One of the messages I harp on the most in my Dynasty Fantasy Football coverage is to know where you're going. I believe every team should have a clear idea of whether they are competing or rebuilding. If they aren't sure, they should start making trades to move in one direction or another. In our most recent mock, Chris Towers showed what it looks like to make that decision early on in a startup mock. And he would be the favorite to win the league in 2023 because of his decisiveness.
Before we get to Towers' team, a quick outline of the rules. This was a 12-team Dynasty Superflex startup league that rewards six points per pass touchdown and 0.5 points per reception. Teams are required to start one quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, and a tight end. There are also two flex positions and a Superflex position. This format should make running backs slightly more valuable than a lot of our drafts and quarterbacks much more valuable. That second point was made evident by the fact that the first seven players drafted were quarterbacks.
One of those quarterbacks was Jalen Hurts, Towers' first pick. At that point, he hadn't committed to anything, but in Round 2 when he took 30-year-old Cooper Kupp, I was hoping Chris would lean into a win-now approach. He did not disappoint, taking Christian McCaffrey in Round 3, Austin Ekeler in Round 4, and Travis Kelce in Round 5. At this point in the YouTube stream, I asked Jamey Eisenberg and Dan Schneier if we should all just start playing for 2024. Speaking of the YouTube stream, you can watch us break down this draft live on YouTube here:
As you'll see below, Chris didn't stop with the veterans after Round 5. Terry McLaurin, Aaron Rodgers, Tyler Lockett and DeAndre Hopkins are all win-now players. In fact, if I was going to criticize anything it would probably be mixing in Zay Flowers and Skyy Moore in Round 8 and Round 9, even though I did have them at the top of my board when he took them. I think veterans like Christian Kirk, Gabe Davis, Alvin Kamara, and Alexander Mattison might have been more likely to help him win a title this year than those guys. The one thing you do not want to do is build a win-now roster that doesn't win-now. Rebuilds are much more fun after a title. Still, I'd say with a top-3 QB and four Round 1 redraft players, Towers is the heavy favorite to win the 2023 title. Let's take a look at his competition.
The analysts who participated in this draft are:
Heath Cummings, CBS Sports
Dan Schneier, CSB Sports
Joel Cox, CBS Sports
Chris Towers, CBS Sports
R.J. White, CBS Sports
Matt Donnelly, Dynasty Vipers
Jamey Eisenberg, CBS Sports
Thomas Shafer, CBS Sports
B_Don, Razzball
Alfredo Brown, Footballguys
Donkey Teeth, Razzball
Jacob Gibbs, CBS Sports
And here are the full results:
