I Sign Up / Pre-Season

The website will cost $130 for the 2004 season. We will pay it in advance and divide the cost equally by 24 owners ( $6 each). Anything extra will go toward engraving and postage of the plaque that the champion will receive. Payment will be due to StL Cards by 8/17/04. We have e-mailed the details (pay pal or US Mail). We reserve the right to remove any deadbeats from the league.

II Draft
The 2004 Supplemental Draft will be a slow draft and held on the football standings board at rotoguru.com and/or via email beginning 8/17/04. Time limits will be announced in the draft thread.

The draft order will be reverse of last year's regular season finish and it will NOT snake. Only players currently in the CBS database are eligible to be drafted. Waivers will begin in reverse order of the draft (or simply put based on final regular season standings from last year). Please note: Beginning with the 2005 draft, the eight teams who make the playoffs in the previous year will always draft in the last eight spots.

It will be possible to end up without a QB, K or D, but unlikely. You should PLAN YOUR DRAFT accordingly. If you end up without a QB, K or D, you have 2 choices: Pick one up off waivers or trade. You may not exceed 14 players. If you make a trade that puts you over 14, you must immediately drop (a) player(s). Your roster must be valid to score points.

Traded Draft Picks:



2005 Draft Order:
Here is the Draft Order. It is simply the reverse order of the record and tiebreaks. It does not take into account any trades from above.

1. Smallwhirld's Chiefs
2. PD's Browns
3. CP's Jaguars
4. deepsnapper's Eagles
5. thk's Vikings
6. Promize's Sehawks
7. Goatlocker's Chargers
8. AP10's Ravens
9. Toral's Saints
10. Turley's Cardinals
11. AF's Falcons
12. Skineej's Packers
13. ET's Texans
14. Dan's Bills
15. StL Cards' 49ers
16. MBJ's Bengals
17. Doug's Raiders
18. Baldwin's Rams
19. Peter N's Cowboys
20. Ref's Colts
21. Twarpy's Giants
22. Coyotes' Broncos
23. rfs' Steelers
24. CC Rider's Bears


III Roster Freeze
Each week, you must set your starting lineup. Only players in your starting lineup will generate points. Owners may change the status (IE start or bench) of individual players up to 5 minutes before their game. No changes can be made after this time.

It is your sole responsibility to set your lineup. No excuses! No Internet, too bad, Computer huffed, too bad. Got drunk and over-slept, too bad. However, the commissioners do have the ability to set your lineup. If you are away or have a legitimate excuse in advance of roster freeze (24-hour notice preferred), you can e-mail your changes to us. No Guarantees, but if possible we will make your lineup changes. If you e-mail your request and we don’t get it, too bad. THERE WILL BE NO RETROACTIVE LINEUP CHANGES. Please don’t ask.

Starters:
1 QB
1 WR
1 RB
1 TE
1 Kicker
1 Defense / Special Teams
2 Flex- can be any extra TE, RB or WR (not an extra QB, K, or D/ST)
You can’t start more than 3 WRs, 3RBs or 3 TE’s.

For example, you could NOT legally start 1 QB, 2 RBs, 1 WR 0 TE’s + K + D + RB-flex + RB-flex. = 8. In this case, the owner is attempting to start 2 RB-flexes and eliminate a TE and add another RB. That roster would be “illegal” The website will give you a warning (A BIG YELLOW SIGN) if your lineup is “illegal” It’s up to you to correct your illegal roster by freeze. An “illegal roster” will get 0 points for the week and an automatic loss.

There is not a Disabled List (DL).

IV Schedule / Opponents / Divisions

The regular season will last 13 weeks. The top 8 owners will go on to the playoffs (see Section IX) for weeks #14, #15 and #16. Week #17 is scrapped. The 16 owners that do not make the playoffs and the owners that are eventually eliminated from the playoffs will be inactivated at the proper time. Top eight teams will play all 16 weeks. Furthermore, the other 16 teams will continue to play in the Wanna Be Bowl (teams 9-16) and the Toilet Bowl (teams 17-24) until defeated.

Teams will be divided into to two major conferences (AFC & NFC) and two divisions (6 teams each) within each conference (east/west/north/south). AFC teams will comprise the East & West Divisions and NFC teams will comprise the North & South Divisions.

Each week you will be matched VS an opponent. The standings are formatted in head-to-head matchups. Obviously, the goal is to outscore your opponent to get a win. Total points Y-T-D will be kept for the purposes of tiebreakers.

Since there are 4 divisions (east/west/north/south) of 6 teams each divided into two confererences (AFC/NFC), you can expect the following opponents over 13 games:

*11 games VS teams in your conference (each team 1 time)
*2 games VS teams (determined by Strength of Schedule from the previous year) in the opposite conference. These games will take place in weeks 5 and 9 and will use this schedule based on the separate conference standings from each league 1 vs 6 & 7, 12 vs 7 & 6, 2 vs 5 & 8, 11 vs 8 & 5, 3 vs 4 & 9, 10 vs 9 & 4.

