About Chains Out

What it is, and why it works differently

Every dynasty valuation tool tells you the same thing: what everybody else thinks. They gather thousands of votes, average them, and hand you a consensus ranking. That is useful, and it is also why your board looks exactly like your league-mates' boards.

Chains Out builds your rankings out of your own opinions. You answer head-to-heads — would you rather have this player or that one — and a model fits a full set of values to the choices you have made. It fills in the players you have not been asked about yet from what your other answers imply, and it gets sharper every time you play.

The result is a board that is genuinely yours, and a trade calculator that argues from your numbers rather than a stranger's.

Why that matters

Trades happen between two people with different opinions. If your valuations are the same as everyone else's, there is no trade to make — you are all pricing the same players the same way. Knowing precisely where you disagree with the market is the whole edge, and a consensus tool by definition cannot show you that.

So the app shows you both: your value, and the market's, side by side, with the gap between them named.

What is in it

• Games — a dozen ways of asking you what you think, from straight head-to-heads to mock drafts, auction budgets and knockout brackets. None of them feel like filling in a form.
• Your rankings — one board per format, in dynasty, win-now and rebuilding modes, which you can drag by hand whenever the model is wrong.
• A trade calculator that answers in your own values.
• A draft room for mock drafts against opponents who draft the way real league-mates do.
• A news desk that tells you what has changed and what it is worth to you specifically, ordered by what it costs your board rather than by how dramatic it sounds.
• Player numbers on every name, from nflverse, back to 1999.
• Start / Sit for the weeks in between.

Where the numbers come from

• Player statistics — nflverse, the open NFL data project. Regular season, back to 1999, refreshed after games.
• Injury and roster news — the official NFL injury report and roster status feeds, through nflverse.
• Market values — FantasyCalc, matched to your league's format, refreshed daily. Shown as a comparison, never folded into your own board without you asking.

Nothing here is invented. If there is no data for a player, the app says so rather than guessing. A number you cannot trace back to a source is worse than no number at all.

Who makes it

Chains Out is built by Dale Evans, who has spent a decade in sports trading and plays in more dynasty leagues than is entirely sensible. It started as a spreadsheet for settling arguments about his own teams and turned into this.

It is a one-person project. That means it moves quickly, it listens, and if you email about something broken it will be a person who replies.

What it costs

Nothing. It is free, and advertising pays for it. If you would rather not see adverts, $3 a month turns them off — but every feature is in the free version and always will be. A ranking tool that hides your own rankings behind a paywall has misunderstood what it is for.

Get in touch

Ideas, complaints and bug reports are all welcome, and the last two are the most useful. Contact us here.