If you play in a redraft league which has low owner turnover from year to year, you might want to spice the league up by creating some keeper rules. This will add a little bit more strategy to your draft and your in-season player transactions, give the teams a little personality from season to season, and heighten the Fun Level of your league.

The difference between a redraft league and a keeper league lies in the ability of owners to keep players from year to year. There are a variety of general keeper rules you can institute in your league, ranging from the number of players to keep, the price to pay for keeping players, or the number of years you’re allowed to keep a player. The sky is the limit on such rules, and you can be as creative as your league allows.

The simplest way to maintain a keeper league is to allow teams to keep a certain number of players, any players, for the next season. But these rules may be too simple, as there should be a price to pay for keeping players.

Many keeper leagues take the next step, such as forcing owners to give up a 1st Round Draft Pick the next season for keeping a player, then a 2nd Round Pick for keeping a second player, and so on, usually up to 3 players total. Most of these leagues make all 1st, 2nd & 3rd Round Picks from the previous season ineligible to be kept, thereby keeping the top players moving from year to year, and disallowing one team from it’s stranglehold on Peyton Manning, or the like.

To add a twist to these rules, another method is to have teams sacrifice a next-season draft pick a round earlier than the round he was drafted in. For example, in order to keep a player drafted in the 7th Round, you would need to give up a 6th Round Draft Pick the next year. Then the following season, the price to keep this player would be a 5th round pick, and so on. This method rewards owners for their diligence in making sleeper picks in the later rounds of the draft.

If your league is truly hard-core, you may even want to institute some “dynasty” rules, where teams keep every player from year to year, and there is no redraft, save for perhaps a rookie draft. Every roster spot becomes precious, and every move could make or break your team for years. Owners with a true vision for their teams will be successful in a dynasty league. Dynasty leagues are not for the faint of heart, and these rules should be instituted in the most stable of leagues with the most stable of owners. But when you are in a dynasty league that works, it is a rewarding fantasy football experience.

An owner’s drafting strategy changes tremendously with institution of keeper or dynasty rules. Owners will now have to decide between drafting a young QB with potential, like Carson Palmer, or drafting a quality backup WR. While an owner’s goal should always be to win their league right now, it becomes a balancing act of trying to win now but remain competitive for years to come. Owners will be less likely to become disinterested after being in the gutter halfway through the season, since they will have to ability to prepare for next year.

Adding keeper rules is a simple step a league can take to improve itself. Although we have made some suggestions here, there are no limits to what kind of keeper rules you want to make up, and creativity is encouraged. Fantasy football is for fun, and adding a few twists to your league rules could make it even a little more fun, and quite a bit more interesting. Enjoy.