THE NBL (NFL.com) - Internal Rules - Year 15 (2019)

THE NO BOLLOX LEAGUE - XV

Keeper Deadline Date:

August 9, 2019 (Friday)

Live Draft Date:

Sunday, Aug 11, 2019 at 1:00pm EDT / 6:00pm BST

(Snake style draft)

Full NBL settings can be viewed here: The NBL League Settings

Background

I first set this league up in 2005 as I wanted to play Americans at their own game and show British peeps could be just as good - if not better at their fantasy football.

I was also fed up with owners giving up or not playing out the season - hence the leagues name (born out of frustration). Over the years I have replaced owners that didn’t set line ups and modified my internal rules to create what has become a very competitive league.

The key element being a 50/50 make up of team coaches from the UK & USA (8 Americans & 8 Brits). It makes for a rather nice added rivalry as we all still compete to beat one another but as a side bar whoever wins the Super Bowl also wins a title for their respective nation.

NEW OR NOTABLE INTERNAL RULE CHANGES

Any sections boxed and bolded like this paragraph are to bring attention to new or amended internal rules for the forth coming season (as my league is developing year on year) and helps returning team coaches to quickly find what’s new or changed from the previous season.

PAST MAJOR CHANGES

From season 8 this league introduced IDP’s (Individual Defensive Players instead of the traditional block Defense) along with draft pick trading and keepers that kicked in from season 9. Keepers come from your finishing squads as they were the end of the previous season - so worth long term planing and taking note of the following keeper rules…

KEEPERS

Each owner/team will be allowed to keep up to a maximum of 2 players however only one from each side of the ball (Offense/Defense). So in effect if keeping 2 players one has to be an IDP. You do not have to keep any players if you so wish, each owner has the choice each year - 0, 1 or 2 players. There will be a keeper deadline before the next years draft so it is each owners responsibility to look out for that deadline as no changes to selection(s) can be made after it.

Any one who does not follow the one from each side of the ball Keeper Rule and tries to keep 2 Offensive players or 2 IDP players will find they only have 1 keeper. The 2nd Keeper choice who ever it is will be over-ridden prior to the draft and be changed to ‘no keeper selected’.

Keepers will cost you the draft position they were drafted in the previous season (regardless of who drafted them). Only exception to this is when the same owner keeps the same player in consecutive seasons - then the player shifts up 1 round per year - unless he’s a first round pick - for obvious reasons. Any player kept that was undrafted the previous year will count as a last round selection.

You can find the previous seasons draft results within the league itself (here is a link): NBL 2018 Draft Results

DRAFT ORDER

For those teams that make the playoffs proper (teams finishing 1st-6th), there draft order will be a reverse of the previous years finishing positions as decided by NFL.com - so the previous years champion will still draft last in round 1 (*16th) and the team finishing 6th (*11th). [*excluding draft pick trading]

However I noticed in the dead rubber games some GM’s had a tendency to tank in order to get a more favourable draft position the following season. So to address that from the end of the 2014 season the following changes took affect regarding draft spots from the consolation play-off games.

If you were not in the running for the title (i.e. in the playoffs proper), there was nothing to play for except next years draft position - and the way it was, the worse you did in the dead games, the better your draft pick position the next year. This encouraged GM’s who were out of the playoffs not to try and win, actually often hoping to lose by starting their worst players (just to avoid falling foul of the strike rule, as there’s nothing else riding on those results).

So to correct that anomaly is why I introduced this rule change - making the so called dead rubber games un-dead. Each of these consolation games are now worth winning because your now playing for a higher draft spot. As this part of the draft order involving the 10 non- championship playoff teams is inverted - to reward there post season wins, however pointless they may seem at the time.

So the 6 proper playoff teams will still keep their draft positions (16th - 11th).

However the rest (consolation playoff teams) will now go like this…

The team finishing 7th (i.e. best of the non-qualifiers) would have pick #1
The team finishing 8th (2nd best non-qualifier) would have pick #2
And so on, down to the team finishing 16th (worst non-qualifier) would have pick #10

I think this will be good for the league as now tanking for a better draft spot will not fly as the dead rubber games have something riding on them. I feel this should also help with the also ran GM’s trading away their better players with late round draft picks to the playoff bound GM’s who are willing to sell their next seasons chances on winning this year by agreeing to trades involving their bad players but with higher round draft picks from the following season - which is skewing the integrity of the league imho.

