Official Rules

• No more divisions. The top two records take the top two seeds and the first-round byes.
• The schedule is random. Without divisions, which opponents you play once and which you play twice is drawn at random.
• Week 14 is a random rematch. A second meeting with an opponent, also drawn at random. Sleeper gives no way to set it.
• Simpler playoff tiebreakers. Seeding ties break by total points scored, then total points against, the same order the standings show all season. The old head-to-head ladder retires with the divisions. See the playoff rules →
• AutoSubs are on. Name a bench player ahead of time and Sleeper starts him automatically if your starter is ruled inactive, up to 3 a week. See the lineup rules →
• No trading picks into a throwback year. Draft picks that land on a throwback season can't change hands. The next throwback year is 2030, five years after the last.
• Prizes are simplified and updated. Fewer lines and bigger payouts. The two division prizes retired along with the divisions, and that money went into the points ladder. See Prize Tracker →
• Survivor runs on revives. Pick one NFL team to win each week, Weeks 1 through 17, each team spent once. A loss, a tie, or a week with no pick costs a revive rather than ending your run, and the fewest revives wins. Ties break on whoever lasted longest before their first revive. See the Survivor rules →
• Two weeks a year process on Tuesday. The waiver run has to land before the week's first kickoff, and the NFL now opens the season on a Wed and plays a Wed game in Thanksgiving week. Those weeks run Tue at 8pm PT, which is 24 hours of bidding instead of 48. In 2026 that is Sep 8 for Week 1 and Nov 24 for Week 12. See the waiver rules →
• No free agency between the draft and Week 1. Everybody undrafted locks the moment the draft ends and stays locked until Week 1's waivers open on the Mon, so nobody can be added or even bid on until then, and the Tue run is the first time anyone changes hands. In 2026 that is locked Aug 29 to Sep 7, bidding Sep 7 to Sep 8, and first come first served after the 8pm PT run. See the waiver rules →

The FFL (Fantasy For Life) is a 10-owner keeper league established in 2006, hosted on Sleeper since 2025. Every season back to the beginning is on the League History page.

• Weekly starting lineup: 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex (RB/WR/TE), 1 Superflex (QB/RB/WR/TE), 1 K, 1 Def/ST.
• Roster limit: 17 players, with at most 4 QBs.
• Your roster must always hold enough players at each position to field a full lineup.
• 3 players are kept into the next season, except into a throwback year (every fifth season: 2025, 2030, ...), when nobody keeps anyone and all 10 teams draft fresh.

Points are scored to two decimal places. The full settings live under League Settings in the Sleeper app or website, and every player's weekly line can be opened play by play. How can I see my player's points breakdown?

Passing

Rushing / Receiving

Kicking

Defense / Special Teams

Scoring notes

• Every TD is worth 6 points except a passing TD (5). Return and defensive TDs count for the individual player and for the Def/ST when its unit was on the field.
• All offensive players can score in every category. A kicker who throws a TD pass on a fake field goal gets the passing points.
• Return yardage is not scored, for individuals or defenses. Return TDs are.
• Points allowed counts only what the opposing offense and special teams score. A touchdown by the opposing defense (an interception returned for a score, say) does not add to it, because your defense was not on the field to prevent it. How are Points Allowed calculated?
• Sleeper applies official NFL stat corrections automatically in the days after the games. Stat Corrections
• Scoring disputes go to the commissioner by Wednesday 9pm PT of that week; scores are final after that week's corrections land.

• Set your lineup in the Sleeper app or website. Lineups carry over from week to week, and a carried-over lineup will happily start players on bye or out injured, so check yours every week.
• Players lock at kickoff of their own game, starters and bench alike. A locked player can't be moved in or out of your lineup.
• Sleeper's AutoSubs can automatically replace a starter who is ruled inactive with a bench player you designate ahead of time, up to 3 substitutions per week. How does Player AutoSubs work?
• Submitting a deliberately partial lineup for tactical reasons is allowed.
• Abandoning your lineup is a serious offense: an obviously dead lineup left to ride costs $25 of FAAB, and a pattern of it is grounds for not being invited back.

• One IR slot per team, usable all season.
• A player is IR-eligible when Sleeper lists them as IR, Out, or Doubtful. Suspensions and holdouts do not qualify. Injury Statuses and IR Eligibility
• When a stashed player's status improves, the slot turns illegal and you must activate or drop them before making other moves. How does Injured Reserve (IR) work?

There are two ways to add a player and only one of them is running at any moment. From Mon night to Wed night everybody unrostered is on waivers, and a blind FAAB bid is the only way in. The rest of the week is free agency: no bidding, nothing to spend, whoever gets there first. Two weeks a year run a day early, and nothing moves at all between the draft and Week 1's window, both covered below. You make your own moves either way, and commissioners are not responsible for running pickups for anyone.

