NFL inactives are required 90 minutes before kickoff, the league's website said in its report on the game-day rules. The time is tied to each game's own start, so a game that kicks off at 1:00 p.m. Eastern has its inactive lists due at 11:30 a.m. Eastern.

Inactives times for this week's games

The table subtracts 90 minutes from each kickoff time on the NFL's Week 10 schedule for the 2026 season. All times are Eastern.

The same subtraction works in any week: take the kickoff time on the schedule and count back one hour and 30 minutes.

How the list is handed in

The inactive list reaches the game officials at a fixed point in the pregame schedule. NFL Football Operations describes a meeting held one hour and 30 minutes before kickoff, where the referee and the other game officials meet in their locker room with both teams' public relations directors, league representatives and the television network. At that meeting, club public relations representatives deliver the Game Day Administration Report to the referee.

The report includes, according to the same page:

• the club's inactive list
• the players designated to have coach-to-player communication components in their helmets
• any players or coaches wearing microphones

The official team warm-up period begins 60 minutes before kickoff, the page says, which is 30 minutes after the lists are due.

What it means for fantasy lineups

The deadline falls 90 minutes before each kickoff, so the lists for the late Sunday games and the night game are due after the early games have started. In Week 10, the lists for the 4:05 p.m. games are due at 2:35 p.m. Eastern, more than an hour and a half after the 1:00 p.m. kickoffs. The injury report labels are covered in what questionable, doubtful and out mean.

A late change the league has allowed

A player can still be lost after the deadline. In December 2020 the league adjusted its game-day rules so that a club could activate a new player up to 30 minutes before kickoff when a positive COVID-19 test or a high-risk close contact designation came after the deadline for submitting inactives. The league's website said the change followed a Week 13 game in which the Baltimore Ravens' Dez Bryant was ruled out right before kickoff, after inactives had been announced.

Fantasy basketball scoring works in one of two ways: a league either assigns a point value to each statistic and adds the points up, or it compares teams statistic by statistic, according to the scoring formats ESPN lists for fantasy basketball. Either method can run as head-to-head matchups against one opponent per scoring period or as season-long standings across the whole league. The platform and the league's own settings decide which one applies.

The formats each platform lists

The ESPN row comes from its Scoring Formats and Scoring Settings pages. The Yahoo row comes from its default league settings and Head-to-Head scoring pages. The Sleeper row comes from its League Formats & Game Modes page.

How ESPN defines its five formats

ESPN's Scoring Formats page, updated November 9, 2026, says League Manager leagues can be created with one of five formats and that the league creator can customize them by changing individual categories and points. The page sits in ESPN's Fantasy Basketball help section, and its examples use baseball statistics.

ESPN's Scoring Settings page says its default settings are pre-selected when a League Manager league is created and that every available stat category and point value can be edited. The same page says a League Manager can change categories and point values at any time during the season, and that the system then changes all previous game results to match the new settings.

Yahoo's default point values

Yahoo's default league settings page says the default scoring setting for all league types in Fantasy Basketball is Head-to-Head Points. The default point values on that page are the same for public leagues and public prize leagues.

In Head-to-Head Points, a team plays a different opponent each week, and Yahoo's Head-to-Head scoring page says the manager with the most total points gets one win added to the win-loss-tie record. The page says the commissioner defines how many points each tracked stat is worth and that points reset at the start of each new game week.

Yahoo's default categories

The default league settings page lists the same nine stat categories for Yahoo's default Head-to-Head Categories leagues and its default Rotisserie leagues:

• Points scored
• Total rebounds
• Assists
• Steals
• Turnovers
• Blocked shots
• 3-point shots made
• Field goal percentage
• Free throw percentage

Yahoo's Head-to-Head scoring page says each stat in Head-to-Head Categories counts as one game per game week, and the weekly wins, losses and ties accumulate in the team's record. Head-to-Head One Win is identical, the page says, except that only one result is added to the record per week, a win for the manager who took the most categories.

Rotisserie has no weekly opponent. Yahoo's overview of scoring describes it as "Season-long accumulated stats against your entire league." The overview also says that when percentage stats are tied after rounding, Yahoo uses the actual figures to identify the winner and marks that stat with an asterisk.

