After going 12-0 for the first time in my longtime keeper league, and then losing both rounds in the playoffs simply due to injuries and specific matchups (earning myself ZERO dollars for my efforts this year), I began to realize how little I enjoy this game when I’m doing well, and how much I DESPISE it when it’s not going the way I anticipate it to go.

With the rapid rise of the daily fantasy format, I decided that there must be a way to combine the two, and put a fresh spin on the regular league format.  While playing daily fantasy can be enjoyable, it still doesn’t compare to the intimacy and personality of a 10-team fantasy league comprised of the same knuckleheads every year.

So I came up with this idea that uses the best parts of both worlds.  There’s still a draft at the beginning of the season.  Although now it would only be 2-4 rounds.  This gives you your core group of players (your “squad”, if you will) that still only YOU can play each week.  What happens is, every week you would choose your starting lineup with the DFS salary cap format, which could also include the players from your squad.  These players would only show up in YOUR list of available players to start that week.  If you drafted Tom Brady into your squad, nobody else would be able to select him, since he wouldn’t show up in their lists.  This also means you don’t necessarily have to play him either if you don’t like the matchup.  The weekly H2H league matchups would still remain the same.

After the week is over, you can either hang on to the same squad members another week, OR choose to swap one out with a different player that you started that prior week.  The trick here is: let’s say at your yearly draft party, nobody drafted Doug Martin to their squad.  Then when setting lineups for week 1, you and two of the other owners saw he had a tasty matchup and you each decided to start him on your team that week.  He then goes off for 100 yds and two scores.  Now everybody wants to add him to their squad.  BUT the three of you who played him would have “dibs,” and you three could bid on him using the typical waiver auction method.  The highest bid gets to add Doug Martin to his squad, swapping him for one of his original drafted players.  This would then prevent anybody else from being able to start Martin in week 2.  Had nobody in your league started Martin in week 1, NOBODY would be able to add him to their squad yet.  You must first use a player in your starting lineup that week in order to place a bid on him to add him to your squad.

This idea is far from perfect, but I think some form of this could end up working well.  It’s fairly simple, and would keep someone from getting stuck with a team full of injured players, with nobody worthwhile to grab on waivers.