The weekly cycle

1. Mon, 8pm PT. Waivers open. Every player not on a roster locks and stays locked until Wed, so nobody can be added directly.
2. Mon 8pm to Wed 8pm PT. Get your bids in. Bidding is blind, nobody sees what anyone else has offered, and you can bid on as many players as you want.
3. Wed, 8pm PT. Every bid in the league processes at once. The highest bid on a player wins them, the money comes off that team's budget, and losing bids cost nothing.
4. Wed, just after 8pm PT. Free agency opens the moment that run finishes. Anyone still unrostered is free to add, first come first served, at no cost.
5. Wed 8pm to Mon 8pm PT. Free agency runs all the way to Mon night, when waivers open again and the cycle repeats.

Weeks with a Wednesday game

The run has to land before the week's first kickoff, so a week that opens with a Wed game processes Tue at 8pm PT instead. The next week goes back to Wed. As the NFL schedules it now that is two weeks a year: Week 1, and Week 12 in Thanksgiving week.

• Waivers still open Mon at 8pm PT, so bidding is 24 hours instead of 48.
• Free agency opens the moment the run finishes, the same as any other week.
• Week 1 also locks the board early. Everyone undrafted locks the moment the draft ends and stays locked until waivers open on the Mon: no adds, no bids, nothing until then.
• So there is no free agency at all between the draft and Week 1's run. In 2026 that means locked from the draft on Aug 29 through Mon, Sep 7, bidding from 8pm PT that night to Tue, Sep 8, 8pm PT, then first come first served the moment the run clears, a day ahead of the Wed, Sep 9 opener.

Bidding

• Each team gets a $100 FAAB budget for the season (virtual dollars, nothing to do with real money). It has to cover the whole year, playoffs included, and it never refills. How does FAAB bidding work?
• Whole dollars only, and $0 bids are allowed. A $0 bid still beats not bidding at all.
• Tied bids go to the higher waiver priority, which starts the season as reverse draft order. Winning a claim drops you to the back of it.
• A claim that would push you past 17 players has to name the player you are dropping, or it fails. Why was my waiver claim invalid?
• You can still drop a player during the waiver window. They go straight onto the board with everybody else, biddable in that same week's run.
• FAAB dollars can be traded, as long as nobody ends up holding more than $100.

Free agency

• No bidding and no cost, so a free agent is gone the second another owner wants them.
• Drops take effect immediately: a player you release is on the board for anyone to claim right away, with no waiting period.
• A player locks when their own game kicks off and stays locked for the rest of the week, so a Thu night player is out of reach by Thu evening, and a Wed night one a day earlier. A player whose team is on bye never kicks off, so they stay available all week.
• The 17 roster limit still applies, so drop first or make the add name a drop.
• Two teams using drops and pickups to walk a player from one roster to the other is a fair-play violation, and the commissioner can undo it. See Fair Play & Sportsmanship.

Through the season

• The cycle runs every week from the draft through the last playoff week, whether or not you are still alive in the bracket. The first run of it is the Tue before the opener, not a Wed.
• Keepers are taken from rosters as they stand after the final week, so playoff-week moves change what you can keep.

• The trade deadline is the end of week 11: trading stays open through that week's games and closes when its last one ends. Trading reopens after the Super Bowl and runs all offseason. When is my trade deadline?
• No limit on trades per season. Propose, counter and accept in the app. How to Trade
• Trades can include players, draft picks and FAAB dollars. Picks can come from any round of any future season, except that picks landing on a throwback year (2030 is the next) cannot be traded. Can I trade draft picks?
• An accepted trade sits in review for up to 2 days before it processes. Trades are reviewed by the commissioner, not by league vote.
• A trade may not leave either roster over 17 players. If you need room, drop before the trade processes.
• After keepers are declared, only kept players and draft picks can change hands until the draft.
• Trade-backs are banned: no trading a player away with a plan to get the same player back in the weeks after.
• Trades must be fair, balanced and mutually beneficial, and the commissioner can reject any that isn't. See Fair Play & Sportsmanship.

This is a 3-player keeper league. Keeping only 3 is what keeps the draft meaningful and gives a losing season a real reset. Rosters split into three tiers by draft round, and you keep one player from each tier.

The tier boundaries depend on which kind of draft the players came out of. A keeper year is the usual case: the 3 keepers fill the top roster slots and the draft runs 14 rounds. A throwback year (and the league's first year) drafts the full 17-man roster instead, so the same three tiers spread across all 17 rounds.

• A player's tier reads off the draft he was actually taken in. Picking 2026 keepers means the 2025 throwback rounds; picking 2027 keepers next winter will mean the 2026 keeper-year rounds.
• You can always substitute downward: in place of a higher-tier keeper, keep an extra player from a lower tier (two Tier 3s and a Tier 1, say). Never the reverse.
• A kept player climbs one tier for the next season, no matter how many keepers shared his tier.
• Free agent pickups count as Tier 3. A traded player keeps the tier he was originally drafted in, and a dropped and re-added player keeps his drafted round.
• Declare keepers in the Sleeper app or website. Selections can be set and changed freely up to 24 hours before draft time, when they lock. Until then everyone holds their full 17-man roster to study and trade with.
• Keeper rosters lock when the final week of the season completes, so playoff-week pickups and drops change your keeper options.
• Where everyone's roster actually tiers out, season by season, is on Keeper Tiers.

