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GREAT LAKES FANTASY FOOTBALL LEAGUES Erie Fantasy Sports League Rules Section I - General 1. The Franchise Fee is $75.00. 2. Each of the three (3) divisions will consist of four (4) teams. 3. The initial draft will be held on-line. Teams will be formed in a draft that will be carried out in 1-12 then 12-1 order (known as 'serpentine' or 'switchback'). Drafts may be done in live draft format (4-6 hours on a chat site) or in email format (over several weeks). When they are done via the email format, teams have 12 hour time limits to make their selections. When a pick is missed, that owner has to get in contact with the commissioner ASAP in order to make a replacement pick. The longer he waits, the further down in the round his team will drop. The order for all initial drafts is decided randomly by the MyFantasyLeague commissioner software. 4. All teams must come out of the initial draft with the necessary components to field a starting lineup (i.e. a Quarterback, 1-2 Running Backs, 3-4 Wide Receivers, a Tight End, a Place Kicker and a Team Defense). Then, you must always maintain these minimum requirements throughout the regular and off-season (i.e. teams can't elect to go without a kicker, tight end, defense during the regular or off-season). 5. Off-Season Rookie and Remaining Free Agent drafting periods begin each year on May 15th and continue three more times before the start of the regular season (June 15, July 15 and September 1). The team with the lowest winning percentage at the end of the regular season drafts first. The rest of the teams are placed in order from lowest winning percentage to the highest. In the event of a tie, the team with fewer total points scored selects first. The Fantasy Bowl winner drafts last, even if they do not have the highest winning percentage. The Fantasy Bowl loser drafts next to last. If a playoff and non-playoff team end the season with the same winning percentage, the non-playoff team selects before the playoff team. Each draft round will follow the same order as there is no use of the serpentine format. Starting in 2009, off-season draft rounds will be held as follows: Round 1 will take place on May 15th, Round 2 will be on June 15th and Rounds 3 and 4 will kick off on August 15th. 6. Teams may request a replacement selection for a missed draft pick, provided the current draft round has not been officially completed. The definition of "officially completed" will be as follows: teams may request a replacement selection for a missed pick at any time during the ongoing round or at the completion of the round, provided 48 hours have not elapsed from the time of the final selection. The commissioner has the right to award a replacement pick outside of this window in the case of orphan teams being purchased by new owners. Missed draft picks may not be traded. 7. Any player or future draft pick for the subsequent year may be traded during the off-season. Before trades are approved involving players or picks in the off-season or future picks in the regular season, both owners must pay their full entry fee for the future year to ensure that they will return for the upcoming season. This is to prevent owners from dealing away multiple future picks and then walking away from the franchise, making it nearly impossible to sell off to a new owner. 8. Players dropped during the off-season rounds are eligible to be selected at any time as there is no period where the player is "locked." Section II - Scoring 1. The scoring method will be combined (basic + performance) with points awarded as follows:
2. Points for kickoff and punt returns for touchdowns will only be awarded to the NFL Team, not individual players. 3. Overtime Games: Tie games will be broken by using reserve players. Tie games will be broken using the same performance point system used by the rest of the players in the starting lineup. Section III - Trading and Transactions 1. All transaction requests must be submitted via the web site to the commissioner's office no later than 1 p.m. EST on SATURDAY afternoon. Owners may begin requesting players at 1 p.m. on Sunday each week and may continue with requests up until the time transactions are processed on Saturday. 2. Free agents will be awarded to teams on a worst-to-first basis (record, total points, power ranking). These requests will be processed and posted to your respective teams immediately after transactions are processed. You can select up to FOUR Free Agents to be processed on SATURDAY afternoon. If adding a player or players will take you over the roster size limits for this league, you will also need to designate a player to be dropped for each player you are requesting to add. Leaving the dropped player field blank will cause the following to happen - the system will SKIP OVER anyone who would be in violation of the roster size restrictions by adding a player. You could be the first owner on the waiver priority list but you WILL NOT get your player if you fail to designate a drop at the same time. 3. All trades must be approved and forwarded to the commissioner's office no later than Saturday evening at 9 p.m. EST in order to ensure that the players involved are available for Sunday's games. 4. If a trade is made with an uneven combination of players (2 for 1, 3 for 2, etc.), the team receiving the extra player must immediately notify the commissioner's office regarding who will be dropped to keep the roster size at 20. While teams are permitted to start play with a roster size below 20, they are not allowed to go above that number. Failure to report a drop to the commissioner in this circumstance will result in the trade being voided. 5. Both teams need to give approval and list terms of the trade for it to be confirmed. This must be done through the league's web site. Owners should take special care to make sure trades they are offering and/or accepting are deals they actually want. When accepting trades, MFL software is designed to require the owner to first click accept, then click the yes button to acknowledge that the trade is going to be accepted, and then click accept again. This is done to give an owner multiple chances to review a trade before deciding to make it official. Once an owner has accepted a deal in this manner, the trade is forwarded to the league commissioner and it becomes official. Owners are not allowed to go through this three step process and then attempt to back out, claiming the deal was accepted "accidentally." Trade results will be posted on the web site for each league. As a trade is approved, the team(s) rosters will automatically be updated and a transaction record will be listed. 6. A player cannot be traded back to a team until four (4) games have passed. 7. The league has the ability to call for a trade veto within 48 hours of the trade becoming official during the regular season and 72 hours of the trade becoming official during the off-season. New in 2009, an owner in the league must request that a veto vote be conducted. At that time, an email will be sent to all of the owners in the league who are not part of the pending deal. If 50% of those owners vote for the deal to be vetoed, it will then be forwarded to the GLFFL's Board of Directors. Making a case to call for a veto vote must consist of something more substantial than "I don't agree with the trade and I want to vote against it." The owner calling for the veto should post a rationale on the league message board and send out an email to the commissioner for consideration by the entire league. Once 50% of the owners in the league call for a trade veto, the trade will be voted on by a 19-member panel of the GLFFL's Board of Directors, consisting of the owners who have been selected by longest tenure, geographic location, and overall representation of the GLFFL. This way, deals can be decided by individuals who are unbiased since they are not a part of the league in question. In the event that members of the Board of Directors are involved in the trade in question, they must abstain from the voting procedure. Voting can take place on a trade veto request if two thirds of the total membership, or 12 members, are present. When a quorum exists, 50% plus one will equal the decision. 8. During the off-season, you can make as many trades per month as you wish. They also have to be submitted via the web site by both parties to the league commissioner. Upon approval, they will be listed on the web site. 9. Owners are permitted to submit the names of starting players up until the respective player's game time. Once a game has begun, all players participating in that game are either locked in as a starter or as a bench player. Lineups should be submitted through the league's web site. 10. Owners are not permitted to trade transaction slots. 11. You will be responsible for fielding a complete team during bye weeks. No carryover points will be awarded for position players or NFL teams. 12. No trades will be permitted following the kickoff of Week 10. The Wednesday after the 13th regular season game is the last week to make drop/add transactions, meaning rosters will be locked for the duration of the playoffs. Section IV - Playoffs and Payouts 1. In order to determine division championships and playoff seedings, the following tiebreaker system will be used:
2. Division statistics (2a,4a) are used to resolve division ties only. Playoff seedings WILL NOT consider these values. With playoff seedings, once the division winners have been seeded, all other teams will be seeded based on overall record, head-to-head and then total points scored. In the event of a tie involving three or more teams, head-to-head can only be used as the tiebreaker if one team has a definitive advantage over the others (i.e. Team A defeated both Team B and Team C, therefore they earn the higher seed based on head-to-head.) If no definitive advantage can be derived for any one team (teams split season series, some teams involved in the tie did not play), the tiebreaker will automatically be decided using total points scored. 