Beginner's Guide to Fantasy Football, Part 2: League Types

Links to other parts of this series:

First thing's first: what kind of league are you in? Fantasy football is highly customizable, so it's possible to participate in any kind of league really. There are a few standard flavors, though, and it is helpful to understand what they are and to which you belong first. Let's take a look at some of those league types.

Traditional Redraft League (Head-to-Head)

The original league format, a head-to-head redraft league, involves weekly matchups between league owners building toward a fantasy postseason and an eventual championship match. The term redraft means that the league drafts entirely new teams every season. It encapsulates any league that drafts entirely new rosters. Traditional drafts are serpentine -- a draft order is generated or predetermined, fantasy owners take players in the first round in that order, then reverse that order for the second round. They continue alternating the order until the draft ends.

Typically each fantasy team in a head-to-head league will play against most -- if not all -- other fantasy teams twice throughout the season. The end of the fantasy regular season typically falls on Week 13 through 15 in the NFL’s regular season, depending on the league’s settings. At that point, the teams with the best records will compete in the league’s playoffs, culminating in a championship game during Week 16 or 17 of the NFL’s regular season. Team 2 was crushed in the above example,

Traditional Redraft League (Total Points)

An alternative to head-to-head, a total points league involves accumulating the most points throughout the season. There are no matchups in the fantasy league. Rather, owners attempt to maximize their point totals every week. This bears some similarity to rotisserie baseball leagues, where fantasy owners accumulate points based on certain statistical categories instead of head-to-head matchups. The following is an example of a season-long total points league with Team 10 winning it all by just 26 points.

The popularity of total points leagues, in general, has waned over the years, with one notable exception...

Redraft League (Best Ball)

Bucking the total points league trend, best-ball leagues have exploded in popularity in recent years. These leagues largely operate like total points leagues to determine league standings -- teams accumulate points on a weekly or season-long basis to determine winners. Some best ball leagues operate by pitting teams head-to-head every week.

The difference in best-ball leagues is that fantasy owners aren’t required to set lineups or otherwise manage their rosters. The league draft is the only way to put players on a fantasy team owner’s roster. Usually, this means that each roster is much deeper than traditional leagues -- instead of 16-18 players, fantasy owners will typically draft 20-28 players. These leagues require deep dives into NFL rosters, given how many players are needed to fill out the league.

Best ball leagues require a deeper knowledge of NFL rosters because of the size of the fantasy rosters. Once you get into the 20th round and beyond, you are drafting NFL non-starters, perhaps players that are even fourth or fifth on their team's depth charts. Fantasy owners must account for bye weeks and injuries during the draft because there is no in-season management -- you cannot pick up your injured running back's replacement like you normally would, for example.

There are many flavors to best-ball leagues. Some do incorporate head-to-head mechanics, and there are many ways to customize them. By and large, though, best-ball leagues operate as total points leagues without the hassle of in-season management.

Auction Draft League

An alternative to the serpentine draft, auctions utilize a bidding-style draft to populate fantasy team rosters. The draft order is generated, but this only serves to nominate players for fantasy team owners to bid their money on.

Each fantasy team is allotted the same amount of money at the beginning of the draft, usually $100-$200. Unlike traditional snake drafts -- where teams draft in a pre-determined order in every round -- every player is available to every fantasy team, provided that team has enough money to bid. This eliminates bad beats -- you no longer need to lament being unable to pick the top running back in the league because you draft 11th. But you had better be prepared to pony up big bucks. Here is an example of the first several nominated players and their ultimate price in an auction draft:

You can find more in-depth information on auction drafting and strategies in our annual auction draft guide.

Keeper Leagues

We are starting to go beyond standard season-long leagues. Keeper leagues operate just like season-long formats -- whether they be head-to-head or total points -- and they involve a draft. But each team is allowed to keep a certain number of players on their roster. Usually, those keepers come with a cost in draft picks. Here is an example of a five-player keeper league with the players being kept in bold:

Dynasty Leagues

Dynasty leagues take the keeper concept and turn it into full-blown franchise mode. At its inception, a dynasty league will hold a large draft. Each fantasy franchise will get to keep most or all of the players it drafted henceforth, barring trades or dropping them, of course. After the inaugural season and thereafter, the league holds annual rookie drafts to add that season's rookies to the mix. Usually, rookie draft orders are determined by the previous season's results -- the champion picks last, the last-place team picks first, and so on. Picks can usually be traded, and teams need to make room on their roster for incoming players.

Like NFL franchises, teams in dynasty leagues require year-round attention. Any bit of offseason news can have consequences for your roster, and it behooves fantasy owners to have a deep understanding of free agency and the NFL draft. They aren't for the faint of heart, but dynasty leagues can be entertaining and engaging.

Survivor Leagues

One quirky league type is the survivor league. Like the television show Survivor, each week sees the lowest-scoring team eliminated from contention. Typically this is a larger league because the NFL season is 18 weeks long. Generally, these leagues do not allow for a waiver wire or free agency, so it is truly a battle of attrition.

Guillotine League

Morbid names aside, the guillotine league is a relatively new variant on the survivor league model. And we won't have to worry about this one getting pruned.

Like its cousin, the guillotine league drops the lowest-scoring squad from contention each week. However, the big difference is that the dropped team's players all get dumped into the waiver wire pool for the rest of the league to fight over.