Fantasy Football Glossary
Every fantasy term explained in plain English — from PPR and FAAB to floor, ceiling and live substitutions. Bookmark it, share it with your league, and never get lost in the jargon again.
ADP (Average Draft Position)
Where a player is typically drafted on average.
Average Draft Position is the average spot a player is selected across many drafts. It is a quick benchmark for value — finding players your projections like who are going later than their ADP is how you win drafts.
Boom / Bust
A player prone to big games and duds in equal measure.
A boom-or-bust player has a wide range of outcomes: some weeks they explode (a “boom”), other weeks they disappear (a “bust”). We track boom rate and bust rate against position-specific thresholds so you know exactly how volatile a player is.
View boom rates in rankingsBye Week
The week a team does not play.
Every NFL team has one bye week where it does not play. Players on a bye score zero, so managers must plan lineups and rosters to cover byes — a perfect use case for streaming or a live substitution strategy.
Ceiling
A player’s realistic high-end weekly outcome.
A player’s ceiling is their upside — what they can score on a great day. High-ceiling players win weeks outright and are prized in tournaments and must-win matchups. We derive ceiling from the 85th percentile of actual game logs.
Consistency Score
How steady a player is week to week.
Consistency measures how tightly a player’s weekly scores cluster around their average. We compute it from the coefficient of variation of real game logs, on a 0–100 scale — higher means steadier and more startable every week.
FAAB (Free Agent Acquisition Budget)
A blind-bid budget for claiming waiver players.
FAAB is a season-long budget (often $100) that managers spend to bid on free agents. The highest blind bid wins the player. It replaces the rolling waiver-priority system and rewards smart budget management across the season.
Plan your FAAB bidsFLEX
A lineup slot that accepts multiple positions.
A FLEX slot can be filled by a running back, wide receiver, or tight end (and sometimes a quarterback in Superflex). It gives managers flexibility to start their best remaining option regardless of position.
Floor
A player’s realistic low-end weekly outcome.
A player’s floor is the score you can reasonably expect even on a bad day. High-floor players are safe, consistent starters. We calculate floor from the 20th percentile of a player’s real game logs rather than guessing.
Compare floors & ceilingsFrozen Points
Points locked in from a player you subbed out.
Frozen points are the points a player had already scored at the moment you substituted them out. They are permanently banked to your lineup slot — you never lose them — and the new player’s points are added on top.
Learn frozen-point scoringHalf-PPR
Awards half a point per reception.
Half-PPR is a middle-ground scoring format that awards 0.5 points per reception. It rewards volume pass-catchers without inflating their value as much as full PPR, and is one of the most popular formats in modern leagues.
Handcuff
The backup to a starting running back.
A handcuff is the backup running back who would inherit the workload if the starter gets hurt. Rostering your star RB’s handcuff protects that lineup slot from a season-altering injury.
Live Substitution
Swapping a player mid-game while keeping points already scored.
A live in-game substitution lets you swap a player out during an in-progress NFL game. The points your outgoing player already banked are frozen and kept, and the incoming player scores from the moment of the swap. It is the signature feature of FantasyFootballSubs — no other platform offers it.
See how live subs workMedian Scoring
An extra weekly result against the league median.
In median scoring, each team also plays an imaginary opponent scoring the league’s median points that week, giving everyone a second win/loss result. It smooths out schedule luck — and it’s free here, while some platforms paywall it.
PPR (Points Per Reception)
A scoring format that awards points for every catch.
PPR stands for Points Per Reception. In this format a player earns an extra point (or half a point in “half-PPR”) for every pass they catch, on top of yardage and touchdown points. PPR boosts the value of pass-catching running backs and slot receivers who rack up receptions.
See PPR projectionsRed Zone
The area inside the opponent’s 20-yard line.
The red zone is the field inside the opponent’s 20-yard line, where most touchdowns happen. Players who see heavy red-zone usage — goal-line carries or end-zone targets — carry extra touchdown upside.
Regression
A player’s numbers moving back toward their true average.
Regression to the mean is the tendency for unsustainable production (good or bad) to correct over time. A receiver scoring on an unusually high percentage of targets is a candidate for negative regression — and vice versa.
Standard Scoring
No points for receptions — only yards and touchdowns.
Standard (or “non-PPR”) scoring awards no bonus for catches. Points come from yardage and touchdowns only, which pushes goal-line running backs up draft boards relative to pass-catching specialists.
Streaming
Rotating in players weekly based on matchup.
Streaming is the strategy of picking up a different player each week — usually a quarterback, tight end, kicker or defense — to exploit favorable matchups instead of committing a roster spot to one option all season.
Strength of Schedule (SOS)
How tough a player’s upcoming opponents are.
Strength of schedule rates how favorable or difficult a player’s upcoming matchups are, usually by how many fantasy points opposing defenses allow to that position. It helps with trades, streaming, and playoff planning.
Superflex
A FLEX slot that also allows a quarterback.
A Superflex slot can be filled by any offensive skill position including a quarterback. Because a second startable QB is so valuable, Superflex leagues dramatically increase quarterback draft value.
Touchdown Regression
Touchdown rates normalizing over time.
Touchdown regression describes how unusually high or low touchdown rates tend to normalize. A player scoring on a huge share of their touches is likely to cool off, while a high-volume player with few scores is a positive-regression candidate.
Waiver Wire
The pool of unowned players available to add.
The waiver wire is the list of players not on any roster. Managers submit claims that process on a set schedule, using either waiver priority or FAAB. Winning the right waiver pickup is often what wins a league.
Open the waiver toolsPut the terms to work
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