BASIC LEAGUE INFORMATION/BACKGROUND

- The team names and overall division structure has been edited to match NFL

- At league creation, rosters have been set as per current NFL team rosters.

- The game is run by a sole commissioner (currently Shakes), with assistance by other GM’s designated as helpers by the commissioner.

JOINING THE LEAGUE

· Potential new owners must check our current Owners List to see if a team is available. It is also advisable to check the team roster of any team a potential owner would like to run.

· If a team is available, a potential owner may request it by e-mailing the commissioner team at ShakesRK@aol.com . Teams are awarded on a first come, first served basis.

· If no team is currently available, you may request to be placed on a waiting list. Once a team becomes available, teams will be offered to each person on the waiting list, starting with the first. If you are on the waiting list and refuse an offered team, your name will be moved to the bottom of the waiting list.

· We ask all active owners to either regularly submit stage files (so that we know you're still active in the game) or to notify us by e-mail that they are choosing not to submit files but are still playing.

· All GM’s are asked to be active in the MIRC room names #EFL. This is were live sims will be done as well as trading, drafts, free agency etc. will be done.

Deadline for stage files will be set in the MIRC room. All stage files to be run are to be sent to ShakesRK@aol.com .

LEAGUE CONDUCT/CHEATING

· Cheating and/or taking advantage of game bugs within FOF will not be tolerated. Any cheating will result in automatic removal from the league as well as permanent exclusion from EFL.

· If you feel that an action would be potentially questionable, it is your responsibility to ask, either the commissioner directly or within the game forum, about that action.

· Any evidence of cheating and/or taking advantage of game bugs found by the commissioner will be assumed to be a conscious action on behalf of the offending GM and will be deemed a direct infraction and resulting in being banned.

LEAGUE SETTINGS

· Injury Setting: This will be set at 150.

· Salary Cap: The salary cap increase range will be set at 30-60 Million.

· Staff/Scout Salary Cap: Head coach, offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator can only be resigned after the season.

· Other Game Settings: Affinity, Cohesion and Mentoring are all turned on for this game.

Stages

A. Preseason - Get your roster/depth charts finalized and prepare for exhibition games. We may sim preseason much faster than the regular season, likely every other day with an interim file released on the off days.

B. Regular Season - Sims twice weekly (Wednesday, Saturday), trading to week 5.

C. Postseason - Same sim schedule as regular season.

D. Presentations of Awards - Following the Super Bowl, award winners and Pro-bowl teams will be announced.

E. Stadium Plan/Relocation - See Rules on relocation.

F. Staff Hiring - See Rules on Staff/Coaches.

G. Ticket Prices/Franchise Tag - Adjust ticket prices and apply franchise tag if desired.

H. Free Agency Period 1 - Make bids on free agents.

I. Amateur Draft - Pick from rookie pool or trade picks with other owners.

J. Free Agency Period 2 - Make bids on remaining veteran free agents and undrafted rookies.

K. Training Camp - Use default settings or customize to your satisfaction.

TRADING

The following are the rules regarding trading and trading disputes for our league:

· News about players that are to potentially be traded should be posted in the “Trade Discussions” forum prior to actually announcing a trade with someone. This means that if you want to trade a player or if someone has contacted you about the availability of a player or players to be traded, you should post this information in the forum before officially announcing a trade. (If contacted about more than one player, all players asked about should be posted) This will allow any interested party time to get you an offer so you can get the maximum value for your guy, and that a player is potentially about to be traded.

· You can and are suggested to post trade blocks on the messageboard or in the MIRC room as much as possible to try and get the best possible offers’

· All proposed trades that are agreed upon by the teams involved will be under the review of the trade committee. League input on the trades is asked while the commissioner decides if a trade is valid and fair. Opposing a trade does not mean that a trade is voided, but any and all input from opposing GM’s will be weighed against the validity of a trade.

· A trade opposed by at least half of the leagues active GMs (no fewer than 8 people protesting) as stated to the commissioner will result in the automatic cancellation of the trade.

· Commissioner or League rep. can cancel a trade at any time after consulting with other reps.

OTHER RULES REGARDING TRADES

Trade Deadline

All trades must be agreed upon and passed the approval process before the simulation of the Week 5 games. No trades will then be processed between the end of Week 6 and the beginning of offseason Free Agency.

Conditional Trades

We will allow conditional trades, within reason. No conditional trades are allowed for picks beyond the upcoming year's draft (currently this means only draft picks up to the following year may be conditional). The trade committeer has final approval over allowing any conditional picks within a trade; if he finds the conditions to be excessive (either from a fairness standpoint or from a bookkeeping standpoint), the commissioner reserves the right to negate the trade.

Trades during the Rookie Draft
During any year’s given rookie draft, there is a special process in regards to trades involving draft picks that year. During the rookie draft, the trade committee evaluates all agreed-upon trades and makes a spot decision as to whether the trade fulfills all areas of possible dispute. Once the committee approves or denies, that decision is FINAL and cannot be contested or disputed.

Trades & Going Over the Cap
No trade will be approved that would result in the owner going over the salary cap. GM’s are responsible for making cap room for that player before the trade is executed. This includes trades made during a rookie draft, so be aware of your cap and how trades will affect it.

Trading Injured Players

If a trade involves an injured player, that player can be traded UNLESS the player is currently on injured reserve. Once a player is placed on injured reserve, they cannot be traded until the following offseason. Be warned that you CANNOT cut an injured player under any circumstances.

