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There are lots of articles out there when it comes to fantasy football, even when it comes to multi-year (Dynasty and Keeper) leagues – but I have found that there are not too many which discuss overall strategy. Sure, there are plenty of Top 10, Top 20, Top 50 or longer lists of players at each position, discussions of rookies, sleepers, deep sleepers – but where are the articles about how to build that franchise? Last time around, I mentioned how every fantasy team owner has to have a strategy in how to build their team, and the best owners are ones that have a philosophy and stick to it, no matter what. You would be surprised just how valuable that one piece of advice can be when the clock is ticking on draft day or that trade offer comes in your mailbox. Every move you make with your team matters, and if it does not match your strategy, it can set your entire team back for one or more years. The article, Building a SMART Franchise, can be found here.
So now you have read the article and have developed what you think is a strong, SMART strategy. So now what do you do?
That’s a great question. I’m glad you asked.
In order to achieve your strategy, you have to take stock of your team (remember, a “Realistic” assessment is one of the five criteria) and decide what you can do in the near term and the long run for your team. The long run goals are usually easier to set, since you have a ton more time to try and achieve those goals. Think about your team with a fresh start or a “clean slate” and the long term goals will come much easier. The shorter term goals will be harder, as a lot of realistic outlooks have to be used. Remember, even your goals have to be “SMART” to be meaningful – and all of your goals should support your overall team strategy in some way.
Got it yet? Probably not. That is ok – let’s start with a non-football example that everyone can probably easily understand. Most people want more money in life to be able to do more things, so some people have the goal of being rich. So what if you said your goal was to be rich? Let’s put it out there:
SHOW ME THE MONEY
“I want to be rich.”
Does that sound like a well-defined goal? Not really. It fails all five SMART tests quickly:
Specific: “Rich” is not specific. You need to know what makes you rich – and is it even a dollar amount, or can you be rich in some other way?
Measurable: Not a chance without being specific.
Achievable: Not a chance without specific and measurable qualities.
Realistic: Impossible to tell.
Time-sensitive: No mention of time in the statement.
So, if I were to say this instead:
“I want to have enough money to retire by the age of 50 years old.”
That seems better, right? It is much more specific (have enough money to retire) and has a time-sensitivity to it (by the time you are 50). It is also measurable – if we know how much money we would need to retire. Let’s go back to the drawing board one more time:
“I want to have $5 million in retirement planning by the age of 50 with another $1 million in liquid assets to carry me until I officially retire at age 62.”
This is much more specific, and that added specificity has brought along two measurable numbers ($5M in retirement, $1M in liquid assets) and the time component is firmed up. Now, whether it is realistic or achievable is up to myself (and possibly my financial planner), and I also need to confirm somehow that the $1M covers me from ages 50-62 and that $5M is enough to retire on based on this goal – which sounds a lot more like a strategy now. In fact, I have two more goals, which could be listed as actions for me to do to firm up that new strategy:
Resultant goal / action #1: Get with a financial planner and see how much I would be able to live on if I had $1M in liquid assets and $5M in retirement savings at the age of 50.
Resultant goal / action #2: Analyze what investment(s) and savings would require me to get to the $5M and $1M numbers, respectively.
Resultant goal / action #3: Determine how realistic the plan that comes out of #2 is to achieve my financial strategy.
As with any process, there is no hard and fast rule here. If you see an area to improve, you should do it (such as if you see no realistic chance to achieve the goal, maybe you have to reconsider a different goal, or an easier to obtain metric).
JUST WIN, BABY
Enough about money (although I am sure money league players love to read about it) – let’s get back to the football aspect. Let’s try and write a strategy or mission statement for an NFL head coach, and then see what goals he would then set for the team:
Mission statement and goals for an NFL coach:
Mission statement – Win the Super Bowl this year.
Goals:
Goal – Win all of our home games this season.
Goal – Win four road games this season.
Goal – Win two road divisional games this season.
Goal – Win eight games in conference this season.
Goal – Sweep our divisional rival this season.
Goal – Achieve the top seed in the conference this season.
Goal – Win three games every month this season.
Goal – Should the team lose a game this season, win the following week.
Some things that come out of analyzing the list of the goals in comparison the top goal or mission statement is:
- Achieving each goal helps towards achieving the mission.
- Not all goals need to be achieved, but each one is helpful.
Point #2 is a big one. You do NOT have to accomplish every goal, but the effort towards accomplishing it can help both the other goals on the list and, most importantly, achieving the mission statement. For example, a team may win only six or seven home games, but those wins help towards both getting the top seed in the conference and also winning the Super Bowl. Falling short is not a bad thing if the actions taken towards attaining a goal moves the team closer towards the mission. That’s what you need to think about as you set your own goals (and resulting actions) for your fantasy franchise.
GOOOOALLL!
Let’s bring this full circle as we go back to a Dynasty fantasy football team. Once again I am going to borrow from the SMART article, this time to start with a possible strategy for my fantasy team:
Strategy / Mission Statement: “I want to have a team built to contend for a league championship by 2015. That team will have a Top 5 quarterback, Top 5 tight end, Top 10 running back and two Top 20 wide receivers on the roster according to Footballguys’ consensus Dynasty rankings. It will also have a solid mixture of age and youth with studs to start in the long run, plus short term and longer term prospects that could become stud starters.”
