What is the FanTeam NFL squad?

One quarterback, two running backs, three wide receivers, one tight end, one defence/special teams and one flex, which can be a running back, receiver or tight end. There is no bench, and no more than three players can come from one NFL team.

How does FanTeam NFL scoring work?

Full PPR: 0.04 a passing yard, 4 a passing touchdown and -2 an interception; 0.1 a rushing or receiving yard and 6 a touchdown; 1 a reception, 2 a two-point conversion and -2 a fumble lost.

How are defences scored on FanTeam?

1 a sack; 2 an interception, fumble recovery, safety or blocked kick; 6 a defensive or return touchdown. Points allowed: 10 for a shutout, 7 for 1-6, 4 for 7-13, 1 for 14-20, -1 for 28-34 and -4 for 35 or more.

How many transfers do you get in FanTeam NFL?

Two free transfers every gameweek. Unused transfers carry over with no cap, every transfer beyond the free allowance costs eight points, and the deadline is the kick-off of the week's first game.

How does the FanTeam wildcard work?

It gives unlimited transfers for one gameweek and can be played at any time, but playing it wipes every transfer you have saved.

What is the FanTeam safety net?

If a player in your team does not score a single fantasy point in his game, FanTeam replaces him with a player from the same team and position at an equal or lower price.

What happens to a FanTeam player on a bye?

He scores zero. With no bench, a player on a bye needs a transfer, and from week five two to six teams sit out each week.

When do FanTeam NFL prices change?

Prices move from gameweek 3, rising and falling with demand.

How much does the FanTeam NFL Regular Game cost?

The headline contest is a £20 entry with a £12,000 guaranteed prize pool. The top 10% of entries are paid and you can enter up to 15 teams; there are £2 and £200 contests over the same 18 gameweeks.

FanTeam NFL Season Game 2026/27: How to Play the £12K Regular Game

Q: How does the FanTeam NFL Season Game work?

It is season-long fantasy with a salary cap over all 18 gameweeks of the regular season. You build one nine-player squad for £140m, score whatever your nine score each week, and manage the squad with two free transfers a week and one wildcard.

Published September 7, 2026 by Statz NFL.

The rules, the contest sizes and the angles that win FanTeam's 18-week NFL season game — nine players, £140m, two transfers a week and a wildcard.

The format in one breath

FanTeam's NFL Regular Game is season-long fantasy with a cash prize pool and a salary cap, run over all 18 gameweeks of the 2026/27 regular season. You build one nine-player squad for £140m, score whatever your nine score on the field each week, and manage the squad with a small transfer allowance and a single wildcard. No draft, no waivers, no trades with a league-mate who never replies: the market is the price list, and every manager in the contest is buying from the same one.

The headline contest is the £20 entry with a £12,000 guaranteed prize pool that grows once the guarantee is hit. The top 10% of entries are paid, ties share the placing, and you can enter up to 15 teams. Gameweek 1 locks at 01:20 BST on 10 September, which is kick-off for the Wednesday-night opener, Patriots at Seahawks, and FanTeam does not allow late registration for this tournament, so a squad that is not in by then is not in at all.

Building the nine

The squad is fixed at one quarterback, two running backs, three wide receivers, one tight end, one defence/special teams and one flex, and the flex can only be a running back, receiver or tight end. There is no bench. Every one of your nine plays every week, which turns two rules that sound like fine print into the whole game: the £140m cap and the limit of three players from any one NFL team.

Three from one team is enough for a quarterback and his two favourite targets, so a full passing-game stack is legal, but it is the ceiling. You cannot add that team's running back or defence on top. Spread the other six across the slate, and let the scoring, not habit, pick your flex.

Prices move from gameweek 3, in the same rise-and-fall style anyone who plays Fantasy Premier League will recognise. That gives you two weeks to buy the players the crowd is about to pile into before their price does, and it punishes a squad that is slow to sell a back who has lost his job.

The scoring: full PPR, four-point passing touchdowns

FanTeam scores the NFL game on a full point-per-reception system with the familiar yardage rates, and it is the same shape as ESPN's 2026 default, so every Statz fantasy projection in PPR maps straight onto it. The offensive table:

Passing: 0.04 per yard (one point per 25), 4 per touchdown, −2 per interception.
Rushing and receiving: 0.1 per yard (one point per 10), 6 per touchdown.
Receptions: 1 point each. Two-point conversions: 2. Fumbles lost: −2. Any punt, kick-off or field-goal return for a touchdown: 6.
Defence/special teams: 1 per sack, 2 per interception, fumble recovery, safety or blocked kick, 6 for any defensive or return touchdown.
Points allowed: 10 for a shutout, 7 for 1–6, 4 for 7–13, 1 for 14–20, −1 for 28–34 and −4 for 35 or more.

