DRAFTCHALLENGERThe rulebook

How to play

You are drafting an all-time roster, twelve players deep, from anywhere in seventy years of pro football. Then the season plays out — and the season does not care how famous your picks are, only how good those seasons actually were.

The board

Twelve slots: QB · RB · WR · TE · FLEX · FLEX on offense, EDGE · DT · LB · CB · S · D-FLEX on defense. The FLEX seats take any offensive skill player; the D-FLEX takes any defender. Tap any open slot to spin it — the order is yours. Draft the corners first if that’s your conviction.

The spin

Every spin lands on a franchise era — a city and a window of years, anywhere back to the fifties — and deals you a hand of player-seasons from it. One keeps. Every run is guaranteed at least one legend era, and no era repeats within a run. The spin is decided the moment you commit the slot, on our side of the wire — not in your browser.

Re-rolls

One per side of the ball. A re-roll throws back the era you were dealt and draws a fresh one for that slot — spend it on a dead board, not a decent one. On shared boards the replacement era is fixed per slot, so a re-roll never becomes a way to fish for a better draw than the next player.

The season

Seventeen regular-season weeks, then three playoff rounds — twenty games. A playoff loss ends the run on the spot. The grade ladder, top to bottom:

One weak starter drags the whole projection — balance beats a lone superstar. How the ratings behind this are built is published in full: how the ratings work.

The games

Streaks and Pennants

Daily Challenge runs build a streak — miss a day and it resets. Pennants are the house currency, and they are earned only: 25 for every finished run, 50 more for a DYNASTY, 250 more for a perfect season, and a daily claim worth 100. Nobody can buy a Pennant.

Fair play

Every competitive surface is decided server-side: the spins, the re-rolls, the season itself. Shared boards are identical for everyone regardless of draft order, a Daily board can’t be rehearsed through a challenge link, and your own challenge link won’t let you replay your own seed. What you see on the scoreboard is what actually happened.

Take a board →