The Fantasy Football Encyclopedia
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Fantasy football glossary

One line per term, so that no other note in this encyclopedia can use a word you have not been given.

as of 2026-08-02 · status seed · format espn-ppr1.0-10tm-std

Up: Fantasy Football · Related: Player archetypes · What basketball teaches you wrong about football

Every other note links here the first time it uses jargon. This is a lookup table, not reading — scan it once, then come back.

This glossary was reviewed for the confirmed 10-team conversion on 2026-08-02. Existing PPR and waiver-priority rules are unchanged from the last settings capture; only the team count changed. Where a term means something different in fantasy basketball, the line says so — a wrong transferred model feels exactly like competence. Punt appears twice for that reason: the football kick and the basketball strategy share nothing but a spelling.

Term What it means
ADP Average draft position — where a player typically goes across thousands of mock drafts. A market price, not a ranking or a projection. See ADP, rankings, and projections are three different things.
alpha X A team's clear first-option receiver: lines up wide, gets targeted regardless of matchup. High, stable target volume. One of the twelve Player archetypes.
bell cow A running back who handles nearly all of his team's backfield work. "Three-down" adds that he stays on the field on passing downs and catches passes.
best ball A format with no weekly lineup decisions — you draft, and your highest scorers each week are counted automatically. Not this league. Rankings written for best ball price upside higher than yours should.
bye week The one week each NFL team does not play. Its players score zero and you must start someone else. 2026 byes fall in weeks 5–11, 13 and 14; six teams are off in week 11.
carry A running play handed to a player. Carries pay 0.1 a yard here, so 50 rushing yards is 5 points before any touchdown.
ceiling / floor The two ends of a player's weekly range: floor is what he scores when nothing goes right, ceiling his best realistic week. This league's payout rewards ceiling.
committee A backfield split between two or three backs, so none of them gets enough work to start with confidence.
depth chart The team's own ordering of who plays ahead of whom at each position. It decides opportunity, and opportunity decides fantasy points. See Reading an NFL depth chart.
D-ST Defence and special teams, drafted as one unit — you roster a whole team's defence, never individual defenders. Streamed by matchup, not held.
down One attempt to advance the ball. A team gets four downs to gain ten yards; make it and the count starts over, fail and the ball changes hands. Downs score nothing themselves — they set how many plays exist to be divided.
drive One possession, from getting the ball to giving it up. Each team gets about eleven a game.
end zone The ten-yard scoring area at each end of the field. Getting the ball into it is a touchdown.
extra point (PAT) The one-point kick taken straight after a touchdown — PAT is "point after touchdown". Pays your kicker 1 and is close to automatic. A team may run a two-point conversion instead.
FAAB Free agent acquisition budget: blind bidding out of a fixed seasonal pot. This league does not use FAAB — it uses waiver priority, which behaves very differently.
field goal A kick through the uprights, worth 3 to the NFL team — the consolation prize for a drive that stalls short of the end zone. Your kicker is paid by distance here (3/4/5/6 by bracket) and −1 for any miss.
flex The lineup slot accepting a running back, wide receiver or tight end. In this 10-team model it increases demand beyond the 20 fixed RB and WR slots, producing the current RB24 and WR26 replacement baselines.
fractional scoring Yards pay in fractions — 0.1 a yard rushing and receiving, 0.04 passing. Small yardage differences move scores, and exact ties are rare.
fumble The ball dropped or knocked loose while a player is carrying it. Only a fumble lost — one the defence recovers — scores, at −2 to the player who lost it and as a scoring event for the defence.
game script How a game is expected to unfold on the scoreboard, and so whether a team runs (leading) or throws (trailing). It moves back and receiver value in opposite directions.
garbage time The end of a decided game, when the trailing team throws freely against a soft defence. Meaningless in football, fully counted in fantasy.
goal line The last few yards before the end zone. Touchdowns pay six against 0.1 a yard, so who gets the ball here matters out of all proportion.
handcuff The backup to a bell cow, worth rostering only because one injury usually hands him almost the whole role at once.
IDP Individual defensive player — a format where you roster linebackers and cornerbacks by name. This league is not one: you draft whole team defences only, so any ranking of individual defenders describes a different game.
implied team total The points a betting market expects one team to score, derived from the spread and total. The best single-number matchup filter. See Implied team total.
inactives The list, published about 90 minutes before kickoff, of who will not play. The last and most reliable injury information you get.
interception A pass caught by the defence instead of the intended receiver. −2 to the quarterback who threw it, and a scoring event for the D/ST that caught it.
IR slot A roster spot holding an injured player without counting against your 16. You get one, and only certain injury designations qualify for it.
lock (lineup) The moment a player can no longer be moved in or out of your lineup. Here each locks at his own kickoff, not a league-wide deadline, so a 4:25pm player stays movable after the 1pm games start.
move TE A tight end split out and used as a receiver rather than a blocker — effectively a large slot receiver at a scarce position. The only kind worth drafting.
