Mike Clay's Playbook, Part 2: Fantasy football draft tips for nontraditional formats

Fantasy football leagues come in all shapes and sizes. In fact, I know this better than most, as none of the dozen or so teams I manage (not to mention countless best ball and mock drafts) are exactly the same, with a steady mix of seasonlong, dynasty, keeper, IDP, super-deep lineups and/or very creative scoring.

One of my past leagues even had punters and head coaches. Yes, you can use both in the ESPN game ... and there are projections!

I often get asked about how to adjust strategy based on these leagues, so without getting too into the weeds, here are ways I do just that.

Dynasty leagues

As much as I enjoy a good seasonlong draft, there is nothing I love more than dynasty leagues. It's the closest you can get to playing GM, as you retain your assets year to year and can make moves at nearly any point on the calendar. There are few better feelings in fantasy than hitting a home run on a rookie pick (just ask those who spent a late first-rounder on Justin Jefferson in 2020 or took a late flier on Puka Nacua in 2023) or watching one of your sleeper/bench stashes emerge (take a bow, stashers of Jalen Hurts, Chase Brown and Harold Fannin Jr. in years past).

Oh, and the season never ends. Sure, it stinks to have a bad team, but if you fall out of contention in dynasty, the offseason begins -- at least for you -- and you can immediately begin making trades and waiver moves to set yourself up for future success. As odd as it sounds, sometimes that can be a more enjoyable ride than a stressful playoff run. And when it eventually leads to a title? There are few better feelings in this game.

The best advice I can give as it pertains to dynasty is to consider perceived value. Dynasty managers love unproven youngsters and first-round draft picks much more than they like established veterans, excluding obvious superstars in their early prime. We get bored with guys who just get the job done year after year, and we are easily distracted by the shiny new toy.

You can and should take advantage of this, and one way to do that in a startup draft is to go extremely young at the expense of winning in the short term. That might seem counterintuitive to what I just said, but bear with me. Aim for 20- to 24-year-old players (adjusting slightly by position) and do your best to fade everyone else. Not everyone you pick will pan out, but enough will, and within a year or two, your roster should be peaking, while the lineups of managers who drafted depreciating assets will be fading. Odds are, your slow start will also allow you to add another potential superstar via an early pick in the Year 2 rookie draft.

This strategy sets you up with a good, deep roster of young players entering their prime and also an extremely attractive roster on the trade market. That reminds me of one of my championship-winning teams from back in 2020. Prior to that season, my roster was talented, young and deep, which allowed me to make a push for one more superstar. I traded Terry McLaurin, Raheem Mostert and a pair of future second-round picks for some guy named Davante Adams. That was fair market value at the time and proved to be a title-winning move.

Speaking of dynasty trades, don't be afraid to trade rookie picks. I swap them often, especially if it lands me an established good player. We tend to overestimate the hit rate of rookies (like it or not, a lot of the rookies you're excited about right now will bust) and, as long as the player isn't "too old," turning what is essentially a lottery ticket into a weekly starter should be a no-brainer. I'm especially aggressive trading away picks if I expect my team to be good. (My picks would, in turn, be late in the round the next year.)

Rookie drafts

Perhaps the most important element of any dynasty league is the annual rookie draft. Unless you're a very aggressive trader, your roster isn't going to change a ton from year to year, with the largest impact coming via the rookie draft. These are fairly straightforward -- take the best players available -- but I do see people make avoidable mistakes quite often.

One error is reaching in order to fill a positional need instead of taking the best player available. An even bigger one is not considering pedigree. As mentioned in the predraft playbook, most fantasy-relevant players were drafted on Day 1 or 2. It's easy to pick on GMs for occasional misses (Eagles GM Howie Roseman might never live down choosing Jalen Reagor over Justin Jefferson despite an incredible track record), but they are very good at their job, for the most part.

Year after year, I see drafters in desperation for running back help reaching on Day 3 fliers with seemingly little competition for snaps in the short term over Round 1-2 wide receivers with a substantially better chance to be long-term fantasy starters. Not worrying much about position and taking the best prospect on the board is your best path toward building a powerhouse.

