Looking for some new ideas for your fantasy football league? The following is a list of fantasy football rules to consider. Entertain yourself with the good, the bad, and the ugly (or intriguing).
Without law, there is chaos. Rules were made to be broken. Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.
These are all famous quotes that you may have heard before. And whatever side of the fence you might sit on — a rule breaker or law abider — rules govern just about everything we do in life and require your attention.
In fantasy football, it’s no different. There are rules set up to form your league and ensure competitive balance and fair play. But if you’re one of those shysters who finds loopholes in rules and exploits them to your benefit, well … more power to you.
Although perception of rules is all relative to each individual, here are some of the good, bad, and ugly (or intriguing) fantasy football rules that you might run into while playing the game.
The Good Fantasy Football Rules
Early trade deadlines in redraft, later in dynasty: In standard redraft leagues, if an owner realizes his chances of making the playoffs are slim to none after a poor start to the season, he’ll begin to tune out the league. And what’s worse than an apathetic owner is a destructive one, one who will give away his best players for next to nothing because it’s not like his team can get any worse. This is blatantly unfair to the teams that are still competing, thus, you need to have an early trade deadline for these leagues. In dynasty leagues, it’s a different story. Teams should be allowed to trade all the way up until the playoffs begin, because they should still be allowed to throw in the towel and prepare for the future up until the last moment.
Transition keeper leagues to “player contracts”: If you’re in a keeper league and just can’t bring yourself to converting it to a dynasty league, consider implementing player contracts. Rather than just allowing teams to endlessly keep great players forever, allow up to four-year contracts for players. When those players’ contracts run out, they’re thrown back into the free agent pool — i.e. your league’s draft.
Mandate just one starting running back: Let’s face it, the running back position has become a crapshoot. Gone are the days of the workhorse backs (with few exceptions). Teams are deploying committee approaches with specialized roles and are trying to preserve their players. As a result, running back uncertainty is at an all-time high. A good way to mitigate this uncertainty is to only require a single starting running back spot. Surely all the teams in your league can acquire one starting NFL running back, and anything above that is gravy.
Teams cannot trade the same player twice in one season: To avoid collusion between teams, consider implementing a rule that prevents teams from trading a player back and forth multiple times in a single season. Such a move is tantamount to “renting” a player and should be forbidden.
Draft a head coach: Add a little spice and variety to your league’s roster composition by drafting a head coach. Essentially, you’re placing your chips on a good NFL team and will be rewarded points if said NFL team wins on any given Sunday of the fantasy season.
Increase your league’s buy-in: Not everyone is made of money, so this rule will be difficult to implement if you’re amongst students, deadbeats, or perpetual burger-flippers. But if you’re interested in having owners pay attention the entire fantasy football season and not bow out when their teams falter out of the gate, raise the stakes to maintain interest.
Use the serpentine, or “snake”, draft order for redraft leagues: I don’t know why anyone would not use the serpentine draft order at this point in the life of fantasy football. If teams are starting fresh with nobody on their rosters, you’ll want to reverse the draft order in even rounds to prevent the same teams from getting the best players at the beginning of each round. Now, in dynasty or keeper leagues, you can use the traditional 1-12 (or however many teams are in your league) non-reversing draft order to allow the bad teams from the previous year to get the best players each round.
Use the third round draft reversal: What happens in fantasy drafts all too often is that the teams that get the first few picks of the draft get the elite players. And then when Round 2 comes back to them, they get good, quality players at the end of the second round plus the cream of the crop at the top of the third. This gives them three players in the Top 30, one of whom is elite. These teams have an immediate advantage. Consider using the third-round reversal rule, which states that Round 3 begins with the team that drew the last pick in your team’s draft order. Other than that, the rest of the draft is just typical serpentine.
Draft complete offensive lines: For owners looking to get their feet wet in a deeper format, consider drafting complete offensive lines. Scoring could get a little obscure with this, and there’s always the concern that you’re double-dipping — scoring points for an NFL team’s running back and offensive line — but it is a way to give the big uglies some love. They can earn points for an offense’s yards, or lose points for sacks allowed or penalties received.
Offer incentives and bonuses throughout the season: A lot of leagues distribute prize money to the first-, second-, and third-place finishers, which is fine at face value. But I also like awarding money to the team that scores the most points (because, in theory, they truly have the “best” team). But one way to keep interest throughout the season is to award a weekly prize, which even the worst teams who have no shot at winning the championship can still obtain.
