How to Play 16-0

16-0 is quick to learn and hard to master. Here’s everything the game does, start to finish.

Step 1: Choose a draft mode

On the welcome screen you pick how much information you want during the draft:

• Classic — each candidate’s ratings are visible. You draft on the numbers.
• Blind Draft — ratings are hidden. You draft on names, positions, and instinct, and find out how good your roster is only when the season plays out. It’s the harder, more replayable mode.

Step 2: Spin for an era, nine times

The draft runs nine rounds, one per position. Each round you spin, and the game lands on a random NFL era — anywhere from the 1960s to the 2020s — and hands you a small pool of original, fictional candidates from that decade at that position.

The nine positions, in order, cover both sides of the ball: quarterback, running back, two wide receivers, tight end, offensive line, defensive line, linebacker, and defensive back. You can’t stack nine quarterbacks — every roster is a complete team.

Step 3: Use your rerolls carefully

You get three rerolls for the whole draft. If a round spins up a weak set of candidates, you can reroll that position for a fresh pool. But rerolls are scarce, so save them for the rounds that matter most to your roster’s balance.

Era matters, too. The decade a player comes from shifts how they fit — a run-heavy 1970s back and a spread-era 2010s receiver reward different roster builds. Which era to lean into is its own strategy question, covered in which era should you draft in.

Step 4: Simulate the 16-game season

Once all nine picks are locked, the game builds your team’s ratings — offense, defense, pass game, run game, trenches, era fit — factors in roster chemistry, and simulates a full 16-game regular season, one game at a time.

There is no playoff bracket. The season is the whole challenge: sixteen games, and whether you win every one. Finish 16-0 and you’ve completed a perfect regular season — the only record real NFL history has seen exactly once.

Step 5: Read your results and share your seed

The results screen grades your run and shows your record, your best pick, your roster’s biggest weakness, and your seed — a short code that reproduces your exact draft. Share it and a friend gets the same sequence of candidates you did: match your picks for a mirror game, or draft differently for a true head-to-head.

Step 6: Try the Daily Challenge

Everyone who plays the Daily Challenge on a given day gets the identical sequence of draft options, so it’s a fair, shared puzzle. Submit your 16-game record to a live public leaderboard — no account needed. Full details are in the Daily Challenge guide.

That’s the whole game. For a position-by-position breakdown of what to prioritize, read the draft strategy guide, or just jump in and play.