1. Introduction
1.1 Commissioner
2007 Commissioner - Jason
2007 Backup Commissioner - Tee
The Commissioner is in charge of making sure all league actions are
carried out and that the league runs smoothly. The Commissioner helps to make
sure fairness and integrity is adhered to in all decisions.
2. League Structure and Requirements
2.1 Teams and Divisions
There will be 10 teams in one division.
This league is a keeper league, meaning that teams have the
option of keeping some players from year to year.
Teams will compete in head-to-head competition each week whereby the
winner is the team whose starting lineup scores more points than the
starting lineup of their opponent. Player points are determined by the
scoring system detailed in section 5.
2.2 New and Replacement Teams
If an owner leaves the league in the offseason the league will find a new owner. The new owner will inherit the old owner's team as it existed, including roster, keeper options, draft
picks, etc. If an owner leaves during the middle of a season, all finances of the team will remain, so there are no refunds. The league will take votes from the remaining 9 owners to determine if (1) a replacement owner can be found to takeover the abandoned team in the middle of the season, or (2) some sort of other option like setting a default lineup for the abandoned team.
2.3 Internet Access
All owners are required to have Internet access. If Internet is not accessible, owners are responsible for letting the rest of the league and/or Commish know ahead of time if they need something updated like their starting lineup. All reports are
published on the league web site and all league announcements are made
via email or on the home page. All league transactions are executed on the myfantasyleague.com league site.
2.4 Rule Changes
Any vote taken by the league to change a rule requires a majority vote to
pass (60% - 6 out of 10). In theory, everything will be covered and defined
100% at the start of the league's inaugural year of 2007, however, we
all know new things can come up. If we find something drastically wrong
(logic error in scoring rules or something like that), we'll simply vote
on how it should be updated and make the update based on majority vote.
If someone has a new idea, we can vote on it and make changes during the offseason.
3. League Fees and Payouts
3.1 Owner Costs
Franchise Fee (per team) due by draft day: $60.00
An owner vote of 10 out of 10 is required to lower or raise the franchise fee from
it's current $60.
There are no transaction fees. That means no fees for free agent
pick-ups or trades.
Commissioner will hold the money and make payouts after the end of week
16.
3.2 League Costs
In 2007, the web site [myfantasyleague.com] fee is $79.95.
3.3 Prizes Awarded
100% payout after the web site fee is taken care of.
Web site fee: $79.95
$600.00 - $79.95 = $520.05 left in the pot, to be divided as such:
Super Bowl Champion: $250.00 (48%)
2nd Place: $100.00 (19%)
3rd Place: $50.00 (10%)
Regular Season weekly high scorer: $5.00 per week = $90.00 (17%)
Regular Season 1st place: $15.00 (3%)
Regular Season Total Points Champion: $15.00 (3%)
Toilet Bowl Champion: $0.05
4. Rosters and Lineups
4.1 Active Roster
Each team will have 18 players on their roster. Each owner is responsible for drafting enough players at each position
to submit a starting lineup each week.
4.2 Players and Positions
Each player on a team's roster must be considered either a Quarterback
(QB), Running Back (RB), Wide Receiver (WR), Tight End (TE), Kicker (K),
or Team Defense (D).
The final say on a player's position will be determined by the player’s NFL team web site and nfl.com will be consulted.
Accordingly, if a player's position is potentially in question, an owner
should request a decision from the Commissioner regarding the player's
position prior to adding the player to their roster. Example: Kordell
Stewart's position was QB. Even if he started a game at WR, you could not start him as
a WR because his position is QB. However, if you started him at QB,
you would still receive any points he accumulated at the WR position.
4.3 Starting Lineups
Each team must set the following starting lineup each week.
9 players consisting of:
1 QB
2 RB
2 WR
1 TE
1 “Flex” which can be a RB, WR, or TE
1 K
1 D
The lineup submission method used is referred to as "GAMETIME" on myfantasyleague.com, which means
players are locked at kickoff of their game. Each player can be
started/benched just prior to the start of his NFL game.