How Sleeper scores fantasy basketball

Sleeper's League Formats & Game Modes page, dated September 29, 2026, says Lock-In Mode is the default format for new Sleeper fantasy basketball leagues. In Lock-In Mode, one game per week, per player, counts toward the matchup score. A manager can lock in a player's performance after the game ends and must do so before that player's next game begins. Weekly matchups run from Monday through Sunday.

The same page says formats such as Rotisserie, Head-to-Head Categories and 9-Cat "may be considered in the future," and that Sleeper has no plans to offer them at this time. It also says Game Pick Mode is open only to leagues renewed to the 2026-27 season and can no longer be chosen for a new league.

Sleeper's scoring settings page says the platform offers 22 scoring settings and marks 11 of them as Sleeper default scoring settings:

• Points scored
• Rebound
• Assist
• Steal
• Block
• Turnover
• 3-point shots made
• Double-double
• Triple-double
• Technical foul
• Flagrant foul

PPR means points per reception: in a PPR fantasy football league, a player earns points for every catch, on top of the points for yards and touchdowns. ESPN's Scoring Formats page said "In a PPR league, players who catch a reception will earn a point."

PPR, half PPR and standard scoring

Sleeper's blog names three core scoring systems: PPR, half-PPR and standard scoring.

The PPR and standard rows come from ESPN's Scoring Formats page, which said a PPR league adds 1 point for every catch a player makes and that standard (non-PPR) leagues do not award a point for a catch. The half PPR row comes from Sleeper's article on PPR, which said catches are worth .5 points in half-PPR leagues and that in standard scoring "all that matters are yards and scoring plays."

A worked example

ESPN's Scoring Formats page gives a running back with 50 rushing yards, 6 catches for 30 receiving yards and one touchdown.

The 6 points between the two totals are the 6 catches. Sleeper's article gives a second case: 10 catches for 55 yards is worth 5.5 points in standard scoring, 10.5 points in half PPR and 15.5 points in full PPR.

What each platform's page says

ESPN. ESPN offers two types of public leagues, PPR and standard (non-PPR). Its league scoring types page labels PPR "ESPN Standard" and said each reception is worth 1 point in ESPN Standard leagues and can be customized in custom leagues. The same page said the points go to the running back, wide receiver or tight end who catches the pass, and that a league manager cannot limit the setting to one position.

Yahoo. Yahoo's default league settings list 0.5 points for each reception, along with 1 point for every 10 receiving yards and 6 points for each receiving touchdown. Yahoo said those defaults apply when a manager joins a public league or creates a private league, and that commissioners of private leagues can adjust the settings.

Sleeper. Sleeper's support page for its picks game said NFL fantasy points there are scored using "Sleeper's default PPR scoring rules" and lists 1 point per reception, 0.10 points per rushing or receiving yard and 6 points per rushing or receiving touchdown.

NFL.com. In an article published on May 21, 2019, NFL.com said it was switching from standard to PPR, one fantasy point per reception, as its preferred league scoring system. The article said commissioners could change a league to standard or to a half point per reception under "scoring" in the league settings menu.

How to check a league's setting

ESPN said a league's settings page shows how that league scores each category, that league managers of custom leagues can edit the categories and point values, and that decimal values are allowed. ESPN also said a change made after the season has begun updates all previous game results to the new settings.

Scoring is one of several league settings a commissioner chooses. For another, see What is FAAB in fantasy football?

Fantasy football scoring turns the real game statistics of the players in a team's lineup into fantasy points, and in a head-to-head league the team with the most points in its weekly matchup wins, according to ESPN Fan Support. Each platform sets its own default point values, and the person who runs a league can change them.

How points turn into wins

ESPN describes the system on its scoring formats page: "The winner of each matchup is the team that accumulates the most fantasy points, determined by the weekly statistics of the players in each team's lineup and the scoring settings of your league." Weekly results are compiled into an overall record that appears on the league's standings page. A separate page covers when the fantasy football playoffs are.

Yahoo's scoring overview says head-to-head points is the default scoring type in its fantasy football game. The same page says only active players, meaning those not on the bench at the time of their game, earn stats for a team, and a player added during the season does not bring the stats earned before joining the team. A separate page covers how waivers work for adding players.

