Fantasy Football Mock Draft: Dynasty startup (10-team)

It's fantasy football mock draft season, and things are no different here at Yahoo Sports. Our team recently conducted a 10-team, dynasty startup fantasy football mock (with half-point-per-reception scoring), and all the picks are in the cool graphic up top. Scroll to the right of the graphic above to see the complete results of the draft.

For those unfamiliar with dynasty formats, it's a league where you retain your roster season-to-season compared to a redraft league where rosters reset every year. A dynasty league is also different from a keeper league, where you're limited in the number of players you can retain. Our partners at 4for4 have a more in-depth look at dynasty leagues.

[More mock drafts: 10-team half-PPR | 12-team full-PPR]

Don’t be a massive ageist. Please.

I’m begging you to not be solely youth-focused when you head into these exercises. This particularly applies to the early rounds.

Take, for example, a guy like Davante Adams in this exercise. He went in the bottom of Round 3 behind multiple wide receivers who, while I like their games quite a bit, don’t have a prayer of being as good as Adams over the next two seasons — or ever, for that matter.

You could argue even I’m guilty of this type of ageism by taking Brandon Aiyuk one pick ahead of Cooper Kupp in Round 4.

I know there are some dynasty folks who will read this and laugh at the idea of “the next two years,” as if that’s all that matters. I’ll just say that windows are never as long as you think and the exercise of a dynasty rebuild is no lock to work out.

Look, building dynasty rosters is a matter of personal preference — subjective player evaluation comes into the mix along with differing goal-based timelines and varying opinions about positional value. So, honestly, maybe don’t even take anything I’m writing in this recap seriously. It’s your team. Who cares what anyone has to say? Me included.

Personally, I’m not trying to play dynasty fantasy football like it’s some pseudo-stock market or pretending internet player “values” or rankings mean anything at all to individual league managers. I am just both trying to win the league every season and keep players on my team whom I think are good at football. That requires a balanced roster of promising youth and high-caliber players who may perhaps be rounding toward the back nine of their careers.

As for you and your house, do as you please.

Running backs crash the party

I’ve been in some dynasty drafts where wide receiver is placed at a tremendous premium. That was not necessarily the case in this draft. Five running backs went in the first eight picks.

Bijan Robinson landing third overall isn’t out of the ordinary. He’s an excellent prospect entering the league, already a clear Round 1 fantasy selection in redraft. So this sort of dynasty value makes sense. Even a guy like Christian McCaffrey, while a mild surprise as high as fourth overall, is such a rare producer that I can understand taking the plunge in Round 1. The other backs took me by surprise just a bit simply because we know the longevity concerns at the position.

Round 2, on the other hand, saw just three RB selections as drafters turned their eyes to receivers. Ironically, all three drafters that took running backs at Pick 6, 7 and 8 in Round 1 ended up with a wide receiver I’d straight-up rather roster in dynasty. So I guess that worked out.

The most interesting back in Round 2 is Breece Hall right at the top. I understand he’s currently dealing with an injury but I’d guess that if Hall has an awesome stretch run or back half of 2023, he’ll be a first-round startup selection in 2024 given his age and explosive ability.

If you don’t break the QB dam early, just wait

Speaking as one of the folks who helped break the quarterback dam in Round 3, I’m perfectly happy with making the major swing for Josh Allen even in a 1QB league. I won’t think about that position again for many years other than churning the QB2 spot, which I didn't even bother to address in this draft considering some of the names on the waiver wire.

In total, three quarterbacks — Allen, Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes — went off the board in Round 3 with Joe Burrow not far behind in Round 4. Four more quarterbacks went off the board in Rounds 5 and 6. While I like some of those swings, especially Anthony Richardson in Round 6, I do worry some of these quarterbacks aren’t going to be enough of individual difference-makers over the long-term in a start-one quarterback format. They’ll have their moments, certainly, but remember we need to start three wide receivers and a flex in this league.

Value over replacement and opportunity cost matter just as much in a dynasty startup as they do in your seasonal leagues.

