Below is a copy of the rules used for The Huddle MVP Challenge from last year (with some minor edits). To keep this simple, I am recommending using the exact same scoring system. We need to determine:

1. How many positions to payout = decided on 4 positions.
2. Do we do a weekly payout (i.e. $20 to get your entry fee back) - Decided not to.
3. Should we have a playoff or simply 16 weeks to the year (maybe our playoffs is half the teams entered) - 16 weeks, no playoffs.



1. The MVP Challenge Memorial will consist of an unlimited number of teams, and the regular season will extend from NFL week 1 through NFL week 16.

2. Available Players:

a. Player Pool: All players on an NFL team roster at the start of the NFL regular season for the positions of quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end and kicker will make up the official Player Pool for The Huddle MVP Challenge™. This Player Pool will also include the 32 NFL teams to be used in the team defense position. After the start of the NFL regular season any player that is added to an NFL team roster will be added to the official Player Pool.

b. Once Play Begins: Any player in the Player Pool who has to-date not been started by a team manager is available to that team manager for their starting lineup. Once an NFL player has been started by a team manager that player is no longer available to that team manage to use in his starting lineups for the remainder of The Huddle MVP Challenge Memorial regular season.

3. Weekly Play: Starting in NFL week 1, all team managers will fill out their starting lineup by selecting from the Player Pool of NFL players. Beginning in NFL week 2 and for all successive NFL weeks, team managers will continue to select from the Player Pool any player they want as starters but will be unable to choose any NFL player that they have already used.

4. Lineups Requirements: Starting lineups will consist of the following:

1 Quarterback
2 Running Backs
3 Wide Receivers
1 Tight End
1 Place Kicker
1 Team Defense/Special team

5. League Management Web Address: You can access your team via the internet by going to here.

6. Lineup Submission: Lineups must be submitted via the Submit Lineup Page after logging in at our site. It is the responsibility of each team manager to submit timely, valid starting lineups each week.

a. Submission Time: Starting lineups must be submitted before the kickoff of the first game of that day for players who will be playing on that day.

b. Locked Starting Players: A starting player is considered locked as of the kickoff of the NFL game in which he plays. Non-locked players in a starting lineup can be changed prior to the kickoff of the NFL game in which they play. For example, starting players locked as of kickoff of their Thursday game can not be changed, but the non-locked starting lineup players can be changed up until the kickoff of the game in which they play, like Sunday morning. This rule applies to non-locked players in a Monday night game also. For example, non-locked starting lineup players following Sunday’s games may be changed to another available player up until kickoff of the Monday night game.

c. No Starters Submitted: Failure to submit a full lineup by the first kickoff on the day of the last NFL game that week will result in zero points awarded for any starting spots which have not been committed with a player not used previously that season.

The highest ranked scores will be awarded prizes.

10. Prize Breakdown: $800 collected minus $60 MFL fees.

1st place is awarded $440
2nd place is awarded $150
3rd place is awarded $100
4th place is awarded $50


11. Ties for Prizes: In the event of a tied total points scored in the final XXX highest ranked teams in the finals (based on highest total points scored), the tying teams will share equally in the final prize awards for their rankings. For example, if the two highest scoring teams had the exact same total points scored for the season, they would share the combined total of the first two ranking spots -- $440+ $150= $590 / 2 = $295 for each tying team. In this scenario, both team managers would be considered as first place, with the next highest point total as third place.

12. Scoring: Players may score from any position on the field in the following manner.

a. Calculations: Scoring will be calculated out to the hundredth for all players (e.g. 23.15).

b. Quarterbacks, Running Backs, Wide Receivers and Tight Ends:

6 points for touchdowns scored rushing, receiving, fumble recovery, punt or kick return.
4 points for touchdowns scored passing.
0.05 point for each yard passed. (e.g. 238 yards passing equals 11.9 fantasy points)
0.1 point for each yard rushed or received. (e.g. 83 combined yards equals 8.3 fantasy points)
1 point for each reception.
2 points for each 2-point conversion passing, receiving, rushing or fumble recovery.

c. Place Kickers:

3 points for each field goal kicked.
1 point for each extra point kicked.

d. Team Defense / Special Team

6 points for touchdowns scored on kick returns, punt returns, interception return, fumble return, blocked field goal return, missed field goal return, blocked punt return. (NOTE: touchdowns scored on “fake” field goals or “fake” punts do NOT count as a defense/special teams score. Touchdowns scored by the offensive team after a blocked field goal or blocked punt do NOT count as a defense/special teams score)
2 point per turnover.
1 point per sack.
2 points per safety.
Varying points for points allowed by team defense: equal to 14 points MINUS the amount of points the defense allows (i.e. while the defense is on the field). Please see table below for exact scoring breakdown.

Points Defense Allows Fantasy Points Scored
0 14
1 13
2 12
3 11
4 10
5 9
6 8
7 7
8 6
9 5
10 4
11 3
12 2
13 1
14 and above 0


13. Stats Service/League Management: All league management and statistics for MVP Challenge Memorial will be provided by MyFantasyLeague.com.

I'd say decide on a weekly payout when we reach a certain number of entries, like 20 or so.

With the live scoring that the MFL has, I think that all franchise rosters will be displayed as of the first kickoff of each week. But owners could have the ability to change lineups until gametime of each NFL player's game, so there could be a cat and mouse game played with that anyway. I'm thinking that this is one setup that the MVP Challenge had but we won't be able to have.

The commish will need to give up his rights to see a transaction report. That's already been set up that way. Even a commish can't see transactions, which in this league the only transactions are lineups entered.