IDP Scoring Adjustments for 2019

It was talked about a lot in the 2017 season how imbalanced IDP scores were and how any given week an IDP player could score you anything from just a few points to many tens of points and the spectrum was to much. For this reason last season I adjusted the IDPs points down but unfortunately NFL.com did not round down so the half point given for Assisted Tackles and Pass Defended made this league end up with fractional scores - which I did not want as the NBL has always been a non fractional scoring league. So for this reason I have had to adjust those two categories up to a full point (from half a point) to insure that does not happen.

So from this season the following applies:

Assisted Tackles: 1 point (up from 0.5 of a point)
Pass Defended: 1 point (up from 0.5 of a point)

Standings Tiebreaker

In the 2017 season a poll was conducted during the post season to see what standings tie-breaker we should use going forwards as some GM’s did not like the default option of ‘Head to Head Record’ and the following is the result of that poll which is why we use ‘Points For’ as the Tiebreaker from 2018 onwards:

STRIKES RULE

WEEKLY STRIKE COUNT 2019

WK1 - no strikes issued
WK2 - no strikes issued
WK3 - no strikes issued
WK4 - no strikes issued
WK5 - 1 strike (Douglas Hay)
WK6 - no strikes issued
WK7 - 1 strike (Brian Lassiter)
WK8 - no strikes issued
WK9 - 1 strike (Brian Lassiter)
WK10 - 1 strike (Tony Hamm)
WK11 - no strikes issued
WK12 - no strikes issued
WK13 - 1 strike (Tony Hamm)
WK14 - no strikes issued
WK15 - no strikes issued
WK16 - 3 strikes (Jesse Schober x3)
WK17 - 4 strikes (Jesse Schober x3 & Ian Landers x1)

Last Years Final Standings

Annual Reorganising of the Divisions for 2019…

There will be 2 US and 2 UK teams in each Division. Once Divisions are drawn whichever one I am drawn in will become the North (as a little gift to myself as I am a Lions fan and they are in the NFC North) it really makes no material difference to the fantasy season whatsoever as the teams drawn with me are still the same teams just they to will be in the North division.


Above the teams have been numbered 1-8 which corresponds to the numbered tickets that are drawn in the video to populate the divisions randomly. First I will do the Americans and then I will repeat with the Brits (or vice versa depending on how I feel).

NBL SUPER BOWL HISTORY

NBL - INDIVIDUAL LEAGUE RECORDS

Saved for admin posts

Week 5 Strikes (x2)

Sad to report the following strikes are awarded for NFL Week 5:

Douglas Hay - McBears Bears (UK) x1 for:

x1 Started DL - Damon Harrison - (DET) - on a BYE


Lee Pearce - London Falcons (UK) x1 for:

x1 Started WR - Phillip Dorsett - (NE) who was ruled out before his teams actual game day.

Published: Wed, Oct 9 at 3:53pm by Rotowire.com

Ruled out for Thursday’s game
Dorsett (hamstring) has been ruled out for Thursday’s game against the Giants.

Analysis: On a short week, Dorsett never seemed very likely to suit up after tweaking his hamstring in Sunday’s win over Washington. The Patriots’ No. 3 wideout will now look to recover in time for the team’s Oct. 21 tilt against the Jets. With Dorsett unavailable, Jakobi Meyers should see added snaps in Week 6 behind starting receivers Julian Edelman (chest) and Josh Gordon (knee). Both of those wideouts are officially listed as questionable but seem likely to play.

All well and good, although a bit premature and if i had had Dorsett in my team for the week 6 Thursday Night Game against the Giants.

Dorsett started the Week 5 game against the Redskins and was in 4 snaps (according to the Playbook) before doing his Hamstring:

Published: Sun, Oct 6 at 6:30pm by Rotowire.com

Exits game with hamstring injury
Dorsett was forced out of Sunday’s game against Washington with a hamstring injury.

Week 5 Patriots Inactives:

Cody Kessler, QB
Patrick Chung, S
Rex Burkhead, RB
Damien Harris, RB
Nate Ebner, S
Korey Cunningham, OL
Byron Cowart, DL

https://www.patriots.com/news/inactives-patriots-at-redskins-week-5

Okay man I’ll double check when at home it’s really hard with my notebook on the road today it won’t connect to Wi-Fi so just have my phone.

Edit: Okay it seems I did get this wrong so I am rescinding the strike. Please accept my apologies Lee.

Week 7 Strikes (x1)

Sad to report the following strike is awarded for NFL Week 7:

Brian Lassiter - DarKnights (USA) x1 for:

x1 Started DB - John Johnson - (LAR) - on IR

Published: Published: Wed, Oct 16 at 4:28pm by Rotowire.com

Lands on IR
Johnson (shoulder) was placed on injured reserve Wednesday.

Analysis: Johnson will be eligible to return for Week 16’s game against the Cardinals, but there’s a good chance he’s shut down for the season. The Rams’ defensive outlook was bleak with Johnson, Clay Matthews (jaw) and Aqib Talib (ribs) all hurting, but they’re hoping the addition of corner back Jalen Ramsey via trade from the Rams can cover some of the weaknesses. Taylor Rapp figures to start at strong safety Sunday against the Falcons.

Week 9 Strikes (x1)

Sad to report the following strike is awarded for NFL Week 9:

Brian Lassiter - DarKnights (USA) x1 for:

x1 Started DL - J.J. Watt - (HOU) - on IR

Published: Wed, Oct 30 at 1:47pm by Rotowire.com

Officially placed on IR

Watt (pectoral) was placed on injured reserve Wednesday, Deepi Sidhu of the Texans’ official site reports.

Analysis: Watt underwent successful surgery Tuesday to repair his torn left pectoral muscle and will miss the remainder of the season. The three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year should make a full recovery before the 2020 season. Watt finished the 2019 campaign with 24 tackles, four sacks and three pass breakups. He has two years remaining on his contract.

Week 10 Strikes (x1)

Sad to report the following strike is awarded for NFL Week 10:

Tony Hamm - Chargers Go (UK) x1 for:

x1 DL --empty– - did not start anyone.

Week 13 Strikes (x1)

Sad to report the following strike is awarded for NFL Week 13:

Tony Hamm - Chargers Go (UK) x1 for:

x1 Started RB - Jordan Howard - (PHI) who was ruled out before his teams actual game day.

Published: Sat, Nov 30 at 11:27am by Rotowire.com

Ruled out ahead of Sunday

Howard (shoulder) was ruled out prior to Sunday’s contest against the Dolphins.

Analysis: Despite practicing on a limited basis all week, the Eagles proactively ruled out their starting running back for the third consecutive week. Expect Miles Sanders to continue operating as the lead role in the backfield by committee, with Jay Ajayi and Boston Scott contributing periodically.

Week 16 Strikes (x3)

Sad to report the following strikes are awarded for NFL Week 16:

Jesse Schober - Rudy Was Offsides (USA) x3 for:

x1 Started RB - Dalvin Cook - (MIN) - who was ruled out before his teams actual game day.

Published: Sat, Dec 21 at 1:39pm by Rotowire.com

Officially out against Packers

Cook (chest) has been ruled out for Monday’s game against the Packers, Adam Schefter of ESPN reports.

Analysis: Minnesota will be without its starting running back for a vital divisional matchup in Week 16 with Cook unable to go due to his chest injury. Schefter adds that Alexander Mattison (ankle) is questionable, meaning that Mike Boone should be in line for an elevated role against the Packers.

x1 Started LB - Benardrick McKinney - (HOU) - who was ruled out before his teams actual game day.

Published: Thu, Dec 19 at 6:00pm by Rotowire.com

Won’t suit up Week 16

McKinney (concussion) is ruled out of Saturday’s game against Tampa Bay.

Analysis: McKinney was unable to get on the practice field this week and remains in the concussion protocol. If Brennan Scarlett (Achilles/shouler) is active, he is likely to see an uptick in snaps in the 27-year-old’s stead.

x1 Started LB - Roquan Smith - (CHI) - on IR

Published: Mon, Dec 9 at 12:52pm by Rotowire.com

Shifts to IR

Coach Matt Nagy confirmed Monday that Smith (pectoral) will require season-ending surgery and land on injured reserve.

Analysis: Smith underwent further medical testing after last Thursday’s win over the Cowboys, the results of which revealed that the star linebacker has indeed suffered a torn pectoral muscle. He’ll need surgery to correct the matter, but should be ready to play well in advance of the 2020 season. With Danny Trevathan (elbow) having missed the last four games, the Bears could be forced to rely on Nick Kwiatkoski and Kevin Pierre-Louis at inside linebacker Week 15 against the Packers.


