Hello everyone. Can you believe we are just 2 days away from kickoff? The second season of The Rad Dynasty is about to get underway!
Before we get too far into this season preview, here is a friendly reminder to set your rosters. Since this is a keeper league, Yahoo's settings are a little funny and you may have bench warmers sitting there in your starting lineup. For example, right now TBone has Derrick Henry sitting on the bench while injured Clyde Edwards Helaire is in the starting lineup. Many people still have "useless" IDP players in their lineup, projected to score 0 or 1 point. You probably want to take them out. If you have someone on the PUP list or on IR, move them to one of your two IR spots to make room for other players. And if you missed the draft and are bummed you missed out on some of the fun incoming rookies, there are still many of them sitting on the waiver wire like Luke McCaffrey, Roman Wilson, Jermaine Burton, Malachi Corley, among many others.
Now, onto the season preview!
Last year's winner, Ned, will look to defend his crown this season. A number of teams have used the draft and offseason trades to position themselves as contenders this year. A few other teams missed the draft and look to have taken a step back after Yahoo's horrendous auto picks for their teams. But let's break things down one at a time with my predictions. I broke the teams up into 3 categories of 4: The Rebuilders, The Hoverers, and The Contenders.
The Rebuilders: My Team, Tbone's Terrific Team, Fergalicious (formerly known as Thunder Thighs), and BDB's Jet Setters.
No disrespect meant to any of these teams, but on paper these look like teams that may struggle this year. They all missed the draft, which means that they didn't get their hands on many of the coveted incoming rookies/new players because of Yahoo's dumb auto drafting.
If things bounce the right way, and these managers begin cleaning up some of the holes on their rosters, some of these teams can be competitive. My Team has a great TE duo with Brock Bowers and Kittle. The rest of the team is filled with average to above average talent. Guys like Goff, Mixon, Ridley, Pollard, and Rashee Rice. Not necessarily "sexy" fantasy names, but names that give you points. All it takes is for one or more of these guys to have a breakout season and this suddenly becomes a dangerous team. We'll see what happens.
Tbone's team has a lot of high end talent like Tyreek Hall, Amon Ra St Brown, and Derrick Henry. The rest of the moving pieces are not as good, but with a little tweaking, I could see this team be very competitive. They've got Cousins at QB and some other interesting players like Freiermuth and Brian Robinson Jr. The biggest question is if we'll see a fully committed Tbone or not. Setting his lineup, making roster moves, adjusting for bye weeks, etc. If we do, this could be a dangerous team.
Fergalicious is an interesting one. Just like with My Team, there are not a lot of "sexy" names but there are some productive fantasy players there - like Nico Collins, Jonathan Taylor, and Amari Cooper. I like the dynasty potential of the TE tandem of Luke Musgrave and Jake Ferguson. QB room looks good, too. Even though I am ranking these as the bottom 4 teams, it is a testament to how competitive the league was last year (and hopefully will be going forward!) that I don't consider anyone to be completely out of the running.
BDB is the last one listed in my bottom 4. The starting lineup is solid, with a quality running back trio of Etienne, Barkley, and Aaron Jones. Stefon Diggs and Justin Herbert are productive players, too. What I worry about is the team's depth. There is not much else here. The TE room is paper thin, and if literally anyone gets hurt there is almost no room to replace them. The margin for error is small with this team, but like I said, they could still surprise me. Last year for example I took this team for granted and they just won won won their way into the playoffs.
The Hoverers: Alice in Horns, The Killing Fields, Bluth Company, Teflon Don (formerly known as Turd Ferguson).
This is a really tough category to rank, because I feel all of these teams could easily be in the contender tier. Again, this is a testament as to how strong and competitive this league has been, and hopefully shall continue to be.
First up, Alice. This is a team that really came on strong last year only to miss the playoffs with a couple of tough luck losses at the end of the season. The only reason I have Alice here is because I think it will be hard for her Rams players Puka Nacua and Kyren Williams to duplicate their tremendous success of last year. If I am wrong on this, I will gladly eat crow. Otherwise, looking at this team's roster, they had a strong draft and with a little rookie success I think they are deep enough to be good in this league for a long, long time. An interesting note - Yahoo currently is predicting Alice to go 0-15 this year for some reason. I think it is because she is missing a kicker and has an empty IDP spot. But she'll clearly fix that before the year starts.
The Killing Fields is next. It is a solid team on paper with reliable fantasy players at nearly every position. Mahomes, Aiyuk, Adams, Conner, Swift, etc. They also have a fantastic defense that put up massive numbers last season, nearly carrying this team to a playoff berth. I'm eager to see if that success carries over to this year. I do worry about the depth of this team. The TE room is lacking, and the team as a whole is quite old and lacking in youth. Missing the draft and missing out on guys like Trey Benson, Brian Thomas Jr, and Rome Odunze, etc. was not ideal for the long term success of the team.
