Fourth Annual Fantasy Football for Stakes and the Troops

[shilala]

In our first year we raised 385 sticks for the troops, the second year we raised 499 sticks for the troops. Last year somewhere between 350 and 400, I forget how many.

I've created a Yahoo League the same as last year. The sign-on info is the same, I simply restarted the league.
There will be only ten players.
Buy in will be six premiums ($60.00 minimum value, NC and/or CC) and a sixer (minimum) for the troops, due prior to the first week's kickoff. You all know the drill on sending betting smokes along with your buy-in to save money. Feel free to handle that however you like.

Payout will be 30 smokes to first place, 20 for second place, and 10 sticks for third place.
I can take care of receiving/sending smokes, or anyone else can do it. I've done it a few times before without a hitch and I have lots of extra storage tubs.

As always, I will personally put together a nice fiver for the winner of the playoff loser's bracket as an incentive to keep everyone involved to the end. If anyone wants to offer any other bonus prizes, that would kick ass. Maybe something such as "fiver for highest score for week six" or something like that.
Or "beat me this week, and I'll send a fiver to the troops". We had tons of that going on last year and it made it super fun for everyone.
The key is generosity, banter, and fun. The more prizes, the more fun it'll be. The more smokes we can gather for the troops, the more fun it will be.

If you cannot stay available for the entire season, please, please don't sign up, or find a brother or sister to step into your spot. Disappearing will just hurt what we're trying to do for the troops, and your team will immediately be assigned a new manager.

Live Draft is not yet set, we will hold off until the last moment to allow for injuries and cuts and so on.

Only ten guys will be playing, I've sent invites to last year's players.
1. Shilala
2. Coach
3. Cole
4. Stephen
5. mkarnold1
6. Mattso3000
7. Jarrod
8. Sofaman
9. Jeremy
10. BeerAdvocate

If someone drops out, we'll look for another player. Hopefully we'll get 100% of our guys back, especially with the pass involved.

[Mattso3000]

Can I make it 3 in a row?

Scott, I think I still owe troop smokes from last year but not sure how many. I'll get a few bundles on the way soon.

[shilala]

Okay, the first couple big announcements for this season...
The most important is that Cole will be Official Co-Commissioner with me. He's going to take care of tracking all the stuff you dicks never report to him.

Secondly, scoring will now be changed to Standard League Scoring.
I've made all the changes already, please look them over. I'd like to make a few bonus categories, but I'll worry about that later.
Here is where I got the Standard League Scoring Info.

Cole and I are working on a League Manual. It will include all our rules and stuff. Not just pertaining to the league, cause we don't really have any rules, but pertaining to the pass.
It'll help us all understand each other, what's expected, and will help from anyone getting upset over others not taking care of stuff in a timely manner.
I've considered creating penalties for not doing things we've promised to do, like sending the pass along in a timely fashion or getting our entry cigars in, or whatever.
I think that idea sucks.
Instead, I think it's best to agree that all participants exchange cell numbers. That way everyone can gang up and torment whoever isn't pulling their weight. Or we can all help him out. I think it's important that we be patient with each other and realize that life life's everyone. So no penalties.

I've also considered changing this to a Rotisserie League. Stephen has been up my ass about that from day one. I don't have a problem with it if you guys want it. I just think the head-to-head format suits what we do with our betting and all, and I don't know how rotisserie works other than what Stephen has explained.
So that's a pending development.

There's plenty of time to get your wishes heard before the season starts, so let's get to it.

[shilala]

Originally Posted by Mattso3000

Can I make it 3 in a row?

Scott, I think I still owe troop smokes from last year but not sure how many. I'll get a few bundles on the way soon.

Got ya, Champ. Cole would probably know if anyone owes from last year. If we get sticks from last year, we'll just roll them into this year's totals.

[Mattso3000]

Never been in a rotisserie football league. Seems like it would be harder on bets, trash talk, etc... I'll put my vote in to stay h2h.

[chaase321]

I like head 2 head as well...Rotisserie would be okay to bet in because we would be betting more like "if I score more rushing yards than you this week" etc...but I'm not sure if it would "pull in" more bets.

Welcome to everyone that has participated in the past, and if anyone is dropping off this year please let us know so we can get a new guy (or gal) in here to play.

Matt...good luck with the 3-peat, not gonna happen!
I'll check on if anyone needs to pay anything from last year and we can roll it forward.

As Scott mentioned, the pass is a pretty big deal, and you guys are a great bunch of guys...we wouldn't trust these good of sticks, or this much $$ involved with sticks, so please consider the timeliness and what not when not only signing up for the league, but especially the pass. (Note: you don't have to participate in the pass).

And lastly, remember this is for the troops, so the more we bet, the more they get!

Thanks everyone...updates soon!!!

[shilala]

Cole, I think I'll send the pass to you first so you can catalog the sticks. We can work an order out after that, or dig up our order from last year. I think it worked good, plus it moved really fast.

[chaase321]

Works good for me Scott.

Let's get these rules set (and pass rules) so we can make sure everyone really wants to be a part this year.

It was an awesome league last year and I look forward to it again!

[mkarnold1]

Looking forward to another great FF season guys. I'm happy to hear of the change to standard scoring this year.

[shilala]

Originally Posted by mkarnold1

Looking forward to another great FF season guys. I'm happy to hear of the change to standard scoring this year.

I think everyone will, Mark. The league has morphed into some serious FF players, so it makes sense to go from "wild fun scoring" to standard scoring.

I just emailed a copy of rules and regs from another FF league to Cole so we can cheat off them as we write up our own.
I'm hoping it doesn't take us long, but I'm not promising anything. It's a lousy job.

[JenksAnejo]

In

[sofaman]

In

[shilala]

A warning, Gentlemen. Matt cheats.
That is all.

[chaase321]

We already all know that Scott!

It looks like my last post was Jan 9, 2013, and at that time:

Matt owed 25 troop sticks
Coach owed 20 troop sticks

Not sure if either of these got taken care of or not, but just so you all know from my records.

Now that I am assistant Commish, I will keep a better running of everything from the beginning. Meaning: Entry fees, Troops Sticks, Bets, and the Pass.

I'll keep all the records, Scott will keep all the sticks (he has more room )

Scott, I'm going to take a look through the old thread, and a look at what you sent for Weeze's league, and shoot you an email...then when you and I agree, we can throw up all the changes for the league to vote on. I am pretty sure any and all changes we want to make can be done in Yahoo! and we won't have to type anything extra up for the league...but I can also probably make a PDF of all the rules and post it here so folks don't have to go searching for it on Yahoo!.

We will still have to put together rules for the pass (and by rules I mean, rights, privileges, and punishments) and directions for everyone. That should be fairly easy because we had a pretty decent process last year.

This weekend is my big move into the new house, so I will be out of commission until later next week. Granted I'll probably stop by and add input, but having time to really look at the rules will be difficult until the second week of August...no worries though gents, we will have everything in order in plenty of time before the draft and start of the season!

[Mattso3000]

Originally Posted by shilala

A warning, Gentlemen. Matt cheats.
That is all.

25 sticks sounds right to me, Cole.

[shilala]

Cole, I asked Matt to look at the scoring and see if it suits.

I also harvested last year's thread for the pass rules and stuff.
Weeze's rulebook is mostly worthless to us past layout. All the league play rules are at Yahoo. We just need rules surrounding signup dates and so forth. And the pass. I have that, but I haven't tweaked it out yet.
My harvesting of info really just amounts to notes and copy/pastes, so give me a little time before you waste your time. I'll pass what I have to you and you can expand on it, and so on. K?

