Different Types Of Fantasy Leagues

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What types of Fantasy Football leagues do you think are “must-plays” every year?

Types of Daily Fantasy Contests. Signing into a daily fantasy sports site for the first time can be very confusing. There are a large number of different contest and league types at most sites, all with names that might not make a lot of sense. It’s very easy to be overwhelmed by this, but things aren’t as complicated as they might seem. Types of Fantasy Football Leagues and Drafts. Fantasy football is one of the fastest growing participation leagues in professional sports. The National Football League has supported interest and participation in the leagues, as well as the major sports websites such as ESPN.com and major television networks such as CBS, NBC, and ABC.

Different Types Of Fantasy Leagues

With about 60 million people playing Fantasy Sports – most of whom play Fantasy Football – and the hobby still growing at a ridiculous rate, it’s tough to keep things fresh every year. Every couple years or so, we meet some new friends, and they want us to join their Fantasy Football league.

Pretty soon, we’re playing in a handful of leagues – and most of them are the same type, making them kinda boring in comparison.

Related: Looking for a league? We listed a few Fantasy Football draft tools that help you find them!

So we came up with a way to make sure you get the absolute most out of your experience, and we listed off five different types of Fantasy Football leagues everyone should be playing in. Each one is different in its own right, and strategies have to be tweaked just a bit.

5 Types of Fantasy Football Leagues To Play Every Year

By playing in these five types of Fantasy Football leagues, you’ll have every base covered! You’ll learn different strategies for different leagues, and be completely fulfilled! You’ll finally scratch every Fantasy itch you ever had!

Standard or PPR Yearly League

You don’t really have to break these two types of leagues into different categories. But you should definitely be playing in at least one regular yearly league. According to CBSSports.com, 58% of their Commissioner leagues are PPR, which means the other 42% don’t offer points per reception. In 2013, just 28% of leagues were PPR formats! I imagine a lot of these new PPR leagues are half-PPR formats, which lessens the importance of WRs just a bit.

These are the standard leagues that every self-respecting Fantasy Football owner should be playing in!

By not playing in one of these leagues, you are essentially the Fantasy Hipster that refuses to do something because it’s popular. (Social Tip: No one likes that person.)

Auction League

In reality, this league can still be a standard or PPR scoring league, but most leagues use a traditional draft, just like the NFL, in order to fill their rosters. But an auction draft is so much more fun than a regular draft, it’s ridiculous. In a draft, you’re basically just drafting the best available players (according to your rankings) that drop to you, with some strategy involving when you fill which positions.

There really is too much dependence on getting a top pick. Wouldn’t everyone prefer to own Todd Gurley and Mike Evans over Melvin Gordon and Michael Thomas?

Different Types Of Fantasy Football Leagues

In a Fantasy Football auction league, everyone has the chance to own the best player in the draft – they just have to bid the highest on them! And for those that do get the most expensive players, they then have to manage their money to get good players with less money available to them than the rest of the teams.

There is sooo much more strategy involved in Fantasy Football auction leagues, which makes the game twice as fun. Draft Day is a huge event, too, where everyone must truly stay engaged during the entire draft, in order not to accidentally let someone get away with Tyreek Hill for $9.

Here are some of my favorite Fantasy Football auction tips I’ve learned over the years.

Keeper League

By joining a keeper league, you are now not just concerned over how well your players will do this year – but you’ll be trying to find the best players that will be good over the course of several years.

There are some regular keeper leagues, that allow you to keep anywhere from two to five players from year to year, no matter where you drafted them. The cost of keeping those players might range from losing the draft pick from the round in which you drafted them the previous year, or losing the draft pick from a couple rounds higher than the round you drafted them the previous year.

Personally, one of my favorite types of Fantasy Football leagues are “limited” keeper leagues, which only allow you to hold over players you drafted beyond a certain round. For instance, in one league I have been involved in since 2003, we’re only allowed to choose keepers from the player selected from Round 8 and beyond. This is smart for several reasons:

  1. It keeps the first few rounds exciting every single year, as the best players are usually tossed back into the pool after every season. In other keeper leagues, the first round usually looks like the fifth round for other leagues, as the top-50 players or so area already kept on rosters. #Boring – What’s more painful than having the third overall pick and being forced to decide between Alex Collins and Jarvis Landry?
  2. It makes the middle rounds exciting again! Now you have to plan your drafting strategy a little bit better, so you’re not drafting a defense with a great keeper pick, or burning earlier picks on good young sleepers you can’t keep the next season.