Make the final NFL week a Pro Bowl week and offer rewards: The final week of the NFL regular season is a horrible week to host your league’s championship game. Too many star players sit out after their teams wrap up playoff berths. You can instead host your fantasy league’s Pro Bowl that week. Have all your owners vote on the Top 3 players at each position for each division/conference in your league. (If your league is not divided into two divisions or conferences, you’ll just have to find a way to arbitrarily do that.) And then the two teams of All-Stars will play for bragging rights. Or you can award prize money to the teams who have players nominated for the Pro Bowl.
Diversify kicker scoring to make them relevant: In the vast majority of fantasy football leagues, kickers have little value and are usually selected in the final rounds of drafts. This is not because they don’t score enough, rather, they’re all interchangeable and hardly separate themselves. Why not shake it up and create separation between the best kicker and the worst? Award bonus points for kickers that can hit longer field goals, subtract points for missed extra points and field goals, etc. By creating separation between kickers, you inherently increase the value of the position and suddenly add a dimension of strategy on draft day.
Increase defensive scoring opportunities: The old adage “defenses win championships” should be amended with “…except in fantasy football leagues.” Why are defenses so valuable in real life but not in fantasy football? Bump up points for defenses and make them just as valuable as any other position, if you’re going to continue drafting them year in and year out. Much like kickers, though, a lot of defenses are interchangeable, so you should try to vary up your scoring methods to create some separation.
Employ multiple flex positions: With the exception of allowing multiple quarterbacks (which you can read in “The Bad” section), kickers or defenses, your league should allow you the flexibility to play a variety of different lineups with two or more flex positions. This creates better competitive balance and increases draft and lineup strategy. If you miss out on some of the top running backs in the draft, you should be able to load up on receivers and tight ends and play those guys in the flex position. Similarly, if you wind up with little depth at wide receiver, having a strong running back position should allow you the flexibility at the two flex positions.
Charge money per player acquisition: Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Your opponent’s roster for Week 12 looks awfully different from the one he left with from your draft day party in August. And it’s drastically different because every week he hit the waiver wire and completely unloaded his roster in favor of what he considered “better” options. In fantasy football, this is called “streaming” — which means selecting players on a weekly basis based on favorable matchups for the upcoming week. While the streaming strategy is not inherently bad — who wouldn’t want players who get to play against the Browns, Jaguars and Panthers each week? — it strays far away from the “reality” aspect of team management and too far into the “fantasy” of the game. Why not at least charge owners money for every waiver move they make, which can be thrown into a pool and distributed with the prize money at the end of the season?
Crown a regular season points champion: I cannot emphasize this enough… the team that scores the most points in your fantasy football league is the best team. Period. I’m a strong advocate for crowning a points champion, and if not outright giving him the largest prize of the season, at least giving him a portion of it. Head to head scoring systems are fun for weekly bragging rights and to also give mediocre teams a chance at sneaking into the playoffs and making a run. But total points is total dominance, and that needs to be rewarded somehow.
Give kickers the boot (certainly in dynasty): If you’re not going to vary up your league’s scoring system to make kickers more valuable, then just ditch them. I was always reluctant to do this because I’ve been playing this wonderful game since 1994 and it just felt odd to get rid of an entire position. But we did this in a recent dynasty league and I haven’t looked back once. For that matter, you can ditch the team defenses, too.
Points per first down: I’m against overcomplicating scoring systems with specialized scoring rules. But this is one rule I can get behind. When NFL teams need a first down, who do you think they’re targeting? Their best players, of course. You can reward the players who pick up these crucial first downs and create further separation from the best and the worst at each position.
Have a Board of Directors instead of sole commissioner: Speaking from experience, being a commissioner is hard work. There is often a lot of legwork done, scheduling a draft, tracking down deadbeats for their league fees, running the league’s online manager, etc. Not to mention, there are plenty of commissioners out there who have done some sketchy things that have drawn the ire of their leagues’ owners. If you have a three-headed Board of Directors calling the shots and dividing up the responsibilities, your league could run a lot smoother.
The Bad Fantasy Football Rules
Starting two quarterbacks: I’m sorry, but this is a hill I’m going to die on. Two quarterback leagues (or “superflex” as it is more commonly called, which I’ll get into in a minute) are unconventional and antithetical to football. At no point during a football game do two quarterbacks step onto the field, receive a snap, and throw a ball. Thus, at no point in fantasy should you get quarterback passing statistics for more than one player. Yes, two quarterbacks can “appear” on a field, but one is usually lined up at receiver or in the backfield and doesn’t get passing statistics. On top of all this, can somebody explain to me why we call this league a superflex league, given that that FLEX position is almost always filled by a quarterback? Just call it a two-QB league and move on.
