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USATSI

Two dominant themes in my Fantasy Football analysis converged in our most recent Dynasty start-up mock draft. First, be flexible in the draft. Second, in Dynasty leagues you should always either be playing to win right now or building for the future. And we have Jamey Eisenberg to thank for it.

In this draft, I had the third pick and Jamey picked 12. The moment of truth came at the three-four turn. At that point, I had Justin Jefferson, Jaylen Waddle, and J.K. Dobbins on my roster. In other words, how aggressively I was pursuing a 2022 title versus building for the future was still up for debate. All of those players are potential league-winners, but none of them will be older than 23 when the 2022 season starts. 

Jamey made the choice for me at the three-four turn and illustrated one of the principles in the process. He had started his draft with Davante Adams and Cooper Kupp at the first turn, a pair of 29-year-old wide receivers who also rank in the top-five in 2022. Wisely, he followed that up with Derrick Henry and Travis Kelce. That is exactly how I would have approached it if I was Jamey and I proclaimed the 2022 title won in the draft chat room.

In all seriousness, no one knows who is going to win a league in August, much less March. But starting off with four top-20 redraft picks is a pretty good indicator. That, combined with a couple of other teams taking a win-now approach, greatly influenced my next few picks.

When it was my turn to pick I selected Michael Carter and Marquise Brown with my next two picks despite the fact that David Montgomery was my top-ranked player and Darren Waller and Aaron Jones were still available. Late in Round 6, I landed Kyler Murray, who would still be a valuable asset even if I was pursuing a three-year rebuild, which I certainly don't think this roster suggests.

Looking at the rest of my picks you'll mostly see first or second-year players like Donovan Peoples-Jones, Dyami Brown, Eno Benjamin, Justin Fields, and Kenneth Gainwell. These guys were taken ahead of veterans like Aaron Rodgers, Julio Jones, DeVante Parker, Raheem Mostert, and Odell Beckham. I expect the veterans will score more Fantasy points this season, but they may not have any value by the time we get to 2023.

When you look at my roster below I think you'll see a roster that could very well compete in 2022. I'm not tanking by any stretch. But it's also mostly a roster that should be as good or better in 2023, which is the path I chose when I saw so many going aggressively after the 2022 season. It is certainly possible in a redraft to build towards the future without totally giving up on Year 1.

The analysts who participated in this draft are:

Adam Aizer, CBS Sports
Joey Wright, Front Yard Fantasy Sports
Heath Cummings, CBS Sports
Kevin Scott, Grinding the Data
Shane Barrett, Fantasy Nightcap
Dan Schneier, CBS Sports
Jacob Gibbs, Sportsline
Anthony Corrente, Fantasy Pros
Jay Parrish, Fantasy Football Plug Podcast
R.J. White, CBS Sports
Bryan Leech, The Commish
Jamey Eisenberg, CBS Sports

And here are the results: