League Bylaws

Commish of all leagues for 2003 shall be Brian Hulett; all leagues will be managed through myfantasyleague.com software. Should Mr. Hulett become unable to perform his duties adequately, someone else may be assigned to commish one or more leagues, as the need arises. Beginning in 2004 Terry "TC" Cannon will be Commish of these leagues.

Commish duties in preseason shall be:  To notify each owner of league ownership, drafting info, specific scoring rules, and other pertinent details;  To supply reports of the previous year's NFL stats, formatted in each league's specific scoring;  To conduct the draft and periodically supply the owners with draft summaries, lists of available veteran players, and roster reports;  To rule on any dispute that may arise, and amend the league rules as necessary.

The Commissioner's ruling is final in all matters. If two or more owners should dispute a ruling, the Commissioner may poll at least three other owners in the league on the matter, and may reverse his ruling if a 60% majority of the consulting owners would agree with the disputing owners. (In the issue of a disputed trade, at least three owners in another league(s) will be consulted in like manner.) Should the integrity of the office of Commissioner become compromised through possible conflicts of interest, someone else may assist or be assigned as league Commish, as the need arises.

Commish duties during the season shall be:  To collect starting lineups from each owner and track the resulting scores;  To notify the league's owners of each week's results, and the league standings each week;  To oversee each league's weekly waiver wire and award players thereby;  To declare a champion and runner-up in each league, in accordance with each league's specific rules;  To award prize monies and other prizes as outlined herein.

Some of the duties described in this section may be handled through the myfantasyleague.com software, and not directly by the Commish.

Each league will have 12 owners; however we reserve the right to form a smaller league(s) if league signup process fails to result in 12 owners for any particular league. No league shall have fewer than TEN teams. If any league's draft day is approaching and fewer than 10 teams have signed up, the owners will decide what course of action to take, whether to join other league(s), continue as a small league, or refund fees and disband. (We have never had to operate any league with fewer than 12 owners, although our first High Roller League several years ago started out as two such leagues that had to combine forces to reach 12 owners.)

In order to receive league reports and submit lineups, each owner shall be required to maintain an active e-mail account throughout the season. The owner is responsible for submitting any address changes to the commish; we are not responsible for lost or misdirected e-mail.

We only operate family-oriented, G-rated fantasy leagues, and expect owners to respect one another. All team names and all league communications are expected to conform to this standard: No swearing or inappropriate communications of any kind. The first obvious infraction of this rule will result in a 10% penalty deducted from that owner's score the following week, although the Commissioner reserves the right to issue an initial warning in some instances. After the initial 10% penalty, a second occurrence will result in automatic expulsion from the league with no appeals process. Good-natured trash talk, however, is encouraged and expected; other than that, let your results do the talking.

In all leagues, a close eye is paid to starting lineups that may be considered "throwing a game." There is sometimes a temptation, when out of the playoff hunt, to purposely lose to secure a better draft spot by submitting a starting lineup with injured players, bye week players, backups, etc. Sometimes an owner will taint the playoff hunt by doing this even if it doesn't affect the team's draft status for the following year. This will not be tolerated. The Commish will, at his sole discretion, alter any such lineup so that the best possible lineup will be used, and the owner will not be allowed to rejoin that league for the following season. This is an act of extreme poor sportsmanship and cowardice that is inexcusable.

All league-related e-mail (or message board post) in each league is to be sent leaguewide to all owners, except private trade talks, sensitive mail such as to report abuse to the Commissioner, or to make a complaint of some kind. Starting lineups, draft picks, waivers, general trading block ideas, etc., are to be sent to everyone in the league wherever applicable. This is the responsibility of the team owner and originator of each message.

Any person may own two or more fantasy franchises; however, no person may own two franchises in the same fantasy league.

LIVE online draft, Sunday, August 25, 2002, at 9:00pm Eastern; each year's non-serpentine draft order will be determined by NBA-style lottery, with non-playoff teams participating to see who gets #1 pick, #2 pick, etc. League champ picks 12th in each round, runnerup goes 11th, etc., in four-round draft.

1 QB, 1 RB, 2 REC (WR and/or TE), 2 OTHER (RB and/or REC), 1 PK, 1 D/ST start each week; roster may hold as many as 18 players, but never more. Only players who are eligible to play in the NFL at the time of their selection (via draft or waivers) are eligible.