Default points for offense

Yahoo lists its values on its default league settings page, which says they are used when a manager joins a public league or creates a private league. ESPN lists its standard values on its scoring formats page.

Reception scoring differs by platform and format. Yahoo's default gives 0.5 points for each catch, while ESPN offers public leagues in two formats, one that adds 1 point for every catch (PPR) and one that awards none.

Yahoo's page explains the minus signs this way: "When you see a negative number in the points list, it means that points are removed from a player’s total for that play." Its default settings also have fractional yardage points switched on.

Default points for kickers

The two platforms group field goals by distance in different ways, as their pages show (Yahoo, ESPN).

Default points for team defenses

A team defense scores for the plays it makes and for how few points it allows. The values below come from the same Yahoo and ESPN pages.

Leagues can change the values

The defaults apply only until a league changes them. Yahoo's default settings page says commissioners of private leagues have the option to adjust the settings their league uses. ESPN's scoring formats page says the league manager of a custom league can edit the categories and their point values, that decimal values are allowed, and that a change made after the season has begun automatically updates all previous game results to the new settings. ESPN directs managers to the League Settings page to see how their own league scores each category.

Sleeper's scoring options page says a league can set the point values "to your liking" across its stat categories, which include passing, rushing and receiving first downs. On Sleeper the Pass Intercepted, Incomplete Pass and Pick 6 Thrown options stack, so a quarterback who throws an interception returned for a touchdown loses points in all three categories when a league uses them.

Fantasy football lineups do not lock at one clock time on ESPN's default setting: each player locks at the scheduled kickoff of his own NFL game, according to ESPN's lineup lock page. The kickoff times that set those locks are in the NFL schedule for this week.

Lock rules by platform

ESPN

ESPN defines the lineup lock time as the point when team lineups lock each week, and says it applies to moving players between active slots, or between active slots and bench slots. League Manager leagues have two options:

• Lock Individually at Scheduled Gametime. ESPN calls this the default setting and says it is used by the majority of leagues. Managers can make moves until the scheduled kickoff time of each player's game.
• Lock at First Game of the Week. ESPN's page says: "All roster moves will lock at the first game of the week, even if the first game falls on a Thursday."

The League Manager may change the setting up until one hour prior to the draft, according to the same page.

A separate ESPN page on locked players says player slots lock individually as each NFL game kicks off. It gives the practical consequence: a manager who left an injured player in an active slot cannot swap him out for that week once his game has started. After a slot locks, only the League Manager can make roster changes on the manager's behalf. The injury designations are explained in what questionable, doubtful and out mean in the NFL.

Yahoo

Yahoo's help page on early week games says players involved in those games "will be locked in place at the scheduled start time." Yahoo says this affects moves between active and bench positions, and that lineup decisions need to be made before that deadline.

The same page lists what follows for the rest of the week:

• A manager who adds a player who was involved in an early week game cannot move that player into the starting lineup until the following week.
• Players who are in an active roster spot for an early week game cannot be dropped until the following week.
• Players who are in a bench roster spot for an early week game can be dropped at any time, subject to the league's weekly waiver rules and roster move deadlines.
• A player acquired by trade who has already played for the week is locked on the bench until the following week.

The waiver side of those rules is covered in when fantasy football waivers clear and how waivers work in fantasy football.

Sleeper

Sleeper's help pages describe the lock through two cases. In a page on dropped starters, dated September 21, 2026, Sleeper gives an example of a player whose game kicks off at 1:00 p.m. Eastern on a Sunday and who is by then locked into the starting lineup. It says a newly acquired player can be started that same week only if his own game has not yet begun and the manager has an open, eligible slot.

In its page on Player AutoSubs, dated September 15, 2026, Sleeper answers the question "When do players lock?" for that feature: "As soon as one player in the AutoSub pairing kicks off, both players lock." An AutoSub is a bench player a manager assigns to move into the lineup automatically if a starter is inactive.

On the NFL injury report, questionable means it is uncertain whether the player will play in the game, doubtful means it is unlikely he will play, and out means he will not play, according to the league's Injury Report Policy revisions. The three labels are game statuses, and they are separate from the practice labels that appear on the same report.

