Dynasty Season Recap – Team Chevy

OK, our first recap from the 2020 season will be a fairly easy one—we’ll call the team Chevy, and it’s a team I took over just a couple weeks ago.

Back in 2016, I joined my first startup league, as the guy(s) that started the league were trying to start a company (Touchdown Dynasty Leagues) that would run a bunch of dynasty leagues.  The business didn’t exactly work out as they planned, but the guys still ended up starting a whole bunch of leagues—and add some more each year.

This year, through some unusual circumstances, a whole slew of teams in their leagues ended up opening up—and my brother and I ended up grabbing a whole bunch…some were defending champions primed to make another run, some were in need of rebuilds, and at least one ended up being a dispersal draft.

In one of those leagues—it honestly might even have been the dispersal—we had a situation in Week 10 where an owner that was 2-7 going into the game didn’t start an optimal lineup…actually, he flat out tanked—he started CJ Beathard & Marcus Mariota, and a handful of other guys he shouldn’t have, and someone called him on it in the group chat.  He took offense, criticized some of the ways the league operates (draft order for non-playoff teams is on potential points, meaning his tanking didn’t even really help him—it just messed up potential playoff scenarios), and was eventually kicked out when he wouldn’t back down…and when, in the other league he was in, he proceeded to go in and cut a whole bunch of his star players.

Team Chevy is that team from the other league—I jumped in to take it over.

It was a middle of the road team—they had been 4-3, but had lost three straight, but were sitting in 6th place in the standings.

The Setup

Superflex league, the previous owner was sitting on a bunch of quarterbacks (Kirk Cousins, Andy Dalton, Daniel Jones, Marcus Mariota, Cam Newton, Tua Tagovailoa, Tyrod Taylor), and only a couple of viable RB (Todd Gurley, David Montgomery, with Sony Michel on IR, and Brian Hill, Jerick McKinnon & Jeremy McNichols). His WR corps was the strength of the team, with Brandon Aiyuk, Tyler Boyd, Michael Gallup, Chris Godwin, Tyler Lockett and Adam Thielen all startable, and Braxton Berrios & Equanimious St. Brown on the bench (and Devin Funchess on IR).  To round it out, he had Hunter Henry, Jared Cook and Anthony Firkser at TE (plus Kahal Warring on IR), the Bucks and Rams defenses, and a taxi squad made up of Darryton Evans, D’Ernest Johnson, Ty Johnson, Ito Smith and Darrel Williams. He also had all of his 2021 picks other than his 2^nd, and all of his 2022 picks still intact.

Jumping in, I wasn’t exactly sure what to do—concede the season and blow things up, or try to secure that final playoff spot, and see what happens.  With an undefeated team in the league, it wasn’t looking great to do too much damage…but I basically posted in the group chat that I was open for business either way, and waited…and waited…and waited.

Well, made a few moves in the meantime—the team hadn’t been touched in nearly a month when I took over, so I made a few moves…like cutting St. Brown & Ty Johnson (whoops) to add Mo Allie-Cox and Collin Johnson.

Sunday morning, before my first game running the team (Week 11), I got my first trade offer: Antonio Gibson for my 2021 1^st round pick.  Being short on RB, and being pretty high on Gibson (plus taking into account the fact that even if I missed the playoffs, I’d scored enough that the pick was likely 1.05 or 1.06 at best), I took the deal, and was off to the races–winning weeks 11 and 12 to move to 6-6, which actually locked up at least the #6 seed in the playoffs–before choking in Week 13 (which wouldn’t have ended up moving me up).

Along the way, I had to make quite a few IR moves to fill things out–dropping (and later re-acquiring) Ito Smith, dropping  Tyrod Taylor, Jermemy McNichols, Kahale Warring. Marcus Mariota, Braxton Berrios, and D’Ernest Johnson, and also re-acquiring Ty Johnson.

The Playoffs

These leagues don’t have a trade deadline, to keep things interesting in the playoffs, and help lower tier teams still have opportunities to acquire assets.  I got one offer before my Week 14 game against the #3 seed–a 2022 3rd round pick for JD McKissic, after Antonio Gibson was knocked out, as the team trading McKissic had the #3 seeds 1st round pick, and was hoping to knock it down.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, as I fell 174.85 to 155 in the first week of the playoffs, ending the season.

On the plus side, I turned around and made several offers of McKissic around the league, and finally ended up trading him to the (undefeated) #1 seed team, acquiring their 2021 5th round pick, and their 2022 3rd round pick–meaning I probably came out a little bit ahead.

I reacquired Jeremy McNichols and picked up Freddie Swain after the season, and sit with 4 picks (my own 3-5 and that extra 5th), the previous owner having traded the 2nd away (with pick 4.08) to acquire pick 3.04 in the 2020 draft (used to take Darrynton Evans).

Current Roster:

Likely looking to at least moderately blow this team up in the offseason–there’s a few solid building pieces, but ultimately the team’s depth is getting older, and there isn’t enough draft capital to build solely that way.

Photo by All-Pro Reels