It appears that we will need to start the All Pro draft before the end of preseason week 3 games. I always have a concern about this, since preseason week 3 is traditionally when most of the starters (re: FF studs) get the most work, and then they are predominantly rested in preseason week 4.

Here's my idea. Feel free to tell me I'm nuts.

We start the draft after preseason week 2 games. IF, in preseason week 3, a player who has been drafted in rounds 1-4 is hurt to the point where they will miss a significant number of regular season games (say Marshall Faulk were still playing and he broke his ankle, and say significant is what would be reasonably expected to be 5 or more regular season games), the owner of said player may post here at the Ladder board, drop the injured player, and pick up a player on the same team who they deem to be his backup - provided that player is still available to be drafted.

IF this occurs, the injured player goes back into the available player pool BUT may not be drafted. They WILL be eligible for teams to obtain through the first blind bid FA session for any owners who choose to bid on the player (ie - the player will be available to all teams equally). IF the injured player has two or more bids that are equal during the first BB FA session, the player will be awarded through a dice roll by all tied owners.

Any and all feedback is welcome.

That is exactly what we did in the Interboard League the first few seasons. You pick a player that gets hurt than you're entitled to his replacement, if that player happens to be undrafted at that point. First year in the league I picked Jamal Lewis with the 1.04 pick. He's goes down for the season and his replacement is the hottest player in the land. He doesn't go undrafted and I lose my first rounder before the year starts. Obviously the replacement player is usually not as valuable as the initial pick so you're going downhill regardless of having the ability to grab the second guy or not.

Might this lead to someone(s) dragging out the later rounds of the draft to help keep the possible backups available? Not a big fan of the idea, but not completely against adding it to our rules if others like it.

Agree,

I've seen this so many times during drafts during preseason games.

Dude will wait to pick until after the game is played, seeing if there is a flier or injury out there. This rule would really magnify owners to do that

The problem of course is that if there isn't some kind of way to deal with this - the draft could be in the middle of round eight or so, the preseason week 3 games start, the next owner drags HIS feet waiting for an injury, and then has what could be equivalent to a 2nd rounder +/- in the late middle of the draft if any injury to a stud were to occur, enhancing his draft with what would be two 2nd rounders while hurting the team losing the stud substantially.

There's no perfect way to deal with this. What we need to do is find an optimal solution, or just let it alone and cross our fingers, or if something does happen to just know that there would be what could be a sustantial imbalance and everyone accepts the consequences.

The other alternative would be to start the draft and then stop it at the onset of preseason week 3 games, and then resume the draft when week 3 games are over, with the replacement provision in place. That might deter slow playing the draft to attempt to benefit.

Or it could be that I'm completely nuts and am acting like a Shirley...

I have always done drafts before week 3 in pre season simply because for the most part you don't have much choice especially when you have 20-30 rounds to get done. what ever is decided I will roll with i am available outside of a couple of days in which if the draft has started then I should be able to work around it.

I am not in this division and do not think you are a Shirley. In fact, it is brilliant. My local had to hold our auction this past Saturday due to travel schedules. We're all nervous about the possibility of injury but now I can take this to the ownership and let them know we have this as a plan to help offset the loss.

That's cool with me as long as it's all laid out in black and white before the draft. If we're going to do it though, we might as well let the owner keep both the injured player and his replacement until the injured player is cleared to return (which I would define as the first week he's not inactive). At that point, the owner has the choice of keeping either the original player or his replacement. The player released goes into the free agency pool for the following week's blind bid waivers.

For example, I draft Priest Holmes. He goes down in the third preseason game. I then have the right to claim Larry Johnson if he's undrafted. The Week five game rolls around and Holmes is active. It doesn't matter if he plays a snap. By midnight on Monday, I have to release either Holmes or LJ.

Does that seem fair?

I would be ok with this idea

I don't like the idea, quite frankly. It comes too close to drafting a team RB. It also allows an owner to get a 2-for-1 with a single draft pick. Even if you used the substitute's ADP to assign a draft spot for him and take that spot from the owner, you'd have the owner placed in a position of virtually guaranteed production without the risk of another owner beating him to the substitute (and it can certainly be part of FF drafting strategy to intentionally draft another owner's handcuff).

I'd much rather put an owner in the position of having to make a choice - do I want to forgo the first few weeks without my stud and keep him on the roster, or do I want the immediate gain of having his replacement to start the season?

Part of managing a FF team is making tough decisions.

Fair enough. I was looking at it from the standpoint of protecting the owners investment, but it's not something I really care about one way or another on a personal level. The only thing I DO care about is that if a rule is put in place, it's not open for interpretation. I've run into problems in the past with injury protection rules both as a commissioner and an owner, so I'm not a fan of them in general. However, this one is a little different since it only applies to the preseason and hopefully won't even come into play. As long as it's laid out in black and white prior to the draft (and that doesn't seem like it will be an issue), I'll support whatever direction you want to go with it.

First off, discussion is welcome, and I'm proposing something that I've never had in any other league I've played in before. Don't take my interpretation as being set in stone, by any means. Spitballing is welcome and encouraged.

Secondly, I agree that there can not be any gray area. It has to be something that can be strickly interpretted with no loopholes. The one place I see a potential for trouble with interpretation is going to be the nature of the injury and the estimated recovery time. An ACL injury is easy - but something like a separated shoulder might be trickier.

We may have to rely on a report released at a site like nfl.com, use an estimted time frame recovery - say expected to be out for 6 to 10 weeks, with the lower number being the standard used, and then the decision to replace lies with the owner. They have to determine if they want to take the risk or not.

The position is easy - we can define that by what draft position the player was taken in. Maybe 4th round or earlier, with pick 4.12 being the cut off. The replacement player would be pretty easy - has to be the same position from the same team, and they have to be undrafted at that point.

The other part that would seem to be open is whether we suspend the draft with the onset of preseason week 3 games until the end of preseason week 3 games - so that a player who got hurt couldn't have their replacement snapped up in the draft before an owner had a chance to make a replacement decision - kind of an "anti-sitting-at-the-computer-snapping-up-replacement" rule.

Again - all thoughts, feedback, and criticism are welcome.

ETA - and if the majority of the league sees this as a non-issue that doesn't need to be addressed, we will kick this to the curb.

Yeah, I think my reply might have come off a little pissy and I didn't mean it that way at all. When I said it wasn't something I cared about one way or another on a personal level, I meant it in a laid back, go with the flow kind of way (which is how I am), not a passive agressive kind of way (which is something I'm not).

Anyway, now that you mentioned the "sitting at the computer waiting for an injury" thing, I have a better idea of where you're coming from. I'm going to give some more thought and come back a little later this afternoon.

FWIW - I did not read anything like that into it.