There are also best-ball and draft-only leagues, where you select players and don’t fill out lineups during the season. After you draft, it’s all automated. These are like the exact opposite of keeper leagues! Those types of MFL 10s leagues are awesome, too!

Dynasty League

A dynasty league is similar to a keeper league in that you have to become a smarter GM because your picks this season will affect your team for several seasons to come. Rather than keeping just a handful of players, you basically can hold over nearly your entire roster!

These leagues are super fun because you can really capitalize on your big Fantasy brains, fishing out excellent young players who might be blocked by superstars for the next year or two. Guys like Chris Godwin, Kenny Golladay and D’Onta Foreman are all excellent examples of better dynasty league picks than they are yearly league picks.
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In dynasty leagues, you have a rookie draft to disperse the best first-year players entering the NFL, and the order for this draft is usually based on the worst-to-first order of last season’s Fantasy standings. The other big event in dynasty leagues is the Fantasy free-agent dispersal draft, which divvies up all the players no one held over. (In some dynasty leagues, they can only hold a player over for five extra years or so, which means they go back into the player pool. This year, players from the 2012 NFL Draft, like Lamar Miller, Andrew Luck, T.Y. Hillton, Alshon Jeffery and Russell Wilson would be back in the pool. Some dynasty leagues combine the rookie daft with the free-agent draft – which isn’t as fun in my eyes.

Please vote & comment

Who is the quarterback to own in Dynasty Leagues? #FantasyFootball@RTFantasyFball@MyFantasyLeague

— CouchPotatoGM (@Couch_Potato_GM) June 4, 2018

Over the past few years, there have been a lot more “DEVY” leagues popping up. These are leagues which draft “Developmental” squads of college football players for their dynasty teams. Sites like DynastyFootballFactory.com provide great coverage for DEVY players, so you’re not just drafting college kids blindly.

(Individual Defensive Player) IDP Leagues

Finally, one of the last types of Fantasy Football leagues you should join is an IDP league. You don’t have to go full bore and draft 10 IDP players for your lineups, but maybe your league can have at least one defensive lineman, one linebacker, one defensive back and one IDP Flex (DL/LB/DB). That’s enough to give you a taste of the excitement IDP owners feel when one of their players makes a strip-sack and recovers the fumble. These leagues can be a lot of fun, and they make you a much smarter NFL fan, too.

Top 10 #IDP Linebackers based on early ADP. Rookies getting early mock love.
1. Deion Jones
2. Bobby Wagner
3. Kwon Alexander
4. C.J. Mosley
5. Luke Kuechly
6. Telvin Smith
7. Khalil Mack
8. Zach Brown
9. Tremaine Edmunds (R)
10. Roquan Smith (R)

— Kelly Smelser (@PDWonderland) May 31, 2018

Back in 2001, Brian Roberson and Josh Kerkau created what I now call, “The Most Interesting Fantasy Football League Ever.” This was a Dynasty IDP league that used an auction draft system for free agents, as well as a rookie draft for first-year players. We actually signed players to contracts when we won them in the auction, so we had to decide how long we wanted to keep those players – at escalating prices. If we decided to cut a player we still had under contract, we’d take a salary cap hit, based on the players salary and the years left on his contract. (The salary cap for each team was the real salary cap for NFL teams. When their cap raised, so would ours.)

This league was so intense and fun, until the year I owned Ricky Williams for a bajillion dollars and he decided to retire. I cut him, took the cap hit – and then he came back the next year. Awesome.

I hope you enjoyed this article! There are actually a ton more types of Fantasy Football leagues you could join, including DFS leagues, where you essentially draft a new lineup every week. If you are already in a great league and you just want to tweak it, or you want additional fun rules to add to your new league, try out some of these 42 Fantastic New Fantasy Football League Ideas!

David Gonos spent 5 years as a CBSSports.com Senior Fantasy Writer and three more years writing with SI.com. Over the past 17 years, his work has been published on NFL.com, MLB.com, FanDuel, FoxSports.com and USA Today. Since 2001, he has been tracking down the Top 50-plus Free Fantasy Football Draft Tools online. You can contact David Gonos here.

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You’ve devoted countless hours to watching, reading about, and maybe even playing football. So how can you use this knowledge to prove once and for all that your football acumen is superior to your friends, family, and co-workers?

Simple: fantasy football.