I ended up liking the approach of a drafter like Dan Titus who waited until the double-digit rounds and took multiple bites of the apple with upside swings mixed in. That’s a viable strategy in this format.

Wide receiver is just so deep

We get to rounds 8, 9 and 10 and it’s tough for me to find a receiver pick I do not like.

You can get veterans with strong near-term windows in this range like Mike Williams, Christian Kirk and Tyler Lockett. You can take big swings on talented second- and third-year guys like George Pickens, Rashod Bateman and Elijah Moore who all have a shot to rocket up startup boards next year with a few breaks in 2023. You can also just make your Tier 3 rookie bets in this range like Jalin Hyatt, Rashee Rice and Jonathan Mingo (my favorite pick here).

Definitely stack your team early with high-caliber WR1 candidates. But don’t forget to start rounding out at receiver as it gets later.

Some second- and third-year running backs went late

If you’re going receiver early and taking the plunge on an elite quarterback in a startup you’re sacrificing at running back. That was my approach. The good news is that there are multiple Year 2 and 3 running backs who could hold down the top spot on their team’s depth chart for a few seasons, at least.

We know this position is hyper fragile and even highly drafted or very good players can be usurped at any moment. That applies to the guys like Rhamondre Stevenson, Dameon Pierce, Travis Etienne and Najee Harris. But again, if we’re just thinking in those near-term windows, those guys can help keep your team strong for now as your wide receiver corps does the heavy lifting. You just have to plan to do some tinkering on an annual basis with your backfield.

The dynasty TE landscape is even weirder than redraft

Just one tight end came off the board in Round 3 and of course, it was Travis Kelce. The Chiefs tight end will turn 34 this season but the position is in such a state of flux, even the most youth-focused, fake stock-broker dynasty player couldn’t form a credible argument to hate that pick. We then saw three tight ends get picked in Rounds 4 and 5, and then another three between Rounds 7 and 9.

Moral of the story: we don’t even know what to do with this position long-term.

Never once did it ever feel like this draft was about to experience a tight end run as we witnessed at other positions. The tier breaks at tight end are difficult to project and the gap between said tiers is massive.

[Overall Top 300 | QBs | RBs | WRs | TEs | DEFs | Ks]

Jahan Dotson is likely the most underrated dynasty WR

Jahan Dotson is a very good football player. He was a completely underrated prospect who even outkicked my lofty expectations with his ability to beat press coverage as a pure outside receiver.

It wasn’t that Dotson went super late here. He came off the board in Round 6 (shockingly, to my team).

When looking at the 2022 drafted receivers, Dotson is much closer to Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson and Drake London as a talent than he is to Christian Watson, Treylon Burks and George Pickens. Dotson is a crisp and refined route runner — but that’s not all he is; people who think that are just profiling him based on size. Dotson showed in Year 1 he’s just as capable of making explosive plays in the vertical passing game and winning contested passes as some of these bigger receivers folks like more.

Too many people who play fantasy football are still wide receiver size-ists. Take advantage of them. For what it's worth, Dotson also caught a 26-yard touchdown in Washington's preseason win over the Browns.

The QB situation still isn’t clean and he’s paired with a true alpha, top-10 real-life receiver in Terry McLaurin but everything about Dotson as an individual player is screaming upward trajectory. I think too many dynasty players didn’t really watch him as a rookie and are still holding onto pre-draft priors.

Here are the team-by-team results of the mock draft in order of selection.

Team 1: Andy Behrens, Yahoo Fantasy Analyst

Team 2: John Daigle, 4for4 Fantasy Analyst

Team 3: Trevor Lewis, Yahoo Fantasy social editor

Team 4: Dan Titus, Yahoo Fantasy analyst

Team 5: Matt Harmon, Yahoo Fantasy analyst

Team 6: Kathryn Buckles, director of social media at Yahoo Sports

Team 7: Frank Schwab, Yahoo Sports NFL writer

Team 8: Collin Brennan, Yahoo Fantasy podcast producer

Team 9: Dalton Del Don, Yahoo Fantasy analyst

Team 10: Jason Klabacha, head of content for Yahoo Fantasy