Keeper leagues

Do you prefer seasonlong leagues but hate the feeling of not getting to hang on to that amazing, late-round home run pick you made for multiple years? A keeper league is your new best friend.

It's hard to give detailed advice here, as keeper leagues are known for having all kinds of rules and regulations pertaining to whom you're allowed to keep, how many players you can keep and, in many cases, which picks you must surrender in order to keep players. That said, I get a lot of keeper questions, and usually they are incredibly easy to answer.

Look, if you're able to keep only a player or two or three, you're basically playing in a seasonlong league and should thus keep the players who help you in the short term, adjusting only slightly for age. The best advice in these scenarios is to consider ADP.

A realistic question I get is something like, "Should I keep A.J. Brown for a second-round pick or Emeka Egbuka for a 12th-round pick?" Most agree Brown is the better short-term asset, but the players have a similar ADP. In this scenario, you keep Egbuka and you'll still get a player similar to Brown (if not Brown himself) when you're on the clock in the second round. I can't stress enough how easy it is to make keeper decisions simply by considering ADP.

IDP: Individual Defensive Players

There are some hardcore, serious IDP leagues out there, but I'd guess that most of you in a league with defensive players have a fairly normal set of starting slots at the offensive positions and then something in the range of one to six IDP starters. In this scenario (and assuming default scoring), you don't need to value defensive players very highly in your draft or on the trade market.

Sure, a standout linebacker such as Jordyn Brooks can give you an edge and has middle-round value, but because IDP scoring is generally a step or two below offense, and because you're likely starting only one or two players at very deep positions, you're going to have plenty of good options both during the draft and on waivers during the season. Also, casual players know offense significantly better than defense, so identifying and finding good starters will generally be easier. In a nutshell, in leagues with basic IDP settings, you should focus on offense first and worry about IDP later.

A quick reminder here on Travis Hunter. The Jaguars' second-year WR/CB has added a fun wrinkle to the fantasy football landscape. If you're in an ESPN fantasy league that uses only the standard positions, this won't affect you, as Hunter will get points only for non-IDP categories, same as all players. However, if you use defensive players, Hunter will get points for contributions on both sides of the ball. This makes Hunter an extremely valuable asset in IDP formats since he can be slotted into your lineup as a "CB" or "DB." Be sure to consider this when evaluating Hunter on draft day.

Superflex

Superflex means that your starting lineup includes a flex spot that can be filled with a quarterback (in ESPN leagues, this is the "OP" spot). Because the worst starting QB option in a given week is generally going to be projected to outscore the best flex options, this means that each team in your league ideally will be starting two quarterbacks. Needless to say, QB is significantly more valuable in this format.

You should move all quarterbacks up your draft board and plan to roster an extra player or two at the position, as starting two good QBs each week needs to be your primary goal. Whereas top QBs Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye, Joe Burrow and Jalen Hurts are picked in the third- to sixth-round range in one-QB leagues, you can expect a handful of them to be off the board in the first round of superflex leagues.

Knowing that the early QB run will lead to stars at other positions falling in the draft, my goal is almost never to open a superflex draft by picking two consecutive QBs. Instead, I'll aim for one star QB and then grab an elite back or wide receiver. Once the initial rush of QBs ends, it tends to quiet down significantly for several rounds, so I simply monitor the situation and eventually pounce on a good second QB when the opportunity presents itself (generally one ranked in the 8-to-15 range, though players in that tier are so similar in 2026 that you don't need to push it).

I also make sure to grab either a reliable or upside third QB once the starters begin to dry up. You have to be careful to walk the line of not reaching too early and jeopardizing the rest of your roster while also not getting stuck with a really poor QB situation that handcuffs you all season long.

In a perfect world, I have a very good QB1, a reliable QB2 (guys such as Justin Herbert, Bo Nix, Trevor Lawrence and Brock Purdy are strong QB2 targets) and then someone with upside. This season, you'll want to keep your eyes on Kyler Murray, Tyler Shough, Daniel Jones, Malik Willis, Cam Ward and Fernando Mendoza, for example.

