UTH Subscribers Max McClellan and Dave Brown took over an orphan dynasty team together this offseason. Here is their story of early ownership, reshaping the team, and improving the roster. Thanks for sharing your story, guys!
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On March 25, 2017 a good friend of mine and I decided to take on an orphan team together. It’s a 12-team standard scoring PPR that starts 1-2-3-1-1DEF-2FLEX. The roster was not terrible but it was far from being a contender:
QB RG3, Alex Smith, Drew Brees
RB Chris Ivory, Latavius Murray, Ryan Mathews, Andre Ellington, Kenjon Barner
WR Martavis Bryant, Leonte Carroo, Sammie Coates, Corey Coleman, Jamison Crowder, Adam Humphries, Tyler Lockett, Cordarrelle Patterson, Seth Roberts, Adam Thielen, Kevin White, Kenny Stills, Torrey Smith
TE Charles Clay, Travis Kielce, Jordan Reed
Rookie Picks 1.04,2.04,3.04
Our RB situation was terrible and our receiver corps had a couple bright spots but was full of secondary options, and a couple roster cloggers. We knew we had some work to do. The rookie draft started on May 8th, and though we tried we could only work one trade to gain an additional 1st round rookie pick.
In the first week, March 29th, we traded Latavius Murray for Derrick Henry straight up. It was a huge win for us with Murray not being able to produce in Oakland with a great O-line we doubted he would be able to be able to produce behind the Minn pitiful O-line.
A week later, April 6th, we traded two secondary WR options Adam Thielen and Jamison Crowder for potential stud Josh Doctson. Again we felt this was a great upgrade, some may disagree, but both Thielen and Crowder will never be their teams’ WR1 and Doctson should be a red zone beast at the minimum, but we expect him to be much more.
Two days later, April 8th, we sent Brees, Stills, and Reed to get Stefon Diggs, Tyler Higbee and 1.10. This trade is probably our best deal. Yes, we traded our best quarterback but he is aging and we were content with running with Alex Smith and a waiver wire option, or adding one in the rookie draft, since we were not expecting to contend this season. We also traded a solid tight end in Reed but we also rid ourselves of his injury frustrations, Stills is another secondary option we don’t expect to repeat his stats from last year.
The draft couldn’t have played out any better in our favor, we had our eye on Joe Mixon and being new to the league we weren’t sure how the guys in front of us were going to draft. Right off the bat a rogue pick at 1.01 Christian McCaffery, we couldn’t have been happier knowing we now would get at the minimum Mixon. With Davis and Fournette going 1.02 and 1.03 we did land Mixon.
We tried to move into position to get our hands on Kamara but he went at 1.08 and we couldn’t work a deal to get him. Our next target was Juju, we felt we could move back and get him, an owner quickly approached us wanting the pick. We traded 1.10 and Torrey Smith for Russell Wilson and 2.01. We moved back 4 spots and got a young top QB to help our need at the position. The icing on the cake was we still landed Juju at 2.01! With the 1.10 the owner drafted Zay Jones.
We still needed help in our RB stable so at 2.04 we took James Conner.
At 3.04 we took a boom/bust guy in Ishmael Zamora.
In a month and a half, we took this team from a 122.3 team value to 212.4 with only 4 trades and a rookie draft that went our way. A team value of 212.4 is a long way from being a strong contender but we are stepping in the right direction. Martavis Bryant is our next flip player assuming he regains his pre-suspension form. Our RBs still need work but we are happy with the outlook with Henry and Mixon leading us this coming year. Our receivers are solid if White can finally stay healthy, Diggs can regain his early season stats from a season ago and Coleman takes the next step in Cleveland.
