Ok. Steelerphan wants to get things in order by this weekend, so anyone returning from last year’s league who still hasn’t joined, join up now or risk being dumped. This is [sub]probably maybe[/sub] your final warning.
Re: Keepers
For this year’s league I propose the following, which I believe comprehensively covers all the issues related to keepers. Having written that, I’m sure I forgot something.
-Keep anywhere from 0-3 players
Do I actually need to explain what this means? I sure hope not.
-Select keepers two weeks before the draft
If this year is any indication, there’s a good chance we won’t get all owners to return, and picking keepers at the end of the season (or anytime significantly before draft time) just seems like it’s going to complicate things. If even one owner leaves and we have a replacement owner fill in for him, IMO it wouldn’t be fair to saddle the new owner with the last owner’s keeper picks, and if we let new owner make new picks, we’d all have to make “new” picks, so let’s avoid this whole imbroglio (holy crap, this may be the first time in my life I’ve ever actually used the word imbroglio, that is awesome) by just designating keepers late in the process (two weeks before draft. Or maybe four, whatever, just not in the offseason.)
-Once keeper selections are made, you are LOCKED into them
This seems obvious, but we need to make keeper picks once and only once. This is especially important if we don’t require three picks out of everyone (as I advocated above.) Someone might say “hm, I know I already stated I’d pick player X in round Y, but actually I decided to not keep him and just draft from the available talent in that round instead.” BZZZT! No. This would be unfair to the other players and would complicate the draft.
-Maximum keeper lifetime of two years
Most keeper leagues allow you to keep a player only X number of times. I think that two times is the most we should allow coaches to keep a player. (I.e., a keeper player could be on your roster for three years max.) You want to have some turnover in a keeper league to keep things interesting and fun. (And if you can’t get a return from a sleeper keeper [late round pick] after two years, well, tough nuggets. We’re playing a damn online fantasy football league here, not running the MLB farm system.)
-Keep based on round drafted
Hopefully most of us agree that the “top 3 rounds” method sucks donkey gnads. Instead we can keep a player in the same round he was drafted, or earlier. (This nicely avoids the problem of someone selling his entire team for one or two first round players - he can only keep ONE first rounder.) Another alternative that I read about last year when researching keeper leagues is to keep at round drafted +2. What this means is that players drafted rounds 1-2 can’t be kept, and everyone else is kept at two rounds higher than originally picked. The practical implications of this are that the fantasy studs turn over every year, and you end up keeping mid to late round players. Because the studs are always up for grabs, it makes the league much more competetive. I’m not fanatically attached to the +2 method, but I do kinda like it. I’d like to hear feedback. But for the love of Og, do NOT use the “top 3 rounds” method.
-Free agent keepers - don’t use them
What should we do if someone wants to keep someone they picked off the free agent list (say, Anquan Boldin?) Well, we could let them keep their FA in a designated late round, e.g., round 10, but this would reward the jackass who sits by his computer on Sunday just waiting to pick up whoever surfaces with hot numbers that day. Rewarding this jackass stinks. (back me up here Munch.) We should instead reward the guy who goes down to his neighborhood bar and gets slobbering drunk! Well, maybe not reward him, but at least we shouldn’t penalize the guy. So I say NO to FA keepers. Does anyone really want to see someone get to keep Anquan Boldin on his roster for two or three years (drafted in the tenth round!) just because he had the good luck to snatch him off the free agent wire first? I sure as hell do not. If you weren’t smart enough to draft him, why should you get to keep him? Eliminating FA keepers makes things simpler and fairer.
-Draft in reverse order of finish
If you finish first, you draft last. If you finish 2nd, you draft second to last. This shouldn’t be controversial. Of course this year, (assuming we don’t do keepers, which is the way things are looking right now) the draft order should be random since we’re starting from scratch.
Wow, that was quite a post. You may now all stand back and admire it and/or tear it apart. And will someone get me a damn grilled cheese sandwich already? I’m starvin’ over here.