You will notice many differences between dynasty leagues and redraft leagues. One is that dynasty leagues usually have rookie drafts. Another is that trading tends to be much more active in dynasty leagues relative to redraft ones. Furthermore, building a team through waiver pickups is much more difficult. This is largely because rosters tend to be about two times deeper in most dynasty leagues. Dynasty rosters are generally built by draft or trade.

Once the startup draft is complete, roster construction is primarily done through trades and drafts. I will be making a lot of generalizations in this article so take this advice with a grain of salt. Context matters.

I will go position-by-position and talk about how I primarily try to build my roster in an average 12-team Superflex league. My strategy is to slowly build a team of elite young players. I always want to build a team made up of players who can help me win now and three years from now. I mentioned this so you can keep in mind the type of players I am trying to target.

Quarterback (Trade)

Good young fantasy quarterbacks with job security are the most difficult asset to get in a dynasty league. I see way too many people passing on those in startup drafts and in my opinion, that’s a huge mistake. If a quarterback like that is available in a startup draft, I am taking them over anyone else. (In case you want to see my top 8 QBs that fit this description, you can check out my dynasty QB tiers).

If I need to find one after a startup draft, I will most likely do it through a trade. They may cost at least three first-round picks (or players of equivalent value), but to me, that’s worth it. Professional NFL scouts can’t scout QBs well so who am I to think otherwise. I would rather pay a high price for someone I can set and forget at the QB position than spend multiple picks trying to draft QBs who may or may not hit. Trevor Lawrence was supposed to be a sure thing and we can now see he is definitely not that.

Running Back (Draft)

The second-most valuable asset in dynasty football is young running backs that get volume. Once drafted, their trade value can be pretty close to the QBs mentioned above. Not counting injuries, RBs are the safest position to work with. If an RB is drafted in the first two rounds of the NFL draft or if they are paid huge sums of money, they are very likely to be at worst a decent fantasy starter.

I spend my early startup picks on QBs. Because of this, I would likely only get one of these young stud RBs if any initially. People who have played fantasy for a while know that this is also the most often injured position so depth is key. In order to get RBs, I usually try to trade for multiple future 1sts over a year in advance from weaker teams. I will then use those early picks to get RBs with high NFL draft capital. This requires patience but is often the cheapest way to get an RB. I also try to load up on depth RBs with my later draft picks. I do this since they can quickly gain value if the RBs ahead of them on their team depth chart get injured.

Wide Receiver (Draft or Trade)

Wide receivers are usually the deepest position to work with. They’re the position I’ll draft the most in the startup draft because it’s the position that usually takes up most of my roster spots. Part of the reason for this is that most of my starters tend to be WRs. But another part of this is because there are so many fantasy-relevant WRs. Whereas most teams only have 1-2 start-worthy QB, around 2 starting RBs, and maybe not even one weekly starter at the TE position, most teams will have 4-6 fantasy-relevant WRs.

With the least amount of positional scarcity, WRs are pretty easy to acquire using players from other positions. I mostly get WRs through relatively later draft picks, trades, or even waivers.

Tight End (Trade)

This is pretty simple. Tight ends often take multiple years to develop. For that reason, I usually try to trade for them rather than trying to draft one and then be stuck with them on my bench for years. They also tend not to cost too much despite the scarcity. This is because they tend not to put up as many points and most only start one.

Wrap-Up

I hope this helps you to get an idea of strategies to use when filling out your roster spots. Knowing whether to acquire positions through draft or trade can help you to use those two tools well.

There are definitely exceptions to this. Whether that’s drafting a good QB prospect who can run like Kyler Murray, trading for older RBs who can help a win-now team like Leonard Fournette, or drafting generational TEs like Kyle Pitts, not everything follows strict rules. But in general, these are the strategies I use to build my team.

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