Best ball

If you're not familiar, "best ball" means you simply draft your team, and then it requires no additional action. There are generally no trades or waiver adds, and your weekly starters are determined by your highest scorers at each position that week. For the most part, your strategy isn't changing massively from a normal league, but you do need to ensure you have more depth at each position since you can't trade or add players, even for injury.

In a standard format, for example, you might draft 20 players, so you'd want 2-3 QBs, 5-6 RBs, 7-8 WRs, 2-3 TEs and 2-3 D/STs (these formats rarely use kickers and often don't include D/ST). I won't go too into the weeds here since league settings and contest structure matter, but if you're in a fairly standard league of 10-plus teams, you don't need to adjust your strategy much from the usual.

However, in a tournament setting, you'll want to employ additional strategies such as stacking (drafting both Dak Prescott and George Pickens last season would've been a massive edge, for example) and considering matchups during championship week (almost always Week 17).

Knockout leagues

New at ESPN in 2026 are knockout leagues. In this format, the lowest-scoring team in the league is eliminated each week and that team's players are immediately placed on waivers.

There are a few key differences from standard fantasy leagues. One is that you need to worry less about ceiling and more about floor. Posting the highest weekly score in the league earns you nothing, but posting the lowest score ends your season. Second, you need to be more aware of your team's schedule and bye weeks as one bad week can sink your entire season.

An example in 2026 would be to upgrade Eagles players in your draft rankings as, although they face a brutally tough schedule during the fantasy football playoffs, they have perhaps the easiest slate during the regular season. You can put your Eagles to good use during the regular season and, assuming you keep advancing, load up your roster with better players with better matchups come playoff time. (P.S. Interestingly, the opposite is true in aforementioned best ball tournaments, as loading up on Eagles players could be costly come the all-important playoff run.)

The other main difference is that you'll need to be a lot more active on waivers, as a handful of superstars will be available each week. Having a good game plan for spending your free agent budget (FAB) is half the battle. For more info on knockout leagues, check out this superb strategy piece from Tristan H. Cockcroft.

6-point passing TD

I quickly want to touch on leagues that award six points for a passing TD, as opposed to the standard four points. Honestly, I don't adjust too much for this. As a whole, quarterbacks are more valuable, but there is still sufficient depth at the position, so we don't need to move them significantly up our ranks.

The key is bumping up QBs projected to throw a lot of touchdowns at the expense of quarterbacks who do a lot of damage with their legs. The likes of Jaxson Dart, Jayden Daniels and Jalen Hurts take a hit, whereas Matthew Stafford, Joe Burrow, Dak Prescott and Jared Goff get a boost. A quick scan of projections and/or historical stats is your friend here.

TE premium

Leagues that award 1.5 or even 2.0 points per reception to tight ends are becoming more popular and have been common in high-stakes leagues for many years. It makes sense when you consider that the No. 2 TE in 1.0 PPR leagues last season (Kyle Pitts) scored 210.8 points, which would have ranked 17th at wide receiver, 19th at running back and 21st at quarterback.

In a 1.5 PPR TE premium league, Pitts would've scored 243.9 points, which would've ranked seventh, 10th and 13th, respectively. Perfect? Perhaps not. Better? Of course.

In this setup (this also applies to leagues in which you must start two tight ends), you'd bump up the value of all tight ends and could consider top options such as Brock Bowers and Trey McBride as early as late in the first round. You should also make it a priority to stash a tight end with breakout potential and/or upside on your bench (Kenyon Sadiq, Isaiah Likely, Terrance Ferguson and Gunnar Helm come to mind).

If you're interested in trying out this format, you can customize your league scoring by position in the ESPN fantasy game.

Punters

Just kidding. Or am I? I want punters from offenses likely to struggle, so I'm targeting the likes of Bradley Pinion (Dolphins) and AJ Cole (Raiders).

Reporting from ESPN contributed to this story.