How to Calculate Fantasy Football Power Rankings (With Example)
If you’re going to tell someone their 6-2 team belongs below a team sitting at 4-4, I think you should be able to show your work.
That’s why I publish the power-ranking formula I use in ffwrapped. It combines scoring and results, and you can calculate it yourself with a few numbers from your league. You don’t have to agree with every weight I’ve chosen, but you should be able to understand where the order comes from.
Here’s the in-season formula:
Raw ranking score =
((average weekly points × 6)
+ ((highest weekly points + lowest weekly points) × 2)
+ (win percentage × 400)) ÷ 10Calculate it for every team using the same completed weeks, then sort the scores from highest to lowest. That gives you the ranking order. ffwrapped also converts those raw scores to a 1-100 display scale, which I’ll explain below.
If you’d rather use your own league right away, the ffwrapped power-rankings tool works with supported Sleeper, ESPN, and Yahoo leagues. For the setup steps and screenshots, follow How to Get Power Rankings for Your Sleeper League.
What Goes Into the Formula?
You need four inputs for each team, all measured through the same completed regular-season week:
| Input | How to get it |
|---|---|
| Average weekly points | Add the team’s weekly scores and divide by the number of weeks played |
| Highest weekly points | Find its highest score in that period |
| Lowest weekly points | Find its lowest score in that period |
| Win percentage | Divide wins by games played, counting each tie as half a win |
Use win percentage as a decimal. A 6-2 record is 0.75, not 75. If your league gives an extra result for playing against the league median, ffwrapped includes those results in the record used for this calculation.
I want scoring to have a substantial say because your team can play well and still run into the highest scorer of the week. Record still matters, though. Wins are what get you into the playoffs, so I keep them in the calculation.
The highest and lowest weeks also contribute to the score. That term is not a direct measure of consistency. It adds the two scores together; it doesn’t measure how far apart they are. I’ll come back to why that matters when we look at the limits of the formula.
A Worked Example: The 4-4 Team vs. the 6-2 Team
Let’s use two made-up teams from the same league after eight weeks. The Waiver Wire has scored more points, but Sunday Regulars has won more games.
| Through Week 8 | The Waiver Wire | Sunday Regulars |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 4-4 | 6-2 |
| Total points | 1,000 | 880 |
| Average weekly points | 125 | 110 |
| Highest week | 155 | 135 |
| Lowest week | 95 | 85 |
| Win percentage | 0.50 | 0.75 |
For The Waiver Wire:
((125 × 6) + ((155 + 95) × 2) + (0.50 × 400)) ÷ 10
= (750 + 500 + 200) ÷ 10
= 145For Sunday Regulars:
((110 × 6) + ((135 + 85) × 2) + (0.75 × 400)) ÷ 10
= (660 + 440 + 300) ÷ 10
= 140The Waiver Wire ranks above Sunday Regulars, 145 to 140. The better record helps Sunday Regulars, but it doesn’t quite make up for the scoring difference.
You can see exactly where those five points come from:
| Contribution after dividing by 10 | The Waiver Wire | Sunday Regulars |
|---|---|---|
| Average scoring | 75 | 66 |
| Highest and lowest weeks | 50 | 44 |
| Win percentage | 20 | 30 |
| Raw ranking score | 145 | 140 |
Sunday Regulars gets a 10-point advantage from its record. The Waiver Wire gets a combined 15-point advantage from scoring. That leaves The Waiver Wire five points ahead.
I think that’s a reasonable result to discuss. It doesn’t prove Sunday Regulars is lucky or that The Waiver Wire will win their next matchup. It tells you that, under this formula, the scoring gap outweighs the difference in their records.
Why Does ffwrapped Show a Score Like 55.8 Instead of 145?
The raw formula determines the order. For the number displayed beside each team, ffwrapped compares that raw score with the average across the league:
Display score = 50 × (team’s raw score ÷ league’s average raw score)The result is rounded to one decimal place and kept within 1 and 100.
Suppose the average raw score across all 10 teams in our example league is 130. That is an assumed league average, not the average of just the two teams above.
| Team | Calculation | Display score |
|---|---|---|
| The Waiver Wire | 50 × (145 ÷ 130) | 55.8 |
| Sunday Regulars | 50 × (140 ÷ 130) | 53.8 |
Both teams are above their league’s average, and The Waiver Wire still ranks higher.
50 represents a team at the league’s average raw score. A displayed score of 60 corresponds to a raw score about 20% above that average. It isn’t a 60% chance of winning, a percentile, or a grade out of 100.
This comparison is recalculated for each week. A team’s displayed score can move because its own performance changed, because the league average changed, or both. Rounding and the 1-100 limits can also make different raw scores look the same on screen. The ranking order uses the raw scores.
I’d use these numbers to compare teams within the same league and week. A 60 in your redraft league isn’t directly comparable to a 60 in someone else’s dynasty league.
A Weekly Ranking Uses the Season So Far
Selecting Week 8 uses the scores and results from Weeks 1 through 8. It doesn’t throw away the first seven weeks and rank everyone by their Week 8 score alone.
That makes the history useful. You can go back and see when a team started climbing or how long it has been near the top. Early in the season, expect bigger swings. A single game has much more influence on a two-week average than an eight-week average.
Preseason rankings use a different input: projected starting-lineup strength, when the required roster projections are available. There aren’t any completed results to put into the in-season formula yet. The preseason scores are also displayed relative to the league, but they describe expectations rather than what teams have already scored.
What This Formula Leaves Out
I like having a formula I can explain, but I wouldn’t ask it to answer every question about a team.
It doesn’t directly measure consistency
Imagine one team’s lowest and highest weeks are 100 and 150, while another team’s are 120 and 130. Both pairs add up to 250. If the teams also have the same average and win percentage, this formula gives them the same raw score, even though their weekly swings are quite different.
That’s a limitation. The highest-and-lowest term uses two scoring extremes, but it isn’t a standard deviation calculation or a measure of how often a team hits its average. Look at the weekly scores before deciding which team is more reliable.
It doesn’t isolate schedule luck
A strong power ranking beside a poor record gives you something to investigate. It doesn’t tell you exactly how many wins a team lost to its schedule.
For that, I’d look at all-play record and expected wins. Those compare what the same scores would have earned against different opponents.
It doesn’t predict the champion
The in-season formula doesn’t directly include injuries, upcoming opponents, trades, or future player projections. Those can change what happens next without changing the points a team has already scored.
Roster projections and position-strength comparisons are available elsewhere in the Power Rankings view, but they aren’t extra inputs hidden inside this in-season score. For a look ahead, use playoff odds alongside the rankings.
The weights are a choice
This is the formula I use in ffwrapped, not a universal definition of fantasy football power rankings. Another formula could place more weight on recent games, use all-play results, or focus entirely on projections.
The fixed win-percentage term also means scoring format affects the balance: in a higher-scoring league, the points-based terms contribute more relative to record. Comparing teams within the same league keeps their settings consistent, but the formula doesn’t make every scoring format behave identically.
How I’d Use It in a League
I’d start with the teams whose rank and record disagree, then expand their scores to see the breakdown. The useful conversation is usually about the numbers underneath: who’s scoring well, who had one huge week, and who’s winning without putting up as many points as the teams around them.
If you share the rankings in your league chat, include the selected week and a sentence about what caught your eye. Someone will probably disagree with the order. At least now you can show them how it was calculated.
Import your league to see its power rankings →
Need help connecting Sleeper? Follow the setup walkthrough with screenshots.