Starting two tight ends or three running backs: In continuation with my disdain for superflex leagues, I’m also against mandating two starting tight ends or — and this is really crazy — leagues that require any more than two starting running backs. For starters, there are not enough good tight ends to go around to force two starters, nor are there enough great running backs to mandate more than two.
FLEX-less leagues: I’ve seen some leagues advocate removing the FLEX position in order to force owners to make tough draft decisions and lineup choices. While I can understand the challenge behind such a move, I also think it creates a competitive disadvantage because there are only so many good running backs and tight ends, for example, to go around. By creating FLEX positions, you’re allowing different methods of roster building that can make all teams more competitive.
Commissioner wields power to veto trades: Commissioners are not kings. They should not have the power to rule with an iron fist. Yeah, I get it: there are often horrendous trades that are made that leave owners crying out in disgust. But a commissioner should not have the power to veto trades because that opens up a bad precedent and could lead to a power-hungry commissioner overturning everything and anything he does not like. If you want to allow vetoes, let the league owners vote.
Huge deductions for turnovers or poor play: I kind of contradict myself on this one because I mention the positives of unconventional scoring rules in both “The Good” and “The Ugly” sections of these rules, but you have to use your best judgment. I once played in a league that deducted the same amount of points for quarterback interceptions as it awarded for passing touchdowns. While someone can make the case for interceptions being huge, game-changing plays, that’s just not how I want to play fantasy football.
Points for “home-field advantage”: In one league in which I play, I grit my teeth and bear with the rule we have in place that awards points to teams that have a “home” game. While I enjoy some level of “realism” in my fantasy sports, trying to recreate the home field advantage in a fantasy setting is just a bit of a stretch.
Waiver Wire order assigned by worst record: To some extent, I can see the advantage of giving the worst teams the first opportunity at players on the waiver wire in order to give them the chance to get better and create more competitive balance. But on the other hand, why should they have the privilege of getting first crack at every player that hits the waiver wire? No, there should be a continuously rolling list for the waiver wire order, where after a team picks up a player, they go to the back of the line.
Eliminate last-place team from next year’s league: The concept behind this rule is that by instilling fear in owners that they might be kicked out of the league for a year if they finish in last place, they’re more likely to stay engaged in the league to the very end and keep the league as competitive as possible. I don’t like that idea and you’re likely to harbor a lot of resentment amongst friends and/or family with such a rule.
Automatic handcuffing of backup quarterbacks: I’m okay with this rule in playoff-only leagues where you’re not going to hit the waiver wire and pick up the backup quarterback the next week. But if a team wants to grab the backup quarterback on a high-powered offense and sit that player on the bench all season, that’s his prerogative. Or if a star quarterback goes down and his team’s owner has a bad waiver wire priority… oh well. Some other owner in the league is going to nab his backup.
No waiver wire/all free agents: For leagues that do not use the waiver wire, they instead institute a free-for-all, 24/7 free agency period where it’s always first come, first served. I don’t like this rule because in the real world, people have jobs and can’t monitor the league’s transaction wire all day. Maybe Joe Blow from your league lives in his mother’s basement and is up at 3:00 in the morning picking up the Browns’ fourth-string wide receiver who had 6 catches for 100 yards last week. Why should an owner like that be rewarded for being a loser?
Too deep, or too shallow roster benches: When setting your league’s rules, always keep the roster length to a reasonable limit. If your rosters are 18-20 players deep, you’ll never be able to find a suitable free agent available in the event of injury because those players will be stashed at the bottom of somebody else’s roster. On the flip side, if your rosters are only 10-12 players deep, you’ll be forced to cut a good player when someone is on a bye because you don’t have the room to add a free agent. Keep roster lengths to about 16 players.
No PPR leagues: Dude, this isn’t the 1990s when “points-only” leagues were all the rage. This isn’t the early 2000s, either, where only yards (and touchdowns) were awarded for wide receivers. The bottom line is that receivers who are valuable to their NFL teams are ones that catch a lot of balls and move the chains. Stop being stingy and award points per reception.
Not using fractional scoring: This should just be common sense. If you’re against fractional scoring because it looks goofy, well, shame on you. If you award one point per 10 yards versus 0.1 points per yard, then what you’re saying is that a player who rushes for 10 yards would get 1 point and a player who rushes for 9 yards would get 0. Huh?
