In a dynasty fantasy football, having the right set of rules can make the difference between a league that lasts for years and one that folds faster than the XFL.
Dynasty fantasy football requires a long-term commitment from everyone involved. Unlike a redraft league, where players can drift in and out and the makeup of a league can look drastically different over the course of several seasons, dynasty fantasy football is meant to keep team owners in place to develop something that resembles a real NFL franchise.
Before entering a dynasty fantasy football league – or converting your re-draft league into a dynasty – it’s best to fully understand the rules and what makes them different. It’s not just week-to-week scoring that will look different, but the entire makeup of rosters and ways you trade and acquire players.
Dynasty Fantasy Football League Setup And Format
The entire structure of a dynasty fantasy football league is meant to reflect a real sports league, with long-term management of your roster and players. While dynasty leagues share some key aspects with redraft leagues, there are also some big differences.
Pay is one of them. While the buy-in for redraft fantasy football leagues can range from free to $100 or more, dynasty league rules usually require a bigger financial commitment. Because dynasty leagues require year-round attention, players need a higher stake. Fantasy Football Players Championship, a popular site for hosting dynasty leagues, starts leagues at $100 with some going as high as $5,000.
The number of teams in a dynasty league will look different as well. Redraft leagues fit all sizes, with as few as eight players and as many as 14. Dynasty leagues don’t stretch out quite so neatly.
If there are too few owners, rosters get too stacked. Having too many players increases the possibility that things can go sideways or players drop out. So most dynasty leagues stay right in the sweet spot – 12 teams.
Dynasty leagues may also introduce more rules to keep players involved and interested, from requirements to field a competitive roster (no tanking for higher draft picks allowed, as this can ruin the competitiveness of a league) to a variety of side payouts that spread the wealth.
One of the more popular rule tweaks in dynasty fantasy football is what fantasy guru Matthew Berry called the two-win system. In most traditional fantasy leagues, there is a head-to-head matchup each week and the person who scores the most points is awarded a win. Simple and straightforward, though not always terribly fair.
In Berry’s system, there are two types of wins awarded every week – one for winning the matchup, and one for scoring in the top half of the league. This eliminates the frustration of earning the second-highest score of the week but leaving empty-handed because you were stuck playing the team that scored the highest.
Because dynasty fantasy football is designed to reward players who carefully build their roster and eliminate as much dumb luck as possible, the two-win system is a popular addition to the rules and a great equalizer.
More Drafts, More Players
The draft is probably the biggest difference in dynasty leagues. In a redraft league, you’ll likely meet once sometime around Labor Day and put together a roster of about 10 players that you stick with for the entire season. Your roster might go as deep as 15 players.
In dynasty fantasy, that number is doubled – at least. Because dynasty leagues are meant to last for years, the young and developing players who would linger on the waiver wire in a redraft league instead find their way onto rosters.
Fantasy football expert Jeff Haverlack wrote for The Athletic that dynasty rosters should number in the dozens.
“If the goal of your league is to allow GMs to build deep teams, increase trading and provide a GM-like experience, consider allowing deeper rosters,” Haverlack wrote. “My belief has always been that dynasty leagues should provide for no less than 300 rostered players. That’s 25 players per team in a 12-team league. Any less and the waiver wire may be talent rich, reducing potential trading. For myself, the more the better.”
There are also two separate drafts in a dynasty league. The startup draft happens only once, at the very start of a new league, and allows players to build out that deep roster that Haverlack suggested. This first draft will include all players in the NFL, veterans and rookies (more on rookies a little later). There are a lot of different rules on how this draft can take place, but it can look a lot different from a redraft league and sometimes take place over the course of several days.
After the startup draft is completed, the league will hold another annual rookie draft where owners can add incoming players to their rosters.
Kick Out The Kickers
The rosters look very different in a dynasty fantasy football league as well. To start, these leagues usually eliminate the two most boring positions – kicker and team defense/special teams.
Kickers are often a reflection of their team’s strategy, and even in redraft leagues you can find success in picking up a different one off the waiver wire every week. Team defenses also don’t work in a dynasty league when the point is to develop a team for the long run and NFL defenses can look a lot different from year to year.
Instead, many leagues include an individual defensive player instead of a team defense.
Because there is no standard format for IDP leagues, scoring systems can look different from league to league, but the basics remain the same. Player scores are compiled using the most common defensive statistics – tackles, interceptions, safeties, forced fumbles, fumble recoveries, blocked kicks and touchdowns. Some leagues go a bit deeper, giving more points for a solo tackle versus an assisted one.
Because of the deeper rosters, many dynasty fantasy football leagues include taxi squads. This is essentially the same as a practice squad in the NFL – a place to stash players outside of your roster during their first few years in the league while they develop and eventually graduate into bigger roles.
Year-Round Roster Management
Because a dynasty fantasy football roster remains the same from year to year, there are some much more specific rules regarding roster management. Instead of drafting a team in late August or early September and riding it out for one season, then starting over and doing it all again next year, you keep the same roster in place and make changes mostly through offseason moves.
Dynasty leagues have their own form of free agency, with teams getting what is known as a Free Agent Acquisition Budget or FAAB. This is an imaginary pool of money that each player uses to bid on free agents. This is seen as a more fair system than using waivers based on league standings.
Roster management can get even more complicated, with some leagues implementing player contracts and salary caps with values tied to their draft position. This is especially popular in leagues where players are more invested, as it takes a lot more attention and offseason management.
Range of Rules for Dynasty Fantasy Football
The basics of dynasty fantasy football are very similar to redraft or other variations, so transitioning to a dynasty league won’t be a drastic difference for most players.
But scratch under the surface and you’ll find a lot more depth in dynasty leagues, with rules that can be a lot stricter. If a player has a hard time adhering to the rules of a regular redraft league or loses interest, you can just boot them out and find someone new to take their place next year.
This would be a death sentence for many dynasty leagues, which is why a more intricate system of rules is needed to keep the league flowing from year to year.
