Fantasy is back!!!

The namesake of Newton's Law of Forward Motion and rightful heir to the McLeonard Trophy

Hello, everyone!  Long time no blog! (Countdown to accusation from Mom begins now)

I have officially set up the fantasy league for the upcoming season.  NFL.com has added a nice feature where you can just re-activate leagues from previous seasons, so it was a nice an easy process.  But that would be too simple for me, so I decided to make a bunch of changes for the betterment of my chances at a championship..err...I mean the betterment of the league.

I have not made any changes to scoring from previous years, but there are logistical changes I have made.  First of all, I have removed Brianna from the league, as she has a child now and her team was exclusively controlled by Jon anyways. I plan on replacing her with Chris, if he chooses to accept. I know some other couples in the league may be tag-teaming, and if that is the case, please let me know and I can make you both co-owners of the same team rather than giving you two teams to work with.  For it is in the Lord's very own prayer, "Lead us not into temptation", and I do not wish to lead anyone into the temptation of using one team to stack another.  However, being the power-hungry dictator that I am, I have changed the trade veto policy from a league vote to a managerial (dictatorial) veto. I have never used this power before, and I don't intend to unless I can determine that someone is trying to take advantage of a less-informed player (like trading a player on IR for instance) or that someone is attempting to stack their team.

Another change I made is that the playoffs will now occur on weeks 14, 15, and 16 rather than 15, 16, and 17.  This should help prevent me from losing the championship.

Oh, you want a better explanation?  Fine.  Frequently star players, such as Aaron Rodgers on Brittany's team last year, end up not playing in Week 17 because their team has nothing to gain as far as playoff positioning is concerned.  It seems rather unfair for someone to lose the championship game because one of their best players is so good that he doesn't even have to play week 17.

Another change is the addition of "Keepers".  I am giving you people the illusion of democracy by allowing you to vote on this proposed addition.  There is a poll in the bottom right of the League's homepage, which is located here: CLICK ME, PEONS!.  I will decide how many keepers each team gets to designate based on the results of the poll (you know, if I like the result).  For those that don't know, a "keeper" is a player that was on your team last year that you get to keep; so he will be on your team again this year, without you having to draft him.  I think it is a great addition as long as it's not overdone.  I think keeping 1 or 2 players would be optimal, as it would allow people to hang on to their favorite superstar, and it gives the worst teams a reason to keep paying attention even when they're in the loser's playoffs.  The reason they should keep paying attention if we have keepers is that when it gets to crunch time, a playoff team might drop a superstar player who's injured for only a week or two because they need the roster spot to win now.  One of the teams who played poorly could then pick this player up and designate him as a keeper for next year.

Apart from those things, everything else should be the same this year. However, I did notice a few new features that I might play around with this year.  For instance, I have the ability to modify the scheduling before the season starts so maybe I could set up some family "rivalries" that get to play each other 2 or 3 times every season.  Also, I noticed that there is an option of a "League Reward".  If we really want to ramp up the stakes here, there are a few options.  For $100, we could have the league winner get a customized championship ring.  For $150, we could get an authentic autographed football, and for $300 we could get an authentic autographed jersey.  Just something to consider, because split 12 ways those numbers aren't very big.

Finally, If there is significant interest in it, I have toyed around with the idea of doing an offline draft.  This means that we would have a family get-together and everyone would have to attend, or at least have a representative there to draft for them.  I would take care of providing the draft board and all the necessary materials, and then entering the information into the league afterwards.  However, seeing as we haven't been able to get even half the league for a single online draft so far, I doubt that you lazy excuses for royal subjects  could be bothered to come to Raleigh for one.  Maybe if we made it coincide with another holiday....like Ray's birthday or something.

Anywho, that's all for now.  Leave comments with feedback if you want to continue deluding yourself that you have a say in your fantasy football governance.  You may proceed with droll lives in perpetual sub-ordinance.