This article is part of our Dynasty Strategy series.
Many dynasty players, including myself, will eagerly tell anyone willing to listen that our favorite part of the format is tanking and rebuilding. Winning championships is obviously great, too. What we don't want is to get stuck in the middle, trying to convince ourselves that with a couple clever moves and some matchup luck we might be able to pull off a miracle run (though I have seen that happen... once).
Back in August of 2022, I wrote an article here on RotoWire that walked through the beginning of a rebuild of one of my dynasty teams, showing the trades and draft picks I'd made to begin the tanking process. (I traded away more players after I posted the article, went 0-14 in 2022, made the playoffs in 2023, and then won the league in 2024.) That article even discusses many of the strategies you'll find below.
Some of these strategies are obvious, like trading veterans for draft picks, but it's not quite as simple as it sounds if we want to truly optimize the process. I'll walk through my key tips below, roughly in chronological order, starting with the process of tearing a team down. It's certainly possible to return to playoff competition as soon as two years later, but the real target should be the third and fourth seasons (and beyond).
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Phase I: The Tear Down
The decision to rebuild/tank often happens during the NFL season, when a fantasy team that entered the campaign with playoff hopes (realistic or otherwise) instead falls apart... and then realizes things don't look so bright for the following year either. Some people respond to this situation by only trading away their oldest players, while others opt for a full tear down and rebuild. It's the latter group we're focusing on here, not the people who trade one or two players and expect to be back in the hunt the very next year. Sometimes this happens during the offseason rather than in-season, but usually seeds were planted in-season even if the all-out effort doesn't begin until winter/spring.
The other type of rebuild, less frequently seen, is one undertaken in the offseason after an aging team made one last run. This should probably be done more often; too many fantasy managers try to make one last run after the one last run. My best dynasty squad right now is a team that I blew up after finishing in third place in 2021. I got 81 total TDs out of Tom Brady, Austin Ekeler and Cooper Kupp that year, but with sketchy depth and an aging core, I decided to blow everything up in the offseason. Ekeler had one more huge season thereafter, but Brady and Kupp didn't. Had I kept my team together, I likely would've finished something like seventh or eighth in the league. Instead, I finished last and got the No. 1 overall pick; I was back in the playoffs by 2023 and won the league in 2024.
Regardless of which type of rebuild we're working, the steps/suggestions will largely be the same. The speed of the rebuilding process may be different, however, as it's easier to get a treasure trove of picks/assets when stripping a decent team rather than a lousy one.
1. Commit to the Tank
This doesn't mean trading all of our good players immediately (more on that below), but it does mean trying to trade pretty much anyone 25 or older. I'd even lean toward trading 24-year-old WRs and 23-year-old RBs, as they're likely in their primes or about to arrive there, which makes them theoretically more valuable to teams that won't be wasting two seasons of high-level performance.
I've seen many opponents try to "rebuild" without flipping their top assets or favorite players, and the result is rarely pretty. That's especially true for leagues with drafts rather than auctions, as finishing in last place comes with the benefit of first pick among rookies the following offseason. The list of players I'd prefer to trade when trying to rebuild includes 25-year-olds like Ja'Marr Chase and Trey McBride. Even someone like Bijan Robinson, 23, is worth putting out there to see what offers come up, considering a rebuilding team is about to waste two of his most valuable seasons.
2. Don't Rush Trades
At first glance, this might seem in disagreement with the previous point, but I think it makes sense. And it's especially relevant during the offseason, when star players are unlikely to experience major value swings. If selling in February, we probably shouldn't accept an offer for a superstar unless someone offers slightly more than the player is worth. Accepting a trade comes with the opportunity cost of all the offers that might otherwise have come through later in the offseason.
One of the worst mistakes I see people make is deciding to trade a star player and then accepting the best available offer even if it's not an especially good one. That might make sense when trying to move a 31-year-old player in-season, but it's unwise in many other situations, especially throughout the offseason when there's no time crunch.
In other words, we want to start the sell-off process as early as possible, but we don't want to pull the trigger on trading every player right away. We want to take time to extract value. This also has some second-order benefits, as we'll tend to get better offers in the long run if people realize we can't be easily had.