The idea is to play all the teams in your conference to battle for the playoffs.

V Waivers/ Free Agent Acquisitions
At the conclusion of the draft, all undrafted players will become free agents in “waiver” status. Once turned on, all players on waivers will remain there for TWO FULL DAYS (two plus days). Waiver order will be established in reverse order of the supplemental draft and will not reset each week.

An owner may make a waiver claim on any available player through the website’s add/drop feature. If more than 1 owner claims the same player, the player will go to the owner with the highest waiver priority [IE 3 is better than 8]. The owner receiving the player via waiver claim will then be bumped to waiver claim #24 and the next player is processed. This process continues until all waiver claims are completed. At this point the remaining player pool all become free agents and it is strictly first come, first serve. Picking up a free agent does not affect your waiver priority.

This process repeats each week. All unsigned players go on waivers 5 mins. before kickoff of the first game and remain there until the waivers run early Wednesday morning.

Note that all players used in the playoffs must be on your team for the last game of the regular season. Therefore there are no acquisitions once the deadline before the first game starts for the last week of our regular season. i.e. No add/drops during the playoffs. Waivers/Add/Drops will be turned off at the freeze of Week 13.

VI Trades
All trades must be submitted via the website’s offer trade feature to the commissioners for review. Once a trade is accepted (submitted for review), it cannot be withdrawn. If appropriate it will be approved and will go into effect immediately. If the trade is deemed to be too lopsided [IE Joe Stud for Joe Benchwarmer] or if collusion between two owners is suspected (i.e trading back the exact same players to avoid each other's bye week), the commissioners will veto the trade. The parties involved may resubmit the trade with an explanation if they wish. The commissioner’s decision is final, subject to section XIV – arbitration. If the commissioner is involved in a trade, it shall be reviewed and approved / denied by the other commissioner. If both commisioners are involved in the trade, it will be approved, subject to league arbitration.

3 for 2 or 2 for 1 or uneven trades are allowed as long as they do not violate roster guidelines. In the event of an uneven trade, the team getting the extra player(s) will be responsible to drop down to the proper roster limit. The team getting the less player(s) may fill his roster via free agency/waivers.

The deadline for trades will be the day before the first game of week #13.

VII Playoffs & tie breakers
There will be 8 teams that make the playoffs. Each division winner (4) will make the playoffs. The next 2 teams with the best records AFC (east/west divisions) & the next 2 teams with the best records NFC (north/south divisions) will also make the playoffs. It is possible for both wildcards to come from the same division (IE west). If there is a tie at any level, the first tie breaker will be total points accumulated during the year. The second tie breaker will be most total TDs scored during the year. The third tie breaker will be the single highest week point total.

Playoff Game Tiebreak Policy:
1st tiebreaker: Most TD's scored
2nd tie: Most TD's passing
3rd tie: Highest single scoring player
4th tie Next highest scoring player and so on

Playoff teams will be announced at the end of week #13, which is the end of the regular season. Playoff teams will be seeded accordingly:
#1 seed = division winner with best record
#2 seed = other division winner
#3 seed = wildcard team with best record
#4 seed = other wildcard team

Seeds #1/#4 and Seeds #2/#3 will play in week #14, with the winners advancing to meet for their respective conference championship in week #15. Each conference winner will advance to the SuperBowl to be held in week #16.

VIII Keepers
Returning owners will have a deadline to declare what players from their team they wish to “keep” Each owner may keep up to 9 players (D/ST is considered a player). An owner may keep less than 9 if he desires. All “un-kept” players will go into the draft. A player MUST be in the CBS database in order to be kept.

The only off-season transactions that will be allowed are trades. No free agents may be picked up after the end of the season. Trades of a player for a draft pick will also be allowed.

IX Prizes
A fine plaque will be engraved and shipped to the SuperBowl winner courtesy of the previous year's winner. The trophy will be yours to proudly display with your other cherished mementos for 1 year. It will be the winner’s responsibility to engrave it and ship it to the next winner or to StL Cards so he may do it.

A separate cash prize pool has also be established. It is strictly voluntary. Only those who participate will be eligible for this prize. $15 USD entry must be paid by draft date to be included. The exact method of prize distibution will vary from year to year depending on participation. We focus payouts so it will NOT be winner take all. Several owners will have a chance to “win something.”

2004 Payout had 19 paid:
Super Bowl Champion: $115
Super Bowl Runner-up $60
Playoff 3rd place $35
Playoff 4th place $20
Playoff 5th place $15
Playoff 6th place $12.50
Playoff 7th place $10
Playoff 8th place $7.50
Regular Season Best Record $10
Total of $285 is distributed in full.

