Fantasy Football Rules Intro

Going beyond scoring settings and trade deadlines fantasy football rules get complicated fast and there is no one right way to play. What works well for one league might be terrible for another. Coming up with a set of rules or league constitution is a big task but Fantasy Flood is here to help! Check out the 10 Commandments of Fantasy Football for a simple solution. Our standard rules can be used directly for redraft and can be edited for more complex leagues. If you want do it yourself there are also suggestions on what to consider when writing your own rules.

Commissioner Considerations

Choose a League Host

This is an important decision regardless, but mentioned here because your hosting platform can affect scoring settings, types of trades, commissioner tools, enforcement, etc.

Decide on a Format

Redraft, Keeper, Dynasty or Best Ball. Configure your leagues scoring and other settings. If something exists within the fantasy football platform, like scoring, trade deadlines, etc. refer your users there. Too many times we’ve seen written rules on scoring slightly out of step with platform settings leading to drama.

Determine Buy In, Payout and Fantasy Bank

You can play fantasy football just for fun, but most put some money on the line to make it more interesting. Decide buy in, prize payouts and where buy ins are kept until payout unambiguously.

Tanking and How to Handle It

Hard tanking is where an owner intentionally loses games for a more favorable draft position, or a more favorable playoff matchup. In soft tanking an out of contention player neglects or sets an intentionally bad roster to “troll” the league in some way. Hard tanking is a completely viable and above board strategy, unless you create a rule against it. Soft tanking is being a poor league mate. Regardless, both types will come up if you don’t have a rule to address them.

How Much Democracy

Some leagues put almost everything to a vote, others the commissioner has ultimate say on everything. The most efficient leagues are typically those that put the most important decisions to a vote while allowing a commissioner invested in the longevity of league a great deal of latitude to make decisions.

Determine Team Succession

For multi-year formats like keeper and dynasty you must have a clear and known plan for replacing managers who leave. Even for redraft, you want to know what you’ll do if someone quits mid-year.

Decide on Penalties

It’s one thing to say something is against the rules, you also need to have a consequence when a rule is broken. For a fun and more relaxed atmosphere give second chances and don’t heavily penalize honest mistakes (especially the first time).