Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Dynasty Dude podcast. I'm your host,
Corey Evans. This week's show is titled Fantasy Football Lessons
Learned in twenty twenty five, and I have ten lessons
that I learned myself that I wanted to share with you,
my audience.
Speaker 2: Hope you all had a happy New year. Let's get
right to business.
Speaker 1: Number one is to use FAB aggressively, that being free
agent equisition budget or free agent blind bidding.
Speaker 2: I have learned that if you don't use it.
Speaker 1: All, it is simply a waste because it does not
roll over for the most part in most leagues year
over year, and we all like to be hesitant or
wait for that lottery ticket player to spend FAB on,
but more often than not, if you don't use it
early or mid season or a huge jump at the end,
then it's complete waste of resources. So I have learned
and going to apply it in future seasons, whether it
be redraft or dynasty, to use my exhibition budget a
lot more strategically when I think there is a player
or set of players that is worth the premium. Because
even in all my leagues this year that use FAB,
I wasted fifty if not more percent of it in
each of those leagues, when I could have gone far
more aggressive on my bids instead of missing out on players,
even if that means they panned out or not, the
process could have led to different results in terms of
the players I was able to roster. And if that
resonates with you, then it's a lesson learned as well.
Number two, ignore platform win lose matchup percentages. I myself
can fall for this, whether it's on Sleep or my
fantasy the League, ESPN, Yahoo, whatever the platform may be.
You see your either favorite or the underdog going to
match up, and then as the matchup continues to go
on based on points scored, Oh now you're a E
twenty favored or.
Speaker 2: Fifty to fifty sixty four.
Speaker 1: You can't help but rely and put all of your
weight into those percentages when all it is is a
platform algorithm that is using the projection to each player,
and as they score more or less points, it's shifting
up and down. Don't let that impact your fun or
enjoyment of a matchup each and every week. I know
myself that I have because you're so focused on it.
Try to remove yourself from the win loss percentages and
let the match up run its course, and I think
it'll be far more satisfied with the Merzel even if
you win or lose, because watching that up and down
roller coaster, especially in the Fantasy playoffs when you're paying
even more attention, can be frustrating when anything can happen,
and those percentages are simply a current snapshot of what
the platform or the data algorithm says changes so quickly
each and every week.
Speaker 2: Number three require the rookie.
Speaker 1: One point one one to be determined by at least
max points four to avoid tanking. It's a lesson learned
that I have addressed many seasons ago, but I wanted
to bring it as another lesson to keep in mind
if you have not done so in your league already.
Speaker 2: Because tanking is such a hot topic.
Speaker 1: Or source subject in dynasty leagues, there's really no way
to combat it, even a competitive formats unless you have
this rule in place, because at the end of the day,
the least max points four are the ultimate pinpoint of
the worst team in a league that year, and they
do deserve the rookie pick one point oh one, not
someone that has a solid team but decided they want
the best prospect in twenty twenty six or twenty twenty
seven and didn't set their lineup or benks their studs.
Speaker 2: That is tanking.
Speaker 1: To avoid that, the best possibly can you have to
make the rookie one point on one by least max
points four.
Speaker 2: If you play on sleeper, it's easy to do.
Speaker 1: You could even do the least amount of total points,
which is still a little bit of a gray area
on website that don't calculate the max points four because
again the bench might have been full of studs while
the lineup was full of duds. It is not a
full proof process, but finding ways to best find that
worst team is how the rookie one point on one
should be decided. Lesson learned Number four is don't tolerate
league member inactivity. This is from experience, very frustrating because
as a commissioner, you'll get feedback. Why isn't this person
said in the lineup they left injured players in and
or players on buy or even the inconsistency examples where
they're paying attention early on the season if they fall
to the playoff race early, then by mid season they're
not active and setting in their lineups or they're not
resplying to trade offers. There's so many different variables at
play here, and what I've learned is as a commissioner,
you cannot tolerate league member in activity. You have to
address it head on. Reach out to individual or individuals
that are not remaining active or engaged in your league
and simply just touch base in check are you interested
in playing next season? If you get honest feedback that
they're not, then find a replacement, because it's better to
have if it's a ten team league, ten active people,
even if some people are more sad than others, then
one or two people that don't pay attention because it
can ruin the league entirely. So the lesson learned there
is don't let that happen in your league. Don't really
create an environment of surrounding where people want to quit,
because then it's that much more difficult to find a
core group to keep it going year after the year.
