Hello everyone - Here is a stab at a constitution that fits our league. I included the agreed upon items and looked over the sample rules to try and address areas that will fit the needs of our league. I bolded some areas that I thought may need some discussion still. Let's have as much input by tomorrow on items that you don't think make sense or could be improved (please do not make suggestions on items already agreed upon (scoring, roster size, IR, starting lineup, etc.) as we don't need to reinvent the wheel.

I apologize for not putting this up last week as I did intend to do so, but am a lazy bastage


MFL Link





1. LEAGUE OVERVIEW

1.1. The 14-team league will consist of one division, with each team playing every other team once in a head to head format. The regular season consists of 13 games. Playoffs last 3 weeks, ending with the Fantasy Bowl during NFL week #16. Six teams make the playoffs. Players will be selected using a serpentine style draft. Week 17 will be played for a total points competition only (see payout for dollar amount). We will maintain a 16-player roster throughout the season. There is no injured reserve clause. There is no maximum player per position requirement.

1.2. League fee is $49.83 (naturally)


2. STARTING LINEUPS

2.1. Owners must field their team using the following formation:

(1) Quarterback
(2) Running Backs
(2) Wide Receivers
(1) Flex (WR/TE)
(1) Kicker
(1) Defense/Special Team

2.2. The lineup submission deadline will be five minutes before kickoff for players involved in those games. For example, if there's a game on Thursday, the deadline is Thursday five minutes before that game. It's IMPORTANT to note that any early deadline only applies to PLAYERS IN THOSE EARLY GAMES. Owners can submit the remainder of their lineups up until five minutes before kickoff on Sunday.

2.2.1. If for some reason (website is down, etc.) you cannot enter your line-up into the league web site on time, leave a post in the 4983 league forum with your lineup by the appropriate deadline or an email to the commissioner and your opponent.

2.2.2. If a lineup is not submitted for Week 1, the top players drafted at each position will be used regardless of injury status.


3. SCORING SYSTEM
Scoring for Offensive Categories

FG
1-39 3pts
40-49 4 pts
50-59 5 pts
60+ 6 pts
XPs 1 pt
NO NEGATIVES FOR MISSED FGS


Pa2P - Passing Two-point Conversion 2 points
PaInt - Passing Interception -2 points
LstFm - Lost Fumble -2 points
PaTD - All Passing TD's 4 points

PaYd - Passing Yards 0+ PaYds = .05 points for every 1 PaYd (equals 1 point per 20 yards)
Plus a 3 point bonus @ 300+ PaYd

Re2P - Receiving Two-point Conversion 2 points
ReTD - Receiving TD 6 points
Rec - Reception .5 points
LstFm - Lost Fumble -2 points

ReYd - Receiving Yards 0+ ReYds = .1 points for every 1 ReYd (equals 1 point per 10 yards receiving)
Plus a 3 point bonus @ 100+ ReYd

Ru2P - Rushing Two-point Conversion 2 points
RuTD - Rushing TD 6 points
LstFm - Lost Fumble -2 points

RuYd - Rushing Yards 0+ RuYds = .1 points for every 1 RuYd (equals 1 point per 10 yards rushing)
Plus a 3 point bonus @ 100+ RuYd

XP - Extra Points 1 point

Scoring for Defensive Categories
DFR - Defensive/ST Fumble Recovered (ID/DT/DST) 2 points
DTD - Total Defensive and Special Teams TD 6 points
Int - Interceptions 2 points
PA - Points Against, Total Points Scored
0 - 0 PAs = 10 points
2 - 6 PA = 4 points
7 - 12 PA = 3 points
13 - 18 PA = 2 points
19 - 24 PA = 1 point

SACK - Sack 1 points
STY - Safety 2 points


3.1. Players may score points in any offensive category regardless of position.

3.2. We will use MFL for our official score. Occasionally, the NFL changes the scoring on a play. If MFL changes our score prior to kickoff of the first game the following week, we will allow the change. If changed after that, we will keep the original score.