3. Aim for Last Place
This is one of the more obvious strategies, as last place comes with the No. 1 overall pick in most dynasty leagues. And while it might sound easy to finish last, that's not necessarily the case if there are other tanking teams. One way to get ahead of behind the competition is by making sure our team is incredibly weak at one or two positions. For example, once we've sold off all of our starting-caliber QBs and TEs, we can replace them with developmental prospects that don't get playing time rather than guys that will score a few points this week. This allows us to set our best lineup each week and still have zeroes torpedoing it to the bottom of the standings.
Some opponents may be bothered by this, but my rule as a commissioner has always been that it's okay to weaken your roster as much as you want — what isn't okay is to intentionally bench your best players for better draft position. Tanking doesn't bother me, but it does bother me when a team tries to win and fails, then shifts to benching all their best players to improve draft position once the playoffs aren't an option. If you want to tank, you need to trade your best players, not just bench them. This is worth clarifying beforehand with league mates, of course, as some people see things differently. Ultimately, every league should have rules for this, or at least a verbal agreement between all competitors specifying what's acceptable and what isn't.
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Phase II: Restocking the Pantry
Once we've gotten rid of our veterans — hopefully trading them for draft picks and under-25 players — we still need to figure out how to use said draft picks and fill out the rest of the roster.
1. Don't Ignore Positional Aging and Development Curves
To be clear, this doesn't mean we should pass up Ashton Jeanty with the No. 1 overall pick in rookie drafts. But it is wise to favor the QB/WR/TE over the RB in toss-up situations, given that RBs have shorter fantasy lifespans, on average. They also tend to peak earlier, especially relative to QBs and TEs, which equates to higher odds of their best seasons being wasted while we're still rebuilding.
QBs land on the other end of the spectrum, with quality starters often providing more than a decade of valuable production — and sometimes even reaching two full decades in the case of the elite. I like to load up on rookie QBs and WRs in the first year of a rebuild, so long as I'm able to do so without making egregious reaches in a draft.
The extent to which one weighs projected aging curves is a matter of personal preference. For some, like me, it's an important factor in team-building, at least for that first year of a rebuild. Others may find similar success treating aging curves as a tiebreaker factor, and nothing more. But to ignore it entirely is disadvantageous — that much I'm sure of.
2. Be Realistic About How Long the Dynasty League Will Last
This ties in with the point above; positional aging curves aren't so important if we don't think our league will still be running 7-8 years from now. For a 35-year-old playing with a group of friends, there's a decent chance the league will still be going in 2040 (which is kind of weird to think of, no?). For an 85-year-old, or someone playing with a group of strangers, it's probably better not to put any stock in what might happen beyond 2028 or so.
3. Don't Worry About Positional Balance in Year 1
As mentioned above, it can actually be a good thing if we're extremely weak at one or two positions, improving our odds for the No. 1 pick while building strength at other spots. If it's 2025 and we aren't expecting to compete for playoffs again in 2027, there's no reason to worry about balancing talent between positions — we'll have plenty of time to account for that later with draft picks, trades and waiver additions. Personally, I'll tend to leave RB and TE as the weak spots in the first phase of a rebuild.
4. Consider Using Bench Spots on "Handcuffs" Rather than Late-Round Rookies
We obviously want a young roster when rebuilding from scratch, but sometimes there's better value in using a bench spot on a backup RB — or a backup quarterback in two-QB leagues — rather than a borderline prospect who was a late-round pick in real life. The idea behind stashing real-life backups is that we can trade them for future draft picks (or prospects) if the starter ahead of them suffers a long-term injury in-season.
I've seen league mates squat on six or seven backup quarterbacks at the same time in my two-QB leagues, waiting for trade opportunities to arise — and they always do — when one or two of those guys inevitably end up making starts. We won't get a first-round pick for them, but we might be able to turn a few third-rounders into second-rounders, or something like that.
Sometimes we can even combine the best of both worlds with guys like Isaac Guerendo and Jalen Milroe that have value as prospects for the long run and could also see spikes in short-term value due to teammate injuries. Those two can even help with tanking in the meantime, as they're unlikely to score any significant number of points early in the season (unless Christian McCaffrey and Sam Darnold suffer injuries).
Phase III: Year 2
This is when each situation becomes different, depending on what happened in the first year of the rebuild and how much success we've had restocking our roster. Some teams will be no closer to competing than they were the previous year, while others may appear ready (or almost ready) for a playoff run.
1. Stay the Course on Rebuilding (At Least Through the Offseason)
If we started our rebuild in 2024 and immediately drafted Malik Nabers, Brian Thomas, Brock Bowers and Bucky Irving, then we can do a 180 and enter aggressive, win-now mode. Anything less than that and it's better to continue with the long-term mindset, at least through the second offseason of a rebuild. We can always pivot in-season, if, for example, we're sitting at 5-1 after Week 6 with the second most points in the league.
2. Avoid Piling Up Rookie Picks After Rounds 1-2
During the first two offseasons of a rebuild, and especially the first year, it's nice to have rookie picks in Rounds 3 and 4. We can let these players marinate on the bench and see what happens, unbothered by a lack of production if they aren't getting much playing time.
After those first two seasons, we want to avoid having more than one or two of these low-end-prospect types, instead dedicating bench spots to guys that can help during the current year. Even if we made what turns out to be the right pick in Round 3/4 of our rookie draft, there's a chance we end up dropping that player for short-term help before he breaks out.
We can even plan this at the beginning of a rebuild, e.g., trading a 2027 third-round pick for a 2025 fourth-rounder. If we happen to still have a bunch of late picks when shifting into win-now mode, they can be used as trade sweeteners, or perhaps combined into one big package in exchange for a single second-round pick.
3. Consider Stacking Offenses
This isn't an essential strategy by any means, but it can work well if we think our team is somewhere in the middle of the league and we aren't sure if we're still rebuilding or ready to compete. I generally don't like to trade future value for current value in those in-between situations, but I might double/triple down on a single offense with breakout potential, e.g., trading for affordable, young-ish players like Travis Etienne and Brenton Strange if my team already has Trevor Lawrence and Brian Thomas.
This strategy tends to work better in leagues that use best-ball scoring, allowing us to stack multiple offenses and benefit from correlations when one of them explodes. I know most dynasty leagues are lineup-setting, but I've always found best ball to be more fun, in part because it forces competing teams to make tough decisions each week at the bottom of the roster (often deciding between a guy with more long-term potential and one more likely to help right now). Best-ball scoring also eliminates any concerns about people intentionally setting poor lineups to improve draft position; the only way to tank is by clearing out much of a roster and starting over.
4. Account for Roster Balance Again
For most rebuilds, I prefer waiting until the end of the second season or start of the third offseason before really worrying about roster balance again. That's partially because I once made a huge mistake — one I felt nervous about even at the time — and traded a rookie A.J. Brown for James Conner at the end of the first year of a rebuild (on a team that was loaded with wide receivers but extremely weak at running back).
We should also consider the difference between positions. A glaring weakness at tight end is usually easy enough to fix, while a similar degree of weakness at quarterback in a two-QB league often takes more time to mend. If we're stacked at RB and WR but light at QB in a two-QB league, it makes sense to start feeling out RB/WR-for-QB trades a bit before we're truly ready to compete.
5. Don't Be Shy About Trading
People often use the term "attachment bias," and while I agree it can be a limitation, many dynasty managers have a more specific issue — anxiety about trades coming back to haunt us. It's true that we usually have stronger memories of the deals that burned us than the ones that helped us — a.k.a. negativity bias — but it's detrimental to think about that during trade discussions.
Take the example above, where I mentioned dealing AJB for Conner in 2019. That's the only trade I remember from 2019 to 2021 in that league, but when I went back to look at the league just now, I saw a bunch of other highly beneficial trades I had no recollection of, including the deal in which I originally acquired Brown (in exchange for Ty Johnson, of all people). Looking at the trades that ensued, I essentially turned Johnson into Brown into Conner into Matthew Stafford, whose 41 TDs carried me to a championship in 2021, the third year of my rebuilding process.
If we come out ahead in even 55 percent of our blockbuster trades, it's worth taking those risks and trusting that the big Ws will more than make up for the big Ls.
Phase IV: Just Win, Baby
This is where the article ends, with a reminder to become aggressive when the opportunity for a championship presents itself. Dynasty is a labor of love, with minimal financial gain relative to the time spent managing teams, even at high buy-ins. We play for the satisfaction of building dominant teams and winning championships, not to steadily make the playoffs each season and squeeze out a bit of profit.
I'll have a couple more articles coming this summer that discuss other dynasty situations, including non-tanking strategies to unstick teams that seem stuck mid-table.
