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Editor’s Note: This is the first post from Rob Shandler, who is new to the DLF Team. We thought it was just about the right time to post an article for dynasty newcomers and Rob hit the nail on the head. We’re excited to welcome Rob and hope you enjoy this and future work from him.

So you’ve joined a dynasty football league. First of all, welcome to the absolute best fantasy football format. Enjoy the never ending ride and all its accompanying gloriousness.

Most people who are new to a dynasty league experience very similar beginnings. You’ve got your rankings in hand, perhaps a few selected beverages, and (if you are part of a live offline draft) you arrive with the friend who recruited you into a room full of boisterous jersey-clad strangers. They’re stoked. They’ve been excitedly waiting for this day to arrive for six months or more. Most everyone is already fairly deeply into beers or detailed discussions of current player trends. If you don’t see this, you should turn around and leave because the league probably isn’t great. If you stay, the league introductory dialogue that follows is pretty typical.

Your buddy: “Hey guys….this is my buddy Dave from work. He’s taking Billy’s spot.”

The guys: “Right on. Hey, Dave. These are the guys. Anyways…do we get injury status courtesy this year or are you guys gonna screw with me all over again?”

As you settle into your chair and begin to be overwhelmed with a mountain of information, rules and guidelines; you should also be realizing you’ve already seen the beginning and end of the assistance you are going to receive in building relationships with the other guys or gals in your league.

[inlinead]?The result of this inauspicious introduction is that new owners often spend a year or two in the shadows because they are unfamiliar with the other owners and their patterns of thought on player valuations. While everyone else is wheeling and dealing in perpetual attempts to improve their rosters, the newbie gets left behind with a stale roster and a couple of fruitless negotiations, likely with the guy that got them in the league. You are at a competitive disadvantage and it’s up to you to put yourself on a level playing field. If you feel you are currently in this position, here are a few effective strategies to help you to quickly become a major player in your dynasty league.

Disclaimer: I’d like to remind all owners in my personal leagues I use none of these strategies with you whatsoever at any time. In fact, I didn’t even know about these strategies until some guy told me about them the other day.

Tips and tricks to know before draft day

1) Join Twitter and follow as many fantasy football sources as you can handle. The volume of real-time information available at your fingertips nowadays is simply astounding. It will fast track your ability to keep up with the research you’ll need to be doing to stay current.

2) Make sure you are using quality dynasty rankings rather than the dusty fantasy magazine from the rack at the local deli. Take advantage of DLF’s printable rankings, which make the necessary adjustments for player valuations in a long-term keeper league.

3) Get to know your incoming crop of NFL rookies. This is a huge part of dynasty football. Read multiple scouting reports and as many dynasty rookie mock drafts as you can to better understand which players will best fit your team.

4) Get your head on a swivel and beware of “The Vulture.” This is the guy in your league that for months has been eyeing up the team you are inheriting. He’s likely got his sights set on several of the players on your new team, but has been handcuffed by the team not previously having an owner. Until now. He will seek you out and try to take advantage of your inexperience, likely on draft night. Do not deal with The Vulture until you’ve gotten an impartial second opinion. You are in a delicate mental state as a raw rookie, and your logic may be temporarily repressed by your need to fit in.

Owner Relations

Since you likely didn’t get much of a chance on draft night, it’s very important for you to make contact and get into regular communication with all owners in your dynasty league. More often than you realize, there are opportunities to acquire a player or draft picks at great values. The thought of initiating these lines of communication can be daunting, especially if you are not comfortable approaching others. Here are a few simple steps that can help you in this process.

1) Make contact with all owners via text messaging.

Get everyone’s digits. As soon as possible, you should open discussions with chosen individuals about league happenings such as trades, player injuries, or unexpected weekly performances. Keep it light. Try sending out periodic feelers to selected owners about certain players if you’re comfortable with that. Even something as simple as texting out a “Good luck this week, it looks like a good matchup for you” can build relations by reinforcing support.

2) Be an active participant on the message board.

