league rules
General Rules
This is a free-to-play league and is just for fun, so don’t be a dick and try to cheat, because that just ruins it for people.
That’s it
But also there’s some more
The commissioner will always make a good-faith effort to manually approve trades ASAP once they are accepted.
The commissioner will only ever use commissioner powers to remove a locked player from a lineup, if that team’s manager told the commissioner to do so before the lock occurred and was not able to make the move themselves, due to working, traveling, or otherwise being separated from the league site/app. In this case the commissioner will make publicly available evidence that the move was authorized before the lock occurred.
This cannot be used purely to create a risk-free lineup decision in the event of late-starting, game-time decision players. It is the team manager's responsibility to either accept the risk of starting a non-playing player, or come up with a contingency plan.
The commissioner may use commissioner powers to reverse transactions due to misclicks or simple mistakes. Shit happens, everyone gets one mulligan per season.
In the case of player pickups: the dropped player will be added back to the roster if they haven't already been added by someone else (if you made a mistake, you snooze you lose re: letting me know) and the added player will become a free agent, making them up for grabs immediately to anyone. Any FAAB dollars spent won't be restored.
In the case of trades: all involved players will go back to their respective teams prior to the trade, assuming the mistake is reported/confirmed within a reasonable amount of time
Examples of Being a Dick
Unbalanced Trades
“You know it when you see it.” Also I don't know why that font is different, Google Sites sucks
For example in 2020 I was in a different league and the team in last place traded away Justin Jefferson to the team in first for Chris Thompson. That's Jags-era Chris Thompson. Clearly bullshit. I could fill a book with all the ways that league was terrible.
Resolution: The commissioner holds trade veto power but will only wield it in cases where the lopsidedness of the trade is, to use the NFL's favorite officiating parlance, clearly and obviously lopsided.
This has only ever happened once in our decade-plus history, when Paul's brother tried to give his wife an OP trade "to help her out." I vetoed it and then she beat his ass that week anyway lmao
Not Setting Lineups
Examples of this include:
Not removing bye-week players from your lineup
Not removing injured players from your lineup
Intentionally dropping viable players as a grief/troll
Setting a bad lineup intentionally and/or leaving viable players on your bench
Bye Week Tanking (loading up with players that have the same bye week so as to be at full strength the rest of the season) is a legitimate roster management strategy and is an exception to this rule.
If both people in a matchup agree beforehand to have their game be decided by a 1-v-1 player duel (perhaps due to both sides employing Bye Week Tanking), that is fine as long as the players in question are of similar quality, e.g. similar projections or past performance, both are the same position and place on the IRL depth chart, etc.
Please utilize Sleeper's app notifications to keep on top of this.
Resolution: The commissioner will make a good-faith effort to remind people to set lineups every week, especially if playoff implications are on the line, but I'm only human. If I notice that someone has started an incomplete lineup multiple times, I'll reach out and ask if they still want to be in the league (see: Quitting/Removal).
Collusion
This is the catch-all for any act taken by collaborating owners that doesn't represent a good-faith effort to win the game.
If it feels like you're exploiting some sort of loophole, please don't do it.
Resolution: The commissioner will ask the involved parties what's going on, and if they are deemed to be colluding, revert the offending action(s) via commissioner tools. Starting with the 2nd offense in any given season, the involved parties will have their most recent game win in the current season (or their next game win that occurs in any season, if they are winless in the current season) manually overwritten with a game score of 0, thereby converting it to a game loss.
Taking the time to write an unnecessarily long document of fantasy league rules
Resolution: oops
Quitting/Removal
If a team owner quits the league mid-season, or appears to have "soft quit" by failing to set lineups, control of their team will be assumed by the commissioner. Before doing this the commissioner will reach out to the team owner no fewer than twice via text, Discord, and/or the league's built-in messaging system(s) within the week following missed lineup(s).
If a team owner engages in repeated collusion, rule-breaking, retaliatory action (e.g., dropping all their players because they disagreed with my judgment on a trade or something), or otherwise hostile behavior, I'm just dropping the banhammer on that ass.
The commissioner will manage teams that become inactive in this way by:
Setting lineups each week based on the league's scoring projections
Filling roster gaps as needed with free agent pickups based on the league's scoring projections
NOT engaging in trades
NOT placing non-zero FAAB bids
If a replacement owner can be found they will be installed as the new team owner and assume control of the team as normal.
League Structure
VFFL is a 12-team, half-PPR, full redraft league using a 16-round snake draft format and a $100 FAAB waiver system.
Roster positions are 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 R/W/T, 1 DEF, 1 K, 7 BN, 2 IR.
2025 Draft Order
Jennifer
Collin
Sean
John
Alec
Paul
Austin
Jon
Chris
Emil
Connor
Ben
The draft typically occurs 1 to 2 weeks before the NFL regular season kickoff. Around a month before the draft will take place, the commissioner will send everybody a Google poll to determine which draft dates and times work for the most people. The date and time with the most votes will be selected.
There is no penalty for auto-drafting if you can’t make it to the draft, other than some potential light roasting in the Discord and/or my draft recaps. If you need to auto-draft, please enter the draft room on Sleeper ahead of time and set up your queue with enough guys to cover your first couple of picks.
