AFFL INTRO — Associated Fantasy

AFFL 101

Welcome to an introduction of the AFFL. If you're reading this, you're either a new owner getting familiar with us, or a prospective new owner deciding if you want to get in (you'll want to). We happen to have TWO available franchises right now, so let's see if you might be the right fit - or, rather, if we might be a good fit for you. My name is Crash, I'm the commish of the AFFL, and I've put the following together from an assortment of emails that I've sent to previous new owners over the years to get them up to speed. It should give you a very good overview of the league. I'll start with very general info about the league, and then get more detailed as I go.

About Us

The league started in 2019, we are a 20 team dynasty league, fully online;
We still have 11 charter members
We have 3 more franchises that have been in the league since year 2
Most of those 14 franchises have been playing in online leagues together as far back as 2010
Our current 'newest' franchises are entering their 4th season
I mention all of the above to show the stability and satisfaction of league membership

The League

20 teams; 4 divisions
Hosted on MyFantasyLeague
Entry Fees: $65 (LeagueSafe; includes hosting fees and prize pot)
We utilize player salaries, contracts, and salary caps
I'll get into rosters and scoring below, but we utilize all offensive skill positions, all defensive positions (IDP), kickers, punters, and kick returners; scoring is individualized by position
14 week Regular Season/8 teams to the playoffs
Our season starts on April 1, and there is various business conducted between then and our draft (I'll detail those below)
Our draft is held annually on Labor Day afternoon (live, online, takes 3-4 hours)

The Rules

All of our rules are posted on this website (League Rules, Contract Rules, and Scoring Rules - Click AFFL on the menu above to access our league page with all league links - go explore...wait, not yet, go explore later)
Our rules are quite extensive; but don't be intimidated by that; they're not the type of rules you need to learn/memorize, but rather the kind you use to look things up as you're managing your franchise
We have a Competition Committee made up of volunteering franchise owners (membership changes each year), and they go over all of the rules annually making updates as needed/warranted (they're also available to settle any disputes, and to interpret rules issues)
Our Rules are designed on a few key principles:

A league where no team is ever stuck in the basement, where teams have a genuine opportunity to better themselves within 1-2 seasons. The way our rules are set up produces a lot of player movement that you don't normally see in dynasty leagues and teams have gone from the bottom 5 to the playoffs in a single season (and the other way, too)
A league that feels and operates as much as possible like you're managing a real operation. This is definitely not a "here are my keepers, now let's go" type of dynasty league. You'll have full control over how your franchise functions and be able to employ a full strategy of how you build and manage your roster through most of the calendar year
The rules are designed so that lots of different strategies can be successful. For example, you can go offensive heavy and be successful, or you could go defensive heavy and be just as successful. You could manage your finances for the long term or sacrifice the future to go all in on spending for a championship run. There are countless combinations to the strategies you can employ to build a winning team, and THE IMPORTANT PART OF WHAT THIS DOES is this: 20 teams pursuing 20 different strategies means that even in a league this size, the draft is exciting because there's talent to be had, and weekly waiver moves are still trafficking in valuable, productive players because everyone is looking for something different. It's also really fun to see teams built in very obviously different ways go head to head with each other.

OK, when we dive into the nitty-gritty in a minute, there's going to come a point where you think "this sounds great, but it's too complicated, I won't have the time for it". When you get to that point, I want you to know that we've done a really good job of designing the rules so that much of what I'm about to lay out are OPTIONS of things you can do while running your team, not neccessarily things you have to do keep your team running well. Consider the following:
There are owners that meticulously manage their franchise all year long, making use of every option there is, and they've been successful

There are also owners that manage their rosters in a very 'old-school' way, making very little use of things like contracts, etc, and manage their teams practically like running a redraft team, and they have been successful, too

We've had an new owner take over a last place team and get them the #2 seed in 2 seasons

We've had an owner of a playoff team go through a couple seasons where life got in the way of ff, so he sort of left his franchise on cruise control, and made the playoffs again as soon as he was able to focus on his team again

So think of it like learning baseball - it would take a while to learn and understand the vast baseball rulebook, but even if you had never seen or heard of the game, if you went to a playground and watched a game for 10 minutes, you would understand the basics of how to play - this league will be just like that