Examples

• Throwback year, which is how 2026's keepers come off the 2025 roster. Nobody was kept into 2025, so every tier reads off that one draft: a round-2 pick is Tier 1, a round-8 pick is Tier 2, and a waiver add is Tier 3. Keep one of each and they move up for 2026: the round-2 pick stays Tier 1, the round-8 pick becomes Tier 1, and the waiver add becomes Tier 2.
• Keeper year, which is how 2027's keepers will come off the 2026 roster. A round-2 pick is Tier 1, a round-6 pick is Tier 2, and a round-12 pick or a waiver add is Tier 3. Keep one of each and they move up for 2027: the round-2 pick is already Tier 1 and stays there, the round-6 pick becomes Tier 1, and the round-12 pick becomes Tier 2.

• Draft order comes out of the previous season's brackets: every eliminated team plays on for its slot, the champion picks last and the losers bracket winner picks first. The full slotting is under Schedule & Playoffs. In a throwback year the order is drawn by lottery instead.
• After round 1, the draft snakes: standard serpentine order.
• Be there. An owner who truly cannot attend (or part of it) must send a representative, and the representative cannot be another owner in this league. No double drafting and no phone drafting; a stand-in leaves when the owner arrives.
• You can trade picks during the draft, but the clock does not stop while you work out the details. Trade while other teams are picking. Can I trade during a draft?
• Every roster leaves the draft at exactly 17 players, so teams that traded picks away or collected extras make their final picks accordingly.

The regular season runs 14 weeks. With divisions gone, the schedule is drawn at random: which opponents you meet twice is the luck of the draw, and week 14 is a second meeting with a randomly drawn opponent. Week 14 counts like any other game in the standings.

Playoffs

• Playoffs run weeks 15–17. The top 6 records make the championship bracket, and the top 2 take the first-round byes; the other 4 teams enter the losers bracket.
• Round 1 is #3 vs #6 and #4 vs #5. The bracket re-seeds after round 1, so the #1 seed faces the lowest surviving seed.
• One loss eliminates. The champion's name goes on the trophy, which they hold until the next champion takes it.
• A regular-season tie stands as a tie on your record. A playoff tie goes to the higher seed.

Seeding tiebreakers

Teams with the same record are seeded by total points scored, then total points against: the same order the standings show all season, applied by Sleeper automatically. Anything still tied after that goes to a coin toss.

Losers bracket

• Round 1 is #7 vs #10 and #8 vs #9. In round 2 the winners play each other and the losers play each other.
• The loser of the round 1 losers' matchup is the Toilet Bowl champion, with a trophy of their own to hold all year. Consolation Bracket vs. Toilet Bowl

Next season's draft order

• The champion picks last (#10) next year and the runner-up #9.
• Semifinal losers play once more: the winner takes 3rd place and pick #5, the loser #6.
• Round 1 playoff losers play once more: the winner takes #7, the loser #8.
• The losers bracket winner picks first (#1) and its runner-up #2. The Toilet Bowl champion picks #4, and the team that beat them #3.
• Want a later slot than you earned? Throw your losers bracket games without punishment, or trade picks with another owner.

The entry fee is $160, due by draft day, and every dollar of it goes back out as prize money. Payouts, season status and the all-time ledger live on the Prize Tracker.

• Every transaction must be made with the intent of improving your own team or its standing.
• Collusion is banned: no two owners agreeing to moves that benefit one team at the other's expense (roster dumping).
• The commissioner can cancel any transaction that violates these rules.
• For anything these rules don't cover, the commissioner has the final say.

The prize is one of the lines on the Prize Tracker, covered by the league entry fee like every other prize. It runs in its own Sleeper league, visible only in the Sleeper mobile app.

How it works

• The contest runs Weeks 1 through 17.
• Each week, pick one NFL team to win. The pick can be changed until that team's game kicks off.
• Straight scoring, not spread. The pick has to win its game outright, with no point spread applied either way.
• A team can only be used once all season. Picking the Bills in Week 1 spends them for the year.
• A loss, a tie, or a week with no pick costs one revive. Nobody is knocked out: you keep picking the following week, and every team you have already used stays used.
• After Week 17, the fewest revives wins.

Sleeper's NFL Survivor article covers making and changing picks, and both scoring formats, but it describes the default elimination rules, in which one wrong pick ends your season. This league runs Straight scoring with revives switched on, so a miss costs a revive and nothing more.

Tiebreakers

Ten entries over seventeen picks makes a tie on revives likely rather than remote, so it is settled in advance. Everything below is survivor performance: no points, and nothing carried over from the main league.

1. Fewest revives.
2. Still tied: the latest first revive, so whoever went furthest into the season before their first miss.
3. Still tied: the latest second revive, then the third, and on down until one entry is ahead.
4. Still tied after every revive has been compared: co-champions, and the prize splits evenly.