Let's than the number five is keep a list of
pending rule proposals for the off season. As commissioner, I've
learned the best way to do this is simply write
them down or keep a note section on your phone,
and then you can reflect back and put it up
for a vote, whatever a platform you're on during the
off season. If you don't, you'd be surprised, specially if
you're playing in multiple leagues how easy it is to
forget what rules you thought needed to be changed, because
every league is different, right, and you want to make
sure you're talking or referring to specifically that you think
there might be flaws, and so keeping a list and
separating it by league name will really help you organize
and streamline your roop proposal process in the off season
that goes for commissioners or not commissioners, because every single
league it should not be commissioner decides all.
Speaker 2: It should be a majority.
Speaker 1: It should be voted upon in order to determine rules,
especially in the existing dynasty.
Speaker 2: Of these where there's always room for improvement.
Speaker 1: Time quick breaking me back with five more lessons learned
to twenty twenty five and when I'm doing about it
or at least recommending to do about it.
Speaker 2: For all you listeners in your leagues.
Speaker 1: Beforeget to that, please consider joining my bonus coverage over
on Patreon for either five, twelve or twenty five dollars
per month. You'll gain it's in access to a bonus
episode per week, as well as unlimited direct message ability
to send me questions whenever you have them. Links are
in my social media bios that's Diynasty Pod, or even
scroll down right now in your podcast directory of choice
and you'll see a joint Patreon link my name on
the platform, Corey Evans or the Dynasty Dude. Be right
back with five more lessons learned in twenty twenty five.
Number six is trade if it makes sense, not.
Speaker 2: If you're bored.
Speaker 1: I feel like everybody falls into this bucket, whether it's
the off season or in season, depending on how many
draft picks you have or how well your team is
or is not doing regular season. And I've learned that
it only makes sense to trade if it is beneficial
to both you and your opponent. If you're trading for
the sake of trading, it will more often than not backfire.
So in short, find a purpose for the trade. And
if you don't think it's making your team better and
both the short and long term. Less of course, you're
making a run for a championship and you're sacrificing whatever
is needed to make that push. Different story, then don't
make the trade. Sometimes the best trades are the ones
that we don't make. Don't overthink it. Where this becomes
tough is that trading is inherently fun. That's why we
play dynasty is to continue to attempt to improve our roster.
But trading with no intent or purpose and just doing
so to switch around player shares is where things can
go wrong. So don't make a trade if you're bored.
At least sit on it a day unless you know
it's a good deal. The seventh lesson learned is to
trust the process over result for start sit decisions. That's
some of my most frequent asked questions on Patreon each
and every week is who should I start? I might
get a list of five or ten players. What would
you do in this situation? If I myself, for any
Fantasyball analyst in the space, could give you a crystal
ball and tell you to start sit each and every week,
we'd all be millionaires billionaires. That's not the case. That's
why we play this game. It's why there's gambling involved.
It's the unknown. We use and do the best we
can with a data at our disposal. When it's the schedule,
trends such as snap share targets, rushing attempts, volume across
the board and the day, though, we have to trust
the process over the result for start sit decisions and
don't beat yourself up if you make the wrong decision.
Some people like to use best ball to avoid the
starter versus bench conundrum and dilemma, which does make sense,
but it takes away some of the fun of that
strategy of who do I start who I sit. Another
way to combat this is to add more flex spots
in your league starting lineup so that there's less bench
compared to starting lineup slots. Either way, we all face
that same process every single week, the start sit decisions.
Speaker 2: If your team is really.
Speaker 1: Good and strong with depth, it becomes even more difficult process.
