THE NO BOLLOX LEAGUE - XXI
Keeper Deadline Date:
1st August 2025
(onsite) Slow Draft Start Date:
20 August 2025 / 2:20am UK Time (snake style draft)
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 league’s 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.
TEAM NAMES
As part of that USA v UK aspect of the league it is a league rule to display - USA or - UK after your team name (as part of your team name) to show what side of the pond you represent.
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 forthcoming season (as my league is developing year on year) and helps returning team GMs 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 planning 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.
Anyone 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 whoever 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 player was also a keeper in the previous season (thus now becoming a keeper in consecutive seasons) - in this scenario the player shifts up one round (regardless of which team kept them the previous season) - unless he was a first-round pick/keeper - for obvious reasons. Any player kept that was undrafted the previous year will count as a last round selection.
You can find last seasons draft results within the league itself (here is a link):
NBL 2024 Draft Results
Due to a misinterpretation of the rules regarding keepers that happened in the 2022 draft I feel I needed to try and make the Keeper rules more precise and offer clarification on how I apply them. If you are ever in doubt about how a rule will work or be applied please contact me - the best way is to message me on Discord but other ways are available.
My keeper rule was originally thought up to put some strategy and skill in to finding or lucking out with rookie gems or players that fell way below normal ADP (Average Draft Position) due to injury or suspension etc., the year you drafted them (or someone else did) so that you could then keep them at great value for season after season with them just raising by 1 round a year if you continuously kept them (and now just if they are a keeper in back to back consecutive seasons).
It is not about free agents you pick up during the season but completely undrafted players - so just those players that went undrafted in the previous seasons draft will count as last round selections under the keeper rule. All other players no matter if you drafted them or picked them up later in the season off the waiver wire or traded for them, it matters not. In those circumstances their actual draft spot in the previous draft determines their rank (the draft round they will be awarded against if being selected as a keeper). The rule is this way because it is something that is tangible and previous seasons draft results can always be accessed. On Sleeper this is done by clicking on the gear icon on the league home page, then clicking on Previous Seasons - selecting the previous season (year) and once that loads clicking the gear icon again on that home page and selecting Draft Results.
Unfortunately it just loads up the finished draft board with no options to display by round or team (as NFL.com did) but it is still possible to workout what round players were drafted in. Also last seasons Keepers have a padlock logo on their name card so those players if kept again this season will bump up by 1 round (unless already were a round 1 keeper, obviously).
Another caveat is if you have traded away your original draft picks during the previous season (or prior to this seasons draft) and no longer have your original draft pick for the round a keeper you selected is due against then the keeper will go against the next highest pick you have going up from where your ORIGINAL PICK should be. If you don’t have a higher draft pick then you cannot keep that player and I will override said keeper selection to ‘no keeper selected’ after the keeper deadline. So people need to be aware of this when draft pick trading and planning their keepers for the following season. Just having a pick in the correct round might not necessarily be good enough as it needs to be a higher one from your original pick in that round (not lower) if you don’t have your original pick anymore.
DRAFT ORDER
For those teams that make the playoffs proper (teams finishing 1st-6th), their draft order will be a reverse of the previous years finishing positions as decided by Sleeper - 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 their 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.
SLOW DRAFT
After the 2024 season a poll was run that resulted in the majority wanting the NBL to migrate to Sleeper (from NFL.com). Once this took place in the off season it was noticed that many settings were different and that Sleeper offered the option of a slow draft among other settings that NFL.com does not currently offer. A poll was run to see if a Slow Draft would be desirable due to the time differences between all of us and was heavily voted in favour of (14-2) and so we have changed to a slow draft format. This will be the same for future seasons going forward.
Teams get 24hrs clock time to make a pick.
Unbelievably, some teams in another league I am running a slow draft in (with a 24hr clock) have still timed out. This delays the draft by a full day (24hrs) each time, so any team that times out the system will have the CPU make an ‘auto draft pick’ for them until they log back in. Furthermore any team that times out that becomes active again will now only get half the clock time - to make sure league is not held up again so badly. So after a clock expiry you will only have 12 hours from then on for each remaining draft pick before I force your pick manually, if you have not made it in time - even though the clock still shows 24 hours ticking down. If you time out again, your clock time will be further reduced by another 50% again (so down to 6 hours now) for the rest of the draft and so on.