The Season

Season Starts: April 1
April 1 - May 30: Spring Signing Period

This is the timeframe for you to get your roster in order for the upcoming season; NOTE: NEW OWNERS GET THEIR OWN EXTENDED TIMEFRAME FOR ALL OFFSEASON ACTIVITY
Note that it doesn't take the whole 2 months to manage your roster, but you have 2 months to get it done, it might take you a couple of days to a week of looking things over and deciding what moves you're going to make
On April 1, all of your contracts will cycle (3 years remaining become 2, etc) and all player salaries will update for the new season
Players under contract can have salaries managed/set/manipulated with the contract process and other management tools
Players not under contract have salaries set based on the previous year’s performance
During this time you can trade with other active teams
You can manage all of your carried over players (from previous season) through the use of things like contracts, franchise tags, taxi squad designations, etc - the details aren't important right now - the point is that you get to play with your team and start making your season plans around the time of the NFL draft
The most important part of the Spring Signing Period is using the management tools (like contracts, etc) to manage your finances for the year, and to protect players from the Free Agent Auction which comes next

June 10 - July 20: Free Agent Auction

The Free Agent Auction is a long-running online auction designed to mimic the NFL offseason free agency period
Teams can have players on their roster that are EITHER under contract or NOT under contract
BUT, during the Free Agent Auction, other teams can offer any of your unsigned/unshielded players more money to go and play for them - and you can do the same, poaching players from other teams
They do this by putting in an auction bid above the player's current salary
Bidding then happens like in any auction, except the timers are 5 day timers, so it's not something you have to follow super closely; highest bid wins player and signs them for the high bid amount
It gets a little more complicated than that - players in their final year of contract can also be auctioned as a Restricted Free Agent, in which case there are matching bids, counter bids, and compensation - but these are the basics
For an overview, just understand that this part of the offseason allows you the chance to poach players from other teams; you can also trade during the auction so that opens another layer of the dynamics

Throughout the Summer

Trading

Trading can be done all summer long; draft picks up to 2 years out can be traded or personnel (contract or not)
All off season trading includes Counter Offers
The way this works is that once a trade is agreed to between two teams, the trade deal goes out to the whole league and any other team can try to make a better deal behind the scenes with one of the trading teams
This creates a 'market' where teams can get better deals, and it makes trading more exciting; there are often counter offers and then counters to the counters, and if you're a good deal maker, you can really work the league to get yourself better trade deals

The Division Draft

Our 4 Divisions (5 teams each) are realigned every year.
Division Champions each year, become Division 'Captains' the next summer and a draft is held for these teams to pick their divisions
This allows rivalries to build, and also keeps the divisions all relatively balanced

Open Scheduling

After the Division Draft is held, a division schedule is generated where teams play their division foes twice each (8 games)
This leaves 6 open spots
We allow teams to self schedule their open dates (like in college) with other teams that have matching availability
This allows rivalries to build, and also creates an outcome where weaker teams choose to schedule against other weaker teams, forcing the stronger teams to have to play each other - this is great for league parity
The schedule is a home-away schedule and there's a 3 point homefield advantage

Keepers/Cut Week

At the end of the summer, a week before our draft, we have Cut Week, which is basically when your keepers are selected by cutting everyone you're not keeping (cannot cut in the offseason prior to this)
We don't handle keepers by a set number, we do it by money
The very basics work like this:

Salary Cap is $X
We put a Cut Cap in place of 50% $X
Teams must trim their roster down until its total cost is under the Cut Cap - as many or as few players they want to keep based on that price limit

Now, it gets much more complicated than that in practice because of "Dead Money"
There will be a whole section on what we call Dead Money; but as an introduction:

Throughout the offseason, there are various ways to move some of what you owe to your players into 'Dead Money'; it's one of the main objective of the offseason
Dead Money does not count against your cut cap
So for example, you could get $300m worth of personnel over a $200m Cut Cap by having shielded $100 million in dead money.....or.....a team with less talent could choose to go with just $150 million worth of personnel and another $150 million in dead money to lower future salary payments and set themselves up for future seasons
The financial management involved is your primary focus in the offseason, provides a whole other layer to the fantasy football game, and has TONS of options for how you manage your finances

