
Players will initially start off in the Newbie League to get the hang of the shortened schedule and rigors of the Fantasy Challenge, but will quickly progress to the Black and Blue League and the Powerhouse League before reaching the final Supreme Leagues. Once the negotiations and trades are complete, you'll take on players in a shortened three round league "season, which culminates in a four team, single elimination playoff to determine the best organization. If you take on the challenge, you better have the skills to win. To keep these athletes on your squad, you'll need to match their deal with Roster Points or you'll be forced to release them. While you can lock three players to your team and permanently remove them from the trade block, having roster points are important because in some cases, teams will try to negotiate a player away from your team by offering them a deal. Frequently, you'll find yourself offered these deals by other teams, who are looking to do the same, even offering remaining Roster Points to sweeten the deal for you. Players can attempt to broker trades between teams for athletes that you want or need to bolster your chances of winning. Don't feel that you have to keep these lower rated players on your team, however. As you make more and more selections, you'll find that you'll inevitably need to select lower valued athletes to afford the stars that you want. On the other hand, you'd have to weigh making acquisitions like this early versus selecting a highly rated quarterback like Tom Brady or receiver like Marvin Harrison to shore up the offensive side of the ball. For instance, if you wanted to select the Broncos Defensive Back squad, anchored by Champ Bailey and Dre Bly to support the Bears Linebacker Corps with Lance Briggs and Brian Urlacher, you'd lay out a few hundred points to establish a fearsome defensive team. During the mini-draft, the value really comes into play as you start picking up package squads during each round. Regardless of how you decide to establish your squad, you'll have 730 Roster Points that you can use to "purchase" players, based on their estimated value for the mode. Players can also participate in a mini-draft, which is a fast paced, 15 round draft selection to choose people for your team.

You can hand pick players from all 32 teams to make your Dream Team, or toss some Hall of Famers in the mix in a HoF Dream Draft.

Purists may want to take their existing roster from the game and try to make a run for it, while other players have the opportunity to build their squad from three other methods. You start along your path to glory by selecting your favorite team and deciding what kind of a draft you'll engage in. The objective behind the Fantasy Challenge mode is to see if your developed team can batter their way through the Fantasy Leagues and eventually defeat the Supreme Teams.