The three game statuses

The definitions come from the NFL's announcement that its Competition Committee had approved revisions to the Injury Report Policy. The league states each definition in words and attaches no percentage chance to any of them.

The same announcement tells clubs which label to use when they are unsure. It said: "If there is any question concerning a player’s availability for the game, he should be listed as "Questionable.""

Why there is no probable status

The Game Status Report once had a probable label. The NFL said the revisions eliminated it because approximately 95 percent of the players listed as probable in prior years did play in the game. The revisions also redefined doubtful and questionable to the meanings in the table above.

What it means when a player has no game status

A player with an injury can be missing from the Game Status Report. Under the revised policy, a player who is certain to play is no longer listed there, even if he was on the club's practice report during the week.

If such a player is then deactivated for the game, the club must give the league an explanation and is subject to possible discipline, the NFL said.

Practice status is a separate label

The practice report describes how much an injured player did in practice. The NFL requires clubs to list injured players in one of three practice categories.

The practice report has no out category. The league removed it to avoid confusion between the practice report and the Game Status Report.

Where to read the report

The NFL publishes the report on its official injury report page, which lists each player's position, injuries, practice status and game status for the week's games.

Waivers in fantasy football put a temporary freeze on players who are not on any roster, so every manager has time to claim them, and when the freeze ends each player goes to the claiming manager with the highest waiver priority, according to Yahoo's waivers overview. ESPN's Waivers Overview describes the same process: a claimed player is awarded to the team with the highest waiver priority that made a claim.

On Yahoo, the commissioner picks a waiver rule and a claim priority. The waiver rule decides when players are on waivers and for how long. The claim priority decides who wins when more than one manager wants the same player. The times at which claims are processed on each platform are in when fantasy football waivers clear.

How a waiver claim works

1. A player becomes unclaimed. On ESPN's standard system, players go on waivers immediately after the league's draft, from the start of the first game until a few hours past the end of the last, and when another team drops them.
2. Managers put in claims during the waiver period. Every team can claim any player on waivers.
3. The period ends and claims are processed. The player goes to the claiming team with the highest priority, or with the highest bid in a budget league.
4. Players nobody claimed become free agents. On ESPN they can then be added by any team first come, first served, and on Yahoo's weekly waivers the remaining players go to the first manager to claim them.

Waiver priority: who wins a contested player

Yahoo lists four claim priorities that a commissioner can choose from.

In the first three, the starting order comes from the draft. Yahoo said that in live and autopick drafts the last draft position gets the first rank, and in offline drafts the last manager to register gets it. Under Reverse Order of Standings the list stops resetting when the playoffs begin. The playoff dates are in when the fantasy football playoffs are.

Under ESPN's standard waivers, the team that wins a player moves to the end of the waiver order, and processing continues until every claim has been handled.

Free agent budget: bidding in place of a priority list

A free agent budget, which Yahoo and ESPN both label FAB, replaces the priority list with bidding. On Yahoo, each manager gets a budget for offers on players who are on waivers. Yahoo said the default budget is $100, that the commissioner of a private league can adjust it, and that budgets range from $1 to $999.

An offer on Yahoo can be anything from $0 to what is left of the manager's budget, and offers are blind, so other managers cannot see them. The manager with the highest offer signs the player and has that amount deducted. When two offers tie, Yahoo uses whichever of the other three priorities the commissioner picked as the tiebreaker.

ESPN has two budget systems. In both, a team offers the amount it is willing to pay, offers are processed in batches one or more times each week as the league settings specify, and the highest offer is subtracted from the winner's budget. The difference is what happens to players nobody bid on. Under "Free Agent Budget (FAB) (Continuous)", every player not on a roster is always on waivers, so managers cannot make game time additions. Under the plain "Free Agent Budget (FAB)" setting, unclaimed players become free agents after offers are processed. ESPN keeps a tiebreaker order for budget leagues, and a team that wins a claim moves to the bottom of it.

Waiver rules: when players are on waivers

Yahoo offers three waiver rules.

The default weekly setting on Yahoo is "Game Time - Tuesday", which places an unclaimed player on waivers as soon as his first game of the week begins. Under continuous waivers, the commissioner of a private league can set the timer anywhere from no waivers to 7 days, and a player can never be added on the same day the claim is made.

