Rookie Draft 101 for newbs

[bonscott]

Others please jump in if I miss anything important.

I thought I'd start a thread for our new owners to ask any questions as some found it useful for the other "101" threads.



* Rookie draft is 3 rounds. The 3rd round is *optional* meaning that you can pass on any 3rd round picks.
* You can trade draft picks as the draft happens. So if someone has been on the site a few times but hasn't picked yet it may be they are trying to work a trade to move down or get a player for the pick.
* 12 hour timer per pick. If you don't draft within that 12 hours the pick will time out and move to the next pick. You can submit a pick to the commish at any time to fill in for your missed pick however it can only be a player not already drafted (ala the NFL draft where teams can run up in front of the timed out pick).
* After the draft is over any undrafted NFL rookies can be brought up in the auction which runs until early Sept.

* You must have enough salary cap space to sign your rookies. Rookie salary scale is in the league constitution. Thus if you have the 1st overall pick and draft an RB at 5 million you need to have 5 million free space to sign him (pretty sure that's what we clarified last year). You have this week to make room obviously.

* There are 3 Taxi Squad spots for rookies. If you draft more then that then they will have to be on your active roster.
* Rookies on the TS have their salary count only 50% toward your cap.
* Deadline for giving rookies a contract of more then default 1 yr is cut down day in August. So on that day you must have your rookie contracts in on the message board and you'll have to drop enough players to get at or under the roster max (22 plus 3 TS rookies). You can of course drop any rookies just like any other player, taking the 50% cap hit the current season.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head so ask away any questions.

[yugimoto]

Amish - nice post. Note: I do not see the 12 hour timer or the specific comment in regards to what happens if the timer expires within the constitution, so I just wanted to verify that this is truly the case as I do not recall that we had a timer last year (porbably my failing memory).

Also an additional note, I do remember (surprisingly enough ) the message board discussion on the topic of having enough salary cap to draft your rookies, but I seem to recall the "trick" being that you could draft your 1st round pick say at the $5MM cost and then immediately put them on to your taxi squad to then free up $2.5M of the $5M you spent so that you can potentially sign your other high priced rookies as well if that was the case. Is that still true as a strategy?

DMOC

[Devil Dogs]

I'd like to make a change this year if possible. The 12 hour timer is not suspended, or wasn't last season. My pick came up around 10PM EST and the expired the next morning at 10AM EST. I remember my pick getting skipped. Anyway, there is a way to suspend the timer at certain hours. Can we get it suspended between midnight and 8 AM or something to that nature?

[bonscott]

Amish - nice post. Note: I do not see the 12 hour timer or the specific comment in regards to what happens if the timer expires within the constitution, so I just wanted to verify that this is truly the case as I do not recall that we had a timer last year (porbably my failing memory).

I think we've had a couple timed out last year or the year before the commish put in the pick later on (like 5 picks later) so 5 guys got in front of him. But the replacement pick went in.

Also an additional note, I do remember (surprisingly enough ) the message board discussion on the topic of having enough salary cap to draft your rookies, but I seem to recall the "trick" being that you could draft your 1st round pick say at the $5MM cost and then immediately put them on to your taxi squad to then free up $2.5M of the $5M you spent so that you can potentially sign your other high priced rookies as well if that was the case. Is that still true as a strategy?

DMOC

Probably. Technically the salary when drafted is the minimum so there is nothing to stop you from drafting if you don't have enough. I think it's more an "honor" system I guess. But I think if you get that rook on your TS right away then yea, once the commish enters in the salary it would be at 50%. I think the commish just looked at the rosters last year and everyone would be ok with their 1st at full value. I just took a look and the only team close is Rolling Rockers with 5 million free with the 2nd pick and he could still have an RB at full price under the cap...barely. Excecutioners would have been in trouble but they did a trade that freed up enough for him. So no matter what I think all teams are ok so it's not a worry.

I think the commish will need to comment if he recalls if we actually formalized anything and what penalties there might be. If so we probably need to get it in the rules.

[bonscott]

I'd like to make a change this year if possible. The 12 hour timer is not suspended, or wasn't last season. My pick came up around 10PM EST and the expired the next morning at 10AM EST. I remember my pick getting skipped. Anyway, there is a way to suspend the timer at certain hours. Can we get it suspended between midnight and 8 AM or something to that nature?

We could do that. Although I'd be more in favor of just a 6 hour window perhaps between 2am (11pm PST) and 8am (5am PST).

Or maybe go to an 18 hour timer between picks? Would also give more time for trades.

Either way though we don't want to drag the draft out much farther then 2-3 weeks because we'll start to bump up against Memorial Day vacations.

Or predraft before we go to bed if our pick is up soon and might come up in the overnight.

[Georgia Punishers]

Yes, setting a predraft player is very simple. I'm sure everyone knows who their top 3 players are and can put all 3 in predraft order when your a pick or two away to avoid the sleeping hours....

[Achon44]

Yes, setting a predraft player is very simple. I'm sure everyone knows who their top 3 players are and can put all 3 in predraft order when your a pick or two away to avoid the sleeping hours....

True, but with all the different time zones you can run into a situation a little more complex than that as you approach the sleeping hours. IMO, if it is possible to set up, a slight pause during the sleeping hours wouldn't be asking that much, but please do not extend the regular time limit past 12hrs.

[Devil Dogs]

Yes, setting a predraft player is very simple. I'm sure everyone knows who their top 3 players are and can put all 3 in predraft order when your a pick or two away to avoid the sleeping hours....

Sure it is, but in my case last year the draft was like 8 picks away in the 3rd round from me when I left. I think alot of the guys in this league were West Coast, not sure? But either way, my pick was not "next up" when I went to bed...or anywhere relatively close for that matter.

I'm game for a smaller pause window, but do think one should be in place. Its unfair to those who's pick lands in the wee hours of the night. Some people are online for most of their timer trying to trade, just because my pick is likely to land in the night hours and I won't be around I now am forced to predraft or worry about my pick being skipped. Trust me, I usually pick quickly when my pick is up. I am not saying this to try to drag the draft out. I am saying this because it SUCKS getting your pick skipped and then seeing 4 others jumped in and drafted while it was skipped too. You could lose out bigtime. Luckily for me last season, it was only the 3rd round.

ETA: the 2AM EST to 8AM EST is fine with me too. Just proposing that there is some sort of time stoppage, and MFL has this in place to where it can be done. 6-8 hours since that is the normal sleeping time for most I'd say.

[braven112]

Some people are online for most of their timer trying to trade, just because my pick is likely to land in the night hours and I won't be around I now am forced to predraft or worry about my pick being skipped.

That is an excellent point, I think 12 hours is plenty of time to draft and I don't think there is a good excuse for missing a pick if you check your team or just check your email when you wake up, before you go to work, when you get home and before you go to sleep.

Not being able to entertain trades at night though is a disadvantage so we can stop the clock for 4 hours from from 12am PT to 4 am PT. That would be 3am to 7am ET I believe.

[bonscott]

Not being able to entertain trades at night though is a disadvantage so we can stop the clock for 4 hours from from 12am PT to 4 am PT. That would be 3am to 7am ET I believe.

Fine by me, there is no downside.

[Achon44]

Not being able to entertain trades at night though is a disadvantage so we can stop the clock for 4 hours from from 12am PT to 4 am PT. That would be 3am to 7am ET I believe.

[Devil Dogs]

That works too. Thanks alot commish!

[braven112]

Also an additional note, I do remember (surprisingly enough ) the message board discussion on the topic of having enough salary cap to draft your rookies, but I seem to recall the "trick" being that you could draft your 1st round pick say at the $5MM cost and then immediately put them on to your taxi squad to then free up $2.5M of the $5M you spent so that you can potentially sign your other high priced rookies as well if that was the case. Is that still true as a strategy?

DMOC

Yes you can sign players directly to the practice squad if you wish. So you only have to have 50% of the salary available but that would mean that you can't play them the entire year unless you drop someone.

[joe.commish]

Not being able to entertain trades at night though is a disadvantage so we can stop the clock for 4 hours from from 12am PT to 4 am PT. That would be 3am to 7am ET I believe.

Fine by me, there is no downside.

Agreed.

[bonscott]

Well, there is a BIG downside we see now. The timer will never expire on a pick because of the paused time overnight.

I think the pause timer overnight needs to be removed immediately so that picks will time out as they should.

We are all big boys (or at least we should be). We should all be aware when our picks are coming up. If it happens overnight then we need to pre-draft or make sure we are up late enough or early enough to make our pick. And if your pick is upcoming and you think you may want to trade out of it then you need to be working the trade forum and chat before hand.

[Devil Dogs]

The draft timer does expire...I've got it setup like that in my leagues and it is working just fine. Maybe commish didnt set it up right?