the formula in its simplest form: (1) Acquire a crap load of future 1st rounders; and (2) draft a handful of impactful startup players as the initial core. Success will hinge entirely on the number of 1st rounders I am able to acquire, where they ultimately land, the quality of the free agents I am able to acquire during the season and, most importantly, the choices I make in the startup draft.

Unfortunately, my efforts stalled from the get go and found that the asking price for future 1st rounders was a little high for my tastes. Accordingly, to take advantage of the high prices, I traded away my own 2015 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th rounders for the 5.02. There’s more than one way to skin a cat and starting out with an extra 5.02 is as good as any. Or is it? You can put together a nasty Year 1 team with an extra 5.02, but if your goal is to assemble the best dynasty team possible in the DFWC in Years 2 and beyond, you’ve got to keep your own 1st and ideally acquire more (many more).

I then traded away my 3.06 and 5.06 for the 1.09 and 10.04. My target at 1.09 was Demaryius Thomas and if Demaryius was taken (which he would be, particularly with Josh Gordon falling out of the top ranks), I would have to hope Alshon Jeffery would still be available.

Then, something interesting happened. The team to whom I traded my 1st, sold my 1st and his own 1st to one other team (giving that other team three to my zero). I threw out offer after offer to acquire those three picks in hopes of quickly increasing my count from one to four, each time failing despite some very tempting offers I threw out. The other team had a tight grip on the 1sts, seemingly intent on trying out their own version of the mass 1st strategy.

Still, I hadn’t given up on the dream. I wanted to acquire at least a handful of 1sts (even after trading away my own) and finally an opportunity came up at a decent price. I was able to trade my 7.6 for a 2015 1st. Ok, I now had one (to replace the one I traded away) and was in position to acquire more should the opportunity arise.

Problem was, I was getting beaten to the punch at every turn by the other team (Colt Smokey). Colt Smokey managed to reach five 1st rounders while I was still at one! In one instance, my offer of a 6.7 for a 2015 1st (a strong offer) was beaten out by Colt Smokey’s 7.5 and 14.10 for a 1st and 16.06! What??? What kind of voodoo was Colt Smokey using to beat my 6.7 with that?

I was still in the market to buy future 1sts. The dilemma is, how do you comfortably acquire future 1st rounders when you’ve already traded away your own? Every pick you acquire weakens your team and makes your own pick (which you no longer have) more and more valuable.

After several more trades, I had a distribution of startup picks that looked plenty strong (starting with the 1.6 and 1.9). I decided then to trade the 7.07 and 11.07 for another 1st rounder. I now had 2. In the meantime, Colt Smokey had reached 6. The rest of the teams seemed dead set on keeping their 1sts so all of the available 1sts had now been sold.

At that time, with my pick distribution reflecting a team that would very good in Year 1, I decided to take a shot at buying back my own pick. I originally sold my 1st-6th 2015 picks for the 5.02, a very nice value. I went ahead and offered the 5.02 to Colt Smokey for my 1st back plus his 2nd for a net loss. Colt Smokey faced an interesting decision. If he kept my pick, my team probably makes the playoffs and ends up being a 1.9-1.12 (a 7th–9th round startup value). On the other hand, with my own 1st in my hands, the pick could be the 1.1, 1.2 or 1.3 (assuming an all-youth strategy), which would be a 3rd or 4th round value, possibly a a 2nd. 5.02 just happened to be the happy medium to give both teams very good value for a true win-win. Seemingly with that in mind, Colt Smokey accepted my offer. This trade ended up changing the whole complexion of the startup draft for my team. Instead of going win-now, I went back to the tried and true all-youth strategy.

I went from two 1sts to three, and Colt Smokey went from six to five. In the meantime, Colt Smokey did so well on his other trades that his pick distribution, despite having acquired five 1sts, was looking awfully strong. Add my 5.02 to the mix, and the lure of winning in Year 1 had to have started creeping in (its only natural). I went ahead and offered my 4.07 and 9.02 for two of Colt Smokey’s five remaining 1sts. Expensive, but now I had five and Smokey was down to 3. Having now opened up the flood gates, I finished it off by trading my 3.02 for Smokey’s remaining three 1st rounders (the three least desirable ones based on strength of pick distributions).

In a matter of a few days, my team went from zero 1sts to a whopping eight! Now I could relax a bit knowing that I had accomplished what I had set out to do – acquiring a lot of 2015 1sts.

Then the draft began and before you knew it, my top 5 WR went off the board before my pick at 1.6. Doh! Every other DFWC startup had at least one RB (McCoy) or two (Charles) go within the first five. Not here. So, I settled for Shady McCoy for the market value. At 1.08, I was facing the possibility that Jeffery would be taken leaving me stranded at 1.09. Fortunately, the team at 1.08, who really wanted a top WR, did not consider Jeffery to be one, so he too settled for Jamaal Charles instead. Despite missing out on my top 5 WR at 1.06, McCoy and Jeffery is a fine start for any startup draft.

My next pick would be at 4.09, but I wanted to use that pick to trade back to the 8th for one of the remaining 2015 1sts. Unfortunately, no one wanted to sell at that price and any more than that seemed excessive to me. Fortunately for me, one of those remaining 1sts changed hands, and I subsequently traded my 4.09 for the 8.11 and the 2015 1st. I left the startup draft with nine.

Here is my team: 1.6 Lesean McCoy
1.9 Alshon Jeffery
8.10 Colin Kaepernick
9.06 Tyler Eifert
10.07 Bernard Pierce
10.10 Cody Latimer
13.01 Paul Richardson
16.07 Coby Fleener
18.07 Bruce Ellington
19.06 Stepfan Taylor
20.07 Andre Holmes
20.12 Robert Turbin

Not bad. A lot will have to go my way this year for this team to reach powerhouse status by next year, but this startup draft is a step in the right direction.