ESPN lists four acquisition systems: Standard Waivers, the two budget systems and No Waivers, in which every player can be added at once as a free agent. ESPN locks this setting at the start of the draft. Its page said most leagues use waivers because the No Waivers system "is often deemed unfair."

Conditional claims

A manager can place more than one claim so that a backup is ready if the first choice goes to someone else. Yahoo gives the example of three claims that all drop the same player for three different targets: if another manager wins the first or second target, the third claim can still go through. In Yahoo's example, a later claim is voided when the player it would drop has already been dropped by an earlier successful claim.

Who sets the rules

On Yahoo, the commissioner picks the waiver rule and the claim priority from the "Edit League Settings" page of the "Commissioner" tab. A Yahoo league also decides before its draft whether players left undrafted can be added at once or go into waivers first, and that choice cannot be changed after the draft. Trades are covered in when the fantasy football trade deadline is.

FAAB stands for Free Agent Acquisition Budget, a waiver system in which each fantasy football team gets a set budget to bid on free agents through blind bidding, according to Sleeper's FAAB page.

How FAAB bidding works

Sleeper said other managers cannot see the amount of a bid, and that the highest bid wins when waivers process. The default budget on Sleeper is $100, and a commissioner can set a different amount.

When two or more teams submit the same bid on Sleeper, the league's waiver priority breaks the tie. The minimum bid is $0 by default unless the commissioner changes it, so a team that has spent its whole budget can still submit claims. Sleeper also said FAAB can be traded between teams.

Bids are decided when the league's waivers run. See When do fantasy football waivers clear?

FAAB on Sleeper, Yahoo and ESPN

The Sleeper row comes from Sleeper's FAAB page, the Yahoo row from Yahoo's waivers and free agents overview and the ESPN row from ESPN's Waivers Overview.

Yahoo

Yahoo lists FAB, for Free Agent Budget, as one of its waiver priority options. Each manager is given a budget that can range from $1 to $999,999,999. The default is $100, and the commissioner of a private league can adjust it.

An offer on Yahoo can range from $0 to the remainder of the team's budget. Offers are blind, so other managers cannot see them, and the offer amount is deducted from the budget of the manager who signs the player. Yahoo said ties are broken by Continual Rolling List waiver priority and that a FAB budget does not replenish when it runs out.

ESPN

ESPN's Waivers Overview lists two versions, Free Agent Budget (FAB) and Free Agent Budget (FAB) (Continuous). Teams have a specific budget to use for player signings. The team with the highest offer is awarded the player, and the amount is subtracted from that team's budget.

ESPN said all offers are processed in batches one or more times each week, as the league settings specify. In the version that is not continuous, players who are not claimed during offer processing become free agents. ESPN keeps an order it calls the Free Agent Budget Tiebreaker, and a team that wins a claim moves to the bottom of it.

Does a FAAB budget reset?

On Sleeper, FAAB budgets do not automatically reset or roll over between seasons, and a commissioner who wants to reset balances has to do so manually. Within a season, Yahoo said a FAB budget does not replenish when it runs out.

An IR spot in fantasy football is an extra roster spot for a player who is temporarily unable to play because of injury or another qualifying status, as Sleeper's injured reserve page describes it. IR stands for injured reserve. Moving an eligible player into the spot opens a place on the roster, and ESPN said that "when you place an eligible player into the IR/IL slot, you gain an open roster slot."

Who is eligible for an IR spot

Each platform keeps its own list of the designations that qualify, so a player can be eligible in one league and not in another.

The Yahoo row comes from Yahoo's injured and inactive players page, the ESPN row from ESPN's page on moving players on and off IR and the Sleeper row from Sleeper's injured reserve page.

Yahoo lists the designations that do not qualify in its football leagues: D (Doubtful), NA (Not Active), P (Probable), Q (Questionable), CEL (Commissioner's Exempt List) and SUSP (Suspended). NFI stands for Non-Football Injury and PUP for Physically Unable to Perform.

Sleeper said some of its eligibility options must be turned on by the commissioner in the league settings.

How an IR spot works

Yahoo said players in the IR position do not earn any points, even if they are earning stats in real games.