Bluth company also makes this list. Yahoo is actually predicting them to go 12-3 and make the playoffs in their current ranking - but I am going to pump the brakes a little bit here. I feel this team would have been better suited hanging onto Breece Hall and Josh Allen. I'm not 100% sold on CJ Stroud. It'll be nearly impossible for McCaffrey to replicate last year's success. I've never been a Drake London person. I do like some of the long term moves made, like drafting Jonathan Brooks and Ladd McConkey, but I just have a weird feeling they suffer a down year become everything gels in 2025.
It saddens me to say it but I have to put my brother Chris (Teflon Don) as the last team in this tier. This team absolutely killed it in the draft, adding Jayden Daniels, Malik Nabers, and Xavier Worthy. He also added Rachaad White in a trade with TDs or Bust for Cooper Kupp. He must be pretty confident in Nabers's ability to step in and contribute right away. On paper this is a team that is going to score just a ton of points. If Chris Olave makes a big jump, and Zach Moss has success with the Bengals, this is going to be a team that can easily make the playoffs. I only rank them here because the top 4 are so strong.
The Contenders: Dynastic Dan, ned's rollers, TDs or Bust, Show me the TDs
These teams are the 4 teams I predict to make the playoffs this year. If/when I am undoubtedly wrong, I will gladly come back here and eat my words. While these teams may look strong on paper, a lot can happen during the course of a fantasy season.
I'll start with Dynastic Dan, my team. I have not stopped thinking about this league since it ended last year. I finished 6-9 and missed the playoffs. Had the fourth worst record in the league. I thought to myself, how am I going to turn things around? I started researching the upcoming draft class and I familiarized myself with all the top prospects. I made aggressive offseason trades, to gain the #2 and the #9 picks in the draft as well as Josh Allen, Garrett Wilson, Raheem Mostert, and James Cook. It cost me a steep price, as I had to part with Jahmyr Gibbs, Justin Herbert, CJ Mosley, Jayden Reed, the #4 pick, and my second round pick, but I think I came out on top of things. And during the draft, I ended up picking a ton of my well-researched favorites, like Marvin Harrison Jr, Rome Odunze, Keon Coleman, and Brian Thomas Jr. On paper, it looks like I have an absolutely stacked roster, and completely turned around from last season. And strong on the dynasty front too, with lots of young players primed for long term success.
So I am picking myself as one of the top 4 playoff teams. With all the prep work I've been doing, it will be a big disappointment if I am not there. But I am fully prepared for that. The league is going to be tough as nails.
I also feel as if ned's rollers is going to be back in postseason contention. Having played many a fantasy league with ned, the man is a fantasy guru and will ALWAYS be one of the top teams. He has a strong core of players featuring Hurts, Lamb, Pacheco, Kincaid, Ken Walker, JSN, Kyler Murray, among many others. He also had a savvy draft, grabbing Ben Sinnott in a league where TE is king. Also added some good depth pieces. I don't know if ned will repeat as champion this year, but it would be foolish to doubt him.
Both TD teams make my list, too. I've always been impressed with the depth of Show me the TDs. The team has a bajillion good receivers (Deebo, Jefferson, DJ Moore, Pittman, Mike Evans). They are good at RB (Josh Jacobs, Najee, and Zamir White). They also have elite talent at TE (McBride, Njoku). Their only question mark is at QB, with Tua as the only proven starter. This team is so stacked with talent that I think there is no way they do not make the playoffs. The only knock against them is missing the draft, and missing out on the chance to stack some elite rookies behind the starters in order to ensure long term success.
Last but certainly not least, my pick for winner of the league - TDs or Bust. Perry is a guy like me who always has fantasy football on the mind, even in the offseason. Dynasty is perfect for guys like us, because it never ends. When a redraft season is over - that's it. Nothing to think about aside from what went wrong and how you are going to draft next year. But dynasty is always in motion. Perry made some nice offseason moves, like acquiring Jahmyr Gibbs and Breece Hall. They will combine with Bijan Robinson to create the best possible trio at RB you can get in dynasty. Seriously, how did we allow this to happen? He leveraged some of his RB depth by trading Rachaad White to get Cooper Kupp - a guy who looks to be 100% healthy and is coming off a historic WR season just a few years ago. I'm not too sold on the rest of his roster (outside of Sam LaPorta at TE) but I think his running backs will be strong enough to cover any deficiencies. And it's not like guys such as Zay Flowers, George Pickens, or Trevor Lawrence are slouches. They are just not too overly exciting of players. But overall this team should get the job done.
That's it! Thanks for reading. If you are curious, here are Yahoo's current predictions:
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