Each week's starting lineup must be submitted at the league website before kickoff of each player's NFL game. Players in early games are locked in at kickoff time of their game, and other players are locked in at noon Eastern time on Sunday. This means that if an owner makes a complete lineup submittal on Wednesday and decides to change it on Friday, he/she may change any player except those who played in a Thursday game, for example.

Passing: 1 pt per 25 yds, 4 pts per TD, 1 pt per conversion, 2 bonus pts for 300-yd game or 4 bonus pts for 400-yd game

Rushing & Receiving: 1 pt per 10 yds, 6 pts per TD, 2 pts per conversion, 2 bonus pts for 100-yd rushing or receiving game, or 4 bonus pts for 200-yd rushing or receiving game

Field Goals: 0-39 yds = 3 pts, 40-49 pts = 4 pts, 50 yds plus = 5 pts; missing kick under 40 yds = -2 pts, missing 40-49 kick = -1 pt

Kick an Extra Point: 1 pt; missed XP kick = -2 pts

Defense/Special Teams scoring: 6 pts per TD, 3 pts per takeaway (including blocked kicks), 2 pts per safety, 1 pt per sack

Also D/ST receives 8 pts for a shutout, 6 pts for allowing less than 7 pts, 4 pts for allowing 7-13 pts, 2 pts for allowing 14-19 pts

A tie game during the regular season counts as a tie. Tie games in the playoffs are decided by the following tiebreakers: (1) Highest-scoring individual bench player, (2) Highest-scoring bench overall, (3) Highest-scoring individual starting player, (4) Previous W-L record, (5) Previous highest-scoring game.

The two conference champs advance to playoffs, along with two other teams ("wild card") determined by W-L record. In the event two or more teams are tied for the wild card, tiebreakers are (1) head to head among all tied teams, (2) conference W-L record, and (3) total points.

The four teams are seeded by W-L, and in accordance with tiebreakers as listed above. #1 seed plays #4 seed in Week 15, and #2 seed plays #3 seed in Week 15 also. Winners meet in Week 16 for league title.

Winner earns 50% of league fees ($300 when all 12 franchises are filled) and runnerup earns 10% of league fees ($60 when all 12 franchises are filled).

Future considerations (e.g. "player to be named later," "next year's draft pick," etc.) may only be made regarding the following season.

No "loaner" or "ricochet" trades. One-month moratorium on reacquiring players. Once you've traded a player to another team, he may not be reacquired for any reason until one full month later, or if no fantasy games have been played since the player was traded previously.

There is a weekly trade deadline of Thursday at midnight Eastern time. Trades whose mutual owner approval reaches the Commish later than that time will not be approved until at least Sunday evening. (For weeks with early games, the deadline will be midnight plus two days to kickoff, i.e. Monday night for Thursday games, Wednesday night for Saturday games, etc.) All trades are final and permanent after 48 hours, during which time legal protests of trades may be made to the Commish and consideration given to overturning trades, in strict accordance with rules later in this section.

Trades will not be allowed any later than the Monday before Thanksgiving (the Monday of the last full week in November).

Waiver wire order may not be traded.

The Commissioner reserves the right to veto any trade, but before said veto is final, a panel of three owners in a different league may be consulted, and their opinion taken into account. If two or more owners should dispute any ruling, trade or otherwise, the Commissioner may poll at least three other owners in the league on the matter, and may reverse his ruling if a 60% majority of the other owners would agree with the disputing owners. (In the issue of a disputed trade, at least three owners in another league(s) will be consulted in like manner.)

Waiver wire opens one week before the first regular season NFL game, and ends with the Largent League championship game. There are two waiver periods in most weeks, and any team may drop ONE player and pick up ONE player during each waiver period.

The first such period closes each Wednesday night at 10pm Eastern time. The second such period is from midnight Eastern time each Wednesday night until noon Eastern time Saturday. There will be no second waiver wire period during weeks with a regular season NFL game that begins earlier than 3pm Eastern on Saturday.

The order of waivers will be the reverse order of standings at that time, tiebreakers being (1) division record, (2) total points, and (3) head to head among all tied teams.

If an owner applies for a free agent who is not available when his turn comes up, and alternates have also been taken, he retains the dropped player. Any player who has been dropped in any week's first waiver period will be available for pickup in the same week's 2nd waiver period.

At no time shall any team's roster contain more than 18 players.

Each team will play its conference opponents twice during each regular season. Non-conference opponents will be determined by previous year's finish, since 14-week regular season means each team will only be able to play four of six non-conference teams. Those with winning record in previous season must play all non-conference opponents with best record, but will not play all non-conference opponents who had poor record, and vice versa.