Death Valley FFL

Death Valley Fantasy Football League Rule Book

I. Franchise Information

A. Buying a franchise: Any interested coach/owner is awarded a �franchise� upon payment of an entry fee of $25.00. The maximum number of franchises will not exceed sixteen. Renewing franchise owners are given first consideration when awarding a franchise provided that the deadline is met.

B. Deadline for purchasing/renewing a franchise, and declaring franchise players: One week prior to the start of the draft. Payments must be made on or before this date unless other arrangements are made. Franchise players will be declared at this time, but teams have the option to change players if an injury occurs before the draft.

C. New franchises: In the case of the league losing a past member, those players retained on the former member�s roster will be placed on the new owner�s franchise roster and the new owner will be able to choose which players to keep for the following year. In the case of multiple member losses, the designation of the franchises given will be on a first come, first serve basis.

D. Naming of teams: All owners will submit a team name. Changing of team names is allowed, but the owner will submit the changed logo and color scheme.

II. League Structure

A. The league will be comprised of two conferences: Eastern and Western conferences. The conferences are further separated into four divisions of four teams each if there are 16 teams. The Eastern conference will house the Purple and Gold divisions while the Western conference will house the Black and Blue divisions. Any new franchise will be placed into the division where the vacancy occurred.

III. League Draft

A. Draft Day: The draft will occur at a site and time to be determined by majority of league members.

B. Draft Structure and Order: 12 rounds. The draft order will be determined by the previous year�s results. The consolation bracket teams will makeup the top picks. The consolation teams will be determined first by record and then by points for, with the worst record getting the 1st pick. The bottom half of the draft will be organized using the previous year�s playoff teams with the League champ getting the last pick, the runner-up getting the second to last pick, third place team gets the 3rd to last pick, fourth place gets the 4th to last pick. The rest of the teams will be broken down just like the consolation teams with record and points for as reference. The remaining rounds will be inverted and reverted using the serpentine method. Every four rounds, the order will flip so that the draft will be a bit more even.

C. Time Limits: A generous time limit of two minutes per pick is given. If the time limit has been exceeded, the next team in line will then be able to pick. Following that pick, the team skipped will be able to pick. To avoid being skipped, PLEASE BE PREPARED!

D. Eligible Draft Players: Each franchise will draft scoring players: i.e. quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers (including tight ends), kickers, and team defense/special teams. Note that quarterbacks and kickers are not team designations. They are individual positions. When drafting a QB or PK, you will not get their backups.

E. Franchise Players: Rounds three through five will be considered the franchise player rounds. Players drafted in these rounds will be considered franchise players and thus eligible to be kept on the franchise�s roster the following year. There can be a maximum of two designated franchise players on a roster. Once there are two designated franchise players on a roster, the owner must decide whether to keep some or all of the franchise players or replace some or all with the newly drafted 3rd through 5th round picks.

F. While a team may keep up to 2 players, there will be some compensation to do so. The first player kept, regardless of drafted position will forfeit that team`s 3rd round pick in the draft. Additionally, the second player kept will forfeit the team`s 2nd round pick. The team may choose to not keep any players and keep the rights to their upcoming second and third round picks.

G. Injured reserve. Up to two players may be placed on injured reserve if they are out for any extended period of time and the team will not be penalized any roster space.

IV. Legal Formations, Scoring, Line-ups:

A. Legal Formations: Two formations are allowed to be run.

1) Standard: Includes 1 QB, 2 RBs, 3 WR�s (including TE�s), 1 PK, and 1 Team Defense/ST.
2) West Coast: Includes 1 QB, 1 RB, 4 WR�s (including TE�s), 1 PK, and 1 Team Defense/ST.

B. Scoring (See scoring page)

1) Scoring.
After all point totals have been recorded. The team with the highest point total will be awarded a victory and the losing team will record a loss. Official scoring stats will be via the official NFL website. Scoring disputes must be brought to attention by the Thursday following the week�s games.

2) Tiebreakers.
If a tie occurs, then total yardage of starters will be used to declare the winner. If there is still a tie, and the game is during the regular season, then it will be declared a tie. If the tie occurs during the playoffs and total starter yardage does not settle the tie, then total starter touchdowns will be used. If this doesn�t break the tie, then total team yardage, followed by total team touchdowns, highest scoring starting player, the longest touchdown by a starter, highest scoring non-starter, longest touchdown by a non-starter and then finally, the higher seeded team.

