Yesterday, we delivered grades for the 14 participants in the Windy City Gridiron Dynasty League. Today, we are going to start a series assessing all 14 rosters and their strengths and weaknesses. The first person up is Dan Meehan. Dan has been a regular on our sister podcast network, 2nd City Gridiron, where he’s hosted a podcast for the last few years. He’s an avid college football fan and knows draft prospects very well.
He’s been a middling team in the league for several years. He has a good team,
but rarely fields a team that is a true title contender, but is never bad, and drafts in the top 3 or 4 the next season. What can he do to get over the top? Let’s take a look at the roster.
This roster is loaded with strengths and weaknesses. You start off looking at the quarterback room, and it’s pretty perfect. He has a solid starter in Jalen Hurts and two young backups in Jaxson Dart and Bryce Young. I love teams that have 3 viable QBs, which isn’t possible for every team to have in a 14-team league. Exactly what you need in your QB room.
When you move on to running backs, you think this team might be set to contend for a title. Achane and CMac? And Bucky Irving and D’Andre Swift behind them? This is an absolutely loaded running back room. I would love to see a few developmental-type guys and have an RB room that’s 6 or 7 deep, but when you have these four, you can see why you’d allocate your roster elsewhere.
When you get to the Wide Receiver room, you start to see holes. Olave, Metcalf, and McConkey aren’t a terrible trio, but frequently you are starting 4 or 5 WRs in this league, and the depth just isn’t there. Wilson had a nice year last season. Can he keep it up? Is Deebo going to play? Branch and Boston are rookie question marks. It’s not a terrible room, but it could be stronger.
Tight ends are a debacle. Two TE2s? How has this man not traded away some depth for a better starting TE?
Moving over to the defensive side of the ball, it’s a pretty good group at DT, but there’s not a lot of youth here. Kenny Clark doesn’t score a ton of fantasy points, and Heyward is way up there in years. Where’s the depth behind Davis? It’s fine for this year but certainly teetering on becoming a mess by 2027.
In the Edge room, Burns is a fantasy stud, and there’s some intriguing youth behind him. Tuipulotu is a pretty solid DE2. If some of the youth develop in this room, it looks pretty solid.
The linebacker room is good. Schewsinger looks like he’s about to be a fantasy stud for years to come, and Wilson and Queen do a pretty good job racking up fantasy points. A couple of intriguing rookies behind that trio keep that room in pretty solid shape.
Cornerbacks don’t have a ton of value, and I never see a reason to have more than 2 on a roster. Any of these players could be released.
Branch is a great top safety to have, and Chinn scores big fantasy points every year. Brisker also scores pretty well in fantasy leagues, and Stukes isn’t a bad developmental player to have behind that group.
Overall, Danny’s defense isn’t flashy, but it doesn’t have a ton of holes. What’s holding this team back is a tight end room that is just giving away points every week and a wide receiver room that could use both another top-end guy and more depth. If this team had more pass catchers, it would be competing for a title every year.
