The Originals League - 2020

[1]
To any of our returning players from last year - welcome back! To any new players - welcome!
This is now the main league thread for the 2020 version of the Originals League - the seventh year of TFP’s original fantasy league with its live in-person draft day.

The roll of honour so far is:
2014 – Chris Parkes
2015 – Dean Poole
2016 – Robert McGregor
2017 – Chris Jennings
2018 – Jon Cartwright
2019 – Javier Aparicio

Are we going to crown a seventh different winner in 2020…?
It should all get underway with the draft day in Southampton… however, because of the ongoing disaster that is 2020, we’ll be taking a one year detour to an online draft. Sigh.
Drafting will start on Saturday September 5th at midday.

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[2]

SIGN UP LIST
Here is the list of managers who are confirmed for the 2020 league. Once people have signed up, and paid up, I will add their names onto the list.

  1. Jon Cartwright – Southampton, Hampshire
  2. Sean Connors - Daventry, Northants
  3. Noel Symonds - Merstham, Surrey
  4. Shani Senaratne - Amersham, Bucks
  5. Robert McGregor – Dublin, Ireland
  6. Karl Bailey – Swindon, Wilts
  7. Dan Nichols – Middlesbrough, Teesside
  8. Andy Smith – Brighton, East Sussex
  9. Ian Wray - Weybridge, Surrey
  10. Adam Philbin - Kingston, Surrey
  11. Alan Roberts - Warwick or Leamington or some such
  12. Sam Devereux - Slough, Berks
  13. Toby Nash - Surrey
  14. Jordan Allaway - Southampton
  15. Javier Aparicio - España
  16. Drew Johnstone - the High Seas

[3]
I am taking entries from returning managers first - until the end of May.
If you didn’t play last year, but are interested, please let me know and I will add you to the waiting list – once we reach the end of May, I will contact the waiting list in order to offer any places that have freed up.
After that, it is open to anyone!

WAITING LIST:

  1. Dan A
  2. Shane
  3. Mark D

[4]
League Rules and Regulations

Money

£125 entry fee

With COVID in mind, I will list 3 different prize schedules below, to cover hopefully all circumstances

If the season runs as planned:
WINNER £1000
RUNNER UP £400
SEMI FINAL LOSER £200
SEMI FINAL LOSER £200
BEST REGULAR SEASON WEEKLY SCORE £200

If we complete 13 or more weeks (i.e. complete the regular season) but cannot complete the whole season
#1 SEED £500
#2 SEED £300
#3 SEED £300
#4 SEED £300
#5 SEED £200
#6 SEED £200
BEST REGULAR SEASON WEEKLY SCORE £200

If we complete at least three full weeks of the season, but don’t finish the 13 week regular season
TOP EIGHT TEAMS: £250 each
WORST EIGHT TEAMS: nothing
(teams will be ranked on win-loss record, with points scored as a tie breaker, as at the end of the last week to be completed)

…and if we can’t even complete three weeks, I will spend all the entry fees on drink and drugs, and have a wild time at your expense. Or something.

League Set Up

There will be a 13 week regular season. At the end of that time, the top 8 teams will reach the playoffs (teams are ranked on number of wins - where two or more teams are level, total points scored is the tiebreaker).

For week 14, the number 1 seed will choose their opponent from the other 7 playoff qualifiers. Then the other six playoff qualifiers will be paired off automatically (highest remaining seed plays lowest remaining seed, second highest plays second lowest etc)

For week 15, the highest seed still in the competition will choose their opponent from the other 3 remaining teams. Then the other two remaining teams will be paired.

The roster will be: QB, 2RBs, 2WRs, 1TE, 1DEF, 1K, 1 Flex RB/WR/TE, 6 bench spots.

Scoring will be the default taken from the nfl.com fantasy league except where noted below:

The only difference to standard scoring is: individual offensive players will score 6 points for any touchdown they score, including punt returns and kick off returns. So if Tyreek Hill catches a punt and takes it back for a score, both Hill, and also the Chiefs defence / special teams will score points for this

Waivers
As with last year, we will use WAB (Waiver Acquisition Budget) for making in-season player pick-ups. All managers will have 200 waiver points for the season, and 3 ways they can use them:

Before draft day, I will contact each manager to ask them for a private bid of 0 to 200 points. The manager with the highest bid gets first choice of draft spot, next highest has second choice etc (two or more managers with the same bid will draw lots for priority). Each team will then have the amount of their bid deducted from their 200 points, to leave their remaining budget for the season

During weekly waivers all managers can use any or all of their budget to bid for unowned players (as detailed on the nfl.com fantasy site)

During the season, all managers can use any or all of their budget as part of a trade deal (for example Manager A gives Aaron Rodgers to manager B, in exchange for Daniel Jones and 50 waiver points)

Hi Jon - as ever, love to have another go, but dependent on work situation. I’ll confirm either way before the May deadline. I’d hate to leave the league on last year’s abysmal showing! Andy.

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I’m in - gotta (well wanna) win one day!

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Unusual times call for unusual methods. Perhaps a year with no injuries is a good start. Glad to be back as it appears I am on the 3 year cycle.
Drew

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Housekeeping…
Sorry, assorted bits of draft days prep!

  1. NFL.com
    This is the website that the league will be running on: My NFL.com Fantasy Leagues
    14 of you should already be signed up, as you played last season. Drew and Karl, you will need to join the league, the password is “tontwofive”.

  2. Sleeper
    This is the website we will be using just for the draft. The league can be found at : Sleeper

I’ll copy the rosters over to the NFL site after the draft

  1. Zoom
    This won’t be the same as us all being together as usual for draft day, but at least there is a chance to be a bit sociable. The link to the Zoom meeting is:
    https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4853637109
    (you shouldn’t need to download any software, just go to this link on your PC, laptop or tablet).

I have set up two Zoom meetings (the same link should work for both). The first is 20:30 – 21:30 on Tuesday September 1st , and this is just a trial run, in case you are not used to Zoom and want to check that you can get this to work properly. The second is from 11:00 on Saturday September 5th , and this is the actual draft – which will start at midday.
Neither of these Zoom chats are mandatory, if you want you can just go to Sleeper and draft there – this has just been set up to keep some of the friendly banter that we are used to on draft day

  1. Draft Order
    As per previous years: all managers have a budget of 200 points to use during the season for picking up players from the waiver wire.
    But these points can also be used to bid for your draft position. I will contact each manager in turn over the next week to get a secret bid of anywhere from 0 to 200 points. Whatever bid each manager makes will be deducted from their season’s budget of points. I will then check all the bids – whoever made the highest bid will have first choice of which spot they want to draft from. Second highest bid will have their pick from whatever is left, and so on. Essentially you can aim for your perfect draft slot, but reduce your chance of grabbing players off waivers during the season – or you can keep hold of your bidding budget, but at the cost of having last choice of where you draft from.

  2. Prizes
    Now we have 16 managers paid in and signed up, the prize money is confirmed as:
    WINNER £1000
    RUNNER UP £400
    SEMI FINAL LOSER £200
    SEMI FINAL LOSER £200
    BEST REGULAR SEASON WEEKLY SCORE £200
    (there are some alternative prize structures, just in case COVID disrupts the season, these are all listed higher up this thread)

  3. Reminder
    Don’t forget to keep draft day free !
    And yell if you have any questions or if I haven’t explained any of this clearly

3 Likes

Draft bids are as follows:

A. Sam 200
B. Al 200
C Dan 200
D. Toby 119
E. Andy 102
F. Sean 80
G. Drew 77
H. Karl 71
I. Robert 57
J. Jon 45
K. Javier 25
L. Ian 5
M. Shani 0
N. Jordan
O. Noel 0
P. Adam 0

A tiebreaker is needed at top and bottom, so I have assigned people riders in today’s Tour de France stage (stage 4).

Al - Jesus Herrada
Sam - Pierre Latour
Dan - Nans Peters

Shani - Guillaume Martin
Noel - Wout van Aert
Adam - Tiesj Benoot
Jordan - Mikel Landa

Once the stage has finished I will be in touch to get your choice of draft spot…

2 Likes

Draft order

1 Sam
2 Al
3 Dan
4 Toby
5 Andy
6 Sean
7 Karl
8 Robert
9. Drew
10 Jon
11 Javier
12 Shani
13 Adam
14 Noel
15 Jordan
16 Ian

Hi sorry discord and my phone don’t seem to be talking to each other. To save time,
a) if Toby takes #4 I’ll take #5
b) if Toby doesn’t take #4, I’ll take #4.

1 Like

Nice one, thanks.

Can one of you confirm the start time of the draft? I have it as 1200 hrs UTC +1. This equates to 0400hrs Sat morning for me.

Yep 12 midday UTC+1 sounds right. Bear in mind the (non mandatory) zoom chat will be opened by Al 1 hour before that, for socialising, or any last minute questions

Jon,
Thank you. Sorry you won’t get to experience the bright eyed and bushy tailed version of me tomorrow morning.
Drew

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So you get an A and then it says your only expected to finish tied for 5th so how can ya draft be grade A?