A great way to build up your profile in the league is to be a regular contributor to the pulse of the league on the message board. Here, you can craft little write-ups about the league as you see fit, including things like opinions, football memes, or jokes. These give an insight into your personality. A great way to show your communal attitude is to share information or fantasy football insight you may have gathered, which shows other owners that you’re not some ghoul sitting in your basement thinking of ways to take advantage of them.

3) Follow other league matchups in real time.

When things are getting really stressful in a matchup, text owners to let them know you are rooting for them or watching the game hoping for an Eric Decker catch so they win. If you don’t have an aversion to being smarmy, text the other guy and let him know you are hoping Decker gets shut out the rest of the way so he squeaks out the victory. Just make sure you don’t get busted, as those two owners could be watching the game together. DOH!

4) Request to host the next draft party.

There’s no better way to make connections with fellow owners than to welcome them into your castle and give them food and spirits. This gives everyone a chance to see you in your element and you’ll be much more comfortable drafting the second time around.

5) Be a benevolent trader

Too much emphasis is put on winning and losing deals. In the end, a good trading relationship is based on a history of fairness and flexibility. In other words, you should be committed to ensuring your trades are close enough in value so that the other owner reflects positively upon it. This will make him more willing to deal with you in the future.

The Art of Trading

Once you have established some partnerships in your league, it’s time to start improving your roster. You’ll find each owner has a different approach to negotiating trades. By being mindful of the following styles, you may be able to complete some deals that otherwise wouldn’t have happened.

Straight-up approach:

You’ll find there will be a few teams with which you naturally develop solid trade relations because of the compatibility of your rosters. These are guys who you typically categorize as allies. They think similarly to you and communicate with you on a regular basis. You will have a solid idea about how they view their players and vice versa.

In order to inquire about the availability of a player, you may lead with “Let’s talk about LeSean McCoy.” Typically, the response is going to resemble something that would leave the mouth of McCoy’s agent. You will already know what you are willing to give up for McCoy, but you also should know that trying to lowball an ally will likely end quickly with a text of equal or greater courtesy to “Get bent.” Lowballing repeatedly can be very dangerous to trade relations in the same way that overvaluing your players can keep people away. Try never to insult your allies with selfish expectations.

The package deal:

[inlinead]?This type of trade is the most common in dynasty football. It’s quite rare to see a completed player-for-player, one-for-one deal. The whole reason you would be opening negotiations is because you feel your target is an upgrade to your current player, and likely the other owner isn’t stupid and values the players involved similarly. Here is where you need to be willing to sacrifice a little value in order to get your target. If you are very high on Dez Bryant, you obviously aren’t going to offer Michael Crabtree and expect a deal. What you may want to do is upgrade the offer by building a package deal that equalize the value difference. Find the other owner’s area of weakness and decide if you have the positional strength to downgrade. If it’s tight end, try adding someone like Julius Thomas into the deal and ask for Dennis Pitta in return. Many owners don’t mind weakening some positions in order to strengthen others because they have young, developing talent on their rosters. Finally, you can always use a draft pick as a kicker to complete a deal. Don’t make this a habit though, as you must always be cognizant of your team’s future.

The Stereotypical Salesman:

This approach could basically be called “shameless advertising.” Picture the jovial chunky fellow in an off-putting jacket, complete with a killer moustache and horrible comb-over. This is a great way to gauge the valuations of other owners in your league. For example, every so often I like to send out a group text message to the league that reads something like this, “One day only sale! Brandon Marshall is on the block until midnight. Serious inquiries only. Best offer will be considered.”

What you end up with is a kind of a blind auction that provides a clear idea of how the others in your league value your players. At the same time, in subsequent negotiations, you will often be surprised by the availability of a player or draft pick who you previously thought was untouchable. This approach is a really nice way to invite others to share their feelings and opinions on players.

The danger here is you may weaken relations with owners if you constantly play owners off of each other. Also, you must be careful not to use these coinciding negotiations as a way to leverage each individual involved. Trust me when I say that can leave you empty handed.

