THE SUGGESTION BOX

Ideas for 2002 and Beyond
Updated 5/04/02

Have a suggestion for the league? Want to sound off on someone else's idea? This is the place! The commish will be posting your comments here all season long. Then during the offseason, we'll vote on what changes we'd like to see made to the rules.

SUBJECT: Draft Length
SENDER: The Jayhawks

COMMENTS FROM JASON:
Provided a team has selected the requisite two defenses by the end of round 16, I think we should allow teams to forfeit their final two draft picks (rounds 17 and 18). Since we have to cut two position players before Week 3 begins, why not save some disinterested owners the trouble? Considering the time it took to complete the draft this year, it makes sense. Owners who want to draft the two extra players can still do so.

SUBJECT: Draft Length, Defense Requirements
SENDER: Jellypop Fighters

COMMENTS FROM TODD:
Reduce the draft to 16 rounds and eliminate the requirement that everybody have two team defenses. You can still draft two or three or four if you want, but you don't have to.

COMMENTS FROM JASON:
I'd rather have those extra two picks optional (see above proposal). Since we have to cut two players after two weeks anyway, why not? If you want the picks, stay. If not, go home. As far as defenses go, some rules you just don't mess with. What's next to go, the ban on trading beaver pelts?

SUBJECT: Field Goal Scoring
SENDER: Jellypop Fighters

COMMENTS FROM TODD:
Field goals of 45 yards and under are worth 3 points; field goals of 46 yards or more are worth 4 points. No more 6-point field goals. That's too much. A field goal of any length should not be worth more or as much as a TD of any length, in my humble opinion.

COMMENTS FROM JASON:
I agree with this point system. While we've reformed all other positions' scoring systems to try to even out their worth with their real-life NFL value, kickers are still a tad bit overvalued. We changed it before Season II from the rediculously high points kickers were given after Season I (remember Steve Christie's 45-point week?), but the kicker point system has been neglected since.

SUBJECT: Playoffs Format
SENDER: Jellypop Fighters

COMMENTS FROM TODD:
I suggest reducing the number of teams in the playoffs from 8 to 6 to make the regular season more meaningful. The top two finishers would receive byes in the first round, with 3 playing 6 and 4 playing 5. This is how the NFL does it, with six playoff teams from each league.

COMMENTS FROM JASON:
I don't see the point of doing this. With the regular-season winner taking 50 percent of the pot and top championship bragging rights, how is our current playoff system detracting from the meaning of the regular season? I thought the point of having playoffs and a Tech Bowl was to add to the excitement level as the season draws to an end and give non-title contenders a reason to pay attention and stay involved. Reducing the number of teams in the playoffs wouldn't give the bottom half of the league anything to get excited about at the end of the year. I actually wouldn't mind finding a way to get all 10 teams involved in the playoffs.

SUBJECT: Keeper League
SENDER: The Berserkers

COMMENTS FROM KEVIN:
We need TFFL to be a keeper league. We would have to redraft complete teams next year, just like we did this year, but after that we would keep 3 players before the draft in 2003. This would do a few things:

1) reward guys who draft well (although, just because you've got a good team this year doesn't guarantee a good year next)
2) allows, even encourages trading activity during the offseason. A team that doesn't feel that they have 3 people that they want to keep can trade a draft pick or beaver pelts for a keepable player
3) gives your team a consistent feel. Now, I don't have to keep drafting Jake Plummer, I can just keep him until he sets the record for most career interceptions!
4) shorten the draft tremendously. If we only had 15 rounds instead of 18 and had the shorter time limits that the later rounds have, we might only have time to order pizza once, instead of having to call Gumby's in the 14th round because they are the only place that's open.

COMMENTS FROM JASON:
Kev, I should give you 5 bonus points for cracking me up with that Jake Plummer line. ... I wish I hadn't deleted last year's suggestions so I could just copy and paste my old rebuttal in here. But my basic argument remains the same: I like how the last-place team can at least look forward to having this season's best player on his team next year.

Imagine if last year's worst team (remember that, Tim?) entered the offseason feeling he had just one player worth protecting (Rod Smith). If we have the option to obtain more picks by keeping fewer players -- as has been suggested in the past -- Tim in theory could draft three players before anyone else, assuming all other teams keep three guys. The pool he has to pick from, however, doesn't include any of the league's better players, since they're all protected! If you have a bad year, there should always be the promise of great things next season. ... Point to ponder: Few trades occur during the regular season, I wonder how many would during the offseason? I think owners, afraid they might be giving up the next great thing, would actually be discouraged to trade players.

If we did this I also think we should only allow trading between teams within two spots of each other in the standings after a predetermined week (say, Week 10 or something) to discourage cellar-dwellars from trading their good players to teams in contention for prospects, injured stars or even picks in future drafts.

SUBJECT: Auction Draft
SENDER: The Berserkers

COMMENTS FROM KEVIN:
This goes hand in hand with the keeper league idea. I don't think it would be worth it to do an auction otherwise. Here's the deal: there is a salary cap, say $200, but any number is fine, it ends up being all relative. Players are put on the block and auctioned off one at a time. There is no specific order to which the players are auctioned.

Each year, any player you kept (I like having a limit of three, but that could be debated) gets a raise of either a set amount (such as $5) or a percentage (10%) and is automatically counted against your cap for the next year. for instance, if you drafted Kurt Warner and paid $100 bucks for him, he would count $110 against the cap the next year. This would limit what you could do in the draft and make you question whether it is worth it to keep such a high priced player. This adds more of a strategy to the draft and levels the playing field in the draft.

COMMENTS FROM JASON:
Considering the number of owners who walk into the draft with (aside from going to K-Mart and buying a magazine) ZERO preparation, approving this proposal could mean the end of the league as we know it. I don't mind spending several hours getting ready for the draft, but I'm willing to bet there are a handful of others who wouldn't feel the prep time was worth the effort. And just once I'd like to enjoy an offseason without having to find a new owner!

SUBJECT: Playoff Tiebreakers
SENDER: Jellypop Fighters

COMMENTS FROM TODD:
I propose that we have a new tiebreaker system for the playoffs, instead of using the backup kicker rule. I don't like that because I think your starters should decide the issue, not your backup. Besides, what would stop somebody from signing all the available kickers when the playoffs started? Would you then go with his backup kicker's highest score, or would he have to designate a backup kicker as his tiebreaker kicker? I don't like it.

Here's what I propose. The first tiebreaker should be the total number of touchdowns your starters score. This includes TD passes, runs and catches as well as defensive TDs and return TDs. Using this system, Bubba would have won because he had five TDs to Timmy's four. TDs are supposed to be this league's bread-and-butter, so this would be a way to emphasize the importance of TDs, thereby reiterating our league's philosophy. In the event of a tie after that, then I think you go to total yardage of all the starters, using receiving and rushing yards for RBs, WRs and TEs, and passing and rushing yardage for QBs. Surely there wouldn't be a tie after this.

COMMENTS FROM JASON:
Who really cares. I think the backup kicker rule just gives owners something else to think about in playoff time, and encourages some to spend an extra quarter. All that really matters is we have a tiebreaker system, and the owners know about it. Nevertheless, the total yardage thing does further decrease the possibility of a tiebreaker progressing to a coin flip, so this suggestion is fine with me. It does bring up one good point: Todd just isn't happy with any of the rules in this league.

SUBJECT: Regular-Season Divisions, Playoffs
SENDER: T-Bird2

COMMENTS FROM TIM:
Divide the league into two 5-team divisions. You pay for the point differential only in your division, so there are really two winners each week. It will make the standings a little tighter, you only have to beat half as many teams to win every once in a while, and lower-echelon teams don't feel so out of it halfway through the season. We can still have the same inter-division games, with the head-to-head payoff the same. The playoffs will be like the real NFL, with an "NFC" and "AFC" winners meeting in the Tech Bowl. Each division's fifth seed doesn't make the playoffs.

COMMENTS FROM JASON:
The league is basically broken into two divisions now for scheduling purposes. Divisional foes play twice a season, out-of-division matchups go once a year. As long as we still have a regular-season champion (the top team in points), I like this idea because it will spread the money around a little more. We could do a few things with it, such as alter the end-of-season payout (say, 35 percent to the overall champ, 15 percent for each division winner, 20 percent for the Tech Bowl winner and 5 percent each for the Tech Bowl loser and each division's runner-up?) ... We could also award more bonus points for a head-2-head win against an in-division opponent or award fewer points for an out-of-division foe.

SUBJECT: Injured Reserve
SENDER: The Jayhawks

COMMENTS FROM JASON:
The current injured reserve rule gives each team the right to expand its roster by one spot, provided such player designated for "injured reserve" cannot be started, released or traded for a 4-week "freeze" period. I'd like to give owners the right to activate a player from IR before that four-week period expires, but to do so would cost that owner a $1 "early withdrawal penalty." (insert early withdrawal joke here).

This basically just gives owners more flexibility with their roster spots, since our 14-position player roster leaves a lot of good players out on the free agent market and sometimes doesn't leave a lot of room for backups. Plus, $1 is a fairly stiff penalty for our league and would add some extra dough to the booty.

TFFL Navigator