If you’re thinking of joining or creating a fantasy league and want to know some of the more popular league configurations, you’re in the right place. In this article, I’ll break-down the various types of fantasy football leagues, the difference between seasonal and DFS leagues, popular fantasy football scoring systems, and more.

Seasonal Leagues Based On Roster Retention

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Seasonal leagues are a fun way to participate in fantasy football without a long-term commitment. Dynasty and keeper leagues, on the other hand, allow you to maintain roster consistency over multiple seasons, retaining some (or all) of the same players from year after year.

Redraft leagues give you a fresh start every season

The most common variety of fantasy football league is a seasonal redraft league. In these leagues, you draft a team at the start of the season, manage those players throughout the year, then redraft a new team the following year.

In redraft leagues, you can make trades or add/drop players to adjust your roster as you go. You typically compete against one other owner per week in a head-to-head (H2H) matchup, with the teams with the best records making the playoffs. Although, some leagues rank teams by total points scored and ignore records altogether.

Keeper leagues keep you invested from year to year

Redraft leagues can be frustrating for owners like me who get attached to their players over the course of a season. I hate having to let go of my favorite players.

Keeper leagues allow us to retain some of our players from season to season. The number of players you can keep varies widely, although it’s typically in the 2-4 range.

Keeper leagues puts an emphasis on identifying young players that could break out. This add an extra element of strategy that doesn’t factor into redraft leagues.

Dynasty leagues put you in control of your own fantasy franchise

Dynasties leagues are the ultimate keeper leagues. In a dynasty league you retain all of your players until you drop or trade them away.

Dynasty leagues are as close as you can get to running a true [imaginary] NFL franchise. But beware, it takes a serious commitment to stay competitive. If your team starts to tank, re-building can be a major challenge.

Daily Fantasy Football Leagues for Seasonal Players

In recent years, a new genre of fantasy sports emerged: Daily Fantasy Sports. DFS hosts traditionally hold short-term contests that anyone can enter.

But DFS leagues allow you to participate in contests against a select group of people instead of just internet randos. This means you can invite only your friends and family to compete, similar to how seasonal leagues work.

In DFS leagues, you still rebuild your roster for each individual contests. But you also accumulate points and compete against people you know in a league-type format.

Companies like FanDuel, DraftKings, and Yahoo all host short-term as well as season-long DFS leagues. These leagues allow you to pick players according to matchups, avoid player injuries that could derail your entire season, and enjoy roster-building process over and over throughout the year.

Regular Season Leagues vs. Playoff Leagues

Traditional fantasy leagues end a week or two before the NFL regular season ends. But without fantasy players to follow, the NFL playoffs can lose some of their luster for hardcore fantasy players.

Fortunately, fantasy addicts can get their postseason fix in a playoff fantasy football league.

Playoff leagues are similar to seasonal leagues in that you draft a roster of players and complete against other teams. However, in these types of fantasy leagues you try to outscore you opponents rotisserie-style (most total points wins).

Playoff leagues require distinctive strategies

Playoff fantasy football comes with some unique wrinkles. For instance, you typically don’t get to make any trades or add/drop any players.

So if a player’s team doesn’t advance in the NFL playoffs, you can no longer get points for that player. This means that you must predict not only which players will perform well, but which teams will advance to the next round.

Money Fantasy Football Leagues vs. Free Leagues

Different Types Of Fantasy Baseball Leagues

Fantasy football is fun even if you’re just playing for bragging rights or to test your NFL acumen. However, adding a little gamble into your game can add some spice (and engagement) to your league.

Free fantasy football for the love of the game

There are tons of opportunities to play fantasy football for free online. Yahoo, ESPN, CBS, NFL.com, FleaFlicker, and plenty of other sites offer low-commitment leagues you can form with friends or join along with other, anonymous fantasy players.

While these leagues can be fun, the lack of stakes can also cause issues. For instance, owners that are out of playoff contention often lose motivation and fail to update their weekly lineups.

This can be annoying for committed owners as we watch trade proposals go unanswered, see other teams get wins against half-stocked rosters, and generally feel like we’re missing out on the competitive experience of fantasy.

Raise the stakes to keep owners engaged

One way to counteract owner apathy is to make sure that everyone has some skin in the game by playing in a fantasy football money leagues. You can find money leagues that cost as little as a few bucks or as much as thousands of dollars.

In private money leagues, owners pay fantasy football dues to league commissioner who disperses the winnings at the end of the season. This popular league type relies on the character of the players to pay their fees and the the commissioner to fairly compensate the winners.

