I am what some might call an elitist snob when it comes to fantasy football. If a league doesn’t meet my very high and very particular standards for settings, I’m probably not going to play. The goal is always to find the right balance of excitement and fairness.
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Best Fantasy Football League Settings
The single most illogical and unproductive argument you can ever make about anything is, “Well, that’s how it’s always been.” I’m sure all of us have encountered this in debates before. It’s no different in fantasy football.
I started playing fantasy football way back in 2003. Back then, continual rolling list waivers were the standard. No one thought anything of it. Then, in the early 2010s, FAAB (free agent acquisition budget) started to rise to prominence. While most of my leagues adopted it relatively early, there were some holdouts who just didn’t want change because “that’s how it’s always been.”
Well, times change. The NFL changes. And with it, fantasy football must change. Here are a handful of the best settings changes you can make to your fantasy football leagues to improve excitement and competitiveness.
Add More Starting Roster Spots
I played a lot of video games growing up. When I played those games, I enjoyed them. I spent literally thousands of hours playing Halo 2 on Xbox. Then, the Xbox 360 came out. Along with it came Halo 3. I didn’t play Halo 2 anymore because there was a newer, better version of the game. I didn’t play on my Xbox anymore because the Xbox 360 was a newer, more advanced console.
The point of this anecdote is that times change. As we press forward, things can and should be left in the past in favor of newer, better things. That includes fantasy football starting lineups.
The default starting lineups on platforms like Yahoo and ESPN are like playing Halo 2 on an original Xbox in the year 2023. On most platforms, you’re starting two WRs, two RBs, and one Flex (along with the onesie positions of QB, TE, DEF, and K). That means most teams are done drafting starting WRs and RBs after the fifth round. That neither promotes skill nor fun.
One of my longest-running leagues initially had three WRs, two RBs, and one Flex. I was actually an advocate for removing a WR to reduce the size of the starting lineup about a decade ago. Looking back on it now, it’s crazy to think that I was that guy.
The reality is a change like this is necessary because the best fantasy football leagues change their settings with the NFL. For example, back in the early 2000s, having a Flex position was not even standard. And it was the right call by fantasy platforms.
Using my first year in fantasy, 2003, as an example, there were 13 running backs who had over 300 carries. Last season, there were four. In 2021, 2020, and 2019, there were just two.
The NFL in 2023 hardly resembles the NFL in 2003. Almost every team uses multiple running backs. Teams throw a lot more. Scoring is up. This has created more fantasy-relevant players at both the running back and wide receiver positions. That inherently alters the threshold of a replacement-level fantasy starter.
To account for the changes in how football is played, your fantasy league cannot start only five WRs/RBs. My preferred league settings are three WRs, two RBs, and two Flexs. Last season, I experimented with a three-WR, two-RB, and three-Flex league. It still works, but it results in razor-thin margins when it comes to injuries. While still better than the default, three-WR, two-RB, and two-Flex lineups seem to be the perfect starting roster size for the current NFL.
Most importantly, though, having more starting roster spots is just more fun. I’m sure you’ve all experienced the frustration of benching guys that have huge weeks. That remains inevitable, but it’s much easier to digest when those bench players are guys you never seriously considered starting anyway.
If you hit on a wide receiver in the eighth round or grab a gem off the waiver wire in Week 2, your opponent shouldn’t be able to stream a guy just as good. Adding starting roster spots makes your league more skill-based and more exciting.
Implement the Two-Win System
Fantasy football traditionalists scoff at the notion of doing anything other than classic head-to-head. In actuality, there are many different ways to score the game.
I like the excitement of head-to-head, but man, it can be frustrating at times. Anyone who’s played this game long enough has experienced the misery of getting buzzsawed week after week.
For me, the most frustrating type of loss to take is one where I put up the second or third-highest point total of the week and still lose my head-to-head matchup.
Enter the two-win system. In addition to your head-to-head matchup, add a weekly win for finishing inside the top half in scoring. Assuming your regular season runs the usual Weeks (1-14), that means there are 28 potential wins available each season.
Sleeper has this option as a league setting, so it requires nothing other than your commissioner clicking a box when creating your league, and the platform tracks it for you.
Awarding a second win for the top 50% of teams each week allows your league to maintain the excitement that comes with head-to-head matchups while adding an element of fairness in rewarding the teams that score the most points on a given week. So far, only one of my fantasy football leagues has done this, but it’s easily one of the best settings changes I’ve made.
Tiered PPR
I will admit I have not implemented this setting nor advocated for it in any league yet. However, I am intrigued by this relatively new concept.
Let’s start with the obvious: Non-PPR fantasy football is awful. And yes, it is non-PPR, not “standard.” The term “standard” is defined as “used or accepted as normal or average.”
Standard meaning non-PPR stems from a time when it was, in fact, the standard scoring system across fantasy platforms. It has not been that way for several years now, with the default on Yahoo being half-PPR and ESPN being full-PPR.
But regardless of what you call it, having no element of PPR overvalues touchdowns and increases randomness. Opponents of full-PPR will argue that receptions are overvalued.