But the lesson learned, especially from answer people's questions or
even having that same uncertainty betweak in my leagues, is
trust your process and whatever decision making you're using with
the day at your disposal. More often than not it's
going to work out. Of course, it's going to be
players that go off on benches. That happens all the time,
and as part of Fantasy football, number eight for a
lesson learned is collect league dues prior to rookie drafts.
This is important because you never know if people are
going to be disappointed with the rookie draft and decide
to leave the league, or if something happens in their
personal life where they want to quit and either join
another league or simply got tired of your league. If
you collect league dus prior to the rookie draft, then
you have everyone's funds, and if someone does decide to quit,
then your replacement team doesn't have to pay for that year.
Speaker 2: I've seen so.
Speaker 1: Many dynasty leagues dismantle because league dues are a sensitive
issue for an orphan team or a team that is
simply not built to win. If league dues are collected
prior to rookie drafts, there's just a lot more sense
of ease to replace a team if they do decide
to leak on at that point their own personal decision
to post to it being monetary because they're already invested
in the league for at least that season. So collect
those league dus before rookie draft and you should see
a less turnover and be an easier way to find
a replacement team if needed. Number nine for lesson learned
is to eliminate divisions if used in leagues, And by
this I mean if there's two divisions vision A Division
B five teams five teams, or it's a twelve team
league and there's four divisions of three teams, whatever the scenario,
consider eliminating the divisions, because at the end of the day,
it is, especially doing double matchups against U division mats,
a really poor way to showcase the best teams each
and every year. And there's still one of my leagues
in a NAZI format that use it. This season we
ditched it. It's going away in twenty twenty six. Truly,
you should be putting the best teams in the postseason,
and divisions sort of take away from that because it's
not a random schedule. You're playing, as I alluded to,
that same team or teams multiple times, and it's taken
away from who you could be playing against in the
entire league, which is the same in the NFL sure
with the AFCNFC and divisions within, but that's real life football.
We're playing the fantasy game of it. So if you
have the visions, at least put it up for a
vote to eliminate them and go straight random schedule, no divisions.
If you want to throw in double header matchups to
eliminate some of the randomness against the league median or average,
then that's an even better proposition. But relying on divisions
to have playoff seeds is such a frustrating process from experience,
and I'm finally glad that all of my leagues now
will no longer have that setup. But if your leagues
do still use those visions, sure they're good for rivalries,
but at the end of the day, it's not putting
the best teams in the postseason. So something to consider,
at least in a lesson you might learn along the way.
And then ten for a lesson learned is to choose
replacement owners. Why it kind of ties into the collecting
the league news, pride, rookie drafts. It happens all the time.
People inherently do quit dynasty leagues, and then finding that
next team to join can be tough in terms of
someone you know is in it for the long haul.
Speaker 2: You'll want to find a.
Speaker 1: Person that's going to treat it as a redraft or
keeper format, go all in, not like the result after
a year or two, and then dip agangs and you're
back in the exact same spot. Across all of my leagues,
I've been in that position trying to find someone quickly
as a replacement so there's no law league activity during
the offseason. But the better decision to find someone you
know is going to be committed and not quit like
the former league mate did, and to do so sometimes
that takes patience and just telling everyone, hey, we're gonna
have to pause our rookie draft or delay it instead
of doing it right off the NFL draft or whenever
your league timeline is. We need to find someone that's
truly committed to our format or scoring structure so we
don't keep running to the same issues. And trust me
long term, if it means even the laying your rookie
draft or having an odd number of teams in your
league for one year and playing the average each and
every week instead of an actual opponent, it's worth finding
someone that is not going to leave or give up quickly,
because then you'll be back to square one. Thank you
all for listening. Ipe you all enjoyed my fantasy football
lessons learned in twenty twenty five. I appreciate each and
every one of you who listen to my work through
twenty twenty five, and especially those that are Patreon subcribers,
please consider joining in twenty twenty six. It's the best
way to support me financially and keep this show going.
Thanks again, Happy New Year. Until next time, this is
the Dynas Hue checking out. Talk to you all next week.
Speaker 2: See you