The Draft

Our draft is held live/online on Labor Day afternoon every year; in 7 years, the longest has been 5 and 49 minutes (first year, empty rosters, 21 rounds) and the shortest has been just under 3 hours
It is 7 rounds, order determined same as NFL does it, order is straight (1-20, 1-20, 1-20, etc)
Note, that the draft has a 5 minute pick-timer in every round - everyone complains and/or gets frustrated by the long timer at somepoint, BUT, EVERYONE also needs it at some point, and overall, it gives an authentic marathon draft feel to the whole thing
It's a rookie and veteran draft, and because of the way the whole league is set up, there's an amazing amount of talent available for a dynasty league this size (the players available in our 1st round are sometimes the kind of players that would be 5th, 6th, 7th round in a 10 team redraft) so the draft really offers opportunity for teams to improve themselves
Draft day trading is allowed DURING THE DRAFT and there are a whole series of rules concerning draft timeouts that teams can use (there's also counter trade offers)

Regular Season and Playoffs

The season runs like any other fantasy season; 14 weeks then 3 rounds of playoffs
We have 2 waiver runs per week and teams are allowed 2 successful claims per run; you can also pick up an emergency player on Sundays from the open market and pay them just for the day
You have to keep an eye on your finances and salary cap with your moves; cutting players will only get you 50% (and in some cases 0%) of your money back toward cap space
There's a trade deadline and a brief period late season when you can manage contracts and etc
8 teams go to the playoffs

4 division champs, 2 standings wild cards, 2 points wild cards
Div Champs get automatic homefield in round 1; homefield advantage in playoffs varies from 1 to 6 points
No homefield in the championship
All entry fee money (less hosting fees) is paid out

During the playoffs

A lower bracket is seeded for teams that didn't make the playoffs
Winner of this bracket wins a supplemental draft pick at the end of round 1 the following season

So, still reading? Great. You can't really tell if a fantasy league is your style until you know about the Roster and Scoring Rules, right? So let's talk Scoring and Rosters.

Scoring and Roster

Scoring and Rosters have been set up to work hand in hand
I'm going to talk scoring, then rosters, then tie them together...and then special teams specifically
Scoring

To give you a point of reference on our scoring:
Record high score is 305 points in a game, 300 has only been hit twice in 7 seasons
Game scores average in the 150-225 point range
Sub 150 point games are not at all uncommon
Playoff teams are scoring in the 200-250 point per game range in about 75% of their games
HOWEVER, I've seen playoff teams just have a really bad day and not even hit 100
None of that should be taken to imply that the scoring is erratic; I'll get into this more in the next scoring section, but the scoring rules are set up to more accurately reflect real world outcomes and the scoring totals make real sense when you see them in action
Player Scoring

On average, your best players are going to be giving you 20-30 points per week
Only the top 20-30 players are exceeding that consistently
I don't recall ever having a 100 point player/wk, we've had probably about 20 in the 60+ points in a game range over 7 seasons

Team Rosters

Teams have a roster limit of 21 active roster spots
We have position limits on each position, but there's a very wide combination of personnel you can put together
There are no minimum or required positions
There's a very unique starting line-up
14 Starting Players:

5 QB/RB/WR/TE
1 K
1 PUNTER
2 KICK RETURNERS
5 IDP

This offers a wide variety of starting options (no two teams will look alike)
Your starting line-up is limited only by overall position limits

For example, you can only start 1 QB because max 1 QB on roster; you can only start 3 RB because of max 3 RB or max 4 LB, etc

Setting the rosters up like this allows teams to build around different player groups or to use different strategies
There are pros and cons to the different positions because of scoring

Scoring and Team Rosters Combined

Getting into the details of scoring....
This is where you're looking for me to say QBs get this much for a TD, and RBs get this many points per 10 yards, etc BUT...
Our scoring system is a complicated one - the only negative about it is that it's too complex to calculate your player's points in your head while you're watching the game like in traditional fantasy
But I promise it makes sense and you'll SEE it make sense if you watch your score while watching the game - it also works out to be an exciting system to watch when you're in a game, scores can escalate quickly from key plays, it gets fun
You can click the Scoring Rules Button to the right to see all of the scoring values, BUT, the description below will give you a much better overview of our scoring
Each position has a different set of scoring rules

This provides value across all the positions
Theoretically positions are not more or less valuable than other positions; but players are more or less valuable than each other despite position
For reference, the top 10 or 20 or 50 players will have more are less all positions mixed in. Most years our top 20 has some combination of 5-10 QBs, 5-10S, 3-8 RBs, WRs, LBs, CBs, and 2-3 TEs, DEs, DTs

The scoring rules are set up with the following 2 principles:

Scores reflect the player's impact on the game instead of strictly reflecting their stats

We did this by making Scoring exponential instead of linear (regular fantasy scoring, for example, 1 point for 10 yards, then 1.1 for 11, then 1.2, etc, whereas our scoring is more like a hockey stick where it ramps up, and then explodes if the player has a truly breakout day)
Best way to explain is by example:

Traditional Fantasy Scoring: RB Smith might rush for 40 yds and catch 3 passes for 20 and get a ff score of 8 or 9 and RB Jones might rush for 70 yards and score a TD and get 12 or 13 ff points; RB Williams might rush for 120 and 3 TDs and get 30 ff points
AFFL Scoring: RB Smith is only going to get 3 or 4 points for that because it wasn't a very significant contribution to the game; RB Jones will score much better than him, probably in the 15 point range because its a good solid performance; but RB Williams would be up in the 40-50 point range because on the actual field, his game was that much more significant than the other two

Scoring should maximize the number of potentially good players across all positions by making the positions less important in relation to each other

I like to describe it as being more like managing a basketball roster than a fantasy football line-up (looking at your offense and defense as two independent squads), and what I mean by that is you're not necessarily starting by position, per se, you're just trying to get all your best players on the court (which means building your roster for the player and not the position) - the scoring is set to make that work
The best way to explain is by example
Traditional Fantasy Scoring: Team A has the #7 QB, #10 RB, #20 + #21 WR, #1 TE VS Team B has #24 QB, #12 RB, #40 + #42 WR, #4 TE..........who wins that game 9 times out of 10?
AFFL Scoring: Team A has the same #7 QB, #10 RB, #20+#21 WR, #1 TE, BUT Team B instead of QB24 and RB12 could have RB1 and RB12 - that #1 RB is going to score as good or better than team A's QB7 - and then instead of those 40 ranked WRS and #4 TE, maybe he's got 3 top 15 TEs - a top 10 TE is going to score theoretically better than WR20s
So, overall, there's a much wider combination of potential match-ups of head to head personnel from one team to another and a much wider potential for outcomes

Both of the above examples are a tip of the iceberg and are just very limited examples of how it works, and the possibilities expand endlessly (and all the same goes for defense), all of it contributes to the general idea of giving teams multiple avenues to put together a winning roster
If you want to really nerd out on our scoring system, check out this link https://associatedfantasy.com/affl/affl-2020-scoring-revisions-report it goes into lots and lots of detail on how our scoring is set up, with the rules and reasons for them for all positions and how they compare, complete with a ton of stat examples and charts
Special Teams Scoring and Rosters

I want to touch very quickly on special teams because some people are really curious, others are very hesitant about it (using kick returners, etc) but mainly, because explaining it makes a good example for how lots of parts of the league and the scoring as a whole works
Special Teams starters are 1 kicker, 1 punter, 2 kick returners

Scoring is set up so that if you have one of the top 5-8 kickers, they may give you 15-30 points a game, but once you get past about K10, you'll be lucky to get a consistent 15 per game from them; k15 and beyond, maybe 0-10 per week on average
Punters and KRs are similar, if you have one of the top 5-8 of them at the position, you might get a consistent 8-12 points from each of them, but if you don't have one of the top ones, you're looking at an average of 5 points or less from them

Special Teams scoring is designed to contribute on average about only 20% of your total weekly score

You can have an average or even a bad special teams, and if your offense/defense is strong, the bad special teams won't hurt you
On the other hand, if you have a really good special teams, it can carry some of the weight from having average offense/defense

The point of all of this is that some teams have been able to really focus on their special teams and doing so gives them a definite edge in week to week scoring, BUT it cannot carry you by itself; but it does serve as an example of the fact that there are many, many phases of the game in this league, and the best way to succeed in this league is by stringing together multiples of these phases that can each give you a small edge - build up 2 to 3 to 4 of these small edges, and you produce a big edge - the way special teams scoring works is an example here, of how all of our rules are set up
The take-away from this section is that the scoring and roster set-up in the AFFL is designed to be a big blank canvas that you can paint your own strategy across and find success in many different ways, but it makes you look at your roster in a totally different way and forces you to have long term goals and plans for how you want to build it

Still with me? Great. At this point you've probably either decided that this league sounds awesome, or that it's not going to be your cup of tea. Now I'm going to start diving deeper into the nuts and bolts, so if you've decided you want in, this will build on your understanding of how the league works.

Salaries and the Salary Cap

The League Formula Salary

This is the literal cornerstone of the entire league.
ALL players (except rookies) have a League Formula Value.
\Players not under contract (or some other management tool) will get paid their League Formula Salary as their "salary".
A player under contract might get paid a "salary" set by contract, but they HAVE a League Formula Salary (sometimes necessary for calculations).
Rookies get an "Assigned Salary" based on where drafted (in our league).
The FORMULA for League Formula Salary is:

Previous Year Points Total x 100,000.
The EASY conversion is: Total points; move the decimal, call it millions.
EXAMPLE: 291 points = $29.1m... 118 points = $11.8m... 324 points = $32.4m.
Get very comfortable with that conversion, it should be an instant thing in your head when you look at players.
It becomes a useful valuation tool for players who are making something other than their formula salary (because of a contract, etc)
Example: Say you're looking at a potential trade... player made 173 points last year, but his contract salary is $24.5m... that's an indication that he may be overvalued... unless, maybe you think that player is due for a 280-point season, which would make him undervalued

PREVIOUS Year League Formula Salary

There are times when contracts allow use of the "Previous Season Formula Salary"...
This is tricky at first, just remember "Formula Salary is set by Previous Year Points.... SO.... PREVIOUS Year Formula Salary is set by 2 years ago points.
In practice, on MFL, you click the player, click the stats year for the year before last check his points and convert to dollars

League Minimum Salary

This is the lowest salary any player can be paid
This is set by formula - 10% of the Formula Salary of the highest scoring player in the previous year
Last year that was Josh Allen with 540 points, so League minimum this season is $5.4m
So even if a player scored, say, 47 points on the year, they would get paid $5.4m
This changes year to year, and has ranged between $5.2 and $6.4 in the previous 7 seasons

The Salary Cap

The full League Salary Cap is a hard cap and is set by formula each season; works just as you'd expect a salary cap to work
Formula is based on having 20 teams with 21 player rosters (420 players):
TOTAL of the Top 420 players(all positions/roster status) TOTAL POINTS divided by 20; then converted to $
It generally falls in the $450m range; worth noting that it has gone up each of the last 5 years ($487 last year), but that is an anomaly... our scoring system hasn't changed so it's only NFL player stats driving that, so at some point it's bound to go the other way

Cut Cap

We also have something called a Cut Cap
The Cut Cap gets put into place for one week (Cut Week) at the end of the offseason (right before our draft) and serves as a transition point from off-season to season
The Cut Cap is used for selecting your keepers - keep anyone you want, contract, non-contract, any positions, etc., as long as your total is under the Cut Cap.....
Cut Cap is by formula also, it's always 40-50% of full cap, set each year by Competition Committee.. last year was 41%
One of the main "objects of the game" of the offseason is to set yourself up to carry as much talent across the Cut Cap as possible

Recovery Cap

We also have something called a Recovery Cap
Recovery Cap is given to the 5 last place teams
It replaces the Full Salary Cap for these teams, and is 115% of the Salary Cap
This gives low finishing teams more spending power the following season to improve themselves.
Their Cut Cap is still the same as all teams, but if they're good at managing their dead money, it gives them a good opportunity to pick-up talent in the auction; this will make sense after the next section

DEAD MONEY

Think of your spending in terms of TWO LEDGERS:

Player Salary in one ledger and Dead Money in the other
During the season, this shows up on your MFL Roster report as a total for Salaries, and another for "Salary Adjustments"
The Dead Money ledger is your Salary Adjustments - the terms are interchangeable in the league
DURING THE SEASON

The 'two ledgers' count together simultaneously and your cap space shows up as
Salary Cap minus (Salary + Salary Adjustments) = Cap Space
Everything is automatic and is calculated within the MyFantasyLeague system
Some examples of what you'd have Salary Adjustments/Dead Money Charges for during the season:

A very common example would be cutting an unsigned player

When you cut anm unsigned player you only get 50% of their salary back
So, the system will release them, remove all of their salary from your roster total, and charge you 50% of that amount as a "Salary Adjustment"
And then counts the salary adjustment in with your roster total to give you your cap space

Another example would be an ACTIVE TAXI player (he can move back and forth between Active and Taxi Rosters)

ACT-TAX players get a gameday bonus in lieu of salary (amount differs by player) on active weeks
That gameday bonus goes into the system as a "Salary Adjustment"

There are also CAP CREDITS
- These are Negative Dead Money Charges....which are net positives against your Cap Space
- Basically, your Team Captains can earn you millions per week in Cap Credits depending on their stats, and these go in as "Salary Adjustments" in the other direction, increasing your cap space All of the above is pretty simple, and you don't actually need to be aware of "Dead Money" during the season, that's why I explained it first - just be aware that your total player salaries AND any other charges (Salary Adjustments/Dead Money) get combined to give you your cap space

During The Off Season

This is where it gets a little complicated
Go back to thinking about your expenditures as two ledgers - Player Salaries and Dead Money

Actual Player Salaries go into the Salary Ledger and everything else goes into the Dead Money ledger

The Most Basic EXAMPLE of off season dead money is a signing bonus

Some players signed to contract will require a signing bonus
For example a player may be getting a $10m salary with a $1m signing bonus
In this example, $10m would be charted under your salary ledger, and the $1m under the dead money ledger

WHY IT MATTERS

At the end of the OFF-SEASON, when it's time to bring your roster across the Cut Cap
The Cut Cap will be put in place, and your Total Roster Cost must be below the Cut Cap
But your Total Roster Cost is only the total of all of your Salaries, not all of your expenditures
So the Salary Ledger ONLY is compared to the Cut Cap to get your roster across
Immediately after you clear the Cut Cap, the full Salary Cap is put in place, the ledgers are combined, and it all switches over to the "During The Season" system

EXAMPLE:
- With a Full Salary Cap of $400m and a Cut Cap of $200m; a team with $190m in salary and $60m in dead money would clear the Cut Cap with $10m of Cut Cap space, and then on the Season Side of it, would have a $250m roster combined roster cost and $150m in full cap space

ADVANCED Off Season Dead Money

During the off season, there are actually lots of reasons you would accrue dead money charges - some mandetory, others voluntarily

Certain contracts will require a signing bonus when signed - salary is salary, bonus is dead money - salary goes to salary ledger, bonus goes to dead money ledger
Putting a player onto your taxi squad requires paying his salary up-front as a dead money payment - in this situation, the payment is dead money (and happens to equal his salary) and his salary is $0 for accounting purposes - salary ledger; dead money ledger
Placing a Franchise Tag on a player will require a tag bonus - that goes in the dead money ledger
These are just a few examples of mandated 'charges' that will be dead money
Examples of off season dead money like the ones above, I like to think of as sales tax - it's just the price I have to pay to run my team - and, like sales tax, i just don't think about it too when I'm looking at the price of all the players I want to keep and adding what they're going to cost me in relation to getting across the Cut Cap. Makes sense?

Now here's where it gets fun.....
ADDITIONALLY there are ways you can take on dead money voluntarily in lieu of salary
EXAMPLES

You're signing a player for $10m salary with a mandatory $1m signing bonus; you might choose to ALSO give that player a $5m Up-Front Bonus. That means you would pay him a $1m dead money payment for signing, then give him $5m of his salary as a dead money bonus, and owe him $5m in salary
That means that just $5m of the player's original salary will go to the Cut Cap; you're still paying the same $11m for him, but you're lowering your Cut Cap burden (theoretically giving you room to afford to keep more players, which is the point of the practice)
Another...
You have a player under contract making $10m this season, and owed $20m next year and $25m the next - $55m total owed to him, you could decide you can afford to give him a $30m Restructure Bonus this year
That lowers what you owe him to $25m total, you could then reset his payment schedule to the same $10m this year, but just $5m next year, and $10m the next, and you've changed your future financial outlook just with the dead money, and your salary total in relation to the Cut Cap didn't change