How Draft Order is Decided
The 2021 VFFL Draft was the final draft order determined by the inverse order of the previous season's final standings. Starting with the 2022 VFFL Draft and going forwards, the draft order has been determined as such:
7th Place, i.e., the winner of the consolation bracket
8th Place, i.e., consolation bracket runner-up
9th Place, i.e., you get the idea
10th Place
11th Place
12th Place
6th Place
5th Place
4th Place
3rd Place
2nd Place
1st Place
In other words, teams that make it to the playoffs and compete for the championship will still have their draft position in the following season determined by the inverse of their final standings. Teams that do not make the playoffs will compete for the next season’s top draft position via the consolation bracket.
Divisions
The 12 teams will be divided into 3 divisions, re-assigned every year based on draft position:
The teams with the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th overall picks comprise Division 1 (Articuno).
The teams with the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th overall picks comprise Division 2 (Zapdos).
The teams with the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th overall picks comprise Division 3 (Moltres).
This is meant to ensure -- or at least, make it more likely -- that teams within the same division have the chance to draft players of similar quality, and therefore begin the season on relatively equal footing.
Matchups
Teams within each division face each other twice, and face every other team once. This makes for 14 regular season matchups (6 being divisional), with the fantasy playoffs taking place during NFL Weeks 15, 16, and 17. The first 3 and last 3 weeks of the regular season will always be divisional matchups. Here is an example of this schedule format.
Sleeper does all of this automatically by default, therefore, I won't manually edit any matchups this year unless there is some unforeseen quirk or error in the system that would somehow necessitate it.
Standings
Standings within divisions during the regular season are determined by total win/loss record. Starting in 2024, there is also an extra game each week versus the league median. This means that it is possible to go 2-0, 1-1, or 0-2 each week. Game ties are unlikely, but possible in the regular season, including matchups versus the median.
The standings tiebreaker is total points scored. If there is somehow a tie all the way down to the hundredths decimal place, then the secondary standings tiebreaker is total points against. This is the Sleeper default (source). Head-to-head record does not factor in.
Playoffs
VFFL uses a 6-team playoff and a 6-team consolation bracket with Sleeper's default playoff structure.
The three division champions are given automatic playoff berths and the top three seeds. The remaining playoff berths go to the non-champion teams with the best win-loss records, with total points scored as the tiebreaker. Other teams go to the consolation bracket.
In both brackets, seeds are sorted by win-loss record first, and then by total points scored. Byes in Week 15 are given to the top two seeds in each bracket. There is playoff re-seeding, meaning that the highest remaining seed will always play the lowest remaining seed, and so on.
There are no matchups versus the median in the playoffs. Game ties in the playoffs result in a win for the higher seed.
New Scoring for 2024
Sleeper supports some cool options that NFL.com and most other common fantasy sites do not, so I'm giving them a shot.
If it turns out that I fucked up and any of these settings really mess up the league, they can be adjusted and changed mid-season but it will retroactively affect previous scores (source). I'll ask everyone in the league for unanimous confirmation before doing this.
Extra Game Each Week Against League Median
https://support.sleeper.com/en/articles/3971690-extra-game-each-week-against-league-median
Say you had a great week and you were the 2nd highest scoring team in the league, but you happened to be matched up against the best scoring team. This setting still lets you salvage one point for the purpose of league standings, so you're "1-1" for the week.
Similarly if you won your matchup like 65-64 or something, you'll get your win, but probably not the "bonus win" for being in the top half of the league.
Better D/ST Scoring
https://draftysports.com/articles/you-deserve-better-defense-scoring
Why is sacking the QB worth fantasy points but tackles for losses on anyone else aren’t? They’re functionally the same in terms of stopping the offense. D/STs should get points for doing more “football things”. Similarly, instead of starting off with 10 points at the beginning of a game (for 0 yards/points allowed), it makes more sense to start at 0 and then trend upwards over the course of a game, only getting hit with negative points once you’ve allowed higher-than-average offense.
New settings are:
Sacks = 0.5 points (instead of 1)
Tackles for loss = 0.5 points
Worth half of a sack since it happens about twice as often
Stacks with sacks, and so while a sack for 0 yards lost is possible, most sacks will still be worth 1.0 points
Passes defensed (aka pass break-ups, passes batted down) = 0.25 points
Worth ⅛ of an interception since it happens about 6-8x as often, and it’s a nicer decimal for scoring than .333 or .667
Points allowed:
0-13 = 0 points
14-20 = -1 point
21-27 = -2 points
28-34 = -3 points
>34 = -4 points
I’m still leaving Yards allowed out of the equation for our league as it has been
Fractional Kicker Scoring
Because it’s kind of dumb that a 40 yard field goal is worth an extra point over a 39 yard field goal, and NFL.com didn’t even have a setting for 60+ yarders at all -- they’re rare, but they should still be worth more if they happen.
New settings are:
Field goal made = 3 points
Field goal made yardage past 30 = 0.1 points
For example, a 47 yard field goal will be worth 4.7 points, but a 25 yard field goal will be worth just the base 3 points.
Kicker Misses
Since fractional kicker scoring is essentially a kicker buff, I’m bringing back negative points for misses. Originally I took those out because I thought it was bullshit that the kicker can get penalized for missing a long field goal in the wind, which isn't really his fault, IMO. But, Sleeper allows for individually changing settings for missed based on distance.
New settings are:
Extra point miss = -1 points
Field goal miss, 0-49 yards = -1 points
Field goal miss, 50+ yards = 0 points