On Yahoo, a manager clicks the position next to the injured player on the roster, and the IR position appears as a choice if the player is eligible for it. Yahoo said a player cannot be added directly to the IR spot unless the commissioner has turned that ability on in the league settings. To bring the player back, the roster must have an opening for an active player.

On ESPN, the system places the IR tag on a player automatically once ESPN receives the league report. A manager then uses the IR button on the team page, which shows the players who are eligible and a "To IR/IL" option for each. If every IR slot is full, one player has to be activated first.

Whether a league has an IR spot

The league's settings decide whether the spot exists and how many there are. ESPN said the slot is available in all of its Standard leagues, and that a league manager can turn on IR slots under the LM Tools tab by selecting Edit League Settings. Sleeper said commissioners can set the number of IR slots in the league settings, up to 10.

Yahoo said a manager with no IR position available uses bench spots to hold injured players, and that in a league that does not allow benched players, the manager needs to drop the injured player to pick up another one.

What happens when the player is healthy again

A player who no longer qualifies can stay in the spot, but he limits what the manager can do next, and the rule differs by platform.

Yahoo said a player can stay in the IR spot for the entire season, even if he returns to real action. Once he is activated in real life, the manager cannot complete any transaction that adds a player until he is activated on the fantasy team. Moves within the roster, such as switching players between the bench and active spots, and drops are still allowed.

ESPN said a manager with a healthy player in an IR slot cannot add any new players and gets a message to clear the slot before making a claim. A waiver claim made while the player still qualified goes through as normal if he becomes healthy before it processes.

Sleeper said the roster of a manager with an ineligible player in an IR slot becomes locked. The manager frees it by moving the player out of the slot, dropping another player to make room or completing a trade if the league settings allow it.

Why eligibility can change during the week

On Sleeper, an "Out" tag is a gameday designation that lasts for one NFL week. Sleeper said the player's status reverts to its previous designation early Wednesday morning unless he has officially been ruled out for his next game. A player on a bye the following week keeps the designation through the bye.

Yahoo said its designations are given as soon as possible and typically appear after its overnight update. In private Yahoo football leagues, a commissioner can also choose to apply an injury status to players whose game is postponed, which makes them IR eligible for the week the game was originally scheduled.

Fantasy football waivers clear at a time set by the platform and the league: ESPN's standard waiver process begins daily between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. ET, and Yahoo's weekly waivers end after 11:59 p.m. PT on Tuesday. Sleeper leagues choose their own day and time.

Waiver times by platform

The ESPN row comes from ESPN's Waiver Period page, the Yahoo row from Yahoo's waivers overview and the Sleeper row from Sleeper's waiver settings page.

ESPN

ESPN defines a waiver period as the length of time a player must spend on waivers before claims are processed. The default is 1 day. A league manager can change it at any time during the season to 2 days, 3 days or 4 days, and ESPN said most players then clear on Thursday, Friday or Saturday mornings.

A player dropped during the week stays on waivers for the full period in the league rules. With a 1 day period, ESPN said the claim processes at the next waiver run that is at least a full 24 hours later, so a player dropped at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday is processed at about 4 a.m. ET on Saturday.

In ESPN's standard system, the player goes to the team with the highest waiver priority that made a claim, and that team then moves to the end of the waiver order, according to ESPN's Waivers Overview. Players nobody claimed become free agents once all claims are processed. In leagues that use a free agent budget, offers are processed in batches one or more times each week, as the league settings specify.

Yahoo

Yahoo offers weekly waivers and continuous waivers. Weekly waivers have three start times and one end time. After 11:59 p.m. PT on Tuesday, the players still unclaimed can be added by the first manager to claim them.

With continuous waivers, all unclaimed players are on waivers at all times, and a claim starts a timer for other managers to add claims of their own. Yahoo said the default period is 2 days and that the commissioner of a private league can set it anywhere from no waivers to 7 days. A player is never added on the same day the claim is made under continuous waivers. A commissioner can also choose "None" as the waiver rule, which turns waivers off so that unclaimed players go to the first manager who adds them.