They will say that a receiver catching two passes for five yards should not be scoring more fantasy points than a running back ripping off a 20-yard rush. As a result, I find half-PPR to be the best compromise, but tiered PPR scoring might be the wave of the future.
In tiered PPR scoring, the amount of points per reception is correlated with the length of the reception. Here is an example of how tiered PPR scoring could work:
- Five-yard reception or shorter: 0 PPR
- 6-10 yards: 0.25 PPR
- 11-15 yards: 0.5 PPR
- 16-20 yards: 0.75 PPR
- 21+ yards: 1.0 PPR
Catching the ball is a skill, and receptions should matter … but only to the extent they actually matter in the NFL. The most efficient running backs in the NFL average five yards per carry. In full-PPR, a catch for no gain is just as valuable as a 10-yard rush. Tiered PPR rewards players for receptions relative to how impactful those receptions actually are.
Auction Drafts
I love me some auctions. My fantasy football league distribution has reached a point where 50% of them now have auction drafts. Year after year, I can’t help but notice my best teams are consistently in leagues with auction drafts. At this point, if I decide to join new leagues, I will only look for auctions. They’re just so much fun!
Why auction drafts? So many reasons. Too many, in fact, to get into in one section of one article. I can (and probably will later in the summer) do a separate article entirely on the benefits of auction drafting.
The primary appeal of auction drafts is the ability of every manager to draft every player. In snake drafts, everyone is pretty much a slave to their draft position. Where you are positioned in your draft dictates what subset of players is available to you.
The moment your commissioner publishes your draft order, you already know there are dozens of players you simply cannot draft. In auction drafts, the entire player pool is open to you. Go get your guys.
Every season is different. But every year, you can bank on there being a portion of a snake draft where you don’t really want to draft any of the players. You think to yourself, “I wish I could just pick twice in the next round.” In auction drafts, you can!
Do you want to forgo the expensive guys altogether and build a roster loaded with Round 3-5 type players? Go for it. Do you want two first-rounders? That’s your call.
We’ve all experienced seasons where we love multiple players with the same ADP, but we can’t draft them all. In an auction draft, you can do just that.
Auction drafts also result in a higher variance in terms of team construction and quality. You ever look down at a draft board and go, “I guess I have to do this?” That doesn’t happen in auction drafts.
The biggest drawback of auction drafting for most people is the duration. An auction draft takes double the time of a snake draft — if not more. But if you love fantasy football, this might be the single best league setting change you can make. What’s another couple of hours in early September for 17 weeks of fun anyway?
Award the Final Playoff Spot to the Highest Scoring Non-Playoff Team
This is a relatively new fantasy football league setting idea that’s been gaining popularity in recent years. The idea is as simple as the heading above suggests: The final playoff spot should go to the highest-scoring team not currently in the playoffs.
To alleviate any confusion, here is how it would play out, assuming your league — like the vast majority of leagues — has six teams make the playoffs. The top two teams (presumably) would get the byes. Then, the team finishing third, fourth, and fifth in the standings get in as normal.
It is that sixth and final seed where this rule comes in. Instead of it going to whoever is in sixth place by record, that final playoff spot would go to whichever team outside the top five scored the most points.
If you’ve been playing fantasy football long enough, you’ve been on both sides of the ledger here. You’ve probably had a season with a bottom-six point total where you made the playoffs, as well as a season with a top-six point total where you missed the playoffs.
This setting ensures that your league will never see the highest-scoring team miss the playoffs. If you somehow finish 5-9 but lead your league in points, you will get into the playoffs over that 7-7 team with a lower point total. Not only does this increase fairness, but it adds excitement over those final couple of weeks as securing that No. 5 seed and dropping a high point total become more important.
None of my leagues have implemented this … yet. However, each time we get a season where a top point scorer misses the playoffs due to bad scheduling luck, something like this comes up. This is also a good alternative if your league doesn’t want to go to a two-win system.
Third-Round Reversal
This is another setting that I’ve yet to have implemented in any of my leagues, but I plan to make a push for it this year.
When it comes to snake drafts, the third round is a bit of an inflection point in the draft. It is the round in which you find the biggest cliff in terms of talent drop-off. Most notably, this occurs at running back.
The running back dead zone typically starts somewhere in the middle of the third round. That means the teams picking toward the back are picking in that dead zone.
But those teams already were disadvantaged by having lower first-round picks. So, the teams at the top get the best players, and they get the safer, more reliable third-round players.
Third-round reversal is exactly as it sounds — the draft flips in Round 3. Assuming a 12-team league, Rounds 1 and 2 proceed as normal. Round 1 goes 1-12. Round 2 snakes back and goes 12-1. Third-round reversal flips the draft in Round 3, with it once again going 12-1, meaning Round 4 would then go 1-12, and so on.
Historically, the earlier you pick, the better your team is likely to be. By reversing the draft in the third round, you allow the teams with the lower draft positions to get the select few third-rounders that go off the board before the cliff. It’s a great way to increase fairness without sacrificing any excitement.
