Dynasty Diaries, Part 1

by
Former Writers
May 22, 2019

jenniranee via Flickr

Dynasty Diaries, Part 1

Welcome to Dynasty Diaries, my new recurring column that will chronicle my foray into the world of Dynasty Fantasy Football. I will post these features semi-regularly as my new league gets underway, and I hope that you guys find them entertaining and they help you learn something about Dynasty Fantasy Football. Here is the first entry in Dynasty Diaries!

Dear Diary,

I finally did it. After years of playing normal fantasy football, resetting every season like a loser, I finally started a dynasty league. Let me tell you, it took a while. The hardest part really was finding people who wanted to be in the league and could handle it. Dynasty isn’t like normal fantasy football, where just anyone can handle it. In order to handle a dynasty league, you have to be committed. It doesn’t just stop in January when football ends, it runs year-round. After the season, you gotta start reading up on the rookies. Then the trades come. Basically, the commitment is a year-round one, and not one for the meek. Because of that, the first thing I had to do when starting a dynasty league was pick the members. I used the following criteria.

Criteria #1 – Football Fanhood

In order to make the cut for my dynasty league, you can’t be just a normal football fan. You need to know your stuff. I don’t want people that can just name starting running backs. I need you to be able to name the backup, their backup, and what round that backup was picked in and whether or not they might threaten the starter. You can’t just know how many touchdowns someone had. I need you to know how many of those were rushing and receiving, and what personnel packages they came in.

You can’t just know the head coach’s name, you need to know what system that coach runs, and whether or not his running backs are good in fantasy, and whether or not he likes to use multiple running backs so you never know who is going to score (*cough* Bill Belichick *cough*). If you know football on that level, then you may be a big enough fan to be in this league.

Criteria #2 – Fantasy Football Experience

The second criteria to be in my dynasty league was fantasy football experience. If this is gonna be your first fantasy football league, you’re out. This can’t be your first rodeo. It needs to be at least your fourth or fifth rodeo. At least. And you can’t have just participated in a fantasy league. You need to have been incredibly invested. Ideally, you were on the waiver wire every week, scrounging for sleepers. You tried to trade so many times, your league-mates started ignoring your texts. If you are truly the right person for my dynasty league, you need to have dominated normal fantasy leagues so much that you’re bored and are looking for a new challenge.

Criteria #3 – The “It” Factor

This one can’t really be defined. But in order to be in my dynasty league, you need to have some sort of “Je ne se quois.” (That’s right, I took French in high school. Impressive, right?) There has to be something special about you, something that sets you apart.

Criteria #4 – Can I beat you?

This one is self-explanatory. In order to be in my dynasty league, I have to be able to beat you.

(Okay obviously, this isn’t actually the process I used to pick the members of me league. My recommendation is to pick some friends who have fantasy football experience and are interested, and get to work.)

Well Diary, now I have my league. I put all ten of us into a group message and we got to work. Tune in to the next Dynasty Diaries to hear about picking the rules for the league and scheduling the draft.