So now I need to think about what goals I should set to get to a championship franchise by 2015, and then run them through the SMART metrics. For example:
Proposed goal #1: I want to get a Top 5 tight end on my roster (according to Footballguys’ consensus Dynasty rankings).
Not a bad start, but when? Aside from the strategy implying a timeline (by 2015), there’s no timeline to get your quarterback. Also, as with many goals, the realistic and achievable metrics are much harder to determine (So you have one already? How hard is it to trade? Do you have a prospect who might develop to Top 5 status next year?), so that can be said about almost any goal that is written about a team – the owner has to make that call.
So I am going to scratch proposed goal #1 and replace it:
Revised Goal #1: I want to assess the ability for me to obtain a Top 5 quarterback before the 2014 regular season.
This goal is now much easier to accomplish. You don’t actually have to get the quarterback, just assess whether you can get one before the 2014 regular season. That’s not that hard, yet it is a step in the right direction. Not only would I keep this goal, but I might make it an action to do it with all of my team’s positions.
Let’s look back again at my team strategy, but let’s focus on the second portion:
“[My team] will also have a solid mixture of age and youth with studs to start in the long run, plus short term and longer term prospects that could become stud starters.”
That sounds great, but I need some goals with some metrics. Let’s take a shot at it:
Proposed Goal #2: “I want to have an average team age no higher than 27. The average age for my non-starters should be 25 or under as of the first day of the NFL regular season each year.”
This is a great goal, and has all five elements of being SMART, with the exception of realistic and time-sensitivity analysis. Then again, if the goal is one-dimensional players based solely on age, I can easily achieve it by filling my roster with undrafted free agents. But is that what we want? No, so that tells me I need to change that goal again:
Revised Goal #2: “I want to have a team roster of all Top 240 Dynasty ranked players (40 QBs, 40 TEs, 70 RBs and 90 WRs) according to Footballguys. I want that average team age to be no higher than 27. The average age for my non-starters should be 25 or under as of the first day of the NFL regular season each year.”
Now we are far more specific and measurable, and that will add to determining realistic and achievable assessments. Not only that, but we closed the “fill my team with young scrubs” just to achieve this goal.
Here is another example:
Proposed Goal #3: “I want my team to be 30% veterans, 30% first- or second-year players and the rest are players to round out my starters.”
Yikes. Believe it or not, you can be too specific at times. If you adopted this goal as “team gospel”, you would be handcuffing yourself. You mean to tell me that if someone offered you Adrian Peterson for 2-3 rookie prospects that were late round NFL draft picks, you wouldn’t jump at it? Of course you would – but maybe that trade would knock you “team balance” according to this goal too far off. Why would you want a goal that might be counterproductive? Let’s try and fix this goal:
Revised Goal #3: “I want my team to have veterans, youth, and players I can start if I need them on a certain week. I want my starters to be 50-100% veterans, while my roster should have 20-45% of the roster dedicated to prospects that are age 25 or younger.”
I like this far better. Now I can have breathing room as to how many veterans I can have (half to all on my squad) plus I have room for 20% to nearly half of my team if I so choose. Keeping this in mind gives me a healthy look at playing for both the now and for the future, so I like the flexibility and this goal gives me something every measurable, specific enough and realistic to maintain that present vs. future Dynasty team balance.
So now you have read three different goals that I broke down, and you can have several more. A few others to consider:
Potential Goal #4: “I want to get as many first round picks as I can.”
I’ve heard this one before, and I have to tell you that overall it is a bad goal. “As many as you can”? Why? What are you doing collecting draft picks when your goal is to win your league? I could have lots of first round picks if I traded away my best players, but that would go against the vision statement of winning championships. How about we try this:
Revised Goal #4: “I want to trade for an extra first round pick at least once a year, preferably for the next draft, but no further into the future than three years ahead.”
I hope that you can see the clear difference, and as a reminder from above, even if you do not accomplish this goal, you can still achieve the overall plan of winning a championship.
Potential Goal #5: “I want to acquire a Top 5 quarterback (according to Footballguys’ consensus Dynasty rankings) before the season starts.”
Believe it or not, I actually like this one. It is specific enough, measurable enough and has time-sensitivity. It also gives some room to allow you to get any of the Top 5 quarterbacks, regardless of age. That brings me full circle to the SMART article where I stated my strategy:
“I want to have a team built to contend for a league championship by 2015. That team will have a Top 5 quarterback, Top 5 tight end, Top 10 running back and two Top 20 wide receivers on the roster according to Footballguys’ consensus Dynasty rankings.”
Note that there is no mention of age in this statement at all for the players to acquire – just rankings. This points out that you can have some wiggle room in your goals, like Goal #3 that talks about roster age, versus your overall strategy. Every one of your goals should support your strategy, but keep in mind that goals and strategies are guidelines and not hard and fast rules. If you can get an older Top 10 running back for cheap, clearly that supports your strategy even if your roster ages as a result. Now you can reassess your overall roster and think about getting a few younger players as prospects while you ride out the veteran you acquired for the short term. This outlook also helps you with the Realistic and Achievable aspects in that older players are likely easier to get. Keeping the big picture in mind with goals and strategies helps your team get better and also allows you to think about different ways to look at your team.
Setting goals are important, but it is even more important to see if your goals are meaningful and directly support your team strategy. You can have numerous goals, but as long as whenever you add one you make sure it is SMART and aligned with your team outlook, your team will get better and better with every move you make.
Good luck this season, and for seasons to come.
As always, questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com.