2024 Fantasy Football Keeper Strategy and the FTN Keeper Value Chart

Fantasy football keeper leagues are a fun variation on a traditional redraft league where you get to carry over players from one season to the next. That’s an important distinction to make. Keeper leagues are not dynasty leagues. In a dynasty league, you have a startup draft and then an annual rookie draft after that point. Your roster remains the same, and you cut players each year to make room for rookies. In a keeper league, you have an annual redraft, and you get to keep X number of players from the previous year.

That’s where people often go wrong. Treating a keeper league like a dynasty league is a mistake. In dynasty leagues, we need to be concerned with the future. Failure to do so could lead us down the long and lonely road of a rebuild. However, next year really doesn’t matter in keeper leagues. It’s true. Our goal is to win this year and we often lose sight of that goal if we’re always focusing on the future. There will always be players to keep in the future if you draft well and manage your roster the right way.

Keeper leagues come in all shapes and sizes, but there is one common element across these leagues: Many fantasy football managers struggle to make their keeper decisions. There’s no doubt that this can be a tricky process, but there are a few things you can do to take the mystery out of your keeper decisions. If you have to choose your fantasy football keepers this year, here are a few tips that can really help you out.

Don’t Worry About Age

Unlike in dynasty leagues where you have players until you either cut them or trade them, you annually make the decision of who to keep in keeper leagues. Therefore, age isn’t a factor like it is in dynasty leagues. Tyreek Hill is getting close to the end of his dynasty window at 30 years old. Dynasty managers may want to look to trade him heading into this season. However, Hill is an elite option in keeper leagues provided you get good value on him or have no keeper penalties.

Don’t Play for Next Year in a Keeper League

While keeper leagues may seem like they’re like dynasty leagues, they’re actually quite different. We really want to treat them like a redraft league and not like a dynasty league. You don’t build for the future in a keeper league. That mindset of “playing for next year” in a keeper league will prevent you from winning this year. You want to keep the best players possible to help you win this year.

If There Are No Penalties, Keep Your Best Players

Sure, it’s stating the obvious, but don’t overthink this one. Simply keep the players who are ranked the highest. To help you figure all of that out, you can check out my fantasy football rankings.

If There Are Penalties, Use the FTN Keeper Value Chart.

Of course, some leagues aren’t this simple. If you’re in a league where you lose a specific round pick for keeping a player, it can be challenging to figure out each player’s values. That’s especially true when they have different round penalties. The good news is that we have you covered in the FTN Keeper Value Chart that you can find below.

Using our fantasy football projections, we calculated the pick value for every pick in a standard 16-round draft on the customary NFL 3,000-point scale. The values also correspond to player rankings for the top 192 players in rankings. This chart can be used for any format regardless of scoring settings and other roster requirements like adding a superflex position or using TE-premium scoring.

Before you dive into the chart, here are a few tips on how to use the chart: