REAL TEAM ALLEGIANCE
Keeper Deadline Date: Thursday, Aug 23, 2018
Live Draft Date: Saturday, Aug 25, 2018 at 6:00pm EDT / 11:00pm BST (Auction style draft)
Full RTA settings can be viewed here: RTA League Settings
Bold & Boxed text always means new for this season (to aide returning GM’s to quickly find internal rule changes or new rules).
This league is my smallest ever league - just 10 teams and as all my leagues are, will be hosted on NFL.com.
I like each and every league I play in to have a different feel and strategy etc. making them unique and very differnt in how they work. I have plagiarised some rules I have seen mentioned in other peoples custom leagues on other NFL forums over time - they do say that plagiarism is the best form of flattery so if you see any rule you had first being used in this league then all I can say is thank you for the idea.
As the league name suggests my #1 golden rule will be all team names and logo’s within this league will be of real current NFL teams. In theory you will be coach of your beloved team and there can only be one of any team in the league.
Further more it will be a league requirement that you must start 2 players (one Offensive and one Defensive) from your real team every game week - including post season - with the exception of your teams Bye week.
This league is a long term dynasty league so you have the option to select up to 22 keepers from your finishing team the previous season (subject to the internal cap restrictions - see next).
CAP / DRAFT BUDGET
The draft money per team default is 200 and your player rooster is 22 players so to make things simple for all and for me to administer it this is how it works - keepers cost you money from your draft allowance budget as follows:
Any RTA player kept will cost 5 from your draft budget allowance.
All other keepers will cost you 10 from your draft budget allowance.
This is a very simple thing for me to work out annually and leaves all of you to now work out which players on your roster from last year you want to pay that price for or if you should let them go back into the draft and take your chances finding better value there.
Please note you have to carry a minimum of $40m into the live draft room so if you dont have enough to cover paying for all your keepers I will override your keeper settings removing the last player(s) on your keeper list to make sure you have enough to comply with that NFL.com system setting.
In previous seasons I used to increase everyone’s budget to allow for this setting should anyones total keepers meant they didn’t have enough to comply with this setting but from 2018 this will no longer happen.
To allow me to adjust the team draft budgets accordingly I have to make the keeper lock date a few days prior to our draft date so pay attention to the keeper lock date once a draft date has been set for this year.
I am not sure how NFL.com works regarding the time it locks keepers so hence picking a date 2 days before our draft date so I would air on the side of caution if I was you and make sure you are happy with your chosen keepers before the the deadline date.
This league uses an auction style draft (and not the usual snake style draft):
From 2017 the draft was changed to a Custom Linear nomination order… in a reverse of last years final league standings.
Waivers will be done by a blind bid system known on NFL.com as the Waiver Acquisition Budget or WAB for short.
Waiver Acquisition Budget (WAB) - Each team is allotted a seasonal budget. This seasonal budget is the amount of points that each team has at their disposal to bid on available players. The team with the highest bid wins that player and is charged the amount of WAB points that they bid to obtain the player. If you bid on a player, but lose to a higher bid, you do not forfeit the amount of points that you bid. All of the WAB points that you bid will be returned to your seasonal budget. In the event of a tie, the team with higher waiver priority will win the bid. For more information, visit Waiver Acquisition Budget (WAB):
PLAYER POACHING (Introduced from year 2 onwards)
As this league is a maximum keeper league I wanted a way where GM’s could still get hold of their favourite players and change the look of teams season to season. I wanted to have something really different to any other league I am in and so came up with this idea - ‘Player Poaching’.
In a new twist for this RTA league every week of the regular season (not play-offs) the winner of each game can select one of their starting players from that game and swap him for a starting player from the team they beat - within the following criteria:
Only starting players on each team can be swapped.
The players swapped must be of the same position so QB for QB or LB for LB (not LB for TE etc.).
RTA players are exempted - so any players in the team of the real team represented are protected. So for instance in my case I am GM of the Detroit Lions so any Detroit Lions players in my starting line up can not be poached even if I lose.
Game winners must post on the leagues message board (aka wall) before midnight Wednesday (going into Thursday) UK time their swap (so everyone can see it). If it breaks any of the above rules it will not be actioned. Assuming it is bona-fide it will be actioned between midnight Wednesday and Thursday morning.
Should any team fail to start the required number of RTA players on any given week (except the teams real bye week) then they forgo their chance to poach a player that week should they win!
The Player Poaching rule if everyone buys into it and takes advantage of it throws up new strategies on who you start and sit against other teams as the season unfolds. It will also offer a very new dynamic to get to grips with long term as well as allow for greater roster movement throughout the season in this dynasty league.
Lastly if a match is a TIE then no poaching occurs.
STRIKES RULE XXX
A three strikes and out policy is in effect in the RTA. The reason for this is I want a competitive but fun league. The bane of most leagues (as any one who has played for a while knows) is flakey owners that give up when they are not doing well or don’t pay enough attention with regard to setting valid line-ups a few weeks in when the initial interest has wained or they have decided their team sucks.
As the RTA is my smallest ever league (10 teams) I will have no truck with owners who show the league this kind of disrespect.
Strikes are usually only given if you do not win your match up (i.e. loose or tie). In that event then for each player in your starting line up on a BYE, or who was listed as INACTIVE, on INJURED RESERVE or OUT etc. for a game at least one day prior to the actual gameday of said player a strike will be issued. Also a strike will be given for a player who you start that has been CUT as he can not play in a game while he is not with any team and this again is find outable before game day. To check any of your players status’ just click on their name when on your team page and it brings up information about them - if you click the arrows to go back and forth it gives you previous updates and at the top of each update there is a date when that information was published. I use these same updates myself when checking on players that appear not to have played in owners starting line ups and this is how I make a judgement on whether or not a strike is justified. Lastly strikes will also be awarded for each empty spot in your starting line up to - so be careful when picking up free agents off the waiver wire as they don’t automatically slot in to your starting line up even if that was the player you cuts spot.
Also strikes will be awarded for not starting your minimum required Real Team Allegiance players on any weeks other than your real teams Bye week. These Strikes are awarded regardless of whether you win your match or not and is the only way you can pick up strikes when winning your match up (as it’s a fundamental part of this custom league). You will pick up 1 strike per minimum RTA player not started (1 offensive & 1 defensive).
Also I recognise everyone can make a mistake or have PC issues etc., so that is why it takes 3 Strikes to lose your spot for following season and 6+ Strikes to be struck out immediately. Strikes also carry over to the following season but with each season one strike is deducted if you weren’t banned so if you only earned 1 or 2 strikes in a season and came back the next season your strike tally would be back to 1 (if you had 2) or none (if you had 1). So just like points on a driving license if you have not triggered a ban you can get them slowly removed for good behaviour (or in this case not messing up in starting a valid team each week).
Later on in a separate post within this thread will be a list of any Struck Out GM’s if that happens as a reminder to me who is no longer welcome in this RTA league and why they were struck out of the RTA (# of strikes picked up - 6+ to be permanently banned).
SURPLUS DRAFT BUDGET RULE
Any unspent live draft funds will be converted to WAB points and added to your seasons WAB budget total.
UNSPENT WAB POINTS
I have also decided to convert any unspent WAB points at the end of each season and add them to a teams Auction draft budget amount the following season. This will only start a fresh at the end of this season (2018). This will allow teams to accumulate a bigger salary cap to increase either their live drafting power or mean they can afford to keep every single player on their roster should they wish to do so.
So from the start of the 2019 season each teams income is a fresh $200m salary cap draft budget + whatever WAB they carried over from the previous season.
SETTINGS HISTORY - In this leagues inaugural season some rules I had the original GM’s vote on and so due to the polls results (below) this league is an IDP and fractional scoring league.
- Would you prefer this league to have IDP’s (Individual Defensive Players) or a block team Defence?
Poll result: A Block team DEFENCE - 33% / IDP’s - 67%
- Should we use fractional points scoring or rounding up/down to whole number scores?
Poll result: Fractional points - 100% / Rounded up/down - 0%
From 2017 an adjustment to the IDP scoring settings was made to factor in the real life rule the NFL introduced back in 2015 that the defence could score off a turnover on a PAT or two-point conversion by returning it the other way for a touchdown - worth two points. - So I added this scenario into the RTA’s scoring settings also.
DRAFT ORDER
From this season (2018 onwards) I decided to change the Draft Order from a Random Linear draft to a Custom Linear draft - based on a reverse of where teams finished last season. So in effect the last placed team will nominate first and the current champion will nominate last each round. I don’t think it makes that big of a difference in an auction draft league compared to a standard draft league but we will see.
Also in 2018 I had some polls about turning this league into a PPR league and the poll went in favour of this and a second poll (as we had drafted for 2018 already) confirmed the majority wanted to make the switch immediately.
So from this season there is now a scoring adjustment for Receiving - Receptions now earn 0.5 points. So half a point per reception.
I may run a poll during the season to consider awarding 0.5 points for a completed pass next year to go along with the PPR switch. This would boost QB’s scoring.
edit: I did run a poll and the result was negative.
