I’m sure sometimes reading this dynasty fantasy football site is a bit confusing. One day there is a scouting report, the next day there will be some fantasy draft analysis, and today is a rant day. The single most devastating enemy to dynasty 
How many teams are in the running for the title?
If you join an existing dynasty league or are simply in a dynasty league, you want a chance to win the league within one to three years. When there are super teams that make it impossible to compete for the title, what’s the point of putting down your hard-earned money? League parity makes it fun for everyone. Why donate to only see the same team or teams win every year? If a team is powerful enough to win back to back titles, blow up the league and start again. This keeps everyone engaged. Not everyone is going to compete year in and year out, but you need at least a third or a fourth of the league in contention every year to make it competitive. A commissioner that owns a super team, who doesn’t see it from anyone else’s point of view is an extremely difficult situation to face.
Inability to change
Much like a good leader, which is what a commissioner should be, the person in charge needs to be adaptable for the greater good of the league. If there are rules that don’t work or just don’t work well, be open to change. Changes should be made in the off-season with a league vote and before your initial or rookie draft starts. I suggested that after the commish won the league three years in a row, who has a super team and owns half of the first two rounds of next year’s rookie draft that we should redraft the league due to eleven teams leaving this league since January 2012.
This commissioner/owner responded that if I wasn’t happy, he could sell my team and could hopefully get some of my money back. He indicated that this league would NEVER redraft and why would he? The hundred-dollar investment in his super team yields eight hundred dollars every year. It is partly my fault for not checking out the league’s history from the beginning and looking at the future draft picks. These are great features that you can see using the myfantasyleague.com site. I refuse to walk away from my $100 investment and will hopefully be able to grind out a second or third place finish to make my money back. Update: commissioner saw this article and decided to send me my money back. Power of the pen, I guess.
A different league, also wrought with a lot of ownership turnover each year, had a policy of letting the teams coming in do a partial replacement owner draft (ROD). Having a ROD is great, but the existing teams would jump in after five rounds when they were already at 20 roster spots. This created a bigger talent vacuüm between existing teams and new owners. The newbies would never get the chance at the same amount of talent that the veteran owners did. Six of us saw this error, addressed the commissioner who told us to pound sand, so we left the league with full refunds, starting another dynasty league soon after that is still going strong after four years.
Not holding owners accountable
There are some commissioners that prefer to sit on the sideline when drama starts in a league. I was in a larger league where a team that was not in contention spent all of their blind bid money before the start of Week 11 and traded away all but three of their running backs. Two of those backs had a Week 12 bye week, which made it impossible for him to submit a legal lineup for that week. While the broke team could not make the playoffs, the team he played that week could. By the broke owner’s mismanagement of his blind bid money and poorly planned trades, he had four non-available players in his lineup. This affected league integrity. The commissioner stated that the broke owner could not envision needing available blind bidding monies or realize that he could not start a full lineup. Somehow spending all his money and trading away his players wasn’t his fault? Needless to say, I left two of this commissioner’s leagues right after the season.
Owners need to start players that will accumulate fantasy points every week. Players that do not dress for the game (on injured reserve, listed as out at game time and usually listed as doubtful beforehand, or on bye) should not be in starting lineups. Tanking is starting a player who has no reasonable expectation of accumulating fantasy points. The same could be said when playing a backup kicker that only kicks off or a backup quarterback that doesn’t have a regular role in the offense. If you want to start Geno Smith over Peyton Manning, that is your call as an owner because they have every expectation to play.
Conclusions
Review the rules of the league and earlier years before joining an existing league. If something seems fishy, it probably is. Good commissioners are always open to change if it makes it a better league experience. The rules should be enforced and ownership expectations should be clear from the start.
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