We've reached the point of the fantasy football offseason where commissioners are slowly exiting hibernation and entering logistical planning mode for their 2025 leagues.

Can it be a stressful endeavor? Sure, but that's where we come in.

I've gathered some good friends—Kendall Valenzuela, Ian Hartitz, and Pete Overzet—to highlight our favorite league settings and rules to spice up your fantasy football leagues for 2025.

Once you integrate all of these changes (yes, I'm assuming you will do all of them, because you love us, right? right??), the only thing left to do is sign up for the free Fantasy Life Newsletter. Nothing else will deliver higher-quality fantasy football content directly to your inbox, for free, every day.

Now, let's dive in!

13 Ways To Make Your Fantasy Football League Even Better

1. Trash Talk Etiquette

Cooterdoodle: This may not technically be a “rule”, but it’s the most important rule in my book. So listen up.

How it works: 

• If you’re going to dish it, you have to be able to take it. Don’t get sour and pout when someone throws a punch back at you. If you diss a leaguemate, you better have tough enough skin to handle the comeback.
   
• If you’re going to talk trash when you’re winning, don’t ghost the chat and hide when you’re losing. No one wants to hear you bragging about a win if you’re only going to engage with the group once the games have already concluded. You didn’t earn the right to talk sh*t after hiding all week. Meet us in the trenches! Talk in the group chat when the matchup is still undecided and when your back is against the ropes!

2. 1-Keeper Leagues

Cooterdoodle: While everyone is arguing over dynasty and redraft formats, I’ve found the perfect middle ground. Keeper leagues give you a taste of “planning for future seasons” without the overwhelming longevity that comes with running a dynasty roster like a goddamn emperor.

How it works: Each team can elect to “keep” one player from their previous season’s roster. However, this is not a free transaction. Players that are kept will cost the manager a draft pick equal to their previous year’s draft result. So if you drafted Ladd McConkey in Round 6 last year, he would cost you your Round 6 pick this year. If someone was undrafted and acquired off of waivers (ex., rookie-year Puka Nacua), they are kept as a last-round pick. So yes, your keeper choices involve strategy based upon the value baked into their previous season’s ADP.

My home league opts to throw kept players back into the drafting pool after one year. In other words, a player cannot be kept by any manager in two consecutive seasons. Player A was a keeper last year? No one can keep them this year.

You’ll need to consider keeper availability in your trades, too. So take good notes …

3. Punishment Enforcement

Cooterdoodle: This has nothing to do with specific league punishments. Your league needs rules guiding your punishments to ensure follow-through, aka deadlines and consequences. 

How it works: It’s simple. There needs to be a consequence for any loser who doesn’t complete their punishment prior to next year’s draft. Don’t want to fulfill your punishment? You’re out of the league. Thems the rules!

4. IR spot

Cooterdoodle: Fantasy football is supposed to mirror the NFL as much as possible, right? Well, they have methods for handling injuries and roster limits. We should, too!

How it works: Depending on your drafting site, you should hopefully have the ability to add an IR spot to your rosters. Similar to bench spots, this is a roster placeholder for a player who has been placed on the NFL’s Injured Reserve. It will free up a bench spot for you to pick up an additional player from waivers while waiting for your IR player to recover IRL (”in real life”, for the boomers). 

5. No F*cking Vetos

Cooterdoodle: Plain and simple. You heard me. 

How it works: If it’s not cheating/collusion, let it ride. 

We are not going to complain about a trade that you disagree with to conjure up votes to veto. Sorry. No. Players are valued differently depending on roster and personal preference. 

One more time for those who need it: If it’s not cheating/collusion, LET IT RIDE!

6. Make It Superflex!

Kendall: Listen, this might be a boring answer, but it truly is the best way to play. Superflex not only allows your league to shake up your draft from standard leagues, but it also gives you more scoring and better week-to-week results!

One quarterback is BORING. Let's add a second quarterback and shake things up. For example, the superflex spot in ESPN leagues is listed as "OP" (offensive player), so technically you can put a wide receiver, tight end, or running back in this spot, but traditionally (if you want to win) it should be a quarterback.

This format also changes how you draft. Go ahead and punt at the quarterback position if you dare—good luck winning your league stuck with Trevor Lawrence and Sam Darnold as your only QBs. In this format, quarterbacks are coveted, and since you play two at a time, you'll need to walk away with two solid options and a third for the bye weeks.

Study the best quarterbacks and shame your leaguemate who walks away with Aaron Rodgers, it's only right.

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7. Compete for Draft Order

Kendall: If you're one of the lucky ones who gets to do an in-person draft each year, why not shake things up and not only randomize your draft order, but compete for the right to have the best spot?!

I've started to see more and more leagues do things like a draft combine, beer pong tournament, or just getting a celebrity to randomly assign your draft order, and it feels like you can never go back. 

Oh, you want the coveted 1.01 spot in your league? You'd better run the fastest 40-yard dash that your leaguemates have ever seen. Gone are the days of just showing up; we need to earn it!

