Knowing your league rules is crucial to fantasy success. There are many league rules, roster builds, and scoring settings that completely change the value of players and how you should perceive them. All of these different settings are important to keep in mind when ranking your players, coming up with a draft strategy, and dominating your league all season long. We will cover some of the bigger factors, but it is important to look over each and every setting of your league to give yourself the best chance of success. Fantasy Football is not something that you want to play with your eyes closed (literally or figuratively).
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PPR / No PPR
This is one of the biggest keys in fantasy football. Some players are much better targets for a PPR league, but lose a lot of value in non PPR, and vice versa. Let’s look at an example.
Player A: 98 receptions, 1106 yards, 3 touchdowns
Player B: 69 receptions, 1059 yards, 7 touchdowns
In a PPR league Player A (Julian Edelman) outscores Player B (Tyrell Williams) despite four less touchdowns in 2016. Edelman is a guy who year-to-year gains a lot of value in PPR formats with high reception totals. Now let’s take a look at value gainers and losers in the PPR format.
*This is not a list of the top reception leaders. All of the WR PPR value gainers had 7 touchdowns or less in 2016.
| PPR value gained WRs | PPR value lost WRs | |||||||
| Rec | Yards | Tds | Rec | Yards | Tds | |||
| Larry Fitzgerald | 107 | 1023 | 6 | Tyrell Williams | 69 | 1059 | 7 | |
| Julian Edelman | 98 | 1106 | 3 | Kenny Britt | 68 | 1002 | 5 | |
| Doug Baldwin | 94 | 1128 | 7 | Rishard Matthews | 65 | 945 | 9 | |
| Jarvis Landry | 94 | 1136 | 4 | Kelvin Benjamin | 63 | 941 | 7 | |
| T.Y. Hilton | 91 | 1448 | 6 | DeSean Jackson | 56 | 1005 | 4 | |
| Golden Tate | 91 | 1077 | 4 | Marvin Jones | 55 | 930 | 4 | |
| Demaryius Thomas | 90 | 1083 | 5 | Ted Ginn | 54 | 752 | 4 | |
| Stefon Diggs | 84 | 903 | 3 | Kenny Stills | 42 | 726 | 9 | |
| Amari Cooper | 83 | 1153 | 5 | Chris Hogan | 38 | 680 | 4 | |
| Pierre Garcon | 79 | 1041 | 3 | J.J. Nelson | 34 | 568 | 6 |
We can take the same look into RBs who gained or lost value in PPR formats in 2016.
| PPR value gained RBs | PPR value lost RBs | |||||||
| Rec | Total Yards | Total Tds | Rec | Total Yards | Total Tds | |||
| David Johnson | 80 | 2118 | 20 | Jordan Howard | 29 | 1611 | 7 | |
| Le'Veon Bell | 75 | 1884 | 9 | Jay Ajayi | 27 | 1423 | 8 | |
| James White | 60 | 771 | 5 | Carlos Hyde | 27 | 1151 | 9 | |
| Bilal Powell | 58 | 1110 | 5 | Jeremy Hill | 21 | 1013 | 9 | |
| Devonta Freeman | 54 | 1541 | 13 | Ryan Mathews | 13 | 776 | 9 | |
| Duke Johnson | 53 | 872 | 1 | Robert Kelley | 12 | 786 | 7 | |
| Theo Riddick | 53 | 728 | 6 | Mike Gillislee | 9 | 627 | 9 | |
| Darren Sproles | 52 | 865 | 4 | Jonathan Stewart | 8 | 884 | 9 | |
| T.J. Yeldon | 50 | 777 | 2 | LeGarrette Blount | 7 | 1199 | 18 | |
| LeSean McCoy | 50 | 1623 | 14 | Wendell Smallwood | 6 | 367 | 1 |
Waiver Rules
When do players go on waivers? On Sunday at the start of the first game? First game of the week on Thursday? Never? This is important to know, in some leagues that feature no waiver rule, you have to watch each game carefully and be ready to pounce on any potential breakout free agent. For the leagues that do utilize the waiver rule, you need to know what time they hit waivers and for how long they last on waivers. It is also important to know who gets priority over the players on the waiver wire. Be sure to check your league settings to know it is a continual rolling list, if a FAAB system is used, or if priority is based on standings. Knowing your waiver rules can help you avoid missing out on potential big additions to your roster. Almost every fantasy champion has made at least one key free agent pick up throughout the season to help lead them to victory.
Roster Positions
Roster positions can alter the way both you and your fellow league members draft. For example in a 14-team league with two starting RBs and one starting QB, there would likely be more emphasis and priority placed on RBs early in the draft to avoid getting stuck with back end players in your starting lineup. However, if you take the same league and make it two starting RBs and two starting QBs the draft strategies could completely change. Managers would likely attempt to avoid having two backend QBs in their lineup. It is important to keep your roster positions in mind when developing your draft strategy, to avoid being weak in certain areas.
Bonuses
Scoring bonuses can be a big factor in fantasy football, and can have an effect on the value of players. Most leagues that utilize bonuses use the 100 yard mark for receiving and rushing, while using 300 yards for passing. For RBs you will normally see your top backs with the most 100 yard rushing games, so there isn’t much change in their value here. For WRs some of your more explosive speed guys will pile up the 100 yard games. Guys that have the ability to reel off 40+ yard plays can easily amass 100 yards any given week. QB is the position where you will see the biggest differences in value, as guys who gain a lot of value through their legs fail to amass 300 yard passing games as often. Cam Newton (3), Russell Wilson (3), Dak Prescott (2), Tyrod Taylor (1), and Marcus Mariota (1) all see a slight decrease in value in leagues that utilize the 300 yard bonus. The players with the most scoring bonuses in 2016..
| WR/TE 100 yard receiving games | RB 100 yard rushing games | QB 300 yard passing games | |||||
| # of games | # of games | # of games | |||||
| Julio Jones | 7 | Jordan Howard | 7 | Drew Brees | 10 | ||
| Travis Kelce | 6 | LeSean McCoy | 7 | Kirk Cousins | 7 | ||
| T.Y. Hilton | 6 | Ezekiel Elliott | 7 | Carson Palmer | 6 | ||
| DeSean Jackson | 5 | Le'Veon Bell | 6 | Aaron Rodgers | 6 | ||
| Jordy Nelson | 5 | DeMarco Murray | 5 | Matt Ryan | 6 | ||
| Mike Evans | 4 | Jay Ajayi | 4 | Philip Rivers | 6 | ||
| A.J. Green | 4 | Isaiah Crowell | 4 | Tom Brady | 5 | ||
| Amari Cooper | 4 | David Johnson | 4 | Andrew Luck | 5 | ||
| Davante Adams | 4 | LeGarrette Blount | 4 | Blake Bortles | 5 | ||
| Antonio Brown | 4 | Lamar Miller | 4 | 8 tied with | 4 | ||
| Odell Beckham Jr. | 4 | Mark Ingram | 3 | ||||
| Jarvis Landry | 4 | Melvin Gordon | 3 | ||||
| Cameron Meredith | 4 | ||||||
IDP Leagues
Having to use additional players and positions requires owners in an IDP league to do a lot more research. Determining which defensive players are the best to draft and in what rounds can make a big difference on how your team will turn out.
This league type will further be covered in depth by Ivar G. Anderson, which is due to be released on July 31.