Draft and Free Agency

Men,

This off-season, John and I put together a small group of owners to help us with making suggestions or changes.

I approached the group on 2 major issues:

1. Our draft. Our goal was to improve our draft which obviously meant cutting it down from 18 rounds (3 weeks).
2. Free agents. How to handle free agents once draft is complete.

As a result of this, here is what the group decided:

DRAFT

Our decision was to cut the draft down from 18 rounds to 13 rounds. The first 12 rounds will be just as it has always been. Our goal will be to begin round 1 on Labor Day, Sept. 6th (unless for some odd reason strat has not gotten the game out on time!). We would draft one round a day for two weeks (excluding Sunday). Since we are only drafting 12, we decided to bump up the keeper list from 36 to 38. We felt that it was a small change and worth it in order to make our draft a more enjoyable experience. Therefore, having kept 38 + drafting 12, we are now at 50. So, we still need 4 more players to get to 54. Here is where round 13 comes in:

Round 13 will be on Monday, Sept. 20th. We will still go in the same order and each team will pick up 4 players at their designated time. So, since Norfolk has the first pick in each round...when round 13 comes, he will pick up 4 players. The second team (Big Grove) would do the same...and so on until the final team.

Couple of quick thoughts about round 13:
a. you cannot trade this round (so if you are making trades, only rounds 1-12 are tradeable)
b. because no doubt some teams will not keep all their draft picks from rounds 1-12...these teams may be short 5 or 6 players when we begin round 13. they still are only to take 4 players. it will be up to each owner to pickup however many players he is short after the draft.
c. remember, that round 13 will mostly be about each owner picking up specific position players in order to "complete roster requirements". Such as a team only having 1 center and having to have a second player on his roster who can play center. Obviously, by this time in the draft, there are very few players that even have much future potential.

Free agents

Our group also voted on whether to change how we have been handling free agency. Should we continue to allow free agents to be picked up after the draft and into the season up until the roster moves and trades deadline (which is week 6). Our group decided not to make any changes with this rule. Therefore, free agency after the draft will continue to function this year as it has in the past. This will allow for owners to pick up needed positional players after the draft and into the season if a trade is made and the roster needs to be balanced out.