You're already crushing it by drafting in person, now let's take it to the next level.

8. Allow Ample Time for Rule Changes

Kendall: Now it's time for a more serious conversation. Rule changes from year to year are expected, and if you're the commissioner of a league, you should allow everyone time to review the rules from the previous seasons and give their thoughts. 

I like to send out forms at either the end of each season or a few months before we begin the upcoming season to see where everyone sits with rules and formats.

BUT, if you're in a league and decide to complain mid-season about the rules, then you deserve all the trash talk and ridicule that comes your way.

You had MONTHS to bring up any rules you did not agree with, and now you're asking why the defensive scoring is set up the way that it is, because it made you lose your Week 12 matchup? BYE. Complain to your mother, because you're not getting any sympathy from us. Communication is key, just make sure to do it before or after the season.

9. Add More Starting Lineup Spots, Fewer Bench Spots

Pete: My favorite leagues allow me to start a majority of the players on my team. This accomplishes a few different things. One, it rewards the more skilled drafters. When the starting lineups are shallow, there is more luck and randomness involved, as most teams in the league will have strong starting lineups. But the more players you are forced to start, the more skill is required in drafting well and working the waiver wire.

Speaking of the waiver wire, reducing the number of bench spots forces everyone in the league to make tough decisions each week and keeps the waiver wire fresh, with teams constantly churning for immediate production and covering bye weeks. It's no fun when the waiver wire is completely picked over and all the sleepers are stashed on everyone's deep benches. Implement these two subtle tweaks and watch the action start flying.

10. Don't Let Leaguemates Name Their Teams Your Name

Pete: Now I realize this is a very niche thing to consider, but I speak from personal experience:

You might think that my team name in this dynasty league is 'Peter Overzet', but you'd be wrong. I'm 'LZRSWNDLR.' You see, this individual thought it would be funny to name his team my legal name. This has resulted in me getting blamed for his crappy trade offers and lots of other confusion.

It has been going on for over half a decade now, but unfortunately, there was nothing in the bylaws that explicitly says this isn't allowed. Learn from my mistakes.

11. Draft Live Together

Pete: Life is short, and fantasy football is one of the last great excuses we have to congregate with friends. Make it an annual tradition. Take over a bar. Rent a cool Airbnb. It doesn't matter, just do the draft IRL.

All of my favorite fantasy football experiences involve a live draft. I've never remembered a single team I've drafted on my computer. You might not be able to pull it off for this year, so start planning for next.

12. Ban Kickers. But If You Insist…

Ian: Not only should kickers not exist in fantasy, but they should also be removed from real-life football as well. Just listen to Larry David.

Alas, the NFL seems unlikely to ban the presence of kickers before the 2025 season, so at a minimum you should get rid of them in your fantasy league … or at least tone down their points: They are kicking a f*cking ball that is worth three points in real life–why are leagues rewarding four or god forbid FIVE fantasy points for 50-plus yard field goals?

Still not convinced? Think I'm just a hater? Need some data? I put together this chart showing conversion percentage and total 50-plus yard field goals made by season to hopefully put a stop to this madness once and for all:

See that? Last year, 50-plus-yard field goals were attempted over three times as often as when these silly rules were likely implemented in the early 2000s, and the conversion rate has never been higher. This now represents more kicker research than I've done in 10 years as a full-time fantasy analyst.

You know how the government fantasy websites started giving a full point per reception in an attempt to help better reflect what was happening on the field? And how passing TDs generally went from five points to four? It's time: End the madness, award kickers three points per field goal regardless of how far it is kicked (sucks to suck Brandon Aubrey diehards).

13. Force Everyone To Actually Name Their Team And Add A Unique Avatar

Ian: With all due respect to Yahoo and ESPN's generic Backyard Baseball-esque "Ian's Amazing Team" nonsense: Take some damn pride in your squad and make a real team name! And then be creative for one second of your life and add a non-stock image as the avatar; the least we can do as a society is take advantage of the cool instant-photoshop features of AI before robots take over the planet.

League-wide enforcement of every manager implementing a team name and custom image will bring several benefits:

1. More buy-in. You named this squad. You took precious seconds out of your day to make a Rated-R avatar that you'll need to crop out of future screenshots. Now that's investment.
    
2. The potential for a midseason rally and/or controversy. You'll at least be familiar with the names of every team in your league after a few weeks, so the Group Chat is guaranteed to feel some type of way upon realizing someone had the audacity to change their squad's name midway through the season. Perhaps an attempt to spark an underperforming squad? Or pure cowardice? Chaos, baby. Chaos.
    
3. Hilarious fantasy God karma if a manager ever cuts or benches their team's namesake. I've heard that childbirth is the most painful experience that a human can go through, but losing a fantasy matchup because you benched Malik Nabers after naming your fantasy team 'Nabers think I'm selling dope' has got to be a close second.

Seriously: It takes 30 seconds to research a cool article about fantasy team names and probably even less time to ask Grok or ChatGPT for a wonky image. Be better!

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