You must make the playoffs to win a prize. Expansion this, Toral, Baldwin, CC Rider, and Smallwhirled have decided not to participate in the 2004 OPTIONAL pool. If any of these five qualify, the prizes will be reallocated by the commissioners. The Super Bowl Champion, if eligible, will receive all prizes. If the champion isn't eligible, the monies will be divided up unevenly by the Commishs amongst some of the eligible playoff teams.

New in 2004 is a Pick 'ems Contest. In this optional contest you select which team in our league will win their matchup each week. The entry fee is $1 for the year, with winner take all. If you decide not to pay this fee, we still encourage you to Pick 'em. The payout will be $21 as PD, AF and Baldwin declined to participate.

X Owners
As commissioners, we reserve the right NOT to extend an invitation to any owner to return for any reason. Primary reason for being excluded would be abusive behavior (beyond friendly trash talk), purposeful rules violations (colluding on a trade), inactivity (IE leaving injured players in as starters repeatedly) or failure to pay your share of league fees. If an owner is NOT invited back next year a new owner will be recruited to take over the vacated team in its exact state. Teams may also be replaced during the season if need be.

XI Stats Source
CBS Sportsline.com will be the official source for stats to settle any scoring discrepancies. Our previous interactions with this site have been positive, but here are a couple of things to note. 1) The site has a “live” scoring feature. Don’t take this literally. This scoring is unofficial. 2) From time to time the NFL reviews a play and changes a stat. Typically they pick up on the changes within a day or two and make the correction automatically. If you find a scoring error, you must report it to us before the next week’s roster freeze to investigate. The commisioners have the ability to manually override scores if necessary. We will however not do it once the next week’s freeze date has passed. A commish must manually subtract negative yards gained (over -1). We will also change scoring rulings on defensive turnovers where the offensive team subsequently recovers the ball again and scores a TD. These changes have never resulted in a different weekly outcome, but it remains a possibility.

XII Whining / Abuse / Activty / Unforeseen Circumstances / Arbitration
There will be no whining. Simple. If you are unhappy with a rule or scenario, please follow the process described below under arbitration.

Abusive owners will not be tolerated. The league has message boards, add news, and polls. Trash talking is certainly OK, if not encouraged, but vulgarities, threats or abusive behavior will not be tolerated (either public or private). Commissioners will delete abusive posts. Abusive behavior may result in your team being removed from the league. If you are removed from the league, there will be no refunds of monies paid.

Activity will be monitored. Every team and circumstance is different. Not every team will want to change their lineup every week. Not every manager will be able to respond to every trade the same day it is proposed. Not every manager will be able to answer emails immediately. Not every manager will make as many transactions (add/drops or trades) as others. Albeit, if we notice some inactivity (leaving injured players in lineup or leaving healthy players on the bench while your lineup has bye week players in it) or it is brought to our attention, we may send out a friendly inquiry to that owner. Things happen in real life that is more important than this silly game, but for the integrity of the league we must do this. Every week is VERY important! Please do not take offense if you receive one of these. Just let us know what is going on (if anything). Also let us know if there is anything we can do to assist you. Inactivity may result in a warning letter. Again, do not be insulted as we are giving you a chance to keep the integrity of the league while trying to prevent you from being removed. Please understand that we are trying to work with you to resolve the inactivity. You are expected to respond to all trades/emails in a timely manner whenever possible. Activity on our threads in the Rotoguru boards is not required on a regular basis but appreciated by the league. Obviously, an inquiry or a warning letter is not required before removal.

Unforeseen circumstances do occur. Certainly, the sad events of September 11, 2001 taught us you couldn’t prepare for every possible scenario. Should unforeseen scenarios arise, the commissioners will use their best judgment to settle any matters in the “best interest of the league”

Hopefully, an arbitration process will not be needed, however, if an owner feels that a decision (IE a vetoed trade) by one of the commissioners is unfair, he may appeal to the other commissioner with his reasoning. If the owner still is unhappy, he may call for a league vote to overturn the commissioners. A general e-mail will be sent with both sides stating their position and 14 votes must be returned in favor to overrule the decision (note: the party involved and the 2 commissioners will not be voting). This is the final outcome. There is no recourse. Voting will remain open for 24 hours (if reasonable) or the needed vote total is reached (14 or 7 or 2/3 vote altogether). All requests for arbitration must be done in a timely manner--generally 24 hrs. Obviously, it can not be done once the new team has used that player. If a commish has ANY question whether a trade may or may not be contested by the league that is made/seen right at the freeze, he will not approve it until after that week's games UNLESS it is at the trade deadline and then he will do his best to get input from members before approving/vetoing the move.

For Scoring Rules, Please See Our CBS Site

Gurupie 24 Links:
Managers
Game History (XL)
Record Book
Rules
Future Proposals