I will also post on the leagues message board (and PIN the post) what GM’s/Teams have befallen this punishment for timing out and the time they currently have to make their pick before I force the system to make their pick for them.
To avoid this is simple, be active and do not time out or if you know you are going to be offline for an extended period of time then put yourself on auto draft.
DRAFT PICK TRADING DURING LIVE DRAFT
Draft Pick trading is allowed during the slow draft but only involving picks in the current live draft. If you swap a draft pick for a pick already made you are essentially now swapping that player as it will become the other teams pick. Draft Pick Trades go to a vote but to avoid it holding the draft up - as trades currently take 1 days voting time, a trade will be pushed through if or when it receives 7 Approve votes (excluding the two teams involved in the trade - so 9 votes if including these 2 teams).
Switch to Sleeper (from 2025) Scoring Changes
Sadly Sleeper does not offer the option of non-fractional scoring so league has to now become a fractional scoring league. Also many other settings I used on NFL.com are not offered on Sleeper - such as selecting the standings tie-breaker - I’ve no clue what the default is Sleeper uses as I can not find it anywhere on the full site or app? 
To make all current & custom settings this league is using (including scoring settings) public, I will screen grab them, plus post them on this thread in a separate post below. These will also be updated as and when any settings change (due to polls on such).
DIVISIONS
The NBL has 4 divisions, each containing 4 teams. Each Division will contain 2 USA & 2 UK teams. The Divisions will be redrawn every year. This will be done using an online website (Random Lists / Team-generator) that randomly does this with a video recording of it made at the time and posted in a post on this thread. This will be done annually prior to the slow draft commencing.
STRIKES
Some owners in almost any non-money fantasy NFL league I have been in do not pay enough attention with regards to setting their line ups especially when they are out of the running. So to combat this in free leagues I am commissioner of I have a Strike rule. It boils down to a three strikes and out policy.
However I do listen to my fellow league GM’s and after careful consideration I eased the strike rule (just a tad) in all my leagues many seasons ago. The rules were amended slightly - call it an extra chance to get away with your error(s)… meaning you will only be issued the due strikes if you do not win your match up. So in effect, if you still win your game, you have not affected the overall outcome of the league in a detrimental way so therefor no strikes will be issued. This I feel helps those who trip up periodically with more chances to not get struck out of the league without truly deserving it.
To check any of your players statuses just click on their name when on your team page and it brings up their player card with information about them - sadly on Sleeper the website and app differ from this point. Scrolling down on the app will show you recent news and below it, if you scroll down more, past updates with dates/times that info was published. Alas on the full website the player card only shows you the latest news - not any previous updates. So for strike checking purposes I will be having to use the app more and going back to
NFL.com itself to see when news was published - and I will use both of these sources RotoWire player card updates for checking on players that appear not to have played in owners starting line ups and what I find is how I make a judgement on whether or not a strike is justified.
Further more if a person hits 6 strikes in a single season I will do my best to find an owner to replace that owner mid-season and have the offending non serious owner removed ASAP! Anyone hitting 6+ Strikes also gets added to the permanently banned list!
STRIKES WILL CARRY OVER TO THE NEXT SEASON - I have decided this to give new interested people the chance to get in the league should people hit 3 strikes and to make sure serious owners continue to pay attention. However I also realise everyone has unforeseen circumstances that cause a mistake etc., resulting in errors that earn a strike. So each year an owner returning to play in the league (if not struck out) will automatically have 1 strike removed (if on any) - so in effect if you were on 1 strike end of the preceding season your be clear the next season - if you had 2 strikes - your be back down to 1 etc.,. Call it probation and for good behaviour you come off of probation.
POLL STRIKES
From the 2020 season onwards, strikes also became issued for not being seen to vote in an official poll posted within the league and this rule will continue on Sleeper. The good thing is I can set up polls on Sleeper to show who has voted (a big plus). It’s been the hardest thing for me as a commissioner to get people to engage with me on rules and proposals to do with the league (e.g.: having a trade deadline, changing a flex spots positions eligibility, using third round reversal in the draft etc.), so now it’s mandatory to partake in polls - and you only pick up a strike if you have not voted after 28 days - so, no excuse really if you’re an active player! I dislike having to do this but for many seasons people have just not been engaging enough to help me shape the league by voting in polls so felt I had to do this so I can weed out and replace non committed GM’s with ones who buy into the ethos behind this custom UK v USA keeper league and make it fun and engaging for all of us.