In online money leagues, players submit an entry fee to a site that specializes in managing these types of cash-prize leagues. In the optimal scenario, the prize money is held in escrow until a winner is decided at the end of the season.

Fantasy Football League Draft Styles and Formats

The most exciting day of the fantasy football season is the draft. A fantasy football draft is intense and requires preparation, strategy, focus, and a little luck.

The reward for a well-executed draft is a roster of players that can lead your team to a championship. When a drat bad, it can doom you to months of misery and frustrating fantasy play.

Snake drafts aim to equalize the value of each draft position

Different Types Of Espn Fantasy Football Leagues

The most common type of fantasy draft is called a snake (or serpentine) draft. In a snake draft, you reverse the draft order from round to round, going from the 1st to 12th pick in round one, the 12th to 1st pick in round two, etc.

So if you get to pick first overall, your next pick won’t come until the 24th slot. However, if you’re picking last in the first round, you get to take two players in a row (the 12th and 13th pick).

Snake drafts try to equalize the value of each draft pick position by ensuring every team has an equal chance to build a competitive fantasy roster.

Auction drafts help you target the players you really want

One of the frustrations people have with snake drafts is that they offer limited control over the players on your roster. If someone else picks a player you want before you, there is nothing you can do about it.

They’re just gone.

Different Types Of Fantasy Baseball Leagues

But in auction drafts, owners are allocated a certain amount of draft dollars allowing them to bid on each individual player. This way if you really want a particular player, you have a legitimate chance at landing that player if you have (and are committed to spend) the necessary funds.

E-mail drafts can solve draft scheduling difficulties

One of the hardest parts about planning a live draft is getting all of the team owners to agree on a draft day and time. However, a draft orchestrated through email exchanges solves this problem by decentralizing the draft, spreading it over several days, and giving owners more time in between picks.

Unfortunately, not every fantasy host supports an email draft framework. You can use sites like Apex or Masters Fantasy Football who support email drafts, or just conduct your own offline version and upload your final rosters manually.

League Roster and Position Configurations

There are a variety of approaches to configuring your league’s roster rules. Setting up smart roster rules helps to maximize the fun, interest, and fairness of your fantasy league.

The classic roster configuration mimics real NFL lineups

There are an infinite number of fantasy football roster permutations. But over the years one lineup configuration has become particularly popular:

  • (1) Quarterback
  • (2) Running Backs
  • (3) Wide Receivers
  • (1) Tight End
  • (1) Kicker
  • (1) Defense/Special Teams

Different Types Of Fantasy Leagues

This classic roster configuration typically features a bench of 6-8 backup players that you can swap in and out of your active lineup based injuries, match-ups, or player bye weeks.

2 Quarterback leagues can double your league fun

Some fantasy football leagues expand their starting roster configuration to include an additional quarterback. These are referred to as 2 QB Leagues.

Different Types Of Fantasy Basketball Leagues

2 QB leagues add an extra element of strategy to both the draft preparation and lineup management during the season. For the draft, getting a quality player for your #1 QB positions becomes a must. During the season, owners must decide whether to stream #2 QBs or take flyers on young, upcoming talent.

There are more QBs in the NFL than just Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and Drew Brees. However, owners in single quarterback leagues may never truly appreciate this.

Flaunt your fantasy muscle with a flex position

When setting up your rosters, one of the most important choices you’ll make is whether to include a flex position. The flex is a wild card position that is usually limited to the wide receiver, running back, and tight end positions.

The Superflex position, which expands the standard flex positions to include quarterbacks, is also a popular roster configuration. I like Superflex leagues because they allow for playing a second QB if you think that’s a good strategy, but without forcing you to as in 2 QB leagues.

The Most Common League Scoring Configurations

The standard fantasy football scoring system awards roughly one fantasy point for every real-life point an NFL player scores. Non-QB positions players tend to get 0.1 point for every receiving or rushing yard they gain.

Alternatively, quarterbacks usually receive 0.4 points per passing yard and lose 2 points for each interception. Another way to think about this is that they earn 1 points for every 25 yards passing.

Points Per Reception (PPR) leagues are a popular scoring configuration that awards an additional 0.5 – 1.0 point for each reception. PPR leagues reward versatile receivers, pass-catching RBs, and TEs while increasing scoring across your entire league.

Choosing a popular fantasy football scoring system like standard scoring is a smart choice if you’re starting a new league. It’s a tried and true system and you can tweak the settings as necessary once your league is rolling.