Do bench players get points in fantasy football?

If you are new to fantasy football you likely have many questions about the game. One of the most common is “do bench players get points in fantasy football?”.

Bench players earn points in fantasy football but they will not be applied to your score. Only players in your starting lineup can earn points for your team.

Whoever gets more fantasy points between you and your opponent will be declared the winner.

For this reason, you want to be sure you have all your best players in your starting lineup and not on your bench.

To find out which players you should start or bench you can check out expert projections for the coming week these are often referred to as ECRs.

Why is there a bench in fantasy football?

Now that you know points earned on the bench are not going to count towards your score you may be wondering why there is a bench at all.

Injuries

One of the main reasons you have a bench in fantasy football is due to injuries. Just like in real sports, you are going to need players to step up and fill a role if a starter gets injured.

Instead of going to the waiver wire and choosing any available player, you can opt for a player you have been keeping on your bench.

Players on your bench are usually going be to of higher quality than waiver wire players otherwise you would add them to your bench.

When a player is placed on the IR in fantasy football you will find they will not take up a roster or bench spot.

Instead, they will go to the IR spot on your roster and will allow you to pick up another player on your bench.

Holding on to potential starters

Not every player is going to start the year with a bang, some simply need to find their bearings before they start producing fantasy points for your team.

A great example of this would be a rookie finding his footing in the league.

Getting this player on your fantasy team can help you win but the first few weeks may not be pretty.

Oftentimes fantasy managers will keep players on their bench until they are able to start producing more.

This makes the bench a great place to keep players that are not quite ready to start.

This is similar to an affiliated sports team keeping players in the minors for a professional franchise.

Bye Weeks

Another reason that benches are used in fantasy football is for bye weeks. In a seventeen-game NFL regular season, each team is going to get one bye week.

This week will not feature any games and will give the players a chance to rest their bodies.

During the course of the fantasy season, each of your starters is going to miss at least one game. When this happens you are going to want to use players from your bench to fill the void.

Oftentimes fantasy managers can plan ahead and will add players to their bench that have a favourable matchup when one of their starting players has a bye week.

Is there any use to bench points?

Bench points in fantasy football are not going to help you win a matchup but they can be somewhat helpful.

Looking at the bench points after a matchup is a great way to take a quick stock of your players.

By seeing how each player performed you are able to tell if you would have done better in your matchup by starting any of these bench players.

This can often lead to a change in your starting lineup before the next week of football.

Additionally, some leagues use bench points to rank fantasy managers as coaches.

Teams which leave the most points on their bench are the worst coaches while those who leave the least are considered the best coaches.

That is all on bench players in fantasy football to learn more see our guides to GB in fantasy football or learn what a player’s ceiling means.

1 thought on “Do bench players get points in fantasy football?”

  1. bench players no pts why even have them if they cant help you with team pts

    Reply

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