I absolutely love the fantasy football offseason. No longer do I have the burden of checking injury reports and setting weekly lineups. Many of us got into dynasty because we wanted this to be a year-round hobby and love the deeper offseason research. Below are a few tips and ideas to make your “dynasty offseason” more productive and fun.
Post Mortem:
One of the first things I like to do is look over the last season of decisions. I review my start up drafts, rookie drafts, and trades. I am mostly looking for process errors that I need to learn from. Process errors are problems with the method or procedure of making the decision instead of judging the decision just based on the result. For example, drafting Marqise Lee in the early second round or drafting Dri Archer are bad results mostly likely due to process errors. Some mistakes will just happen, even with a sound process. The key is not to beat yourself up on these or try to find meaning that isn’t there. Spending a mid second round pick on Brian Quick before his injury may have been a good process decision but the results were poor.
Look Deeper:
After letting go of the mistakes of the season over a nice glass of whiskey (I’m really digging Angel’s Envy lately), I try get beneath the surface of the past season. I start at the macro level by looking at the standard stats, and making notes on stats that surprised me or things I need to look deeper into. Then I try to use some premium stats to find other interesting indicators. Some great premium stat are those from Pro Football Focus and Football Outsiders. PFF tells us that the two best rookies by drop percentage are Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham Jr. through 16 games; this could alter your opinion of Landry. This research could change your outlook on some players and give you an advantage in trading or startups drafts.
Offseason News Effect:
As the playoff progress and after the super bowl, player news becomes less abundant. This sometimes creates overreactions to the news. Do you remember last season in July when the Lynch holdout was plummeting his stock and the Seattle Times was speculating how many less carries Lynch would get? Considering updating your trade bait anytime news about your players is released. It is amazing how a week of pundits chattering away about a players new situation will prop up or sink his value. Doug Veatch recently gave us a great Weekly Challenge on this subject.
#Seahawks RB Marshawn Lynch’s “contract holdout” has morphed into a “Barry Sanders-style abrupt retirement.” We’ll find out next week, eh?
— Chris Cluff (@CHawksExaminer) June 13, 2014
Contract Years:
Many dynasty owners may not realize all the players that are a free agent in 2015 and 2016. Knowing those players and understanding how you value them allows you to make speculative deals now to gain more value. For example, with Randall Cobb being a free agent next year, does this increase the value of Jeff Janis? Would Randall Cobb be a better or worse player on a different team? Will Tyler Eifert’s value sky rocket when Jermaine Gresham hits free agency and signs with a different team? FFToolbox gives a great list of the 2015 free agents for you to get familiar with and start formulating deals around now.
One more who may be available at the right price: #Bengals TE Jermaine Gresham. In a contract year, once Tyler Eifert returns from injury…
— Ian Rapoport(@RapSheet) October 19, 2014
Rookie Research:
I find this part incredibly fun and much easier with all the resources out there. I suggest starting your own notebook to record your thoughts and tidbits you pick up. You should spend some time looking over college stats, watching the senior bowl, and watching highlight and every snap tapes. A lot can be gained from even highlight film. Last year it was quite easy to see that most of Logan Thomas’s big plays came on blown coverage and the majority of the time the receiver was making major adjustments to catch the ball. This is also a good time to brush up on what are good numbers at the combine are for each position. Mockdraftable is a great resource for this. Furthermore, I suggest looking into the complex metrics that are starting be more reliable predictors such as weight adjusted agility, age adjusted production, dominator rating, workhorse metric. I also recommend going through all the combine data and snuggling up to analysts with solid projection models. Chad Parsons has put an incredible amount of work into his projection models that is included in each of his player write-ups. NFLDraftscout is a great twitter follow and and important resource to check for updated measurable from Pro Day workouts.
PSA: C.J. Fiedorowicz has the best weight-adjusted agility of the 2014 TE class: http://t.co/ebjn4xMWGh #Hawkeyes
— Jon Moore (@TheCFX) April 29, 2014
The Right Information:
Information gets a much more sparse after the superbowl. Most podcasts and weekly columns also dry up. This is a great thing because it lowers the noise floor and allows us to focus more. I have a long drive to and from work, so I often load up on the podcasts during the week. Some of my favorite year around podcasts are UTHDynasty, Rotoviz, Faked Goods, and DLF. Not all of those are completely dynasty-focused, but all of them at least get a heavy dynasty slant in the offseason. I disagree with Chad and Doug a little bit in that I really like to hear lots of opinions on players. Sometimes they change my mind on a player, but more often they let me understand how others may be valuing players of which I may be able to take advantage.
ADP and Mock Drafts:
Dynasty ADP is truly a roller coaster ride in the off season. This rapidly changing value creates opportunities for savvy dynasty owners that really understand how they feel about a player. A solid example of this is Lamar Miller’s changing value last summer with the Knowshon Moreno signing, and then Moreno showing up to training camp out of shape. Ryan McDowell keeps some of the best mock draft information there is and getting involved in his dynasty startup mock drafts is a great way to practice. Fantasy football calculator now has dynasty startup and rookie mock drafts.
Want to help determine December’s dynasty ADP? Join a mock draft here… http://t.co/GeoCgiX7ml
— Ryan McDowell (@RyanMc23) December 3, 2014
Build Relationships:
One of the best ways to get trades done is having a solid relationship with your league mates. Leaguemates are often more willing to talk about player value in the offseason since everyone isn’t kicking and scratching their way into the playoffs. Send an email or text to leaguemate tell them something you liked about their season and ask for their opinion on something. It is amazing how many more deals will go through when there is a little bit of a relationship. This is also a great time to get more involved with the community. Many analysts get a lot less questions in the offseason, so this is a chance to build some relationships there if that is what you are interested in.
Look for New Leagues:
If you are playing the UTH way, you most likely have some productive losing going on in your latest leagues. If you roll a new startup every year you should have some leagues where you are in the money subsidizing your productive losing and new leagues. Now is the time to think about the set-up of leagues you are looking for. Is it time to try a contract, auction, superflex, 2QB, or even IDP? The message boards of dynasty football sites will be flooded with new leagues in the January time frame. It is also a good time to get some buddies together to get a hometown dynasty league started. Another use of this time is to reevaluate leagues and whether you want to continue them. Last season this took the form of removing my involvement in most redraft leagues, so I could really focus on dynasty and daily.
Conclusion:
The off season is really just a continuation of the season in the dynasty world, with a little different focus. This is the perfect time to study up, make new friends, and get some deals done. I personally will be spending a good chunk of time tweaking my IDP postional projection models and really digging into these rookies.