I'm working on getting sofaman signed up, too. That should be done by this evening, I think. He had some Yahoo trouble.
Coach pm'd and he said he's in. He'll sign up later this week.
I texted Stephen, he hasn't texted back. I think he has to get permission to play, he's pvssy-whipped.
Jarrod posted and said he's in but hasn't signed on.
Travis? (Beer Advocate) pm'd me a good while back and wants to play. We should hear from him, I hope.
So that just leaves Stephen and Jeremy unaccounted for, is that right?

Everyone has been emailed and pm'd the link to this thread.

[Mattso3000]

Rules look good to me, Scott. I think this went from my highest scoring league to the lowest.

[shilala]

I know, right? Things are really gonna change, for sure.

[shilala]

Here's a discussion point that I don't really wanna discuss, but you guys should get a chance to throw input at it.

Team Size.
I'm thinking this...
QB, WR, WR, RB, RB, TE, K, D.
Or this...
QB, WR, WR, RB, RB, TE, K.
Quite frankly, I like 7 guys best. If the TE could be TE/QB/WR/RB that would suit me because there's really only Jimmy Graham and Tony G and a big question mark at Gronk. I guess Pitta got hurt the other day, if he matters. But the TE world is thin, thin, thin.

So 7 guys playing, 5 on the bench (backup QB, 2WR, 2RB I'm thinking) and 2 IR positions is my vote. Lots of Free Agents, no waivers, no waiver order, straight up anarchy.

Last year we fielded 9, had 5 on the bench and 2 IR's.
This year I'd like to field 7, 5 on the bench and 2IR. (Or 3 on the bench and 2 IR. That'd be my dream team but I didn't want you guys to have a stroke over a 10 man team.)
So that'd be 12 guys a team, 120 total, and a really sick field of FA's to work with week to week. I'm also considering how ridiculous the injuries are anymore. The FA field shrinks and shrinks every year because players won't play hurt. That just leaves young, hungry guys to go on and if you keep your ears on you can find some real gems.

Those are my thoughts and what I plan to do unless you guys talk me out of it.
Feel free to b1tch and complain heartily.

[chaase321]

Originally Posted by shilala

Here's a discussion point that I don't really wanna discuss, but you guys should get a chance to throw input at it.

Team Size.
I'm thinking this...
QB, WR, WR, RB, RB, TE, K, D.I like this option best, I like Defenses being in the mix
Or this...
QB, WR, WR, RB, RB, TE, K.
Quite frankly, I like 7 guys best. If the TE could be TE/QB/WR/RBI would make this an TE/WR/RB and not allow a QB to be played here...there are only a few awesome QBs, and with them being able to score so much (I know we cut back, but...) it doesn't make sense to allow two of those...plus this gives more of a "real" flex play here. that would suit me because there's really only Jimmy Graham and Tony G and a big question mark at Gronk. I guess Pitta got hurt the other day, if he matters. But the TE world is thin, thin, thin.

So 7 guys playing, 5 on the bench (backup QB, 2WR, 2RB I'm thinking) and 2 IR positions is my vote. Lots of Free Agents, no waivers, no waiver order, straight up anarchy.I hate this idea...not everyone has a chance to be on waivers right as soon as they are available to be picked up....I hated this last year as well. I think you should have a waiver order, and once you pick you move to the bottom of the list...that way if you are 1st and get the first waiver pick up, you then have to wait for everyone else to have the "chance" to at least pick someone before you get your next choice. Also, I vote that waivers have 2 days of processing...that's plenty of time before games start to pick someone up and know your team.

Last year we fielded 9, had 5 on the bench and 2 IR's.
This year I'd like to field 7, 5 on the bench and 2IR. (Or 3 on the bench and 2 IR. That'd be my dream team but I didn't want you guys to have a stroke over a 10 man team.)
So that'd be 12 guys a team, 120 total, and a really sick field of FA's to work with week to week. I'm also considering how ridiculous the injuries are anymore. The FA field shrinks and shrinks every year because players won't play hurt. That just leaves young, hungry guys to go on and if you keep your ears on you can find some real gems.

Those are my thoughts and what I plan to do unless you guys talk me out of it.
Feel free to b1tch and complain heartily.

See above