NFL Dynasty Fantasy Football Rankings

What is dynasty fantasy football?

Essentially, a dynasty league is different from a traditional redraft league because the rosters carry over in perpetuity. It starts the same way as a traditional league, with each owner competing in a startup draft. However, that initial draft will likely play a large factor in determining how your team will perform for the next few seasons rather than just the coming season.

After that, your only chance to make moves is through the annual rookie draft, the waiver wire, and by making trades. That makes properly evaluating the overall strength of your roster at any point in time very important.

Let’s say that your roster is towards the middle of the pack in the standings. You would need to take a good, hard look at your squad and ask yourself whether it’s truly good enough to contend for a championship. If not – and you don’t have any potential help on the way – you should then consider selling off some of your aging prospects.

Conversely, if your team is close to winning a title, you can look to trade some future assets like draft picks and younger prospects for aging veterans who can help your team win now. Those types of players may not have a ton of future value due to their advanced age, but if they can help propel you to a championship, they’re valuable for your roster right now.

That process of buying and selling players depending on where your team is in the standings is part of what makes dynasty leagues so much fun. Your work as a dynasty manager is never truly done; there are always moves you can consider to strengthen your roster either for the present or the future.

What is the Dynasty Rankings Tool?

As mentioned previously, the ability to properly value players is vital in dynasty leagues. Younger players obviously get a boost in the rankings, whereas older players can sometimes rapidly decline in value.

For example, Aaron Rodgers checks in as the No. 15 QB in our redraft rankings, but he ranks as just the No. 25 QB in our dynasty rankings. At 40 years old, there’s no guarantee that Rodgers will continue to perform at a high level or if he’ll even be in the league next season.

Conversely, young QB prospects like Anthony Richardson, Bryce Young, and C.J. Stroud all rank highly. There’s no guarantee that those players become stars, but the prospect of landing a potential franchise QB is too tempting to pass up. Those guys will routinely be drafted ahead of established players like Daniel Jones, Kirk Cousins, and Jared Goff even though these veterans project for better production this coming season.

That’s what the Dynasty Rankings Tool is all about. It’s designed to help you properly evaluate each player so that you can hopefully build a squad that can contend for years and establish a true dynasty in your league.

How are these dynasty rankings determined?

The rankings are the brainchild of Matthew Freedman, who is the head of betting here at Fantasy Life. He’s also well versed in fantasy football, having previously spent time at RotoViz, FantasyPros, Fade the Noise, the Action Network, and FantasyLabs. As far as rankings go, Freedman has posted five top-20 finishes in the FantasyPros rankings accuracy contests.

The Fantasy Life dynasty rankings are updated frequently to reflect any changes in the NFL landscape. If an aging player shows signs of deterioration or a young player breaks out, expect to see their fluctuating values reflected immediately in the tool.

Why are dynasty rankings important?

It goes without saying that you need to embrace the format in dynasty leagues. If you’re treating dynasty leagues the same as redraft leagues, you’re going to end up with an old squad that can’t compete. It may not happen in Year 1, but sooner or later, you’re going to end up with a roster full of retired or unproductive players.

Dynasty rankings are there to reinforce the value of youth. Young players who are already good (e.g., Justin Jefferson, Ja’Marr Chase, Jonathan Taylor, etc.) are worth their weight in gold in dynasty leagues.

After that, unknown young players will often get the benefit of the doubt. For example, Freedman has Bijan Robinson as the No. 1 RB in dynasty leagues, and fellow 2023 rookie classmate Jahmyr Gibbs is his No. 4 dynasty RB over some of the older RBs who have been productive in recent seasons.

Ultimately, how much emphasis you want to place on youth in dynasty formats is up to you. Some people like to play with a three-year window in mind while others take an even longer-term approach.

Regardless, the Dynasty Rankings Tool will give you insight into just how valuable each player in a dynasty league actually is. What you choose to do with that information is up to you.