The rules · 2026 · 8-week trial
A grand a week. Nine spots. No draft, no waivers, no keepers. Everybody shops the same board, every week.
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Every Tuesday night a new board goes up with a price on every player. You get $1,000. You fill nine spots. You play one guy, head to head. High score wins.
That's it. No draft to lose in August. No waiver wire to lose at 3am. Nobody's roster is better than yours — everybody's shopping the same shelf with the same money.
Go 0–3 and it doesn't matter. Thursday you get a fresh grand, same as the guy in first.
01
$1,000 every week. Doesn't roll over. Can't be banked, can't be traded. Whatever you don't spend is gone.
Salaries are adjusted every week and rounded to the nearest $5. The best player on the board runs about $160. A punt tight end is $50.
Here is the cap in one number: the nine most expensive players on this week's board add up to $1,335. You have a thousand.
Nine spots against a grand means you cannot afford nine good players. Every legal lineup punts somewhere. Picking where is the game.
The board posts Tuesday night and covers that week's slate of games — Thursday night through Monday night, Wednesday on a holiday week. A Thursday guy counts exactly like a Sunday guy.
02
| Spot | Who fits |
|---|---|
| QB | One quarterback |
| RBRB | Two backs |
| WRWRWR | Three receivers |
| TE | One tight end |
| FLEX | Any back, receiver or tight end |
| BACKFLD | One team's entire backfield — see below |
No kickers. No defense. They aren't on the board at all.
Every row shows the matchup and the line from your guy's side, plus the forecast at kickoff. Information only — none of it changes scoring.
03
You're not buying a running back. You're buying the whole room.
Every carry, every catch, every back on that roster — added up and dropped in one spot. Lead guy blows out a knee on the first drive? The backup's yards are already yours. Injuries cannot touch this spot.
Price is that team's backs added together, times 0.40. Nobody wants a three-man committee, which is exactly why it's usually the best deal on the board. You get all three.
04
$125 a week. Covers all nine spots.
It comes out of a separate $500 season bank — not your weekly cap, and not real money. That is four weeks of cover for a six-week regular season. When it's gone, it's gone.
A starter gets ruled out and two things happen on that guy's team, automatically:
| His spot | Becomes that team's whole position group for the game. Lose Chase, you get every Bengals receiver. |
| One other spot | Flips to that team's best guy at that position, if it scores you more. Started Caleb Williams? He's Burrow now. |
Nothing to file. No deadline. It just happens. Two guys hurt, you get whichever claim is worth more.
Buy it before the week's first kickoff. No watching Thursday night and then buying cover on Friday.
Stacked two Bengals and Chase goes down? The other guy's already inside the group, so his spot reads zero. You didn't lose him — he's in there. Stacking and insurance don't mix.
05
Full PPR. Catch a ball, get a point.
| Passing | Pts | Rushing & receiving | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Every 25 yards | 1 | Every 10 yards | 1 |
| Touchdown | 4 | Touchdown | 6 |
| 300-yard game | 3 | 100-yard game | 3 |
| Interception | −1 | Catch | 1 |
| Two-point conversion | 2 | Return TD | 6 |
| Fumble lost | −1 |
Bonuses are per guy, not per spot. Three backs splitting 120 yards gets you nothing. One back running for 100 gets you three.
06
There is no Sunday deadline. Each spot locks when that guy kicks off. Your Thursday quarterback is done Thursday night. Your Monday flex is still open after you've watched everybody else's Sunday.
That's on purpose. Waiting buys you information — you'll know exactly what you need. It also costs you: you're sitting on cap you never spent, and Monday's board is thin. Spend to the cap on Sunday and you've got nothing left to play with.
No lineup at all by the last kickoff? You lose the game and the bank eats $125. Both guys no-show, both take the loss. Never a tie.
It doesn't drift. Moves early in the week, freezes 24 hours out, then one last update 90 minutes before kickoff — that's the inactives. Then it's locked. Every team runs its own clock, so a Thursday team is final while the Sunday teams are still early.
If it updated live, whoever hit refresh at the right second would see a downgrade nobody else had. That tag decides whether you can start a guy and whether he can trigger a claim, so it gets a schedule.
07
Head to head, one game a week. Two divisions: the Dirty Birds and the Dirty Sanchez. You are put in one when you claim your spot.
Weeks 1 to 5 you play your own division — all five of them, once each. Week 6 is a single game against somebody from the other side, drawn at random. Nobody in your division is a stranger by the time the bracket starts.
Home field is worth five points. In a division game one of you is hosting, and the host starts the week with five already on the board. Enough to swing a close one, not enough to rescue a bad lineup. Hosting is split as evenly as six teams and five weeks allow. The cross-division week is neutral turf, and so is every playoff game: a better seed is already the reward for finishing higher.
Tiebreakers, in order: record, points for, head-to-head, all-play.
All-play is your score against everybody that week, not just the guy you drew. This format is streaky enough that you can play great and sit at 1–3. All-play tells you the truth about whether you're actually any good.
Top two each side make it, crossed over - the top seed in one division draws the second seed in the other, and so on — so the two division winners can only meet in the final. Two rounds, single elimination. Lose once and you're out.
Standings are regular season only. Winning a playoff game advances you; it doesn't move you up the table.
08
You can't afford nine studs, so quit trying. Pick the spot you're going cheap at before you start shopping, not after you've run out of money.
Nobody wants a three-way split. The Backfield spot buys all three for the price of a fraction. It's the most underpriced thing on the board most weeks.
Two guys from the same offense is a real lever — but it fights your insurance. If that offense goes down, your second guy is already inside the group and his spot reads zero.
A live Monday flex after everyone else has finished is the single biggest edge in the format. You'll know the exact number you need.
Four weeks of cover for a six-week regular season. Spending it on a week you were going to win anyway is how you end up naked in the one that mattered.
Thousand Dollar Sundays · 8-week trial run · Prices illustrative until the Week 1 board posts