4. TIE GAMES

4.1. Regular season – Ties count.

4.2. Playoffs – No ties allowed.
Tie breaker:
1. Three players are ranked prior to your game from your starting lineup and compared one at a time until the tie is broken.


5. ACQUISITIONS

5.1. The waiver wire signing period begins after the first week of NFL games are played. The deadline for the first round of weekly acquisition requests is Wednesday at 11:59 P.M. The waiver wires will be awarded based on reverse playoff order.

5.2. The free agent signing period is opened (6:01 A.M. Thursday) after the waiver wire period ends and players may be signed on a first come first serve basis up to 5 minutes before kickoff of that player’s game.

5.3. Any player dropped will not be available for pick-up until after the following weeks games.

5.4. There are no transaction fees for waiver wire/free agent pick-ups.

5.5. Player acquisitions may continue through week 13. No acquisitions once the regular season ends.

5.6. A player must be dropped for every player added (meaning a fixed roster of 16 players at all times).

5.7 If a drafted player is injured before week one and out a minimum of 8 games, the team owner may choose to drop that player and select another player.


6. TRADES

6.1. Owners may make trades anytime before the start of the first game in week 11.

6.2. Any number of teams may be involved in a single trade.

6.3. All trades will be monitored by the Commissioner and will be voided if he deems them to be collusive in nature.


7. PLAYOFFS

7.1. The top 6 teams qualify for the playoffs. The top two teams earn a bye in the first round.

7.2. Playoff seeding:

1. Best record
2. Total points
3. Head to head

Playoff Week 1: 6th Seed vs. 3rd Seed
5th Seed vs. 4th Seed
Top 2 Division winners get a bye in the first round.

Playoff Week 2: Lowest seeded advancing wild-card vs. 1st Seed
Other advancing team vs. 2nd Seed

Playoff Week 3 (Fantasy bowl) Winners from Playoff Week 2


8. THE ANNUAL DRAFT

8.1. The draft is serpentine style.

8.2. The initial draft order will be determined by a virtual dice roll and will follow that pattern throughout the draft.

8.3. The draft will be 16 rounds. The initial year we have decided to have a slow draft without time limits.


9. MISCELLANEOUS RULES

9.1. RULE CHANGES:

9.1.1 A 2/3 majority of owners will be needed to have a rule changed during the season. In the off-season, rules changes only need simple majority. In the case of a tie, the Commissioner's vote will decide the rule.

10. PAYOUT
Superbowl Champ - $200.00
Runner Up - $100.00
Semifinal Loser 1 - $50.00
Semifinal Loser 2 - $50.00
First Round Loser 1 - $25.00
First Round Loser 2 - $25.00
Total Points Champ- $60.00
Weekly Points Champ - $120.00 ($7.50 per week thru week 16)
Week 17 Points Champ - $7.67 (To allow us to squeeze one final week out)

I say make the trade deadline week 9 and player acquisitions week 13, other than that it looks great. Thanks Puddy!

What do you mean by this?

TIE BREAKERS: What about this. Vote.

If 2 or more teams are tied for the division title the tie breaker will be as follows:

1. Head to head
2. Division record
3. Total points scored
4. Total points scored (head to head only)
5. Total Bench Scoring
TIE BREAKERS:


If 2 or more teams from different divisions are tied for a wildcard spot the following Tie-breaker will be used:

1. Head to head record amongst all teams tied
2. Total points scored
3. Head to head record amongst all playoff teams
4. Total Bench Scoring
5. Total points against (lowest to highest)
6. Roll dem bones (ie. coin flip)

What he said.

Puddy and Everyone, take a look through the sample rules as they are an evolution, over the years. We may be able to avoid some questions later on. I have updated everything we have decided so far.

Put total points against as #6 in the first category and put dice roll at the bottom of the 2nd category. And have #1 say the same thing on both.

There will be confusion if there is a tie of more than 2 teams and head-to-head is used. So this need clarification or state that H2H does not apply if more than 2 teams are involved.

