Dynasty League 2025: My Predictions

MY PREDICTIONS

League MVP: QB Josh Allen (Fear Itself)

A little disappointed that my numbers favor the guy that's already won the award for our league 3 times, but I won't go against them. The projected runner-up is WR Ja'Marr Chase (Space Rangers). Yahoo predicts: QB Jayden Daniels (NUKEM) with Lamar Jackson (The Empire) as the runner-up

League ROY: RB Ashton Jeanty (Fantasy Fairies)

You'd have to be looking for a hot take not to list Jeanty as the top Rookie of the Year candidate. He's guaranteed to be a weekly starter for Ryan unless he comes out looking like Cedric Benson, and the Raiders are guaranteed to force feed him in that Chip Kelly offense. Seems like a no-brainer. The projected runner-up by my numbers is RB R.J. Harvey (Michael Style). The race for the top looks like it'll be a lot of fun this year with so many top rookie RBs landing with teams in our league that will likely need to keep them in their starting rotation. Yahoo predicts: RB Ashton Jeanty (Fantasy Fairies) with QB Cam Ward (Kade's Dawgs) as the runner-up

Championship: ay_Bilat over Bolt Battalion

I was half right two years ago, and completely wrong last year. I have however gone 8 for 12 on predicting the playoff teams in those years. If you're curious, the 6 I've got making it this year are Trey, Matthew, Nathan, Alex, Curt, and myself. I'll let y'all fight over who the two I get wrong will be. Yahoo predicts: Ferocious Felines finishes with the best record and Fear Itself finishes second

FUN STATS

-ay_Bilat: Not only was last season the first time you've had a losing season in this league and first time you missed the playoffs, it was also the first time you've finished with less than 8 wins. There have been three teams to finish a year with 3+ less wins than in their previous season (2020 Space Rangers went from 8 wins in 2019 to 5, 2021 Shenron's Wish went from 8 wins in 2020 to 5, and 2023 NUKEM went from 9 wins in 2022 to 3). All three teams missed the playoffs in the season following that, and the only one to actually improve their record was 2024 NUKEM (7 wins).

-Fantasy Fairies: You also joined Trey as the fourth and fifth teams to ever drop 3 or more wins off your total from one season to the next. You can see how that's panned out for the others above. The other thing working against you is: the team that's ended up with the #1 overall pick (not the teams that may have ended up with it after a trade, but those that actually had it prior to the trade) all failed to make the playoffs the following year.

-Fear Itself: Last year marked the first time since 2019 that you didn't win your division, and the first time since 2020 that you didn't appear in the championship. It was also the first time since 20221 that Josh Allen didn't win the league MVP. I guess in summary, the team has been dominant, so will you push back to the top, or continue to slide back down the mountain?

-Ferocious Felines: Yahoo has Fred's team going 14-0. There have been three instances where Yahoo has predicted a team to go 14-0: The 2022 Nukem team that went 9-5 and got bounced in the first round of the playoffs, the 2023 ay_Bilat team that went 9-5 and finished third, and the 2024 ay_Bilat team that finished with the second worst record in the league. Also working against him is the continuation of the Yahoo Jinx. No team that Yahoo has picked to finish first in our league has ever made the championship, the best finish has been 3rd place (twice), twice the team got bounced in the first round of the playoffs, and twice the team they picked missed the playoffs entirely.

-Kade's Dawgs: Congratulations, you are the only team left to have made the playoffs in every season. However, you haven't been back to the championship since you lost it in 2019. Is this the year? The name of the game has been consistency for you. Only one season (2020) where you finished below 6th in points scored (7th), outside of that you've been between 3rd and 6th every year. And you've won 8 or 9 regular season games in every season but one (you won 7 in 2023).

-Michael Style: Something to consider here: Your overall team record is 40-53, if you remove the first two seasons you would be 33-34. The rebuild hasn't been perfect, but it has been effective. The next thing to focus on is scoring points, you've never finished higher than 6th in total points (2021).

-NUKEM: You were one win (or one Michael Style loss) away from being the first team to ever go from worst to the playoffs in a single season. Jayden Daniels became the first rookie in league history to finish as his team's MVP. You got a steal in the second round last year. And, if you exclude Anthony and Matthew from the equation, you and Fred are currently the only coaches in the league with at least 1 win against every other coach. In order to maintain that you will of course need to beat Matthew (week 11) and Anthony (week 1 or 14).

-Space Rangers: The trade for Ja'Marr Chase last year may not have resulted in a championship or a division title, but it did provide me with my first ever top 3 finish in points scored. Now let's see if it can get me my first double-digit win season in the second iteration.

-Storm Surge: In one season you managed to take a team that had never made the playoffs all the way to a championship, while also tying the league record for regular season wins (11). If you're looking for other stats to build on from here: The other team that went 11-3 was 2021 Fear Itself, in 2022 they went 10-4 and won the title again becoming the first back-to-back champ in league history.

-The Empire: You want from fighting for king of the mountain, to lying at the bottom of the heap, back to fighting to be king of the mountain. Last year was your first division title since 2020, You were in the running for your first points title since 2019, and you were a breath away from your first championship trophy.

-Bolt Battalion and Shadow Legion: We have had a new coach take over an existing team three times now. The first two only managed to finish with 4 wins, the most recent one was Storm Surge last year who ended up wining the whole thing. But you both are in uncharted territory. All three of those coaches took over an existing team, you two are the first ever expansion teams. There shouldn't ever be another expansion team, but still, it's time to set a precedent.

-Draft Stat: This was the first year we've ever not had a Quarterback go in at least the second round. Even in the awful 2022 draft class we had one QB go in the first (Kenny Pickett) and one go in the second (Jameis Winston).

-Draft Stat: There were 17 Running Backs taken in this draft, blowing away the previous high of 10 (2023)! This was a loaded RB class, but +7 is kind of insane.

-Draft Stat: 13 Draft picks were made by a team that didn't originally own that draft pick, prior to this season the high was 7 (last year). Is that a sign of a new trend?

-Fun week 1 stats brought on by Fred: Teams that went on to win the championship are 5-1 in their week 1 games for their respective years (only week 1 loss was Fred in 2020, who happens to also be the only non-1 or 2 seed to ever win a title). And to expand on that, teams that won their divisions are a whopping 10-2 in their week 1 games (only losses was Curt in 2019, and Rob in 2021, both would go on to lose in the championship).