What that scoring does to your build

Full PPR is the tell. A running back who catches six passes has banked six points before he has gained a yard, which is the difference between a two-down thumper and a back you can trust every week. At the flex, that makes a high-target back or a slot receiver who lives on volume the default over a big-play threat who needs a touchdown to matter. Tight ends are priced the same way: the ones worth £-figures are the ones who see eight targets, not the ones who block.

Four points for a passing touchdown against six for a rushing one keeps quarterbacks in their lane, but it hands a quiet bonus to the running quarterbacks. A quarterback who adds 40 rushing yards and the occasional goal-line carry is playing a different game from a pure pocket passer, and the −2 for interceptions makes the turnover-prone gunslinger a worse buy than his yardage suggests. On defence, the points-allowed bands and two points a takeaway reward a unit facing a bad offence more than a good unit facing a good one, so the defence slot is the one place a weekly matchup transfer is often worth the move.

Transfers, the bank and the wildcard

You get two free transfers every gameweek. Unused transfers carry over with no cap, up to the 34 you could theoretically hold by the final week, and every transfer beyond your free allowance costs eight points. Transfers are provisional until the deadline, so you can make a change on Tuesday and reverse it on Saturday with nothing lost. The deadline each week is the kick-off of the first game, which is usually Thursday night in the US and the small hours of Friday morning in the UK.

The single most important thing to understand about this format is that byes are the enemy, and with no bench they are a forced transfer. From week five onwards, two to six teams sit out each week, and every one of your nine on a bye scores zero. Two free transfers a week covers a normal bye, but the heaviest bye weeks can knock three or four of your nine out at once. The managers who finish in the paid places are the ones who bank transfers in the first month, when the squad is fresh and nothing needs fixing, and spend them in bulk when the byes stack up.

The wildcard gives you unlimited transfers for one gameweek and can be played at any time, but activating it wipes every transfer you have saved. That makes it a poor partner to a big bank: play it when you would otherwise be paying eight points a move, either on the ugliest bye week or straight after the mid-season injury wave has rewritten the depth charts.

The safety net, and what it is really for

If a player in your team does not score a single fantasy point in his real-world game, FanTeam replaces him with a player from the same team and position at an equal or lower price. That covers the classic season-long nightmare of the Sunday-morning scratch, the surprise inactive and the running back who is ruled out in warm-ups.

It is not a free hit. The replacement is priced at or below your original, so a £14m receiver who is scratched becomes that team's second or third option, and a starting back becomes his backup. Read the rule as insurance against a zero, not as a reason to carry injured players. It does mean you should stop wasting free transfers on a questionable tag late in the week: hold the transfer, let the net catch the miss, and spend the move on a player who is actually in the plan.

Contest sizes and how many teams to enter

The Regular Game runs at three price points, all over the same gameweeks 1 to 18 window. At the time of writing the £2 entry has a £750 guaranteed pool with around 350 teams in, the £20 entry has the £12,000 guarantee with around 260 teams, and the £200 entry has a £7,500 guarantee with 14 teams. Pools grow once the guarantee is covered, so those numbers will move before the deadline.

Fifteen entries at £20 is £300 of exposure for a full season, and there is no shame in one team. If you do go multi-entry, differentiate at quarterback and tight end, where a single choice shapes the whole build, and keep your running backs mostly shared so the squad you believe in is on every ticket. In a top-10% structure with no tie-breakers, consistency beats ceiling: a squad that scores solidly every week and manages its byes will cash more often than one built for a single monster gameweek.

The £200 contest is the sharpest room by a distance, with 14 entrants chasing a £7,500 pool. That is a very different prize-per-entrant ratio and a very different field. Unless you have receipts from previous season games, the £20 pool is where the value and the field size sit.

Where the edge comes from

Season-long salary-cap fantasy rewards exactly the research this site is built for. The weekly projections tell you who is likely to score before the crowd moves the price, the fantasy strength-of-schedule grid shows which defences leak points to which positions in the weeks that matter, and the injury table tells you which safety-net swap is coming before it happens. Build your opening nine from the projections, pencil in the bye weeks against every player before you commit, and treat the first two weeks, before prices move, as the cheapest transfers you will ever make.

And one last note in the honesty column: a £12,000 pool paying the top tenth is a good structure, but the entry is still a stake and the season is still 18 weeks of variance. Enter what you can lose, keep the transfers banked, and let the byes be someone else's problem.

Put it to work

FanTeam Optimiser Every FanTeam price against our season projection, and the best nine you can afford.
Projections Weekly player forecasts to build the nine and time the transfers.
Injuries Current designations, so you know which safety-net swap is coming.