American fantasy football league

Annabelle is my team´s mascot and she loves road trips. Is Brennen making the flight?

If I can find a reasonable flight i'd have to see, but Bren would prob stay here. i'm looking at flight options right now.

30 and 31 OK, the other two would be difficult as hell.

And mere, I am going to make that Tshirt right now!

I can't do 30th August, but should be fine for 31st. Similar scenario for the week before where I can do 24th, but am unavailable on 23rd. Sundays work better than Saturdays for me.

We should try to fix a date ASAP because the earlier we do, the more it'll give people coming from outside Munich an opportunity to either get to the draft of organise a proxy. If we do get a few out of towners, then maybe we could also organise a night out (dinner and then drinks) on the Saturday as well.

I'm available for all of those dates.

Sunday, August 31th: TownTown´s Fantasy Fottball live darft.
Venue and time to be announced (but it will be in Munich)
Who is in?
1. PES
2. Hazza
3. 3 Lions
4. Eurovol
5. JJ
6.
7.

Still looking for new (and old) members...

Actually forgot me there mate!

Sunday, August 31th: TownTown´s Fantasy Fottball live darft.
Venue and time to be announced (but it will be in Munich)
Who is in?
1. PES
2. Hazza
3. 3 Lions
4. Eurovol
5. JJ
6. HelterSkelter
7.

Still looking for new (and old) members...

You left three off, but they haven't responded as to the date yet (Chees, bo and lilp).

Can Courchene and the Famunda Cheese make the draft or do they have a proxy?

Sorry guys, but my run at the title is done. I'm out. I can't make any of those dates, I live on the other side of the country, I'm taking the next month off unpaid, I have about 150 EUR in parking tickets to pay (on a f'n rental car), and on and on and on. Not that you needed to hear all that, but that's that.

May the best speculator win.

The date is fine. Are we actively looking for additional players ? I am breathing a sigh of relief that I might not have to attempt to compete with the 13th overall pick (of 14). That was brutal !

~Famunda Cheese

I always liked playing with 14 teams because it ensures that every team plays every other team once, which ends up being the fairest of all scenarios.

But if we can't play with 14, then obviously less will have to do.

Also, what are we paying to enter this year? I wouldn't mind it being a bit more than last year to pad out the prize pool some more.

I'd be interested in playing this year. Is it too late to join?

Nope! Welcome to fantasy madness. Speaking of, do we go with CBS or Yahoo or ???

Can you make this date: Sunday, August 31th?

Sunday, August 31th: TownTown´s Fantasy Fottball live darft.
Venue and time to be announced (but it will be in Munich)
Who is in?
1. PES
2. Hazza
3. 3 Lions
4. Eurovol
5. JJ
6. HelterSkelter
7. Courchene
8. JerseyBoy???

Welcome JB!

Excellent to have JerseyBoy on board. It is at least proof to the rest of the league that there is such a thing as an Eagles fan.

I've amended the thread title to reflect August 31 as draft day. I would guess we'll aim for a start time in the early afternoon. Keep throwing out venue suggestions if you have any.

@Hazza (or anyone else), do you remember how much the entry fee was last year? Each person paid about €10 for the web site, so I'm guessing we were in the €30-50 range for the fee. I'm going to look into the ESPN site in the coming days. It is free, but I don't yet know how much flexibility it allows for scoring.

I think it was €25 each, with the cost of the site deducted from that and the rest in the prize pool. I also charged €5 late fees from those people who showed up late to draft day - which was also added to the pot. In hindsight, a bit more cash might have been better and I'd be willing to go up to €50 - but we should get a consensus on that one so that nobody pulls out because it's too expensive. I'd leave the late fee too - it encourages people to show up to the draft on time and not waste everyone else's time.

willing to up the ante to €50/team
prefer sportsline.com, only for sake of continuity (READ: not get screwed by misunderstanding Special Team's TD points...)

I am in for €50 if the rest are up for it. Hope we can get more then 8 teams.

Yeah, I'm happy for €50. I've written to a couple of people from last year and hopefully some of them will decide to join

I'm happy to stick with CBS again, it was as user friendly as Yahoo.

50€!!! Feck, you guys are getting serious. You scare Rookie's like myself. Ah what the heck, I'm in for 50€.

I find €50 actually quite scary... quite some money for my standards...

Don't worry, you will get screwed by some lemon of a player not matter what the rules!

Regarding the site, let's make this a simple choice between two options:

* CBS - List of features - This is the site we used last year. It costs $130 if I renew it before July 10, $150 otherwise.
* ESPN - Overview of rules - This site is free and includes live scoring. Not as full-featured as CBS, but I think it covers everything we need since we don't care about advanced features like keeper league options and truly bizarre scoring options.

I'm not listing Yahoo as I was never that impressed with that site and I think the ESPN option will blow it away. I've been using ESPN for Fantasy Baseball and their free product has been great. CBS is a known commodity and gives you pretty much every feature you could ask for. If you have any preference at all, make it known please.

I'ld opt for the ESPN and rather not make it €50,--...

I wasn't all that impressed with CBS other than the live scoring feature and if ESPN has that and its free then why not?

I like the roster settings! Can't stock up to much on any one position!

I'm all for the for site aswell. We can at least then keep the entry fee the same as last year?

ESPN is fine with me.

Looks like "free" is winning the initial vote. I have created a league on ESPN in order to see what the site looks like. You all should be able to access it at this link. I have not set any specific scoring rules for the league, so don't take that information as gospel yet. Of course, we are not obliged to use this ESPN league. I just wanted to give everyone a view of it.

Anyone still want to join and expand this league? It would be nice to get up to 12 or 14.

I received a verbal commitment from wahoo who is anxious to try to follow up on her good fortunes in last year's draft.

Well this Rookie would also like a top 3 finish...again!

NOT...A...ROOKIE!!!

I'm in if there is still space. I've run a FFL league since '94 but being in Germany I had to give it up.

Uh oh, a ringer...

ESPN is fine with me.
I also would like to see the league get to 10 or 12.

Sure - you're in.

Actually, I'm not a ringer. I won a few times but my friends say that I usually have the best team from last year, this year. Timing is everything.

Back in the day I used to compile the stats on Tuesday morning from USA Today and put the points/standings in the mail; as in using a stamp and post box kind of mail.

In 2000 I switched to the Internet to manage the league, but back then there was no Sportsline or sites like that. So I built my own site and subscribed to a stats service. If you're interested check out the site cache from the Wayback Machine:
SGFFL 2000 and SGFFL 2001

Ah, those were the days - NOT! Sportsline or whatever is so much easier.

Sunday, August 31th: TownTown´s Fantasy Fottball live darft.
Venue and time to be announced (but it will be in Munich)
Who is in?
1. PES
2. Hazza
3. 3 Lions
4. Eurovol
5. JJ
6. HelterSkelter
7. Courchene
8. JerseyBoy
9. RS500Guy
10. Wahoo

Greetings from Maine!

We need at least two more, if not four more teams.

I've heard no objections to using ESPN, so I've sent out invitations to join that league site. For those of you who played last year, I used the email addresses you used with the CBS site. If you have problems accessing the site, please let me know.

@RS500Guy - please send me a PM with your email address so I can get the invitation to you as well.

The Lefties are on board!

Sorry for the staling, but I might be relocating. I will give a defo answer within the week.

Anybody going to see football today? I mean cheerleaders...

Training camps are opening up and Ole Man Favre has the itch to play again. Time to start filling our remaining slots. We have 10 teams now, but optimally would like 12 or 14. Post here if you are interested in joining!

Next topic for discussion: Roster size

Last year we used the following starting lineups:

1 Quarterback
1 Running Back
2 Wide Receiver or Tight End
1 Flex (Running Back or Wide Receiver or Tight End)
1 Kicker
1 Team Defense (including Special Teams)

6 Bench spots

It seemed to work out pretty well and I would suggest doing the same this year. Any objections? The only thing I would think about changing is the number of bench spots, depending on how many teams we end up with. If we get back up to 14 teams, I would suggest keeping the 13 man roster (We had a 12 round draft and let people pick up one more free agent before week 1). If we have 10 or 12 teams, I would suggest expanding to a 14 man roster with 7 bench spots.