It's only natural for most fantasy football commissioners to think their league is as good as it's going to get. It's not in most people's nature to accept when they're flawed, or for that matter when any characteristic of theirs needs significant improvement.
But, let's face it, most leagues could use a little somethin'-somethin'. A facelift, maybe. A pick-me-up. A quick little audible. Whatever you want to call it, you know it when there's something amiss in your league.
Don't ignore it. Deal with it!
Another sentiment that's difficult for many to embrace: change can be a good thing! Fantasy football has been around for decades, and little tweaks and rules along that long journey have made for a much more enjoyable ride each year.
DOMINATE YOUR DRAFT: 2025 Fantasy Football Draft Kit
And, guess what? New, fun, worthwhile rules are still available to your league — rules that will make things even more satisfying if you just give them a try.
Let's take a look at the five fun fantasy rules that your league should consider adopting in 2025, and then briefly explain how each one will improve your overall fantasy football experience.
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Fun Fantasy Football Rules: 5 ways to improve your league
1. Median Scoring
Median scoring has been around for many years now, so don't be like the archaic commissioners who slept on decimal scoring for far too long. It's not quite as much a no-brainer as decimal scoring, but let's just say it's a pretty big no-brainer.
Here's how median scoring works:
- Every week, in addition to a set opponent from your league, you also go up against the entire league.
- Beat your opponent and you get a win.
- Finish in the top-half of the league's scorers that week and you get a win.
- Lose to your opponent, and you get an L.
- Finish with a score below the league average that week, and you get an L.
- It's possible to beat your opponent but still come away with an L if you won with a low score.
- It's also possible to lose to your opponent but still come away with a W if you had a high-scoring week but drew a higher-scoring opponent.
Here's the whole reason why league median scoring is awesome: It saves the poor suckers who always seem to get screwed by unlucky schedule breaks.
It rewards scoring just as much as it rewards winning matchups. It takes a lot of the luck out of the game and more fairly represents the actual class of the league. And, most importantly, it prevents undeserving teams from making the playoffs.
In the longtime hometown league run by yours truly, we call it the "Bob Rodrigues Rule" because our friend Bob has finished as one of the top three highest-scoring teams in our league and yet failed to make the playoffs multiple times.
That's because — before we enacted the rule — poor Bob lost a ton of games by mere points. Sometimes, it was by mere decimal points.
After we enacted league median scoring, Bob finally won a title in my league. How fun! We might have lost him if not for this delightful little wrinkle.
The bottom line: median scoring adds an extra level of competition, it increases league-wide engagement, and it provides a fairer outcome because it reduces the sting of bad luck. How could you not want all those things!?
Try it — you'll love it.
FANTASY FOOTBALL PPR RANKINGS 2025:
QB | RB | WR | TE | DST | K | TOP 300
2. Free Agent Auction Bidding
Stop resisting the FAAB. Embrace the FAAB. The FAAB will make your life better.
Other ways of running waivers have become phased out by most advanced leagues for a reason. Everyone should have a chance at a waiver-wire player they desire. The silent-auction style of bidding on unowned players is the way.
The basic premise: At the start of the season, every single manager is given the same amount of free agent auction bidding money, basically like funny money or monopoly money. That's the budget each team is allotted to spend on players throughout the season.
When a manager wants a player from the waiver wire, they can enter a bid that, if it's ultimately the winning bid, would be subtracted from that manager's overall budget.
Other managers who made lower bids would not pay anything. Once a manager runs out of FAAB money, they can no longer place bids of $1 or more.
It's worth noting that leagues using FAAB should allow $0 bids. If a manager runs out of money and they want a waiver-wire player that nobody else wants — or that other managers without money might want, but have a lower waiver-wire priority — the manager should be able to put a $0 claim in to acquire that player.
Like Rule No. 1, the FAAB format increases engagement. It makes things way more fun from week to week (every waiver day is like Christmas — what did I get this time!?). It also adds a level of strategy and competition to the league, and allows you to have a chance to land any player you want as long as you're willing to pay the price (we also love auction drafting, but we digress).
MORE: Fantasy Football Auction Value Rankings for 2025
3. Expand rosters: Superflex/2QB, 3WR, or 2 Flex
To the lame-o leagues that still start two wide receivers, get with the times. Having three WR spots seems like a non-negotiable in this age of offense and era of the pass.
A second flex spot (WR/RB/TE) seems like a no-brainer for most 10-team leagues, because there's simply so much talent in the NFL these days — and forcing managers to start an extra offensive player forces them to draft well and make consistently good decisions on the wire, via trades and with start-sit decisions.
The best of the three rules, though: SuperFlex. The quarterback position is the most important position in professional sports. Why the hell would it not be the most important position in fantasy football?
When you make every team start two QBs, you make the whole league prioritize QBs in the draft. You also make the league much more high-scoring, which is way more fun by default. Draft more players, utilize more strategy, score more points — who doesn't love all these things!?
2025 DRAFT SLEEPERS: QB | RB | WR | TE | DST
4. Tight End Premium
Let's face it: The tight end position has become a bit of a barren wasteland beyond the top-tier players.
If you don't land George Kittle, Brock Bowers or Trey McBride, you're basically hoping to land a breakout like Jonnu Smith last year. And it can be really, really lame to have a below-average TE.
Tight End Premium leagues increase the amount of points per reception for TEs. It makes tight ends in general more valuable, just like SuperFlex leagues do with QBs and just like two-catcher leagues do in fantasy baseball. Otherwise, it's just a stars-and-scrubs position that a few managers prioritize and the rest of the league largely ignores and/or gets annoyed by.
Go TEP, baby, so we can enjoy National Tight Ends Day every week!
MORE TIGHT END FANTAY TIPS: TE Rankings | TE Sleepers
5. Eliminate Kickers
For the love of all that is holy, get the foot out of fantasy football.
Can anyone explain why a kicker nets his fantasy owners four points for a 40-yard field goal when he only got his real-life team three points?
Why is any league subtracting points for a field goal that gets blocked or blown away in the wind? Why do any leagues have kickers in general?
It's such an arbitrary and random position. It's almost impossible to actually prepare for during draft season, never mind on a week-to-week basis. Sometimes a kicker on a good team does well because his team scores a boatload of points.
Other times a kicker on a bad team does well because his team can never score TDs. UGH.
Most (good) managers hold off until the end of the draft to take a placekicker, partly because it's absolutely brutal to have to pick one and partly because the K1 and K5 are never that far off in terms of points per game, and for that matter the K5 and K10.
So, why allow any kicker to dictate a win or a loss when he has a lucky day or an absolute train-wreck of a day?
Your life will be better when the kickers are gone. Trust us. No league has ever eliminated the kicker position and then brought it back the following year. Get with the times and make this the fifth of your five cool new rules in 2025.