What Is a Dynasty League in Fantasy Football?

What is Dynasty Fantasy Football?

DynastyLeagueFootball has a great summary:

A dynasty fantasy football league is a league where you retain most or all of your players from year to year. This creates an environment which is very different from that of a redraft league. By enabling team owners to keep players and build a team over time, there is a much stronger sense of team ownership. Success is achieved with a greater sense of satisfaction. Mistakes or successes in a dynasty league can affect the fortunes of a franchise for years to come, just like in the NFL. A dynasty league also facilitates trades, including trading of draft picks, and it encourages a deeper roster pool, so young ‘project’ players can be identified and groomed.

Dynasty is becoming a more popular format because it is the closest simulation to being a real NFL general manager. Decisions around how to value young players, how to construct a roster and which trades to make or take has lasting impact on your franchise.

Unlike redraft leagues, dynasty leagues are typically active year-round. Owners pay close attention to NFL Free Agency moves (e.g. Kirk Cousins to the Falcons, Saquon Barkley to the Eagles), NFL combine results and the NFL draft, while actively chatting with each other in friendly banter and trade talks during the entire offseason.

How Does Dynasty Fantasy Football Work?

In dynasty fantasy football, managers maintain their rosters over multiple seasons, which requires taking a long-term perspective and staying engaged even during the offseason.

Sometimes what's best for your dynasty team in the long run conflicts with your desire to win today, leading to tough choices with bigger consequences than anything you'd face in a redraft league.

Successful dynasty team management involves scouting rookies and upcoming young players, making strategic trades, and carefully managing draft picks.

This ongoing commitment allows for a deeper connection with players and their league, while developing a more profound understanding of the game.

Dynasty Startup Draft

Every dynasty league begins with a startup draft to set each team's foundation. This draft pulls from the entire active NFL player pool and takes longer than a standard redraft league, typically consisting of 20 to 30 rounds so managers can build out a deep roster. Most dynasty startup drafts use a snake draft, where the draft order reverses after each round, ensuring a balanced distribution of talent.

The key to a successful startup draft is to strike a balance between players with both immediate and long-term potential. Veterans with proven track records can help in the near term, but young players with big potential are more highly coveted.

The startup draft's more expansive format allows managers to select a wide range of players, including both top-tier stars and riskier developmental projects.

Dynasty Rookie Draft

Starting in Year 2 and in all subsequent seasons, dynasty leagues hold an annual rookie draft. Since veteran players are already on active rosters or available year-round to be signed through waivers, this draft focuses solely on the incoming class of NFL rookies. Rookie drafts are the time to infuse new talent onto your roster that can develop and contribute over multiple seasons.

Rookie drafts are shorter than standard league drafts, since the rookie talent pool is much smaller. Draft order is usually determined by the previous season's standings, with the last place team picking first, and the league champion drafting last.

Dynasty Roster and Lineup

In dynasty leagues, rosters are generally larger than those in redraft leagues, reflecting the need for depth and future planning. Some leagues allow rosters of 25 to 30 players. Sleeper recommends dynasty leagues start with 18 roster slots, as well as an additional 2 injured reserve slots and 3 Taxi squad slots.

A Taxi slot is an additional space in dynasty leagues where you can stash young players without it counting against roster limits. Usage parameters are set by league commissioners.

Lineup requirements in dynasty are similar to other fantasy formats, usually featuring a quarterback (or two in super-flex), running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, and flex spots. Some dynasty leagues also require a kicker and defense (DST), but more leagues are moving away from this format. One interesting lineup wrinkle becoming more common is the use of IDPs (individual defensive players), where dynasty managers draft, roster and score points for the performances of defensive players.

As dynasty leagues demand managing player potential and anticipating future trends, roster and lineup rules tend to be more involved and often requre a fair bit of customization.

Trading in Dynasty Fantasy Football

Trading is a critical component of dynasty fantasy football, and can have a greater impact than trading in redraft leagues. In standard fantasy leagues, trades are often focused on winning now, whereas dynasty trades — which involve draft picks or players — are often meant to build a foundation for the future.