3) Submitting line-ups.
Owners will simply e-mail or phone the commissioner with team name and starters. This must be done before kickoff of a started player�s game. It should be noted that some games will be played on Thursdays and Saturdays.

V. Schedules.

A. Regular Season. The league will play a thirteen game regular season. If there are 14 teams, then each team plays the others once.

In a 16 team league, each of the four teams within a division plays the other three twice for a total of six games. Each team also plays each team in the intra-conference division. Each team will also play three other teams from the opposing conference to round out the schedule. The teams played will be determined by the previous year�s standings. In other words, the 1st place division teams will play the rival conferences two 1st place teams and one 2nd place team. The 2nd place teams will play the two rival conference 2nd place teams and one 1st place team and so on down the line.

B. Playoffs: The seedings are set up as such:
1. Best win-loss record.
2. Division win-loss records (intra-division tiebreakers only)
3. Most points scored during the regular season.
4. Head-to-head competition
5. Head-to-head points
6. Most points allowed.
7. Coin flip. (If there is still a tie) In the case of multiple teams, whoever has the odd coin will win.

The top six teams advance to the playoffs while the bottom six move to the consolation bracket in a 12 team league. The division winners will have byes and the remaining four teams will play in the first round. Winners will move on to play the division champs.

After the completion of the first playoff round, the teams will be re-seeded just like the NFL.

VI. Trading and Pick-ups.

A. Trades prior to draft. Only draft picks in the first five rounds are eligible to be traded prior to the draft. Any trade is conceivable, but to determine a fair trade the picks are assigned points based on draft order times the five rounds. Therefore the first pick has a designation of 80 points and the last pick of the fifth round has a designation of 1 point. In order to have a trade approved, the traders must get these numbers relatively close for a subjective review by the commissioners.

B. Trades after draft. Any trade is conceivable but must meet the approval of the commissioners. Approval usually relies on the subjective analysis of point differential between the players, injury status, and general fairness of the trade. Please use the trade analysis link to get a good guideline, as the commissioners will use this as well. Understand that it no longer becomes fun for the rest of the league when trades become unfair.

C. Trade Costs. All trades, pre or post draft, cost $1.00 per player.

D. Trade deadline. The end of the ninth week (Thursday) at midnight.

E. Rosters and Pickups. Rosters cannot exceed 15 players (not including players on IR). Pickups will be allowed starting immediately after the draft and will continue until the kickoff of the first NFL game during our first round playoff games (usually week 14). Free pick-ups will run from the Monday after the draft until the start of each team`s season on a first come, first serve basis. After the opening kickoff of a free agent`s team, pick-ups will no longer be free. If an owner wants to pick up a free agent, he must bid money (in $.50 increments) to acquire him. The bid may be placed no sooner than Monday at 10:00 am, but no later than Thursday, 7:00 pm. A team may only make one WINNING bid per week. In the event a team wins multiple bids, that team will be given a choice as to which player to pickup. In the event of a tie bid, the team who bid first will get the player. Please try to bid the MAXIMUM amount that you are willing to spend on a player. The owner will only be charged pickup fees in the bid amount if he successfully obtains the player. Please note that you are bidding actual money! The fee for the pick-up will be the actual amount of the winning bid. The only bid that will be publicized (between east and west commishes, not to the league) will be that of the commissioners. Once a commissioner has bid on a player, the other commish will not be able to bid on that player. If a commissioner is outbid, he can not bid on the player again. All other bids will remain sealed until a winner has been determined. Losing bids will not be notified. After the bidding deadline, all players not selected can be picked-up at a cost of $.50 per player and can be done so until kick-off of the first game that week.

VII. Arbitration. In the event of a dispute, the commissioners will do their best to rectify the situation. If the commishes can not agree, then the league will vote. Majority will rule. If there is no majority, then the initial ruling before the dispute will stand.

VIII. Awards and National Rankings.
The Death Valley Fantasy Football league now competes on two levels: league and national. Please visit the National Fantasy Football Computer Rankings (NFFCR) and learn more! As for our local awards:

Death Valley Championship $175.00
Runner-up $ 55.00
Trout Bowl Winner $ 35.00
Goo Bowl Winner Free Entry Next Year
League MVP and Scoring Champ Split Trade and Pick-up money
Division Winners (2x$5.00) $ 10.00

Total Payout $275.00

GOOD LUCK TO ALL!

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Death Valley FFL
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