You're a thoughtful, innovative league commissioner. And you want to create a league constitution (set of rules) that will keep your leaguemates interested and engaged throughout the entire fantasy season. Here are a few ideas to keep everyone's competitive fires burning.

1. Adopt Creative Scoring Rules

Let's be honest. Fantasy football team owners are looking for ways to gain a competitive edge over their leaguemates. So, reward owners who properly assess the impact of unusual scoring settings. Consider instituting some of the following scoring rules to get the wheels turning.

Tiered Points Per Reception (PPR) - Give 1.5 PPR to tight ends, 1.0 PPR to wide receivers, and 0.5 PPR to running backs. Show some love for the position that is frequently assigned blocking duties and rarely gets a carry. Heck, really pump up tight-end value by requiring two in your starting lineups. 

Return Yards - The NFL is tinkering with its kickoff rules again, purportedly "to make kickoffs more exciting while keeping player safety a priority." This is expected to lead to even more kickoff returns in 2025. Assign a fantasy point value to return yardage (for example, .04 points per kickoff return yard and .08 points per punt return yard) to incentivize your leaguemates to dig deeply into NFL rosters to identify the players most likely to return kicks and punts. Or, just follow our Adam Harstad as he updates his returner projections.

Kicker Points - Three points for a field goal, and one for an extra point. Boring. It's so uninteresting that many commissioners don't even bother with kickers anymore. 

But what if you wanted to make kickers great again? Devise a scoring system that rewards distance and accuracy and differentiates the top kickers from the mediocre. For example, award 0.12 fantasy points (FPs) per yard of a successful kick (field goal or extra point). Penalize missed kicks 0.12 FPs for each yard shorter than 50 yards than the failed attempt. Have no penalty for missing a kick longer than 50 yards, nor any bonus penalty for having a kick blocked. 

Using this scoring system, the productivity range for a starter kicker will be roughly 11 to 17 average FPs/game, a reasonable spread (in the range of low-RB2 to mid-RB3) that might cause several of the top projected kickers to get drafted well before the last round.

2. Reward All-Play Records

Have you ever been in a league where an owner just gives up? Disengages because they are out of the playoff hunt? Sure, it gives that owner's opponents a tactical advantage in the race to the playoffs, but it sours the overall league vibe. It takes the edge off the fun factor.

If you're looking for ways to encourage owners to submit their best lineups every week, consider establishing an All-Play Prize Pool that accumulates each week of the fantasy season.

What is "All-Play"? It's where every team theoretically plays every other team each week. In a 12-team league, for example, each team plays against the other eleven teams every week, accumulating the associated wins and losses. Each week, the top-scoring team in the league will have an 11-0 record, and the lowest-scoring team will have a 0-11 record.

Over the course of a 17-week season, each team will be involved in 187 total all-play games (11 games each week x 17 weeks). Each team's total number of wins divided by 187 becomes its all-play win percentage.

Every owner in the league earns a share of the All-Play Prize Pool based on their all-play win percentage. Even the worst team in the league will receive a rebate or credit towards the following year's league fees.

As commissioner, you get to determine how much of the league fee is allocated to the All-Play Prize Pool.

All-play records can also be important when setting up your playoff schedule, especially if you aspire to have the strongest teams compete for the championship trophy.

It is your responsibility to define how playoff teams will be determined and seeded. An appealing hybrid approach is to have every division winner participate in the playoffs, then fill in the remainder of the playoff spots with the teams sporting the highest all-play win percentages (regardless of division affiliation). This preserves intra-divisional rivalries, honors teams with the most consistent strength throughout the regular season, and gives hope to owners who find themselves in strong divisions.

3. Offer Contests

Why not load up your league with multiple ways to become a winner? Common contests include Survivor, NFL Pick'em, and Fantasy Pick'em. But let's look at some less common ways to keep owners submitting starting lineups every week of the season, even if their fantasy teams aren't competitive.

Set aside a prize for the Season-High Game. Even a non-playoff team might spike a top score during the playoffs.

Conduct a separate post-season tournament for the teams that didn't make the semi-finals. Give a prize to the team with the highest cumulative score during the playoffs.

4. Treat Future Draft Picks as Players

Whaaaat? You mean I can't tank to get a better draft position next year in my dynasty league? And I'm not guaranteed any rookie draft picks next season? Plus, I have to use up roster spots for assets that won't earn me any fantasy points this year?

Exactly. It's a devilishly delicious concept that puts roster management skills of dynasty owners to the test.

Consider implementing Future Draft Picks, or FDPs. An FDP is a custom-defined player representing a specific draft pick (round and pick number) in a designated season. The player name might be something like "2026, Pick 2.05". These custom players are treated exactly like other players in that they occupy roster spots and can be drafted, traded, dropped, or added via waivers. However, given that they are commodities with no capability to earn fantasy points, it makes no sense to put them in a starting lineup.

"How can I acquire some of those custom players?" one might ask.

It all starts with the league start-up draft. As commissioner, you are responsible for establishing the start-up draft order. This can be a wild and crazy event (ideas here) or the simple use of an online randomizer such as Draftordergenerator. 

Then comes a twist. When owners are on the clock to make a pick, they get to choose either a named veteran player (not rookies - yet), a custom player (FDP) from the current year, or an FDP for next season's rookie/free agent draft.

At the conclusion of the start-up draft, each owner will have acquired draft pick assets for both the current year and the following year.

You can see an example of a 12-team 38-round start-up draft here. 

Then, the annual rookie/free agent draft cycle begins. To prepare, convert the FDPs for the current season into specific draft picks. Add NFL rookies to the draft pool. Define a full set of FDPs for the season after next and add them to the draft pool.

When owners are on the clock to make a pick, they choose either a named player (rookie or unrostered veteran), an unclaimed custom player (FDP) for next season, or an FDP for the season after that.

Following the annual rookie/free agent draft, each owner will have acquired rookies and draft pick assets for the next two seasons. The free agent pool will contain unclaimed players and FDPs.

View an example of initial annual rookie/free agent draft results at this link, beginning at Round 39.

To implement the Future Draft Pick concept, you'll need to select a league host (e.g., MyFantasyLeague) that supports custom players.

By providing your leaguemates the option to load up on specific draft picks vs. veteran players, you give them the opportunity to target strong draft classes and premium picks.

Since draft order is not determined by the previous season's position of finish, your owners have no incentive to tank during the season. And since owners are invested in your league two years into the future, you have a lower probability of owner turnover.

5. Change Your Head-to-Head Schedule Every Year

While retaining division alignment season to season encourages the development of intra-divisional rivalries, you may wish to change the head-to-head schedule each year to keep things fresh. Use the fantasy schedule generator tool provided by your dynasty league host or this one from Footballguys. 

Conclusion

There is nothing finer in a commissioner's world than having a full set of enthusiastic, appreciative owners wanting to come back year after year. By incorporating innovative rules into your league constitution to encourage owner participation, you'll set the framework for a smooth, rewarding commissioner experience.