As a result, trading strategies vary widely. For example, a manager might decide to trade away an established star on the downside of his career, like Davante Adams, in exchange for future draft picks to rebuild their team. That manager almost certainly won't increase the chances of winning this season, but the newly acquired draft picks might add key roster pieces who perform for many seasons to come.

On the other hand, a team in the midst of an epic season may sell future draft picks (or a young unproven player with tons of potential) for an aging but still solid veteran. This manager's calculus may be that the glory of winning a championship this season is worth sacrificing longer-term roster talent.

Regardless of which strategy you opt for, as a dynasty manager you must consider both the short- and long-term implications of each trade and decide what best helps you achieve your goals.

Weighing immediate competitiveness vs. long-term sustainability is one of the most challenging and attractive aspects of dynasty.

How to Start a Dynasty League

Let's assume you like what you hear so far. Now it's time to start playing. If this is your first season doing dynasty, we recommend starting off with the following settings:

12 teams
18 roster slots
2 IR slots
3 Taxi slots (Further explanation on Taxi slots here)

This will ensure each team has the opportunity to develop young talent while making sure that the waivers still have something serviceable to pick up each week.

For scoring settings, we recommend using what you are already comfortable with in your redraft leagues, whether it be PPR, Standard or half-PPR.

Selecting a Host Site

This is one of the most important decisions you will make. There are a great many options which will accommodate your dynasty league. You'll want one that's affordable, meets your league requirements, is constantly improving and offers great customer support.

Here are 3 big reasons to consider going with Sleeper for your dynasty league:

It's free - Unlike many of its competitors, the Sleeper dynasty format is completely free to play. Sleeper provides a modern experience with a sleek user-friendly design that is updated frequently with new tools and features. You also won't see any pesky advertisements so you can focus on what matters: building a championship-caliber dynasty roster.
Open 365 days a year - There's no need to recreate the league and settings or jump through any offseason hurdles, and there are no black out periods. You can access the player pool to trade picks at any time (no more off-line spreadsheets, cheat sheets, etc). Sleeper offers a slow draft (overnight) and separate veteran and rookie drafts, and allows offseason moves year round so you can take action during the free agency frenzy.
Best-in-class tools - Sleeper is chock full of useful tools to keep you connected and informed. It's also the most customizable app in the business, giving you lots of room to tailor to your league needs. Exclusive features like voice and text chat, custom scoring, in-depth research notes, multi-team trades, weekly league reports, live scoring, player stats and transaction history pack more fantasy punch than any other platform.

We know you love winning, but let's be honest. You're playing dynasty with your closest friends, so it's usually about camaraderie AND winning. Sleeper's mission is to connect people over sports, which means fantasy leagues on the app are designed to promote social interaction and fun.

You can get started here.

Finding a League: Join vs. Create

If all of the above sounds interesting to you, then make the plunge into year-round fantasy football by finding an existing league or creating a new dynasty league.

Join a league

You can usually find free dynasty leagues available to anyone in Sleeper's Fantasy Football Chat Channel or r/findaleague. On the Sleeper app, when you click to start a new league, you'll get the option to open the "NFL Matchmaking" page where you also can browse available leagues to join.

Note: We generally recommend against taking over an orphan team (i.e. when the owner left), because it can take 3+ years to turn a team around. But if you're already a dynasty pro looking for a challenge, this could be your shot.

Joining a league from Day 1 is the ideal scenario. If you've tried all of the above options and still can't find anyone starting a league for you to join, hit us up on Twitter and we'll help!

Start a brand new dynasty league

To start a new dynasty league, simply create a new league, and choose Dynasty as the type. The app will then walk you through the rest of your setup options.

Convert an existing Sleeper league to dynasty mode

If you played in a Sleeper league last year and want to renew it as a Dynasty League, you can simply “renew” the league and choose Dynasty as the option.

Move from another platform to Sleeper

If you played in a dynasty league on MyFantasyLeague, FleaFlicker, ESPN, CBS, NFL, or Yahoo! previously and want to continue your dynasty league on Sleeper, the easiest way is to fill out a draftboard with the players in the slots, then create a league out of that draftboard by “completing” the draft as the commissioner.