But with that setup, a commish isn't allowed to set a lineup for somebody else if they need to call in their lineup to a commish.

Looks like the only playoff format option available is for H2H matchups. Obviously we don't want that, but total points may not automatically be reset to zero. We may need to tabulate playoff points ourselves which is no problem at all. Non-playoff teams would be locked from setting lineups so they wouldn't be able to play along to avoid confusion.

One change brought up by a couple of people is whether we should even do playoffs given that we obviously won't have the thousands of participants that the free contest had. Something to consider.

Hopping in here. Great work, by the way getting this going. This is a f'ing great contest and not continuing it is a shame. A really outstanding exercise.....

I'm thinking payouts should probably be the top 4 or so, and it might be best just to have it be a season-long contest without the weekly prize since there probably aren't going to be more than 20-30 people participating. There are options though for weekly skins if there are enough players (or to up the $$$ involved).

As I mentioned in the other thread, I don't think playoffs are necessary. I think having playoffs in this type of format, and it being a pay contest, will only limit the participation. If our goal is to get as many as possible to join.... NO playoffs needed.

Looks like 13 so far... Unless we get more than 20 people, I would forget about any weekly "prize" and just do the payout something like this:

3rd overall - Money back
2nd overall - $60
Winner - Remainder

Obviously, the more people we get, the more we pay out. But, unless we get a few more contestants, I just don't see the point in paying more than the top 3. Just my two cents, though... I'm good with whatever, as long as it's agreed upon and clearly stated before we begin.

Thanks for the input. We'll settle the payouts prior to the season starting for sure.

edit: I agree that the weekly prize will not be in place.

I am interested. Agree that we should eliminate the playoff aspect of this since we will have less than 100 people. Let's just do this as everyone in through week 16, top 6 get paid with no weekly payouts. The huddle MVP will have weekly payouts and with a limited prize pool, it's a waste of money, IMO.

So, if we can agree that we will eliminate playoffs and will payout end-of-year only (no weekly payout) - count me in.

I'm pretty sure we won't be doing the weekly payouts as it would eat up a significant portion of the total.

I'd say we continue the discussion about the playoffs. I'd like to hear others thoughts (as it does change the strategy pretty significantly IMO).

Hopefully you'll join either way. It's $20 for a football season of fun.

Having everyone in the contest until the end and no playoffs does significantly change the strategy of the game we all so much liked. I would like to see it stay as close to the way it was as possible. I believe that is why we wanted to form this league. Since there more then likely won't be a lot of teams entered, I might suggest that the top 30 to 50% of teams through week twelve qualify for the playoffs and the payouts go to the top three or five (much depends on how many teams enter.) But, keeping it as it use to be keeps the strategy factor in place which made the game so much fun. Just my thoughts.

As for me I say do away with the play-offs and pay out the top 4 players. On the other hand I'm cool with whatever we do.

We'll put the playoff thing to a vote early next week or so.

If we do the playoffs, it would almost have to be a head-to-head format to make it worthwhile. With only 20 people or so involved, we're not really making it that interesting to stop the game 2/3 of the way through the season and declare these x-number of teams get to start everything over and continue playing. We could weight the weeks differently, so some weeks are more valuable than others, but really, is this much of an improvement over allowing everyone to play through?

I guess I'm not too hip on weekly payouts. I'd rather take the risk of a playing for a bigger payout at the end,

As far as playoffs go... I think with so many fewer people involved that playoffs don't really make sense. But I understand that people like the strategy that was involved in having to make the playoffs in past years.

Maybe we could come up with some kind of system that rewards the top 5 teams after week 12 or something like that. So, everyone would still be involved until the end, but lets say that the top 5 teams in total points at week 12 maybe get a one-time bonus chance during the last 4 weeks of play to re-use any one player that they've already used previously. Or something like that... whether you want to make that bonus more or less valuable is of course negotiable. Maybe each of the last 4 weeks of play, those top 5 teams can re-use a single QB in week 13, re-use a single RB in week 14, re-use a single WR in week 15, etc. I'm just spit-balling here people. Help me out.

But regardless, this way we still have to play with some amount of strategy in mind early on, even if we are not using a traditional playoff template.

Looks like my brilliance has stunned you all into silent submission. Cool.

As usual

Another goal of this contest would be to make it rather maintenance free once it is up and running. I'm not sure if what you are suggesting would help that cause.

Playoffs or not, I'm in. Obviously we'll have a vote prior to the beginning of the season so whichever is voted in I'm fine with it. If there are playoffs, IMO H2H would be the best route...but given my "rookie" status, I'm unsure if my opinions are allowed at this moment.

No they aren't. But welcome aboard.

That's fine... I was just looking for a solution that could possibly please both sides of the debate (no playoffs vs. preserving strategies from the past contests).

Maybe it will just have to end up being one or the other. I can live with that.

I appreciate the input

Have I succinctly pointed out that I am against playoffs, but if we're going to have them, head-to-head is the route to go.

That does sound vaguely familiar. Unless there is serious opposition I am ready to just say let's play the 16 weeks from beginning to end with no playoff. It will be interesting to watch if any team can make up a lot of ground in the final four weeks.

I kind of like that Idea gives everyone a chance to make a late run. However, on the other hand penalizes those that did their job and earned the right to be in the playoffs. I am inclined to go with the "NFL" standard here since we are playing with NFL players. Playoffs, those teams who earn a playoff spot with there performance through 12 weeks gets in.

We'll put it to a vote in the next couple of days. Majority decision.

There was some discussion last year of playing the entire 17 weeks...since I didn't think to bring it up for discussion before now, we will NOT use week 17 this year either.

Maybe next year

boooo!

Now someone speaks up.