Obscene points for unusual plays: I’ve seen rules where leagues will award an obscene amount of points if a player breaks some kind of NFL record during a game. Or other amounts of points if some kind of unusual play happens. Don’t get cute. That’s idiotic.
Holding your dynasty rookie draft before the NFL Draft: I’ve had an owner tell me before he wants to add an extra element of strategy to rookie drafts in dynasty leagues by having them conducted before the NFL does its draft. I’m sorry, I believe in my ability to scout college players well. But there is something very real about landing spots for rookies and there is far too much luck involved with where college players land in the NFL. Wait until the NFL Draft is complete before you hold your dynasty rookie drafts.
Points per rushing attempt: This is just stupid. This is an example of trying too hard to make the running back position more valuable. A receiver catching a pass is an accomplishment; a running back taking a handoff and smashing into the line is not.
Points per target: This is even dumber than the points per rushing attempt. Awarding a point (or a fraction of a point) to a receiver just because his quarterback throws the ball in his direction is not a good way to award points.
The Ugly (or Intriguing) Fantasy Football Rules
Use a hybrid record/points method for making the playoffs: I’m all for mitigating fantasy luck. I want to treat the game as one of skill, not heavily relying upon luck. Thus, I’m all for using points scored as a means for determining playoff participants. It doesn’t have to be just points, though. You can use some kind of hybrid system, such as the Top 4 playoff teams are the ones with the best record while the next 2 or 4 teams are the highest scoring of the remaining teams.
Two-week playoff games: I’m starting to find this rule more intriguing with every one-week playoff ouster I suffer at the hands of an anomaly. As I’ve mentioned, I disdain fantasy luck and would like to mitigate it as best as possible. With a two-week playoff matchup, you play the same opponent over the stretch of two weeks and the highest point total wins.
Allow trade window for counter offers: Why not spice up the trading in your league by allowing owners to negotiate better deals after a trade is completed? The way it works is, after two teams complete a trade and it passes the veto window, other owners can then offer a better deal to either of the original two teams and see if the original teams want to take the new offer instead.
Play against every team every week: Have you ever been victim of the “I had the absolute worst matchup of the week” syndrome? It goes something like this: you’re watching your team kick butt and light the fantasy world on fire. Your quarterback is playing out of his mind, your running back just scored his third touchdown of the week, and your receiver just surpassed the 10-catch mark. You’re headed for a “W”, right? Wrong. You may have scored the second-most points in the league that week, but you had the misfortune of playing the highest-scoring team. Doesn’t seem fair, does it? Why not play against every team in the league every week? That way, if you’re in a 12-team league and you scored the second-most points, you finish with a 10-1 record for the week because you beat all but one of the teams in your league.
Two games per week (a doubleheader): If you don’t want to play against every team every week and have records that are out of control, you could just have your commissioner schedule two matchups per week and treat it as a doubleheader of sorts. This way, you’re helping mitigate luck by scheduling more matchups, which separates the good from the bad in your league.
Implement practice squad promotions and allow teams to nab other teams’ players: In the NFL, teams have practice squads where a group of players suit up and practice with the team but are not part of the game day rosters. If Team A wants to sign a player off Team B’s practice squad, they can do that, unless Team A chooses to promote that player to their Active Roster. This is a good way of preventing the stacking of teams. You can have short benches, plus a 5-man practice squad. If one of the teams wants to nab a player off a good team’s practice squad, they can do that. And the only way to prevent losing that player is to promote them to your Active Roster.
Add an extra weekly win for points above the mean: If you don’t want to play against two or more teams every week, you could add an extra win based on points scored. This helps you determine the best teams because as I’ve stated multiple times, the best teams are the ones who score the most points, period. After a week is over, add up all the points scored between all the teams, figure out the average score, and the teams that scored higher than the average get an extra win for the week.
Play-in playoff round: An additional way to keep owners interested if they’re on the fringes of the playoff race is to have a play-in game the final week of your league’s regular season. The last playoff spot can be determined by the two, three, or even four teams who are on the outside of the playoff race looking in. Whichever teams are in the play-in game, the highest scoring one is the final playoff participant.
Institute a Rivalry Week with bonus victories: Why not spice up your league’s schedule with a Rivalry Week. Pit brother against brother, co-worker against co-worker, spouse against spouse, or whatever else combination will elicit strong feelings. If you’re in a dynasty league, there have probably been rivalries that have developed organically through close games. Maybe rivalry games are worth multiple victories.