Week 17 Strikes (x4)

Sad to report the following strikes are awarded for NFL Week 16:

Jesse Schober - Rudy Was Offsides (USA) x3 for:

x1 Started RB - Dalvin Cook - (MIN) - who was ruled out before his teams actual game day.

Published: Fri, Dec 27 at 1:52pm by Rotowire.com

Won’t play until wild-card round

Cook (shoulder) has been ruled out for Sunday’s game against Chicago, with the expectation he’ll return for the wild-card round of the playoffs, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reports.

Analysis: Fellow running back Alexander Mattison (ankle) is listed as questionable, but he probably won’t be in store for many touches even if he’s active, considering Minnesota doesn’t have an opportunity to rise above the No. 6 seed in the NFC. Mike Boone and Ameer Abdullah are the best bets to take snaps in the backfield in the regular-season finale, while Cook finishes his breakout campaign with 1,654 yards from scrimmage and 13 touchdowns in 14 games. The Vikings will face the Saints, Packers, Seahawks or 49ers in the first round of the playoffs.

x1 Started WR - D.J. Moore - (CAR) - who was ruled out before his teams actual game day.

Published: Fri, Dec 27 at 1:03pm by Rotowire.com

Won’t play Sunday

Moore (concussion) has been ruled out for Sunday’s game against the Saints, Max Henson of the Panthers’ official site reports.

Analysis: Moore was spotted working out on the side during practice Friday, but the Panthers still determined he wasn’t on track to clear the NFL’s concussion protocol in advance of Sunday’s game. Shaky quarterback play wasn’t enough to prevent Moore from enjoying a second-year breakout, with the 2018 first-round pick catching 87 passes for 1,175 yards and four touchdowns on 135 targets in 15 games. Prior to his early exit Week 16, the 22-year-old had ripped off seven games in a row with 75 or more receiving yards. Moore finishes with a 64.4 percent catch rate and 8.7 yards per target, despite playing in an offense that has completed just 61.0 percent of its passes for 6.6 yards per attempt. His ability to vastly outproduce the Carolina passing game as a whole bodes well for Moore’s NFL future, though his ceiling for 2019 partially depends on what happens with the team’s uncertain quarterback situation.

x1 Started LB - Roquan Smith - (CHI) - on IR

Published: Mon, Dec 9 at 12:52pm by Rotowire.com

Shifts to IR

Coach Matt Nagy confirmed Monday that Smith (pectoral) will require season-ending surgery and land on injured reserve.

Analysis: Smith underwent further medical testing after last Thursday’s win over the Cowboys, the results of which revealed that the star linebacker has indeed suffered a torn pectoral muscle. He’ll need surgery to correct the matter, but should be ready to play well in advance of the 2020 season. With Danny Trevathan (elbow) having missed the last four games, the Bears could be forced to rely on Nick Kwiatkoski and Kevin Pierre-Louis at inside linebacker Week 15 against the Packers.


Ian Landers - Warrior Cats (USA) x1 for:

x1 Started RB - Josh Jacobs - (OAK) who was ruled out before his teams actual game day.

Published: Sat, Dec 28 at 2:59pm by Rotowire.com

Ruled out for season finale

Jacobs (shoulder/illness) has been downgraded to out for Sunday’s game against the Broncos.

Analysis: Initially deemed doubtful, it’s no surprise that Jacobs will sit out for the season finale. DeAndre Washington and Jalen Richard will handle the backfield against the Broncos. Jacobs – a rookie first-rounder out of Alabama – had a fantastic season prior to fracturing his shoulder, and he’ll end the season with 1,150 rushing yards and seven touchdowns while adding 20 catches for 166 yards. He should be able to make a full recovery for the 2020 season and resume duties as a bell cow.




UK 12 - 3 USA

What is wrong with the USA?

In season 15 it was another all UK Super Bowl meaning another championship for the 51st state across the pond. Further more Play Your Cards Right (Carl Fisher - UK) has appeared in more NBL Super Bowls than anyone else (4) and every time he has made the Super Bowl he has won it.

Mean while for the USA the Yellow Jackets (Pat Hofer) has equalled a record - albeit one you don’t want to own. That being the worst regular season record of 1-12-1. Ouch.

The only things left for Super Carl to try and attack are records he doesn’t own - which are the highest season score of 197 and the highest Super Bowl points score of 157.

So still a few things for you to play for as well as Lombari trophies Carl. :football: