The Fantasy Footballers: League of Record Keeper Format

The Footballers get asked all the time what our opinion is for the best league settings. While every format (redraft, dynasty, best ball, DFS, etc.) is appealing, the League of Record (LOR) is what spawned the beginning of the podcast and is what continues to live at the heart of so much banter during the season. It is a keeper league with a lottery system, which will be outlined below.

This information has been copied over from BallersDiscord.com where we host a continuous conversation to bring fantasy football fans together to join great leagues. There is also a great article on the site (“How to Convert a Redraft League into Keeper“) if you want a deeper dive from a commissioner’s perspective.

League of Record Keeper Format

Every team in the league assesses their roster, which locks after the championship match-up.

The decision points are selecting one franchise player and three players for your lottery. The selections are due the Sunday AFTER the NFL Draft.

The Ballers’ League of Record setup is a simple 1-2-3 process:

1. Choose one franchise player from your end of season roster.

This is who you get to keep no matter what. Among the 12 teams, everyone identifies their franchise player letting the league know this player is off-limits to everyone. If you have Christian McCaffrey, chances are you are going to keep Christian McCaffrey. There is no “keep them in the round you drafted them” discount. While some leagues reward for prudent forecasting, this player is seen as a locked-in part of your team and one of your three players heading the next year.

This may seem like the easiest part of process but this second step sometimes throws a wrench in those plans…

2. Pick three other players for the lottery*.

The keeper lottery day is an annual holidat for our league. We get together on Zoom and tensions are high. This is arguably the most stressful part of the process due to one very important stipulation*… the three other players you select CANNOT be from the same position group as your franchise player. From those three, a random lottery determines which two you get to keep. We’ve used various methods over the years from names drawn from a hat to a randomizer wheel on the internet.

For example, if you built a super team last year and CMC is your keeper, you cannot put RBs Kyren Williams or Breece Hall as one of your players in the lottery. You would be able to put any combination of QBs, WRs, or TEs together for those three lottery picks but RBs are not available to you.

Over the years, we’ve seen managers try to get cute where they select a lower tier franchise player at another position in hopes to gain both CMC and another RB and get a leg up on the league. We’ve seen superstars like Tyreek Hill and Ja’Marr Chase thrown back into the league draft pool due to fate’s cruel game.

3. The franchise player + two keepers from the lottery are your first three “picks” in the draft.

Everyone starts with three keepers as their first “three rounds” of the draft before the real 1.01 takes their shot at the draft board. Every team has their “first round” pick based on reverse order and a random lottery for the top 4 picks to make sure outlandish tanking doesn’t happen. However, after that “first round”, all your draft picks are eligible for trading. Heck, you can trade keepers too if the lottery didn’t quite go your ay.

Draft pick trading is not only turned on (as a setting in Sleeper) but the league is addicted to it. This also incentivizes teams to stay connected during the season to either sell out for a championship or play for the next year. There is so much year-to-year variance in the League of Record. Even if you were good last year or have good keepers, it definitely does not guarantee the playoffs if you come to the draft short 2-3 early round selections because you sold out the previous year.

League Settings

The Fantasy Footballers want to reiterate that we enjoy every kind of league format and personally play in SuperFlex, Dynasty, Best Ball, leagues with weird settings (we see you Scott Fish Bowl), charity leagues, and ones we can’t even remember right this second. However, what makes the League of Record (and honestly, fantasy football as a whole) so dang competitive and life-giving is the people in it. The back-and-forth trash talk and annual traditions from league members is what makes a league.

When you are the CHAMP in your main league, you make sure people know about it. This is how we do it! pic.twitter.com/UxC0WZ1rVy

— Jason Moore (@jasonffl) September 4, 2023

League of Record champ…ask @PapaJoshFFB how he’s doing https://t.co/f9UViIDKte

— Andy Holloway (@andyholloway) January 30, 2024

Scoring & Roster Details

• 12 Teams
• 0.5 Point Per Reception, 6 Point per Passing TD, 40+ Yard TD Bonus (+2)
• 1 Quarterback
• 2 Running Backs
• 2 Wide Receivers
• 1 Tight End
• 2 Flex (RB/WR/TE)
• 1 Defense / Special Teams
• 1 Kicker !  (This was abolished years ago)
• 5 Bench Spots
• 2 Injured Reserved Spots
• FAAB Waiver system

Deeper Details

• If it is a 12 team league, we like splitting it into 3 divisions of 4 teams where we play each division mate twice and everyone else once. Each year, there will be one team outside of your division that you do not play. This off-season was the first time the motion to realign divisions was passed. We did a drawing for new divisions at the keeper lottery.
• Lineup Changes: Lock Individually at Scheduled Game time
• Season Acquisition Limit: No limit! More participation and more moves = more fun and more banter
• Waiver system: Free Agent Auction (Continuous) with $100 as the budget. Players stay on waivers for 1 day.
  • Monday – Waivers (Processing Time 9:00 AM PST
  • Tuesday – Locked
  • Wednesday – Waivers (Processing Time 9:00 AM PST)
  • Thursday – Waivers (Processing Time 9:00 AM PST)
  • Friday – Waivers (Processing Time 9:00 AM PST)
  • Saturday – Waivers (Processing Time 9:00 AM PST)
  • Sunday – Waivers until 9:00 AM PST, then Free Agents
• FAAB Tiebreaker: Resets each week to inverse order of standings
• Trade Limit: No Limit
• Trade Deadline: Week 11
• Playoffs: 6 Teams (3 rounds, 2 Byes) from Weeks 15-17