How To Rebuild A Dynasty Fantasy Football Roster: Five Essential Steps To Success

There’s nothing like dynasty fantasy football. The feeling of being completely in charge of a fantasy football roster where every decision matters immensely due to the longevity of the fallout can’t be replicated in redraft leagues.

However, one too many moves that don’t pan out can quickly leave your team in dire straits, facing a pivotal decision on whether or not it’s time to blow everything up or continue to wade in mediocrity.

This article dives into how to properly execute a dynasty fantasy football rebuild in five stages. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it could set your roster up for success for numerous years to come.

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How To Execute A Dynasty Fantasy Football Rebuild

Stage 1: Assess The Situation

We have a tendency as dynasty managers to look at our rosters with rose-colored glasses.

We’ve invested so much of our capital, or endured pain-staking trade negotiations, to get these players onto our roster, which can cloud our opinion on their outlook.

In this stage, your eyes alone may not be the best judge as you figure out where you’re at on a competition timeline. Reach out to a fantasy football analyst, or someone else that you know plays dynasty fantasy football (not in your league) to gain their insight.

Assessing the roster as a whole is not an easy exercise, but it’s a necessary one in dynasty fantasy football if you’re going to truly compete.

The main question to ask yourself in this stage is, “Am I going to be able to compete with the best teams in the league over the next two or three years?”

This question forces you to assess not only your roster, but also the state of the league around you. Understanding who the current powerhouse rosters in your league are, and their strengths, is crucial to be able to gauge how you measure up.

Do they have a star-studded roster that features players currently in the prime of their careers? Do they have the depth to absorb injuries to their starting lineup?

Each league will be different, where some leagues have a juggernaut team that’s made all the right moves. However, others will have a very evenly spread out talent pool that means minor moves are what’s needed versus a full reset.

If you feel like you have the team to be able to go toe-to-toe with the best rosters out there deep into the playoffs, don’t hit the reset button.

But if you have done the assessment and realize that your team is most likely to get bounced in the first round of the playoffs, a la the Pittsburgh Steelers, it’s time to move on to stage two.

Stage 2: Identify Your Foundation

This stage is all about determining who is untouchable. Who are the players that you shouldn’t let go in trades or future roster moves, but instead should build around?

There’s a misnomer that because you’re entering into a rebuild in dynasty, that means you need to sell off every single player that you have on your team. Please don’t do that.

You’ve worked hard to get the top-tier names onto your roster. You either acquired them via trade or you chose correctly at the top of your previous rookie drafts to add them, so don’t throw that away for just more darts to throw at the dart board.

Yes, they’ll yield the most return in trade discussions, but you’re giving up a proven asset for more chances at drafting another player who could turn out to be as productive as them.

For me, that cut off usually looks like this for each position group:

Quarterback: Top-8 QB in Superflex leagues.
Running Back: Top-8 RB.
Wide Receiver: Top 12 WR.
Tight End: Top-5 TE.

If you have a player that fits into those qualifications in my Dynasty Rankings, I’m going to be very hesitant sending them away. If I do, I’m going to need a massive haul in picks and a young, ascending player in return.

And if I’m playing in a Superflex league, I’m going to treat those QBs like valuable gold currency. If you don’t have QBs in a SF league, you’re not competing.

This allows you to keep a core group of players to build around, while also setting parameters to know who else you can move in trade discussions.

That core group of players shouldn’t be anything more than three options though. You need a foundation to build upon, but you also need to have enough players to move to actually accumulate capital, which brings us to the next stage.

Stage 3: Embrace the Youth Movement

This stage is tricky, in all honesty. You need to be able to prioritize youth in your rebuild, but you also don’t want to over-prioritize it.

Some dynasty managers out there will take a 28-year-old WR that can still produce at a high level and sell him for draft picks, plus a 22-year-old wideout…simply because the other wideout is super young.

You need to be strategic in how you view youth in a dynasty league. The proper way to view playing in a dynasty league is within a two-to-three year window.

Some managers view a young player as overvalued because of the possibility that they’ll have them for the next 10 years. This is an improper way to view your dynasty format.

So much can change year to year in the NFL. Players that have been absolute studs for fantasy football have flamed out and moved dramatically further down the rankings in recent history.

Think of players like Juju Smith-Schuster, who was once viewed as the WR1 in all of dynasty fantasy football. Or even CJ Stroud in Superflex leagues after his rookie year, who was up in the top five at the QB position due to his age and production.

So, overvaluing players because they have a longer playing career ahead of them actually doesn’t help as significantly as you would assume.

Target getting younger in your rebuild, yes, but don’t swing too far in the other direction to value youth just for valuing youth’s sake.

Sell off the veterans on your roster that are still able to get good production for other win-now rosters, but won’t be able to help you much when you hit your winning window in two years.

And target as many future draft picks as you can possibly get.

Stage 4: Rebuild Through Draft Ammunition

Now comes the most difficult stage of rebuilding: executing.

Any moron can sell off assets and players in dynasty, but it takes the sharks to understand how to turn that return into a contender.

The biggest thing to remember in this stage is to go for best player available in rookie drafts. One of the biggest mistakes I see is players assessing their roster, understanding that they have a gaping hole at RB, and reaching for one in their draft versus taking the best WR still on the board.

You can always trade to fill holes later. You’re simply looking for how to stair step up in value time after time currently as you continue going through the rebuild.

The second piece of advice in this stage is to find analyst’s that you trust for their rookie rankings. Identifying two or three voices whose opinion you trust is going to be a massive advantage in your return to contention.

One voice is risky to fully lean on, so I would recommend finding multiple where you can combine their rankings and opinions to get a more balanced approach.

This can help you form your own opinions on who the best players are to target when you’re up on the clock at every stage of your draft and, ultimately, add the best options to assist in your rebuild.

Finally, treat the waiver wire in your dynasty league like a revolving door. Instead of hanging onto an aging WR that is the WR3 or WR4 on their own NFL roster, add dart throw RBs that could see an uptick in volume with an injury above them on their depth chart.

Once they get into the starting lineup, ship them off for a draft pick. Always be looking for how you can stair step up in value.

Stage 5: Compete Sooner Than Later

One of the biggest temptations you’ll find in entering into a full-blown rebuild is to perpetually stay in rebuild mode.

There will always be younger, more exciting prospects entering into the league that have the potential to change your roster. It’ll be incredibly tempting to keep chasing after the top names.

If you’re not careful, you’ll continue to sell the assets you’ve acquired that are turning the corner into top contributors into more and more draft picks. This doesn’t solve your ability to compete for a championship, it just continues to delay it.

In this stage, your top priority should be to balance out your roster to build depth and fill out any holes. You’ve drafted best player available, so now you need to make sure that you don’t have a massive stockpile of WRs, but have someone like RJ Harvey as your RB2.

Once you’ve made those moves, start to turn your attention towards competing. As you go throughout a season, continually assess your roster and look for how you can continue to build up depth through waiver wire dart throws or buy low trade targets.

If you do it right, you’ll be pushing deep into the playoffs and hopefully enjoying the sweet taste of victory sooner than later.