sounds good. i only felt the need to post b/c for some reason i got an SDMB email notification after WL’s post
Perhaps we have a philosophical difference here. I feel one should not be obligated to draft a “keeper” whose status has changed dramatically in the offseason. If a keeper choice breaks his leg, goes to jail for rape, or (in the extreme case) dies in a car accident, should the team owner have to waste one of his (or her 
) top 3 picks on someone who will never produce? WL, am I correct in thinking your answer to this is “tough sh*t, you should have made different choices”?
I don’t think we should have to “predict” the highly unpredictable offseason.
neuroman brings up a very good point. and i am always in support of anyone arguing with WhiteLightning.
I can usually agree with anyone arguing with WL, but I also have to agree with anyone arguing with mrchan, which puts me in position for Hobbes’ choice. I’ve been trying to equate it to real world football. Right now the Bucs are kind of screwed because Michael Pittman is a psychopath. They can cut him, but they can’t just fill his position in the draft. Depending on when a calamity happens, you can try and fill via free agency. Of course there is a salary cap reaction to anything you do, again dependent on timing.
On the other hand, I could see someone holding a “keeper”, and then realizing that there is someone better than their keeper out there in the draft pool. So should that person be able to jettison keeper deadwood to improve their draft lie? I don’t really think so. The possible solutions that I see are a) you live with your late season mistakes and suck it up b) you can designate a ‘reserve’ keeper at the end of the season, in case your stud goes all “Pittman” on you or c) you get an additional draft pick, but it comes at the end of the draft. And the last one seems highly impractical on a computerized draft.
BTW, why do I see my name all over the place as a bad example? It’s 'cause you all love me, right? Right?!?
I think the last one is very practical. The person simply announces on live the draft board who he wants at the end of the draft, and then picks him up the next day. I can lock anyone down, and would do so until two days after the draft to allow the “Pittman” owner to pick up his 18th player.
Essentially, it’s first dibs at the free agent pool.
Shall we call it the Pittman Rule?
You are correct. I’m truly surprised that everyone is disagreeing with me here. If I draft Faulk with my first pick this year and he gets hurt again in preseason, do I get a mulligan for that? Do I have a “reserve” first round pick? I really don’t see any fundamental difference between choosing your keepers and any other choice you make over the course of a fantasy football season, for which there is no safety net. If you foul it up, you foul it up… how come in this one instance we suddenly want to protect people from making bad or unlucky choices? Really, I don’t get it.
But I guess if the alternative we’re proposing is that you get to blow off one of your 3 keepers in exchange for first dibs at the post-draft FA pool, I’m for that.
FTR, WL, you’ve changed my mind. I think you’re right. The purpose of a keeper league is to make it as real as possible, and make our jobs as coaches more like being a GM. The Bucs’ GM doesn’t get a mulligan for Pittman, and the Vikings didn’t get a mulligan for Korey Stringer last year. Terrible things happen, and affect other people.
::scratches Pittman off of his draft list::
I agree with WL’s points as well. I do think that the right time for selecting the keepers is after the Super Bowl (or I guess Pro Bowl), but really, it’s not a big difference.
On the playoff issue, I definitely think weeks 14-15 are too early. I guess 15-16 are OK, but 16-17 would be fine with me too.
I remember seeing somewhere (zev’s fantasy baseball league?) keeper rules that said you could keep up to three keepers. If you finished last one year and only kept two (and everyone else kept three), in round 3 you would get to pick amongst all the non-keepers, then still get the first pick in round 4 as well. It would be pretty hard to do that using Yahoo, but I think it would help level the field a bit more if someone’s team was completely awful one year.
I’ll see if I can find those rules…
One can lose a player through variuos means through the season; pre-game injury, arrest, being thrown out of the game in the first quarter- losing a keeper over the off-season just gives you advance warning.
How do other leagues handle this? My vote is to apply Occam’s Razor- use the simplest solution; don’t overcomplicate the process.
There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth due to many other factors; why is this any worse?
Today Munch, tomorrow the world!
On a side note, will I be the only one here watching Jets v Bucs on Saturday night?
Possibly. But I may be the only one AT the Chiefs v. Packers on Monday.
The only one from here or the only one in the stadium? And how did you transport from Indy to Lambeau/Arrowhead?
Hey guys – I made a Pickem League on Yahoo. It’s the same settings as last year. I set it for 50 teams (the max) to start. I’d love to see everybody from last year’s pickem group, this league, friends, coworkers, etc. Link:http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/pickem
Group ID # is 674 (we got in on the bottom floor!), pw is “pork”. Join up!
I’ll probably start a new thread advertising it sometime if I get around to it.
I’m in the Pick-em league. Boy, am I going to be busy this year…
Is the game on Saturday going to be shown live? I’m going to have a late Friday night anyway, so I would definitely stay up to five and watch the game if it is.
Late chiming in here, but I agree with the
“if your keeper goes the way of Rae Curruth or Robert-Edwards-beach-football, tough shit for you”
idea.
Well, with any luck I’ll get poetic justice and all of your keepers will get arrested at Michael Irvin’s July 4 party. 
Man, between switching apartments and starting a new job I haven’t kept up on football news at all. I’m gonna be chopped liver if I don’t get on the wagon.
I thought that ESPN is showing the game at 8 pm on Saturday night. Whether that is live or not I have no idea. I think that would make it about 10 am Sunday morning in Japan, give or take an hour.
Damn, White Lightning, I was just thinking earlier how I’m already in too many fantasy leagues. Now I have to stay in the Pick 'Em league. And maybe come up with a better algorithm than last year. Who won that in the end?
Just found this on NFL.com:
The Tokyo game –- televised live at 5:00 AM ET on ESPN2 and re-aired at 8:00 PM ET on ESPN -– is the first of 11 national preseason telecasts. It will be followed two nights later by the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game on Monday night, August 4 featuring the Green Bay Packers versus the Kansas City Chiefs in Canton, Ohio (ABC, 8:00 PM ET).