3. Three (3) division champions and three (3) wild-card teams will qualify for the playoffs. The two division winners with the best records will receive a first round bye and the first and second seeds. The other division winner will be the third seed and the wild-card teams will be seeded fourth, fifth and sixth using the tiebreaking formula above. Division Winner (#1 seed) plays #4 and the #2 seed plays #3. Wild-card weekend will be held during week #14 of the NFL season. 4. The winners advance to the conference semi-finals. The lowest seed to advance plays the highest seeded division winner, with each successive seed taking on the lowest advancing seed. This action will take place on week #15 of the NFL season. 5. The winners will square off for the Erie Fantasy Sports League Championship. This action will take place on week #16 of the NFL season. The champion will receive a check for $400 while the runner-up receives $150. The 3rd and 4th place finishers (losers in Week 15) each receive a check for $25. GLFFL is not responsible for the taxes on the prizes of the winner. 6. The six (6) non-playoff teams are entered in a single-elimination consolation tournament that will run through NFL weeks 14, 15 and 16. The seeding will be determined using the formula listed above. The top two seeds will receive a bye during NFL week 14. Seed #3 will play #6 and #4 will play #5 during that week. The winners advance to play the two teams receiving byes during NFL week 15. The winner of the consolation tournament earns a compensatory draft pick in next May's Rookie and Free Agent Draft (the pick will be an extra pick at the end of the first round). Section V - Miscellaneous Items 1. All lineups must consist of a Quarterback, 1-2 Running Backs, 3-4 Wide Receivers, a Tight End, a Place Kicker and a Team Defense. 2. Rosters will consist of 20 players. The eleven (11) reserves on your roster may consist of any number of quarterbacks, running backs, receivers, kickers, or NFL teams. It is your responsibility to maintain your roster at all times. If a team goes over the 20 spots (by free agent pickup or trade) the transaction or transactions will not be processed for that week. Teams in the Erie Fantasy Sports Leagues keep their entire ENTIRE roster from season to season. New players are added during the off-season drafting periods, and your team will need to drop a player (if at 20 players on roster) if you're acquiring one. 3. The act of "throwing games" (losing on purpose by turning in a lineup filled of players that normally would not play) is not tolerated in the Great Lakes Fantasy Football Leagues. We will revert your starting lineup back to a typical lineup for games that are tried to be thrown and further action will also take place (i.e. possible removal from the league without refund). In every instance
where a team has found to intentionally lose a game by submitting a
bogus lineup, that owner will immediately be REMOVED from the league in
question. When other instances arise, teams will be REMOVED the moment
the indiscretions are discovered, whether they happened this year or in
a previous year. 4. ACTIVE OWNER CLAUSE - If the commissioner has not heard from you (by phone, e-mail or web evidence) or your authorized representative for 3 consecutive weeks (no transactions or lineup changes) you may be declared an inactive owner, banished from the league, and your team repurchased by the league on a pro-rata basis and resold or dissolved. It is unfair to the active owners to have a disinterested owner. This becomes especially critical as the season winds down and you find yourself "out" of the running. You may appoint a designated representative in writing to the commissioner anytime prior to a known absence. 5. Conduct that is deemed detrimental to the league or to the GLFFL will not be tolerated. This includes, but is not limited to, posts and or emails that are harassing in nature and serve no legitimate purpose other than to cause discord within the league or the GLFFL organization. There is a difference between expressing viewpoints or likes/dislikes of a league or format and personal attacks toward fellow owners, the commissioner or the Board of Directors. Failure to comply may result in IMMEDIATE EXPULSION WITHOUT REFUND. In addition, attempts to negatively impact the integrity of the league (i.e. threatening or outright refusal to submit lineups, partaking in bogus trades, etc.) will result in an immediate expulsion, without refund, from the GLFFL. 6. Each season, divisions will be realigned based on performance from the previous season. The Black Division will feature the four teams with the lowest winning percentage through the regular season weeks, with total points being used as the tiebreaker. The Blue Division will feature the 5th through 8th lowest winning percentage through the regular season weeks, with total points being used as the tiebreaker. The White Division will feature the remaining four teams, including both the conference champion and runner-up. © Copyright 2008 Great Lakes Fantasy Football Leagues. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate or redistribute in any form.
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