Sleeper

Sleeper lists three waiver options: After Games Waivers Clear, Time Players Are on Waivers After Drop and Custom Daily Waivers. After Game Waivers lets a league specify the day players clear waivers after playing in a game. Custom Daily Waivers lets the league pick a time of day or night for claims to clear every 24 hours. Sleeper's page refers to a default 3 a.m. processing time, which a custom time overrides, and it does not name a time zone. With neither of those two settings chosen, all players are free agents and can be added immediately.

When more than one setting is on, a claim can process later than first shown. Sleeper said the options can override each other and a claim will not process until the latest of the times they set.

Where the settings are

On ESPN the league manager controls the waiver period, on Yahoo the commissioner picks the waiver rule and the claim priority from the Edit League Settings page, and on Sleeper Custom Daily Waivers is turned on in the league's General Settings.

On ESPN and Sleeper, the fantasy football trade deadline is a setting of each league. ESPN's help page for fantasy football says "ESPN will set the default trade deadline for all Standard Leagues." Sleeper's help page says a league's trade deadline is tied to the final game of the selected NFL week.

How each platform sets the deadline

On ESPN, the Trade Deadline setting decides whether a league uses a deadline at all. League Managers in private leagues can adjust the default.

On Sleeper, the deadline is tied to the final game of the selected NFL week, and trading closes when that game ends. Sleeper's help page says commissioners can manage the trade deadline at any time in the league's General Settings, where they can change the deadline week or turn the deadline off entirely.

What happens when the deadline passes

On ESPN, the help page says "Once the Trade Deadline date arrives, trading will be disabled." The deadline covers only deals between teams. ESPN says managers can still add and drop players through free agency and waivers for the whole season.

ESPN says trades accepted before the deadline but scheduled to process after it will still process normally. Sleeper's page says trades accepted before the deadline still process, even if there is a review period.

The NFL trade deadline

The NFL has a trade deadline of its own. The NFL's list of important dates for 2026 says, under November 10, "All trading ends for 2026 at 4:00 p.m., New York time."

Where the setting is

ESPN's help page says a league's Trade Deadline is shown under League, then Settings, then Transactions and Keepers, in the Trade Rules section. On Sleeper, commissioners manage the deadline in the league's General Settings.

Most fantasy football leagues start the playoffs in NFL Week 15, Sleeper says, and Week 15 of the 2026 season runs from Thursday, December 17, to Monday, December 21, 2026. There is no single date for every league, because each platform sets its own schedule for public leagues and a commissioner can choose different weeks for a private league. Sleeper describes the standard procedure as one round a week, finishing in Week 17.

Dates of the NFL weeks involved

The Week 16 schedule opens on Thursday, December 24, includes three games on Friday, December 25, and ends on Monday, December 28, with four games still listed without a date. The Week 17 schedule opens on Thursday, December 31, and its last scheduled game is on Monday, January 4, 2027, with four games still listed without a date. The NFL's Week 18 page lists no dates yet and says the dates, start times and networks will be announced after Week 17 ends.

Playoff weeks by platform

ESPN says its public leagues have a fixed regular season of 14 weeks and hold their playoffs from Week 15 through Week 18. In those leagues the top four teams qualify and each playoff round lasts two weeks, which is why the bracket takes four weeks to finish. A different schedule on ESPN requires a League Manager league, where the league manager sets the length of the regular season.

Yahoo lists the playoff options a commissioner can pick. A playoff with six, seven or eight teams lasts three weeks and can run in Weeks 14 to 16, Weeks 15 to 17 or Weeks 16 to 18. A playoff with four teams lasts two weeks and can run in Weeks 15 and 16, Weeks 16 and 17 or Weeks 17 and 18. Yahoo says all of its public leagues and public prize leagues use the four-team playoff in Weeks 16 and 17.

Sleeper describes a standard 12-team league in which six teams qualify, the top two seeds have a bye in Week 15, and the semifinals and the championship are played in Weeks 16 and 17. It says a playoff with only four teams is likely to start in Week 16, and that most leagues avoid playing in Week 18.

Private leagues

The platform rules above cover public leagues and common setups. In a private league the commissioner chooses the number of playoff teams and the weeks, and the NFL has not yet set the dates of the Week 18 games.

This page will be updated at this address when the NFL dates the remaining games in Weeks 16, 17 and 18.