The above are just some of the most basic examples of what can be done with dead money in the offseason
There are lots rules and conditions that regulate how and when you can do things like this, and each time you do it, there will be pros and cons that relate to the player and your team's situation, so it's not as simple as just dumping all of your money into Dead Money, BUT
But it really creates an entirely separate phase of the league and the fantasy game
In traditional fantasy, some coaches really excel at drafting but aren't great at start/sit decisions; others might be really good at working trades but aren't as good at winning auctions; in the AFFL managing your dead money is another phase where some coaches excel others don't; but it's another of the many phases of this league

Still reading? You've got to be hooked by now, so let’s go a little deeper. Contracts. This is what really puts our league on another level. Yes, I know other dynasty and salary cap leagues have contracts - you set a salary price for the player in the system, set the number of contract years, and you're good to go. That's kindergarten stuff, welcome to the big leagues!

Contracts

This is only an overview/introduction to contracts; the contracts have a lot to them so I won't get into actual details
First - Contracts are OPTIONAL; players do not have to be under contract to be on a team

Contracts are just the main of several roster management tools and using them will always depend on the situation (player, price, your outlook on the player, your short and long term strategy, etc)

Our contracts are all 'actual' contracts - each one becomes a digital file in a league database (I'll do small section on the database further down)

When you sign a player to contract, there are a series of rules regulating how you can set the contract up
But there are also a series of options for how you can set the contract up, so each contract has about 40-50 cells of spreadsheet data associated with it

There are 3 different types of contracts (Standard, Rookie, and Free Agent) but don't worry about those details, they become self explanatory when you dive into them
When you set up a contract:

You (sometimes) have options for the calculation used for the player's price tag
You (sometimes) have options for length of contract
You have options for how you set up the schedule for paying their salary (year by year)
You have options to divert salary into dead money
You have options to extend the contract in different ways when it comes to term
You'll have options to restructure the contract while it's under way, with certain changes allowed
Some of the options will negate other options, some options will place other restrictions if you use them, etc, so all of your contract options will be interdependent

So all of the above is to explain that your contracts are not set and forget $/Yr values, you will be actively "managing" each of your players and your financial options and commitments for each of them -generally, everything you do with each of your players will fit into whatever your larger plan for the roster is, the point is that the rules are set up to allow you to do just that
So what's the point of contracts anyway? (I know, I should have put this at the top)
- Standard Contracts are the ones you'll use most often, and the only kind you'll use during Spring Signing
- The Main reasons for signing players to Standard Contract:
- Rookie Contracts can be signed to NFL rookies after you acquire them in their rookie season
- The Main reasons for signing players to Rookie Contract:
- Free Agent Contracts
Other Roster Management Tools beyond contracts:

Franchise Tags - one per year can be placed on a player - it will shield the player from auction and shield his salary from the cut cap
Taxi Squad - we have a developmental taxi where you can stash up to 3 rookies for up to 2 years; and an Active Taxi where you can stash emergency call-up players that you can pay cheaply up front, and then pay them bonuses only on the weeks you use them
Besides a regular IR we have a season ending IR option, and also emergency promotion options related to it
We also use Team Captains (optional) - you can name up to 2 team captains (1 per squad) per season; it costs a 25% bonus, but comes with a range of perks for the player, the most attractive of which is that they can earn cap space back for you through their stats

And that's it. That's our Contracts in a nutshell. The devil's in the details, but you'll pick up the details little by little as you start managing a team roster. If you're still reading at this point, you must be thinking 'man, this sounds great, but there's so much. Where would I even begin if I took over a team?'. Don't be intimidated by the size and complexity of it. Honestly, it will take you a full season cycle to get comfortable with it, BUT the learning curve is gentle. Let me lay out for you how your first steps of taking over a franchise would play out.

