Hi everyone,
It feels like just yesterday I was new to Seattle and just joined some fantasy football league with a girl I met on ChatRoulette and her friends. Fast forward six years later and the league, now known as The Gang Plays Fantasy Football, is a league with a full roster of friends and one of the things I look most forward to every year. As we enter Year 7 (!!) of TGPFF I hope this email finds you in good health and good spirits as we also approach the (somewhat) post-COVID return to normalcy. This year we are hoping to pick up where we left off before the world shut down with a bitchin’ draft party in August and hopefully a Sunday Funday or two this fall.
But first, we have some business to attend to.
Please fill out THIS SURVEY at your earliest convenience so that we can get a head count for Year 7. We hope everyone is all in for another year!
I am once again interested in your opinions on replacing the Kicker and/or Defense-Special Teams positions with another FLEX spot. This is becoming increasingly trendy in the greater fantasy football community; we don’t have any immediate plans to implement a change in TGPFF but we are interested in your feedback.
The other topic of business: last year Richie brought up the idea of making TGPFF a Keeper League. The Competition Committee discussed this and we are open to it, though we are not making any formal endorsement for Keeper vs. maintaining the standard Redraft league format we’re had for the last six years.
Many of you are familiar with Keeper leagues, but for the uninitiated I’d like to explain what exactly a Keeper league is:
By definition, a keeper league allows owners to carry NFL players on your roster over from one year to the next. In a keeper league, a long-term outlook in terms of strategy and team-building becomes paramount to sustaining success.
There are a number of ways to structure a Keeper league. The biggest variables are 1) the number of players teams are allowed to keep, and 2) the penalty associated with keeping a player.
Most Keeper leagues allow you to keep 2-4 players on your roster for the next year. Generally speaking, if you intend to keep a player you drafted in, say, the 4th round in 2021, you will have to forfeit that same draft pick the following year, or perhaps one round higher. Beyond that, there are a number of other wrinkles. Some leagues forbid keeping players drafted in the 1st and/or 2nd round. Leagues also often assign a more punitive penalty (usually forfeiting a mid round pick) for keeping an undrafted player you picked up off waivers, or do not allow players picked up off waivers to be kept in the first place.
Lastly, given that much like actual NFL teams our fantasy teams will be in various states of competitiveness, draft order is usually not randomized after the initial year in order to maintain competitive balance within the league. We would likely institute a draft lottery with the worst performing teams having the highest odds to pick earlier in the 2022 draft and beyond.
Before Brad and I discuss further, we want to gauge your interest in principle to trying it out. Brad and I would focus on keeping the rules as simple as possible as to not make the league much more of a time commitment than it already is. We would also have a vote on the rules for league approval later this summer. Keeper leagues are fun, but are also manifestly more demanding than Redraft leagues. If you have any hesitancy about your willingness or ability to go down this rabbit hole, please indicate that on the survey and the proposal will be tabled.
Whatever is decided, we’re excited for Season 7 of TGPFF! Thank you all in advance for your feedback on the survey and we’ll be back in touch with a follow-up soon.
Love,
Your Commissioners