REDRAFT REAPER — HOW IT WORKS
How Redraft Reaper Works
Most fantasy football ends when the regular season does. Redraft Reaper is built for what comes next. Instead of drafting one team and riding it out, you draft a new team before every round of the NFL playoffs. As teams are eliminated, the player pool shrinks -- and managers get eliminated too.
The Four Rounds
Redraft Reaper follows the NFL playoff bracket:
- Wild Card -- up to 12 managers per league, drafting from the 12 teams that play Wild Card weekend. Teams with a first-round bye are not in this pool.
- Divisional -- the field is cut to 8 managers. Everyone still standing drafts a completely new roster from the 8 teams still alive, including the two teams that had a first-round bye.
- Conference Championship -- 4 managers remain and draft a new roster from the 4 teams left.
- Super Bowl -- the final 2 managers draft one last time, from the two teams playing for the championship.
A New Draft Pool Every Round
Your roster does not carry over from round to round (Premium leagues can optionally allow keepers, described below). When a round ends, you draft again from scratch -- but only from teams that are still alive.
- Teams on a first-round bye are not in the Wild Card pool. Their players become available in the Divisional round.
- Eliminated teams are gone for good. Every pick, every round, comes from a team that is actually still playing that week.
Roster Rules
Each roster has ten slots: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, TE, FLEX (RB/WR/TE), K, D/ST, and one bench spot (RB/WR/TE only).
Position hard caps prevent roster-hoarding: you can have only one QB, one K, and one D/ST. That keeps the draft pool fair, instead of one manager locking up every available quarterback.
QB, K, and D/ST are team positions. You draft the team's quarterback, kicker, or defense rather than an individual player, so if a starter is injured you still score points from whoever plays that position for that team.
The Draft
Each round's draft is a live snake draft with a pick clock. Standard leagues use a fixed 45-second clock; Premium commissioners can choose 30, 45, or 60 seconds. If your clock runs out, or you turn on autopick, the platform picks for you using player rankings and your open roster slots.
Scoring and Elimination
Standard leagues use half-PPR scoring with default point values. Premium leagues can choose no, half, or full PPR and customize point values.
After each round, the lowest-scoring managers are eliminated and the rest advance to draft again. In Standard leagues each round stands on its own, and cumulative score across rounds is used only to break ties.
Premium commissioners can also choose how rounds advance: Elimination (the default, as above), Aggregate (managers are ranked by cumulative score across rounds), or Head-to-Head (managers are paired off and each pair's higher scorer advances).
League Types and Settings
- Public (Standard) leagues -- anyone can join on their own, with default settings and no commissioner. Public leagues are merged toward 10-12 real managers before the draft, and AI managers fill any remaining spots.
- Premium invite-only leagues -- a commissioner creates the league and invites real people by league ID. The league is never merged with others.
- Premium buyout -- one person pays for a whole 12-team Premium league, then invites who they want.
- Premium draft order -- random, manual (the commissioner sets it), or based on the previous round's score, highest or lowest first, from the Divisional round onward.
- Premium keepers -- leagues can allow 1-2 keeper players carried into the next round's draft (not available for the Wild Card round, since there is no earlier round). Kept players stay in the draft round they were originally drafted in, so you skip that round's pick.
Try It Free
Free, unlimited mock drafts let you practice the format using the 2025 NFL playoff teams. A free account is required; no payment is needed.