A lineup can be changed as many times as an owner wants up to the
deadline for their players.
5. Scoring
5.1 QB/RB/WR/TE/K
Passing TD: 6 points
Rushing TD: 6 points
Receiving TD: 6 points
Punt Return TD: 6 points
Kickoff Return TD: 6 points
Offensive Fumble Recovery TD: 6 points
2 point conversion (all): 2 points
Passing Yards: 1 point per 25 yards
Rushing Yards: 1 point per 10 yards
Receiving Yards: 1 point per 10 yards
Kickoff and Punt Return Yards (yardage combined): 1 point per 25 yards
Extra Point Made: 1 point
Length of Field Goal Made: 1 - 39 yards = 3 points
Length of Field Goal Made: 40 - 49 yards = 4 points
Length of Field Goal Made: 50 - 59 yards = 5 points
Length of Field Goal Made: 60 - 62 yards* = 6 points
Length of Field Goal Made: 63 yards* = 8 points
Length of Field Goal Made: 64+ yards* = 10 points
*63 yards is the current record, so if it's broken, scoring ranges will be updated immediately after the record is broken.
Passer Rating Bonus: (QB only. Minimum 15 pass attempts required to
qualify.)
0.0 - 89.9: 0 points
90.0 - 99.9: 5 points
100.0 - 109.9: 6 points
110.0 - 119.9: 7 points
120.0 - 129.9: 8 points
130.0 - 139.9: 9 points
140.0 - 149.9: 10 points
150.0 - 158.2: 12 points
158.3: 15 points
5.2 Team Defense and Special Teams
This is a combined position. Special Teams note: A fake kicking play or
botched kick that results in a TD for the "kicking" team is NOT a
Defense or Special Teams score as it is an offensive play. It is an
offensive score for the players involved as the kick never happened.
All Touchdowns: 6 points
Points Against*
0: 10 points
1 - 5: 8 points
6 - 9: 6 points
10 - 13: 4 points
14 - 17: 2 points
18+: 0 points
*Does not include points scored by the opponent's team defense (Example: Interception return TD, fumble return TD, safeties).
Fumble Recovery (from Opponent): 2 points
Interception: 2 points
Sack: 1 point
Blocked Field Goal: 2 points
Blocked Extra Point: 2 points
Blocked Punt: 2 points
Safety: 3 points
5.3 Scoring Disputes/Stat Changes
You have until Saturday 12:00pm to dispute any scoring from the previous
week. Bring the scoring problem to the attention of the commissioner
with proof and it will be investigated. After this deadline, the
previous weeks scores are considered final (pending any ongoing
investigation). In all disputes, nfl.com Gamebook (not game summary)
will be consulted and if the stats are wrong, the new stats will be
used.
The Commish will not change any scores unless a stat change is brought
to his attention other then due to software error. Software error
corrections will be made automatically and the league informed of the
change.
6. Keeper Rules
6.1 Core Rules
Starting in 2008 each owner can keep 0 to 3 players from their roster. Players from any position (QB,RB,WR,TE,K,D) can be kept. Keepers must be declared each year by the Monday before the draft ("Keeper deadline"). Players can be kept a maximum of 2 times. This means a player drafted in 2007 can be kept in 2008 and 2009, then must be released back into the draft pool at the keeper deadline in 2010.
For each player you keep, you must give up a draft pick 2 rounds higher from where they were drafted the year before. To help the league track where each player was drafted, a "Keeper Number" (KN) field will be added to each team's roster. For example, if you draft a RB in the 7th round a KN of 5 will be displayed.
Players with a KN of 1 or lower CANNOT be kept, regardless of how long they've already been kept. This means all players drafted in the first 3 rounds will always be available at the following year's draft.
- Example: You draft [QB] in the 12th round in 2007. If you keep him in 2008 he counts as your 10th round draft pick. If you keep the QB in 2009 he counts as your 8th round draft pick. In 2010 he must be released to the draft pool.
