All Orphan Teams Discounted
It’s been a week, now, since the close of our annual orphan auction. Time to get serious about finding the remaining orphans new homes.
We have marked down every team on the Orphan Marketplace! ALL of them! Some teams even have a negative price! You read that right: We’ll pay you to adopt a team (Well, that is, with the expected caveat: you must still pay the 2025 entry fee to get the team.)
In particular, look for the leagues (often at the top of the Marketplace) that are drafting within the next few days. They’re often marked down the most.
Promotion Winners Awarded Free Copper Teams
We have our winners in the social media promotion! Winners were selected by random drawing, and each of the following receives a free Copper-level league at DataForce:
Bluesky Winner: Justmyself123
Facebook Winner: David L.
X/Twitter Winner: Dan M.
If you missed out, keep your eye on our newsletter and on the below social media platforms. We expect to be running another promotion in July.
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/dataforceff.bsky.social
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61575724341268
X: https://x.com/intent/user?screen_name=DataForceFF
Tin Babies Close After June
Our $22 Tin Baby leagues can be found at the top of the lobby through June. These cheap leagues provide great draft practice, and they’re a lot of fun! It’s a chance to try out different draft and lineup formats, including email auctions.
Tin Babies come in Draftmaster and Bestball formats, though they have their own rules (Bestball leagues at DataForce allow team management year-long). Basically, owner involvement is limited, in that you can only do one roster move per week, whether via free agency or waivers. And, of course, you don’t set lineups in either Draftmaster or Bestball leagues.
It definitely adds a new twist! Choose Bestball leagues if you want to be able to update your roster each week, and choose Draftmaster if you’re happy with a draft-n-go league where your involvement ends at the conclusion of the draft.
Rookie/Free Agent Drafts Have Begun
Multi-year leagues from last year began drafting this week! They’ll hit full swing on Thursday, May 29, after which we’ll start several each day through early August.
At DataForce, the off-season draft is a Rookie/Free-Agent draft, meaning rookies and veterans will both be available in the player pool. Contrary to how many sites manage dynasty drafts, at DataForce, you must drop unwanted players three days before your draft begins (using a process called Keeper Selection). You will not be able to drop more players during the draft to free up more roster space. This forces you to plan ahead a little, and puts your unwanted players back into the player pool for others to draft.
For those wanting a peek into how rookie drafts are going, the results will start popping up on the drafts boards soon! You can view any and all drafts that take place on DataForce.
Review of 2025 Rule Changes
We change very few rules from year-to-year, but it does happen. Once each year, we poll the users with a survey, and many of the rule changes come from that survey.
Here’s a quick reminder of what’s changing in the 2025 season, as reported previously.
- In Guillotine leagues, ties for waiver bids are awarded to the team with the MOST points scored year-to-date, rather than the least. This differs from other league types.
- We are reverting to pre-2024 rules for defensive team scoring: All points scored by the opposing team count against your team defense, not just those scored by their offense.
- In bestball leagues, there is little to force you to correct roster violations (like an I/R violation) since you don’t have to set lineups. In past years, you had up until gametime Sunday morning to make corrections. Beginning in 2025, you must correct roster violations in bestball leagues by 12:30pm ET each Sunday, or the commissioner will make your roster legal by dropping players as required. The dropped player(s) will be determined by an algorithm meant to select the least meaningful player on the bench; the selection will no longer be made by the commissioner.
- If your offensive player also plays on special teams, he will get 6 points for all touchdowns on punt returns and kickoff returns.
- For legacy leagues starting in 2025, you can only trade future picks one year out, unless your league is a Super-trader league. This rule change does not apply to leagues started before 2025.
- Free agency now opens at 30 minutes after the 10pm ET Wednesday waiver run. That means it begins at 10:30pm ET. In the past, it opened at 10:15, but we simply have too many leagues to process now to guarantee we can make that deadline.
🏈 Leagues Forming Now at DataForce Fantasy Football! 🏆
Ready to draft? We offer the widest variety with the best prize payouts anywhere!
Come check out what we have available in our lobby and Orphan Marketplace.
Join the fun and draft your winning team today at DataForceFF.com!
Lee Harmon
Commissioner