Creating a keeper league

Five slots left, assuming Aqua/Travis is going to sign up like he promised.

 

A keeper league is exactly what it sounds like. Rather than being a one-time, one year affair, in a keeper league you keep playing in the same league year after year, and can designate a certain amount of players from last year's roster to keep for next year's roster, usually at the cost of a draft pick based on what round the player was originally drafted in. For example, if you drafted Ray Rice in the 10th round in his rookie year, and you decided to keep him, then the next year you'd lose your 9th round pick. If you keep him again, then the year after that you'd lose your 8th round pick, then your 7th, and on and on. (Some leagues don't charge draft picks for keepers, but this league will, to maintain competitive balance and add an element of strategy to the keeper selections.)

Basically, a keeper league is halfway between a regular fantasy league that expires at the end of the season, and a dynasty league where you keep the same roster from year to year like the real NFL.

Since this league is just starting, no one has any keepers, so just for this year it'll be a normal 12 team PPR league. Next August the league will re-open with (hopefully!) the same 12 participants from this year, and they'll be able to designate up to either 3 or 4 players (unsure yet) to bring back for their 2011 roster.

So if you want to join up, great! But keep in mind you're making a commitment to participate seriously beyond just 2010. Of course, you could always turn your team over to someone if you don't want to come back, but hopefully that won't be the case.

 

Looks that way, though a couple of players have different 2009 point totals than my Excel calculations come up with. For example, they give Aaron Rodgers 402.96 points in 2009, but I have him at 396.96 in 2009. However, they have Peyton Manning at 344.70 points in 2009, and I have that as well. Likewise, they have Chris Johnson at 392.90 in 2009, while I have him at 390.9. But Adrian Peterson and Maurice Jones-Drew seem right on.

Could be a bug, could just be a discrepancy between what NFL.com lists on the players' stats pages and what they entered in their fantasy football backend, who knows. The difference isn't very big, so you can go ahead and take their 2009 totals and projected 2010 totals as being based on the league rules.

Just for comparison's sake, my Excel formula for RBs is [(rush yards / 10) + (rush TDs * 6) + (receptions) + (rec yards / 10) + (rec TDs * 6) - (fumbles lost * 2)]. For QBs, it's [(pass yards / 25) + (pass TDs * 6) - (INTs * 2) + (rush yards / 10) + (rush TDs * 6) - (fumbles lost * 2)]. I'm guessing the discrepancies with Rodgers and Johnson are due to the turnovers not being calculated correctly, either on my end or NFL.com's end.

I'm not a big fan of IDPs, just because defensive statistics (like tackles) are so subjective as to who gets credited for what. Too random for fantasy football, IMO. But that's just one owner's opinion. I'll enable IDPs if a majority wants it that way.

 

That's pretty much the point of DSTs, though.

 

I was wondering who the new owner was. Figured it was RickyC.

Any details on your friend?

 

Works for me. Glad to have him.

 

Four left, plenty of room.

 

You mean, what's the cost? It's a free league, no entry fee. The draft is Sunday, September 5 at 10 PM EST, two weeks from today.

 

Filling up fast. Hurrah.

Looks like NFL.com is having some server trouble at the moment, since I can't access the league, and others are complaining in the NFL.com forums about the same thing. Guess today is a busy draft day.

 

Okay, if you guys are having problems with seeing the league, log out of NFL.com and then log back in. Should fix the issue.

Yes, yes it is.

The reason for having the draft on the 5th is to be as close to the start of the regular season as possible while still being convenient for everyone. That way you minimize the risk of drafting a guy who winds up getting hurt in the preseason, and everyone can attend the live draft. I'd really like to hold the draft on the day before the Thursday opener, but it's tough to get everyone to attend a draft in the middle of the week.

 

Nope. Just create an NFL.com account if you don't have one and follow the sign-up link in the OP. Enter the league ID and password and you're gold.

 

One slot left.

 

Our 12th and final owner has joined. Thanks for the interest, guys.

Let's make this a great league.

 

It's currently set to randomize the order, and yes, that happens 30 minutes before draft time.

As the commissioner, I can create a customized draft order, but since the league is just starting I feel like going with a random draft order to kick things off is the fairest way to go. Future drafts will have a custom order: the six teams that don't make the playoffs will be assigned slots 1-6 by random lottery, and the six teams that do make the playoffs will be ranked 7-12 by playoff performance, win-loss record, and then a coin flip (which you'll have to just trust the results of ).

If people feel strongly enough about it, I can use the random lottery to assign slots 1-12 before the draft. I don't see a difference between using a site to randomly generate a draft order versus letting NFL.com randomly generate the order in terms of fairness.

Edit: Also, not everyone in the league posts on the forum, so for questions and suggestions like this, it's best to use the league message board just to make sure everyone sees it.

 

That was the plan. Alright, I guess it won't hurt anything. I'll post the draft order in the league message board soon.

9 PM Central.

 

Gentlemen.

​

 

It's a snake draft. The first round goes 1 through 12. The second round goes 12 through 1. The third round goes 1 through 12. And on and on until the draft is over.

Basically, if you pick at 1 and 12, you get to make back to back picks. But it's balanced out by the fact that you have to wait the longest to get your turn. Pretty standard for fantasy drafts.