^{Copyright © 2010 Jay Charles Johnson, all rights reserved}

The 2009 NFL season is officially in the books and we must now turn our attention to the 2010 Fantasy year.  For those who play exclusively in redraft leagues, it will be a long six long months before training camp opens and we will be able to see even a preseason game.  However, in order to help get through this Fantasy dead zone in redraft leagues, I will offer a few suggestions for those wish to remain productive.

Join a Dynasty League

Seriously.

If your argument is that you aren’t skilled enough to compete in a Dynasty league, then you never will join. There is a learning curve in any new league format you enter.  You probably won’t do well until you get the hang of things.  But that is a necessary cost and it goes with the territory. (I tend to look at it as an entry fee, or perhaps akin to an NFL personal seat license).

I joined my first start-up Dynasty league and in 2003 and drafted so poorly that it literally took me years to recover from it. That is the price you sometimes have to pay.

But, hopefully you will learn from your mistakes, as I did. From that point on, you should find that you will always be able to field a competitive team in any future league that you join.

I did a few introductory articles on Dynasty leagues last season and while I am loath to recycle my work, I may do that again in the next month or so.  In the meantime I will just make a short pitch for Dynasty leagues and then move on to other topics.

Why Dynasty Leagues?

Dynasty leagues have year round action (or at least the better ones do). For example, in the last two weeks in one league I either made or rejected a total of 6 trade offers (but no deals yet).  I also acquired two players off the waiver wire (including WR Jarret Dillard of the Jaguars, who I snatched up when the news broke that Torry Holt would not be returning).

In addition, joining a Dynasty league will make you a better player in redraft leagues.  By necessity, to be successful in a Dynasty league you need to be ahead of the curve.  This requires additional study by knowing depth charts, reading message board postings and by doing Google searches.

Dynasty leagues are so competitive that you must be able to identify and roster emerging players before the other owners that you compete with.  If you don’t, by the time it becomes common knowledge that they are a player to acquire, it is generally already too late to roster them in your league.

But, it does all pay off in the end. The additional information you acquire gives you a leg up in redraft leagues over those who don’t start giving any attention to the NFL until August.

Anyway, new start-up Dynasty leagues will start kicking in the next few months, starting usually after the NFL draft and peaking around July.  Please consider joining a league this year - I doubt you will regret it. As usual I will be coming out with my Dynasty rankings after the draft to help those in their leagues.