Curtis Patrick shares 27 priority targets and 7 fallback targets for the first five rounds in his Superflex Dynasty Startup Draft Cheat Sheet (1-2 QB, PPR, TE Premium). You can find the 1QB Dynasty Startup Draft Cheat Sheet here.

A popular adage in the fantasy industry exists which goes something like this – “You can’t win your draft in the ____ round(s), but you can lose it.”

I’ve heard it or read it expressed multiple ways. It’s most often used for redraft as a lead-in for spotting the safest floor plays in the first round of redraft leagues. I recently made a cheat sheet for the first five rounds of dynasty startup drafts applying the same rationale. Why the first five rounds? I think it’s absolutely critical to avoid age landmines and potential value bombs in these rounds to ensure your roster equity doesn’t deteriorate over the course of the first year of your league.

The first five rounds of Superflex drafts typically capture the top-18 to top-20 or so running backs and wide receivers, the elite tight ends, the first two to three tiers of quarterbacks, and a handful of rookies. Where Superflex drafts differ from traditional 1QB-style leagues is the tier one quarterbacks typically go in the first or second round, pushing running backs and wide receivers we’re accustomed to seeing with top-12 average draft position (ADP) down the board. From there, it’s a domino effect, reshaping what happens in every round thereafter.

For the design of the Superflex Dynasty Startup Draft Cheat Sheet, I set out to clearly identify priority targets (and visualize positional value abundance or scarcity) in the critical rounds using a combination of player age, average draft position (ADP), and our dynasty team’s rankings.^[1]Since we don’t have Superflex rankings posted on the site, I’ve taken some liberties by using my own SuperFlex rankings for quarterback and cross-referencing versus the rankings of our team for 1QB dynasty formats to identify the targets on this cheat sheet. Future iterations will use true composite rankings from our team. Shawn Siegele and I used a similar approach for our draft in the 2019 FFPC Main Event. For dynasty, it’s obviously more complex because we aren’t just looking at ADP and production projections; we also have to consider how age affects trade value.

Deciphering the Dynasty Startup Draft Cheat Sheet