- Example: You draft [RB] in the 4th round in 2007. If you keep him in 2008 he becomes your 2nd round draft pick. In 2009 he must be released to the draft pool because his KN is 0.
To help the league track how long a player has been kept, a "Keeper Status" (KS) field will be added to each team's roster. This field can display either:
1 (has been kept one year) -OR- 2 (has been kept two years).
A blank field means the player is not a keeper. After a player has been kept by an owner for 2 years the KS field is reset.
6.2 Special situations - Free Agents and Traded Players
If you want to keep an undrafted player (free agent) from the previous year, you must give up your 10th round pick. This means any free agents picked up during the year will be assigned a KN of 10.
Players drafted and then dropped maintain their original KN and KS throughout the season.
If you do not have a draft pick available for the correct round to keep a player, you must give up the next higher round's pick. This can happen if you trade away a draft pick during preseason or if you want to keep 2 players that have the same KN. The draft pick you give up is your "natural" draft pick. Example: If you have two 3rd round draft picks, one via a trade, your actual natural draft pick is given up, not the one you received in a trade. If you have no draft picks that were originally yours but only those acquired in a trade, the highest pick will be lost.
- Example: In 2007 you draft [QB] in the 12th round. You want to keep him in 2008, which would count as your 10th round draft pick. You also want to keep an undrafted player you picked up as a free agent in 2007. Both kept players require that you give up your 10th round draft pick. Since you only have one 10th round selection, to keep both players, you must give up picks for rounds 9 and 10.
- Example: In 2007 you draft [RB] in the 5th round. If you keep him in 2008 he would be your 3rd round draft pick. But, this same year you also traded away your 3rd round draft pick during preseason. Therefore to keep the RB, you would have to give up your 2nd round draft pick since you have no 3rd round pick as it was traded away.
- Example: In 2008 you have 2 undrafted players you want to keep. Based on the rule above, you will have to give up a 9th and an 10th round pick to keep each of them. If you want to keep both players in 2009, you would have to give up 7th and 8th round draft picks.
Keeper Numbers (KN) and Keeper Status (KS) stay with traded players.
7. The Draft
The draft is 18 rounds. Trades are
allowed before and during the draft. (See section 9 for more info on trading)
The 2007 draft order will be determined as such;
Each owner's name will be written on 3 pieces of paper and put into a
bag. As they are pulled from the bag, the first owner to have their 3 pulled gets the 1st pick. Next 3 gets the 2nd pick, and so on.
The 2008 draft order will be determined based on 2007's final standings (see section 11 for the playoff and consolation bracket schedules).
2007 Finish -- 2008 Draft Position
1st -- #10
2nd -- #9
3rd -- #8
4th -- #7
5th -- #1
6th -- #2
7th -- #3
8th -- #4
9th -- #5
10th -- #6
The draft will be conducted in a serpentine fashion.
There is no set time limit for each owner to make their draft
pick, but please pay attention to the action in front of you and have your
selection ready. Keep up the pace. At an average of 1 minute per
selection with 10 teams and 18 rounds... that's a 3 hour draft. The goal is to keep the draft in the 3-4 hour range.
Owners can only draft their own team. To clarify, an owner can't draft their team and another owner's team due to conflict of interest. If something comes up at the last minute and an owner cannot attend the draft, they can have a proxy show
up to draft for them. If neither the owner or proxy shows up, well, the
league is kind of screwed. Just show up.
8. Free Agents/Waivers - Drops/Adds
The terms “Free Agent”, “Waiver”, “Drop/Add” are all used synonymously. It simply means dropping one player from your roster to pickup another.
All dropped players will be released as free agents and can be picked up the following week at the earliest. This means a dropped player cannot be picked up the same week they're dropped.
There are 2 rounds of waiver requests per week starting with week 2 and ending with week 14. Each owner can drop up to 2 players and add up to 2 players per week, UNLESS an owner has less than 18 players on their roster (due to an uneven trade). In that case, they can add more players after round 2 until they fill up their roster to the limit of 18.
Waivers are NOT allowed after the fantasy regular season. This means drops/adds are not allowed after Thursday December 6th (2007). Prepare for the playoffs wisely.