NEW OWNER - FIRST STEPS

Once we get you all set up in the league, connected to your team, on the mailing list, etc you'll get an email with your Roster Details
Every player on your inherited roster will be itemized on the list
With each player, I'll list what kind of management tool(s) can be used on them and what they would do
I'll go over where the franchise stands with the finances you've inherited
And I'll point you in the right direction for what priorities likely need to be addressed
And then I'll ask you to look over the provided info on your players, and email me back with a list of the players you're most interested in protecting from the auction and/or keeping when Cut Day arrives
I'll then email you back with full and complete details on those players - including $numbers - on what your options are specifically with those players, and also what your big picture would look like if you go forward with the outlined options
We'll email back and forth with some questions and answers, and fine tune your roster until we have every player addressed or set up - I'll give you all of your options, point you in the direction of best practices, and if you make what i think is a bad decision, I'll make sure you know whatever it is I'm seeing that you might have missed
In 2- 3 weeks you'll understand your roster and be pretty comfortable with understanding the moves you're making, and when the roster is done, I'll give you another email, laying out for you what your finances look like for spending in the auction, and also whether or not you have options to find more money through moving anything into dead money
At that point, you should be good to go and comfortable with your franchise and the rules to head into the draft
Next Spring, you'll get another Spring Roster Details email, but this one will be much less detailed (I send one to each team when i cycle their roster for the new season) and you should be much more comfortable handling it on your own, but I'll still be there for questions or a refresher

So there's one last thing. I mentioned a database.....it's time to put the icing on the cake of what this league brings to the table and tell you about the Database

The League Database

Besides this website where our rules are posted, and the MyFantasyLeague site where the league is hosted, but we also use a series of Google Sheets spreadsheets to track various things
All of the spreadsheets and spreadsheet-books are connected to each other and to a central spreadsheet book that acts as a central database for all league info (contracts, finances, etc)
All teams have access to view all of these
Stat Books

These are the most basic part of our database - view-only copies of all of the league stats we track going back to year one
There are individual spreadsheet-books for League Stats (W/L/T and total scoring), Total Scoring, Offensive Scoring, Defensive Scoring, and Special Teams Scoring
Each of those Stat Books have individual "Tabs" (spreadsheets) for each league year, all-time totals, and a records tab
During the season, stats are updated on Tuesdays, and once updated in the central database, everything in the system connected to the stats updates
These stats pages are embedded on the AF website on the AFFL Stats Page, and you can also click on the links there to access the full-view version of the spreadsheets (same as the links above) and they're also linked in places throughout the rest of the database

League Record Book

There's also a League Record Book (links for it are all over also) that updates and reorders automatically every time the stats are updated
Records are tracked in these categories: Single Game Total Scoring, Offensive Scoring, Defensive Scoring, Special Teams Scoring; Regular Season Total, Offensive, Defensive, and SpT Scoring; and Full Season Total, Offensive, Defensive, SpT Scoring

League Telex

The League Telex is embedded here on the AF website, in several of the databooks, and also has its own stand-alone databook that's lightweight and can be left open in the background on your computer
The League Telex is basically the "Database Newsfeed" it basically is a log of all official moves made in the database to keep you informed on things around the league
It's similar to the transactions report on the league's MyFantasyLeague site, but slightly different:

EXAMPLES:
If you drop an unsigned player, it will be noted on MyFantasyLeague, but not in the league telex; MyFantasyLeague will automatically handle your 50% back for the player, and will notate that as well, but that also won't show up on the telex
If you drop a player under contract, it will be noted on MyFantasyLeague, AND - it will trigger several changes in the database, such as terminating the contract and charging you a dead money payment and THOSE changes will be noted in the Telex
If you trade an unsigned player away and acquire a player under contract - the trade will be noted in the telex, but will only mention the transfer of the contract player

The League Databook

This is a view-only book of spreadsheet tabs - over a dozen - with everything in one place
This is also where you can view the actual digital contracts
There's an alphabetical index of ALL active contracts in the league with ALL contract info viewable
There's also a Team tab that orders them by each team
There's also a Dead Money Tab that is a direct copy of the master league 'ledger' that tracks every charge made across the league
The Databook also has a league Telex tab, an all-time stats tab, a record book tab, a league-wide index of all Taxi players (A and B) on all teams with all of their taxi contract info, a league-wide index of all active Franchise Tags, team captains, the division draft, and the free agent auction info

The Team Databook

For the cherry on top, each team gets their own individual team databook, it's sort of a team-specific version of all of the above
It's connected to the central database and updates automatically, has a roster worksheet, all of your dead money info, and a rules quick guide, and a bunch of other cool stuff specifically for your feanchise

So, ready to sign, have questions, etc? Well, if you're reading this because you got the link in an email from me, email me back; if you got here from an ad for the available franchises, answer the ad and I'll be in touch. If you've stumbled upon this and you want more info, email the website's name at the Guy's email address, if you know what I mean