OP slot "Offensive player" — a lineup slot accepting any offensive position, quarterback included. A superflex under another name. This league has neither.
pocket QB A quarterback who scores only by passing, where the whole position is compressed. Fine — just take one late. See Late-round quarterback.
positional run Several managers taking the same position back to back, because the scarcity became visible to everyone at once. Why the cost of waiting is not linear.
PPR (full / half / standard) Points per reception. Standard pays nothing for a catch, half pays 0.5, full pays 1.0 — this league is full PPR. Ten catches for 80 yards is 18 points, which is what makes pass-catching backs and slot receivers startable.
punt (a category) A fantasy basketball strategy: deliberately conceding a statistical category. There are no categories in football. Every point is the same point, so nothing here can be punted.
punt (the kick) The football meaning. Kicking the ball away on fourth down rather than failing the down and handing the other team the ball where you stand. Scores nothing for anyone in your lineup; punt returns are a D/ST income stream.
PUP Physically unable to perform, a preseason designation. A player still on PUP when the season opens misses at least the first four games.
questionable / doubtful / out The official game-status ladder: questionable is a coin flip, doubtful usually means no, out is settled. Only inactives are final. See Reading the NFL injury report.
red zone Inside the opponent's 20-yard line, where scoring chances concentrate. Red-zone usage is the best available proxy for touchdown opportunity.
reception A catch. Here every reception is a full point on its own, before a single yard — the most consequential scoring rule in the format.
replacement level What the freely available player you would start instead scores — the baseline all value is measured against. Same idea as in basketball, far steeper at running back. See Replacement level.
rushing QB A quarterback who runs by design. Rushing yards pay 0.1 and rushing touchdowns six against a passing touchdown's four, so he collects income the rest of his position does not.
sack The quarterback tackled behind the line of scrimmage before he can throw. Costs his team yards, scores nothing for any offensive player, and pays the D/ST that made it.
safety The rare play where the offense is tackled in its own end zone. Worth 4 to your D/ST (confirmed 2026-07-25). Not to be confused with the defensive position of the same name.
sleeper A player someone expects to beat his draft cost. The word carries no analytical content — treat it as a claim, not information.
slot The inside receiver position, lined up closer to the formation. Shorter throws, more of them, fewer yards each — which full PPR pays well.
snap One play. Being on the field is the precondition for everything else, which is why snap counts get read before box scores.
snap share The share of his team's offensive plays a player is on the field for. The earliest signal a role is growing or shrinking — it moves before the stats do.
stocks Steals plus blocks — a fantasy basketball term with no football equivalent at all. If a football note uses it, that note is wrong.
streaming Rotating a roster spot weekly by matchup instead of holding a player. In basketball you stream for extra games played; here every team plays once a week, so it buys matchup quality only. See Streaming a position.
superflex A lineup slot that also accepts a quarterback, so most teams start two and the position turns scarce. This league has no superflex — which is the whole reason you can wait on quarterback. See Late-round quarterback.
target A pass thrown in a player's direction, counted whether or not he catches it. The receiver equivalent of shot attempts, and far more stable than efficiency.
target share The share of his team's targets a player receives. The cleanest single measure of how much of a passing offense belongs to him.
the turn The end of a snake-draft round, where your two picks come close together. From 1.01 in this 10-team snake you next pick at 20 and 21, after an 18-pick blind window, then own every later pair.
tier A group of players close enough in value that which one you get barely matters. Draft by tier; reach only when a tier is about to empty. See Tiers by position.
touch A carry or a catch — any time a player has the ball. The supply on each team is roughly fixed, so one player's gain is a teammate's loss.
touchdown The ball carried or caught into the end zone. 6 points to the rusher or receiver who scores it, 4 to the quarterback who threw it. At 0.1 a yard, one touchdown is worth 60 yards of ordinary work.
two-point conversion An optional play from the two-yard line after a touchdown, taken instead of the extra-point kick. Pays 2 to whoever scores it. Rare, and never worth planning around.
VOR (value over replacement) Projected points minus what a replacement-level starter at the same position scores. The only honest way to compare a running back to a quarterback. See Value over replacement in fantasy football.
waiver priority The order in which claims on unrostered players are awarded. This league resets it every week to the inverse of the standings, so unlike basketball it holds no option value: an unused claim expires worthless, and winning pushes you to the back of the line.
waiver wire The pool of unrostered players. Claims here process after a one-day waiting period; whatever goes unclaimed then becomes first-come-first-served. See Waivers.
workhorse A looser word for bell cow — a back carrying an outsized share of his team's work.
X / Y / Z receiver Formation labels: X is the wide first option, Y the tight end, Z the flanker and usual deep threat. Where a player lines up largely sets how many targets he sees.
zero RB Skipping running backs early for receivers, then buying backfield volume late and off the wire. A bet that injuries make the position replaceable in-season.

If a note uses a term that is not on this list, the note is at fault, not you.

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