Use a ping pong ball draft lottery to prevent tanking: If you are participating in a dynasty or keeper league and you don’t want your owners purposely tanking so that they can get a higher draft pick the following season, consider using a ping pong ball draft lottery to determine the order the following season. The way it works is, if you’re in a 12-team league, the team that finishes 12th will get 12 ping pong balls thrown into the raffle drum. The team that finishes first will receive just one ball. Then, the drum is spun and a ball will randomly be drawn to determine the draft order. This way, the bad teams still have the best odds of getting a high draft pick, but there is no guarantee they do. It is used by the NBA to help discourage tanking and it can help your league, too.
Institute punishment for owner who finishes last: While I’m against “survivor” leagues that kick the last-place team out of the league the following season, I do think there are ways to instill fear in owners from tanking the season. Maybe the loser has to host the draft the following season. Maybe he has to buy beer for everybody. Maybe he automatically gets the last pick. Maybe he has to dress as a clown and serve everybody food and drinks like a waiter. Whatever the case may be, pick something that is some form of punishment and instill it.
Use a hybrid auction-draft combination: The first time I heard of this strange rule, I was a little bit skeptical that such a thing would work, but we tried it once and it really did seem enjoyable. Some fantasy football owners like to draft players. Others like to auction players. Why not do both? You can start with a five-round auction. If you have 12 players in your league, that means 60 players would get auctioned off. After that period is over, you then switch to doing a draft. The draft order would be determined by available salary, with the team that has the most money available drafting first and the team that spent the most in the auction would draft last.
Use a complex statistical ranking system instead of standings: All too often, the best team does not always win due to a number of unfortunate twists and turns. Be it weather, injuries, or just freak performances, the best fantasy football team in any given league can sometimes find itself somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of win percentage. Another unique rule to combat that element of luck is by using a statistical ranking system instead of pure win-loss standings. You can combine win percentage with total points scored, strength of schedule, player rankings, etc. You can get as nerdy as you want with it, but the more factors you employ, the more accurate the rankings are likely to be in determining the best teams.
Award compensatory draft picks in dynasty leagues to compensate injuries: In recent years, there have been several high profile players that have gone down with injury early in the season. And if you were one of the unfortunate souls to draft said players, you likely kissed your championship aspirations goodbye. But if you are in a dynasty league, you might consider giving relief to those teams who suffered catastrophic injuries. For example, maybe you award an extra third-round pick to a team who lost its first-round pick the prior year for at least six games. Maybe you give a seventh-round pick if a team lost its third- or fourth-round pick the previous year for more than six games. You can play around with the formula however you want, but in essence it gives a morale boost to the teams who had to suffer through a painfully disappointing and boring season the year prior.
Radicalize scoring system to make all positions about equal value: In most fantasy drafts, smart owners will wait until the last few rounds to take their kickers. And why? Because kickers are interchangeable and dispensable. Likewise, defenses are usually taken in the mid-to-late rounds. Only a few quarterbacks and tight ends are taken early. What do you see in the first three rounds? An avalanche of running backs and wide receivers come flying off the board. One novel idea is to tweak the scoring rules in a manner that puts the best quarterback on par with the best running back, wide receiver, tight end, kicker and defense. Could you imagine a kicker being taken in the first round? — If you’re a Raiders fan, of course you can. It seems outlandish, but if you tweak the scoring rules enough, it could actually create some unique strategies.
Institute a college feeder system: For the really ambitious fantasy owners out there, instead of drafting rookies onto your active roster each year, why not consider having a separate college football draft immediately after the bowl season? It’ll give you something fun to do in the dog days of winter and it’ll create a farm system (or feeder system) from which you can pull when you’re ready. Basically, you draft any college player you want who is not already in one of your team’s farm systems. Then, when they declare for the draft and get signed by an NFL team, you then have to make the decision whether you activate them to your active roster, or you cut them and they become free agents.
Combine daily/weekly fantasy sports with head-to-head leagues: Some fantasy owners really enjoy the latest craze of daily, or — in the case of football — weekly fantasy leagues. You get to select a whole new lineup each week so you aren’t stuck with an underperforming roster for 13 weeks. Other fantasy owners prefer the traditional league types where you draft a team in August and play a different opponent each week throughout the season. Why not combine both concepts? You still create a schedule where you compete against one other owner each week of your season, but now you get the fun of selecting a whole new team each week.
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- My Tested & Proven Fantasy Football Constitution and Rules Template
- Fantasy Football Commissioner: Rules to Eliminate From Your League
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