Okay

BJ - this is just one way to do it. The idea is before each playoff game you select 3 players from your entire roster and rank them 1 thru 3 (they can be from the starting lineup or the bench). If for some reason a playoff game ends in a tie (unlikely with decimal scoring but just in case), the number one ranked player from each team is compared. Whoever scored the most wins the game. If for some reason those players scored exactly the same amount of points (again, unlikely) it would go to the second ranked player of each team for comparison.

Example:

Puddy and Big John are meeting in the title game . We use the following players to determine the winner in case of a tie.

Puddy - 1. Tomlinson 2. Brady 3. Wayne

Big John - 1. Manning 2. Kevin Jones 3. Vick

If Tomlinson scores 27.3 points and Manning scores 31.5, Big John is the winner. If they each score 25.5 points, we would compare Brady versus Kevin Jones.

This is only done in playoff games since a tie in the regular season is okay.

Big John is starting Manning AND Vick? Only in this league.

I put that in there on purpose to illustrate how it can work. If he has Vick on his bench he can select him as one of his tiebreaker players since it only comes into play if the other players are tied. We can amend this rule to say select three players from your starting lineup and rank them.

Remember, this will only come into play if there is a tie game in the playoffs. With decimal scoring it his highly unlikely anyway.

If there is a better way to break a tie game, I am all ears and willing to change to that since the chances of needing it are slim anyway.

darn,
you kids have been busy. I played in my golf league, ate dinner and sucked down a few beers, and the posts have been flying in here. Excellent work. Oh, for the record, I'm fine with whatever on the ties thing.

looks good. Good work Puddy.

Oops. I see one thing. Our season ends on Week 13, but you can trade up to Week 11? Seems a bit late for trades. I can foresee problems with people thinking trades are lopsided. I'd say Week 9 or 10.

Is MFL the end-all, be-all for scoring disputes? Probably ASSumed, but we should make it a point.

Does MFL ever say "your league can score it anyway you want" in the case of some really strange plays?

Like RB fumbles, DEF recovers then fumbles, QB manages to pick it up and punch it in the end zone...all in the same play. Who is the TD given to? Who gets credit for the second fumble recovered? Who gets dinged for second fumble lost?

Who has some aspirin?

MFL scores pretty well and allows for changing the scoring any time that you want.
It also has a section for 'strange' scoring (as per your example) each week and lests you adjust accordingly.

It also allows for changes based on official NFL scoring changes midweek which we can allow for or not.

was this mentioned in the rules? If not it should be. Will NFL stat changes effect prior weeks?

In some other leagues, I put in a rules that changes in NFL stats will count, but only before the first game of the following week's games.

Added to constitution. See 3.2.

Since I have only experienced MFL for their free playoffs last season, are they pretty good at keeping people posted on NFL scoring that affects a given week?

Sportsline sucked on this. More often than not, they did not mention any mid-week changes (I know, probably does not happen very often, but a couple times last season they didn't mention anything when it was mentioned here in The Huddle).

Thank you. Pretty cut and dry and I can live with that.

I am good with how you put that in there...meaning, if MFL updates the scoring prior to the next week, it counts. If MFL does not update the scoring and leaves it to the discretion of the leagues (Commish) to update it or not, it does not get changed. I did not look at the league rules, but if this is how we want it, then we need to make sure that scoring in MFL for the week is frozen at the start of the next game(s) (I think that option is there for MFL, but I cannot remember).

Just want to make sure everyone agrees, if the NFL changes it during the week before the next game, does anyone want to see it enforced. While not a common occurrence, it could make a big difference if both a QB and WR has six yards receiving taken away and the stat is changed to a six yard rushing play for another player.

Edit: I realize we do not have to decide this right now, as long as we do it prior to the start of the regular season games.

If the NFL changes a stat, I think we should change it as well.


Watch. Now that I've said this, it'll cost me a game this year.

Yeah, freaking karma.

Transferred to website.

Can be seen under reports: rules: league bylaws

cool.