Waivers are processed in a worst-to-first order based on the same criteria as the regular season standings. Each round of waivers is ordered in the same way. Owners must use the myfantasyleague.com league site to submit requests. Each owner can submit multiple requests per round and prioritize them as they wish. For example;
Round One
Drop [TE-Smith], Add [RB-Jones]
if [RB-Jones] isn't available, then Drop [TE-Smith], Add [RB-Johnson]
if [RB-Johnson] isn't available, then Drop [TE-Smith], Add [WR-Davis]
if [WR-Davis] isn't available, then Drop [TE-Smith], Add [QB-Marino]
Round Two
Drop [WR-Owens], Add [WR-Jones]
if [WR-Jones] isn't available, then Drop [WR-Owens], Add [QB-Thompson]
From the draft until week 2 drop/adds are not allowed.
Each week's waiver request period starts Monday at midnight and lasts until Saturday 1:00 PM except for weeks 12, 13, and 14, which have Thursday games so the waiver request period will end Wednesday night or Thursday afternoon.
If an owner hasn't used their 2 drop/adds for the week, they can still drop/add players during the First Come First Serve (FCFS) period. FCFS starts 30 minutes after the normal waiver request period finishes and ends at kickoff.
9. Trading
9.1 Core Rules
Trading deadline each week is gametime on Sunday. If the trade includes
players that have already played their game (such as a Thursday game)
the trade will not be accepted until the following week.
For a trade to be valid, all Owners involved in the trade must email or
call the Commissioner with the details of the trade and their
approval. Once a trade has been approved by all teams involved in the
trade to the Commissioner, it cannot be rescinded. Any trade made
involving the Commissioner will be communicated to the Backup
Commissioner. Commish will notify entire league via email on all trade announcements.
Trades are
allowed starting July 1st. Trades for draft picks are allowed in the preseason and during the draft, not during the regular season.
Keeper Numbers (KN) and Keeper Status (KS) stay with traded players.
If an owner has two draft picks in one round (via trade), they will not draft in the last round (18th) as they can't have more than 18 players on their roster.
Trades not allowed:
- Cash or other items
- Player or draft pick "to be named later"
- Future draft picks (In the middle of the 2007 season, you can't trade away a 2008 draft pick)
- Traded players cannot be traded back to their previous team for 3 weeks
unless the player has already been traded to a 3rd team in between.
9.2 Trade Deadline
The regular season trading deadline is kickoff of NFL Week 11.
For 2007 this is November 18th, 1:00 PM.
10. The Offseason
10.1 Rosters
Roster limits are enforced up until trading is opened up. After trading
season starts then roster limits are not enforced until the keeper deadline.
10.2 Trading
Trading is allowed starting July 1st. Any players acquired in a trade are automatically declared as keepers on the keeper deadline* and the draft pick is lost. If you trade away a draft pick and don't get one in return, you'll be one draft pick short and you'll make up the player at the END of the draft. You're taking your chances by doing this, buyer beware.
Example: On August 1st, OwnerA trades [RB-Jones] who has a KN of 7 for OwnerB's 4th round draft pick. OwnerA now has 2 4th round draft picks and loses his 18th round draft pick. OwnerB now has [RB-Jones] who counts as his 7th round draft pick, and has no 4th round draft pick, so OwnerB makes up the lost draft pick at the END of the draft ("round 19"). So in this situation OwnerB is taking a big chance on [RB-Jones] as OwnerB is essentially giving up a 4th round draft pick for a 19th round draft pick - just to get RB-Jones as a 7th rounder.
* Note that you can trade away a player that you acquired in a previous trade. That player is a keeper for whatever team he ends up on for keeper deadline. Draft pick is lost for whomever is the team that actually keeps the player.
No limitations on trading after the keeper date. If you are keeping 3 players and trade away a pick for a 4th, you'll have 4 players on your team before the draft. Any draft picks acquired in excess of roster limit will be lost.