The Wait and See Approach:

This one begs for a little help from the Fantasy Gods. The idea is to put a deal into the mind of another owner that you consider favorable then leave it on the table through all of that week’s games. The trade opportunity will be at the forefront of the other owners mind and basically you are hoping for a major value bump to occur by way of your player having a highly productive week. Come Tuesday, you can lead by saying… “I don’t know if I can do that deal anymore after that performance, man.” Enjoy the power play. Of course, with this approach, you are also risking that your player flops under the microscope and that deal is essentially dead.

Outright harassment:

You’re going to find there are a few guys in the league that just don’t seem as interested as the rest. They are likely quite busy with work, kids, or the pursuit of excellence in some random field. These guys typically don’t make many trades and other league owners tend to communicate less with them as a result, particularly in the off-season. Don’t make the mistake of viewing their inactivity as apathy. They still love football and care about their team, they just need a bit more prodding than the others. Be diligent, send a message every day and try to schedule a chunk of time out of their busy schedule to talk trade possibilities. You may be the only guy in the league patient and empathetic enough to try this approach…and it could pay off in a big way as you essentially have exclusive bargaining.

The Slow Play:

If you are in a league with serious guys, it’s very likely they are keeping close tabs on player trends on a weekly if not daily basis. Often, these guys are operating at the speed of social media where the value of a player can change instantly with a hamstring tweak. These owners can be very impatient, often impulsive and they become incredibly frustrated when their offers to negotiate do not generate a quick response. There is a way to take advantage of this impatience. You can make yourself seem generally unavailable (super busy) and let the monkey jump for a while. It’s a bit deceiving, but perhaps you may even choose to ignore a text or email for a day or two. When you decide to end the suffering of this overeager owner, make it clear that you want to negotiate but you only have a few minutes. You’ll be shocked at how quick a favourable deal can be completed. I know this because I am usually the one who gets duped due to impulsivity.

The Madden Rating Valuation:

Some naturally confrontational dynasty owners get lost in act of debating value. Debating can quickly lead to agitation which can shut down trade negotiations before they’ve really started. Player valuations are very subjective in nature, and if you find yourself in a negotiation where there is some debilitating back-and-forth about the pros and cons of a player’s talent, durability, or opportunity…try the Madden-Rating style. Basically, this means assigning a number to the overall values of the players involved in the deal. You should best use a 100-point scale like the video game. You can negotiate the number far better than you can negotiate the talent of the player.

If you’re trying to get AJ Green on your team, ask the other owner what he feels is Green’s player rating. If he says 99, and you view Green as an 88, there is a really good chance you are not going to want to get further into fruitless negotiations with this owner. Be mindful, though, of the guys that purposefully overvalue their players in order to consistently win deals with less knowledgeable owners.

You can include draft picks in this type of approach by using your message board to create a draft pick value chart similar to the one they use in the NFL. Involve a few influential guys in your league and settle on a system that you will declare is the “proper” value assignment. This seems brash, but many owners in the league will likely role with it because it’s easier. It may take some debating to nail down consensus values, but if you can do it, it makes trading these picks very clean. For example, you may decide that the first overall pick in the rookie/FA draft has an overall value of 91. Of course, this would change if you have a hall-of-fame type prospect at the top, but you can negotiate around that as well.

At this point, you should hopefully have a much clearer idea about the dynamics of interpersonal relationships in dynasty league football. Often, it is a delicate combination of analyzing both the values of players and the psychology of other owners in your league. The most important part of this analysis is not to let anyone know that you are doing all that much of either; and fly comfortably under the radar. I hope some of these strategies will be helpful to a large number of dynasty newbies as I am quite certain that they will no longer be successful for me. Altruism is a real pain. Just remember that having strong trading relationships is more important than the league buzz about who won or lost a deal. A productive trader is the guy with the busy phone lines, not the guy with the tiny resume of one-sided trades skewed in his favor that nobody can bear to deal with.

Follow Rob on Twitter: @DynastyFO

The Newbies’ Guide to Dynasty Owner Relations

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