If you want to do your Rookie draft on Sleeper, simply select "Add Supplemental Draft."

Detailed steps can be found here: Moving a Dynasty League to Sleeper

Dynasty Format: More Unique Features

Below are a few additional twists that make playing dynasty special.

Draft pick trading

Managing your fantasy team for long-term success means future rookie draft picks carry a lot of value. In dynasty fantasy leagues, you can trade players for future draft picks Dynasty Leagues in Sleeper have draft pick trading enabled by default, so you can trade picks along with your players, or just picks themselves.

Empire leagues

A common challenge with dynasty is that people get tired and leave the league after one or two bad years. You can combat some of this behavior by making your dynasty league an empire league.

Empire leagues don't pay out 100% of the dues every year. Instead, a portion of annual dues goes to an ongoing side pot. When a leaguemate meets certain criteria (e.g. winning the league two times in a row, or winning three championships overall), then the side pot is awarded and you start the league all over again with a new startup draft the following year.

Player valuations

In standard fantasy leagues, determining a player's value is an exercise confined to one season alone. In dynasty, you're assessing both their immediate performance potential and their long-term prospects. This means looking at factors such as age, injury history, team situation, positional scarcity and even their current contract structure.

Managers have to take their player valuation game up a notch to compete in dynasty, leading to the proliferation of countless analytical models and statistical valuation techniques across the internet. Check out Dynasty Nerds for a great guide on dynasty player valuation and Fantasy Pros for dynasty adp rankings.

Dynasty vs. Keeper League

What are the key differences between these two fantasy league formats? Here are two big ones:

Dynasty fantasy football leagues allow managers to keep their entire roster from season to season, focusing on long-term player potential, while keeper leagues permit managers to retain only a few players each year, blending continuity with annual redrafts.
Dynasty leagues require a more strategic initial draft and emphasize year-round engagement, including rookie drafts and open waiver wires. Keeper leagues offer a middle ground between redraft and dynasty, providing more flexibility to recover from poor drafts by allowing most players to re-enter the draft pool annually.

For more details, check out Sleeper's complete guide on Dynasty vs. Keeper Leagues.

Dynasty League FAQs

How many teams do you need for a dynasty league?

A good number of teams for a dynasty league is either 10 or 12. Having too few teams (<10) will result in loaded rosters and difficulty finding an edge. Too many teams (>12) could make it extremely difficult for below average teams to improve their rosters.

Should I draft a QB first in a dynasty league?

It depends on the league's scoring format and your draft strategy. In a "superflex" league, where you can start more than one QB, drafting a QB early can be advantageous due to their high consistent scoring. In standard scoring or PPR leagues, it may be smarter to prioritize running backs (RBs) and wide receivers (WRs) early, as elite QBs are usually still available later in the draft. However, an elite perennial Pro Bowler who is still in the early part of his career (i.e. Patrick Mahomes) may be a smart move to solidify that position for years to come.

How do you win a dynasty in fantasy football?

There is no easy answer here, but it starts with understanding the mission and being dedicated to the effort. Dynasty fantasy is not for everyone. It requires a multiseason commitment that includes year-round attention and engagement. But if you're a diehard fan and up for the challenge, your best move is to focus on using the dynasty startup draft to select a balanced team with a lot of young players. You might not field an immediate championship contender, but with some active roster management and a few effective first-year trades to pick up future draft picks, you'll lay a strong foundation for a team that can compete for years. Continuously monitor player performance and NFL news to make informed decisions on free agent pickups and player trades. Always prioritize team needs and search for value opportunities. Long-term planning and flexibility are key to success.

One Final Note on Dynasty Leagues

If there is one thing to take away, it's this: DO NOT RUSH YOUR DECISION. Winning in dynasty is hard and requires long-term thinking. If you want to take it seriously, take your time and fill a league with the right members (these could be friends IRL or people all over the world). If you end up with some bad apples, again, take your time finding the right members to re-fill the league.

Whatever you decide, Sleeper has you covered for all your dynasty fantasy football needs. Set up is easy and intuitive. App customization allows for a wide range of scoring, drafting and roster management options. Sign up on the website or download the mobile app today. Did we mention it's free?