11. Schedule and Playoffs
11.1 Regular Season
The regular season will consist of 14 games and will be played during
weeks 1 to 14 of the NFL season. The regular season schedule is setup
randomly by the web site. Each owner/franchise is entered into the site
in the same order as the draft. The regular season is used to determine
which teams advance to the playoffs to compete for the Super Bowl to
determine the league champion.
11.2 Playoffs and Super Bowl
Brackets
The playoff tournament will take place during weeks 15 and 16 of the NFL
season. The top 4 ranked teams at the end of the regular season will
qualify for the playoffs. Team rankings are determined in accordance
with the standings tiebreakers. (See section 12 for tiebreak rules)
During week 15 (semi-finals), the #1 seed will play the #4 seed and the
#2 seed will play the #3 seed.
During week 16 (championship and 3rd place game), the winners of the two
week 15 games will play for the Super Bowl Championship. Winner gets
next year’s #10 draft pick, loser gets #9 draft pick. The losers of the
week 15 semi-final game will play for 3rd and 4th place. Winner gets
next year’s #8 draft pick, loser gets #7 draft pick.
11.3 Toilet Bowl
Brackets
The Toilet Bowl tournament will take place during weeks 15, 16, and 17
of the NFL season. The 6 teams that did not make the playoffs will
compete in the Toilet Bowl tournament to determine next year’s draft
order.
The 2 worst teams (ranked #9 and #10) will get a bye the first week
(week 15). The highest ranked team (#5) will play the #6 team
and the remaining two teams (#7 & #8) will play each other in the
quarter-finals in week 15. The winners will advance to the semi-finals
in week 16.
During week 16 (semi-finals), the highest ranked team still left will
play the #10 team and the other two will play each other, with the two winners
advancing to the Toilet Bowl in week 17. The two losers of week 15 will
play each other for draft pick #5 (winner) and draft pick #6 (loser) and
that's as far as they advance.
During week 17, the Toilet Bowl will be held for the #1 pick. The two
winners of week 16 play each other for draft pick #1 (winner) and draft
pick #2 (loser). The two losers of week 16 play each other for draft
pick #3 (winner) and draft pick #4 (loser).
12. Tiebreakers
12.1 Regular Season Games
Regular season games may end in a tie and they will be recorded as such
in the standings.
12.2 Overall Standings and Playoff Entry Tiebreakers
To break a tie for overall standings and playoff placement,
the following will be used:
1. Overall winning %
2. Most overall points
3. Head to head winning %
4. Opponents Total Points Scored (Lower is better)
5. Victory Points
6. Power Rank
7. Last Week's Point Total
8. Each owner must drink 6 beers then compete in a 50-yard sack race.
NOTE: In all cases, the Tiebreaker summary report is used to break ties
and follows the above criteria.
NOTE: If the league ever expands and incorporates divisions, we will
need to add divisional tiebreaker rules.
12.3 Playoff Games
Ties in playoff games will be decided in the following order:
1. Most total TD's by the starters
2. Most total yards (passing, rushing, receiving combined) by the
starters
3. Most total TD's by the bench
4. Most total yards by the bench
5. Each owner must drink 6 beers then compete in a 50-yard sack race.
13. Owner Conduct and Accountability
It is expected that all owners will, at all times, conduct themselves in
the best interest of the league. In particular, owners will operate in a
competitive and sportsmanlike manner during all league events,
discussions with other owners and activities.
Owners agree not to collude with other owners to the potential detriment
of another owner, group of owners, or the league as a whole.
Owners agree at all times to not act in a way that may be perceived as
them "giving up" on the season or making a mockery of the league. Even
if an owner is "out" of the playoffs, please continue to field the best
team you can and make it fun for everyone. All owners are expected to
take the 15 minutes a week it takes to check the injury report and the
bye weeks and submit a valid lineup.
If at any time the Commissioner sees an owner not acting in
accordance with the terms of this section, then the Commissioner will
confront the owner for an explanation. If the owner fails to provide a
sufficient explanation, the Commissioner can decide to remove the owner
from the league.