FREE AGENCY

All contracts and offers are subject to review and invalidation by the Commissioner's office. If a contract is signed that is "obviously" unfair and falls under the umbrella of unethical that GM will be forced to waive that player immediately and be unable to resign them

The “Backload Overload” Bug

One particular area of sensitivity is that of a known game bug in FOF '04 that allows owners to sign free agents to long term contracts with no signing bonus and minimum salary for the first several years and incentive-heavy money in the last two years, basically allowing an owner to play a player for 4-5 years for no money and then cut him with no penalty once his "balloon year" hits.

This is a flagrant violation of the spirit of the game. Backloaded contracts are part and parcel for the NFL, to be sure, but the above case no sane NFL player would ever sign a contract like that. Most long-term NFL contracts, depending on the talent level of the player, involve a large signing bonus and reasonable (or even unreasonable) raises each year.

ANY attempt to try to sign free agents using the bug listed above (subject to GM interpretation) will result in all signed players being immediately released from the team that signed them and will result in the expulsion of the owner. We feel this is a serious enough issue to warrant this treatment.

The other rule involving Contract Signings

After researching other leagues and how they handle the backloading of contracts, the following rule is now in place regarding contract negotiations and backloading.

In any contract negotiated by the GM and the player, the following two rules must be in place:

- Any contract longer than two years must involve a signing bonus of some sort. No NFL player would sign for longer than two years without guaranteed money. Furthermore, any contract longer than three years must have a signing bonus of no less than $1,000,000 dollars. (I do note that in contracts that would normally run this long, players generally won’t sign/resign without these things, but since this is Multiplayer, I wanted to spell this out.

- No year of the contract, regardless of length, can have an increase of more than 100% EXCEPT from Year 1 to Year 2 of a 3+ year contract/ (Example: For a four year contract, you can offer league minimum for the first year and $2 million base salary for the 2nd year, but for the 3rd year base salary cannot be above $4 million).

These two rules, I feel, bring the whole contract signing aspect of the game more in line with what the NFL does.

- A Franchise Tag can also be put on a player they should be announced before Free Agency gets underway.

CHANGING PLAYER POSITIONS

- Position changes can only be made within the following player “groupings”, with the positions listed within the brackets as the positions those players are restricted to:

QB (meaning QB’s cannot change positions)
RB/FB (RB, FB)
TE (FB, TE)
WR (FL, SE)
Offensive Line (C, G, T)
Defensive line (DE, DT, NT)
DE and OLBs (SLB, WLB, DE)
Linebackers (SLB, SILB, MLB, WILB, WLB)
Secondary (LCB, RCB, FS, SS)

- Any position changes must be posted in the Board or must be emailed to the commissioner.

- Regardless of how the switch would affect the stats, no player may switch positions more than once within a game season (defined as from staff hiring to the end of the Super Bowl) without commissioner approval.

The one exception are rookies (players in their 1st year of competition). Rookies may switch positions once prior to training camp (Makes sense if you draft a WILB, for example, to move him to MLB in a 43 defense). After training camp however, any rookie switching positions must have commissioner approval, regardless of how the stats are affected or whether the player has switched positions that season or not. This is in effect due to the game bug described above.

During a player’s rookie year, owners may change that player’s position ONCE

CHANGES TO THE OFFSEASON PROCESS (as the game runs it)

- The 20-step FA period prior to the draft will be shortened to 8 steps total, to be spread out in game 2-3 steps at a time.

- The 8-step FA period after the draft will be shortened to the first 2 steps. Steps after Step 2 will all be run at once.

PARTICIPATION

Each owner must either submit a minimum of one stage file per calendar week OR send e-mail to the commissioners weekly stating that they are not sending in stage files. Given that there are four opportunities in season per week to send in a stage file, and that we've given an alternative if you don't have time to submit that week, this is fair, we feel.

If you fail to either submit a stage file or an e-mail as stated above during a given calendar week, you get one strike for that week. Just like in baseball, three strikes = you're out. Note that as long as you keep a line of communication with us (such as telling us when you're away from the PC for awhile, etc), it's really hard to get a strike. Owners that basically walk away from the game, however, are removed more quickly in order to give new owners a chance.

Any strikes you may have during a season are reset after training camp each year, right before Preseason Game 1.

Also after each week a GM, I would like teams to submit an article after their game (like a PostGame News Conference) about the game that was just played. Other articles can be written at the discreation of the GM as well. This is not a rule yet but it would be nice if you guys do that.

Relocation

Teams are allowed to relocate within the constraints of the game.

However, for a league based on realism, we intend for this to happen only very rarely if at all. Therefore, some extra conditions must be met before relocation.

Before a team will be allowed to relocate they must announce their intentions to move on the forum one season prior to entering it in the game, so that a vote of owners may occur. The vote will take place during that regular season, and the team will have the opportunity to state his case (financial situation must be fairly dire), and all of the owners of the league will determine whether it's in the best interest of the league to allow the move.

A 2/3rds majority (21 of 31) vote will be necessary to approve a franchise move.

Set up Procedures for New Owners

Open FOF, and click on the Multiplayer Man icon on the top toolbar. This will bring up the Multiplayer window, and you'll need this window open any time you load the league in the future. In that menu, click on "Enter New Career." In the resulting menu, select "participant". Enter the league ID as FFEFLEFL, choose your team and select 'Begin Without Draft'.

Download the latest league files. Place these files, as well as any box scores and game logs into the "leagues" sub-folder found within your FOF install folder.

Back in FOF, and making sure the Multiplayer window is open, click on "Load Game." Select Participant, choose your team and load the league.

Once you have loaded the league, you can make nearly all changes yourself within the game, and they will all be sent in your export to the commissioner. You can make roster cuts, depth chart decisions, gameplan changes, etc.

**Note - Make sure you do not exit the game while making these changes. The game will not save your changes so you need to do everything you want to do and hit "Export Stage File." If you close the game, you'll lose all your changes. If you export before you're ready and close the game, you'll have to make all your changes again and export again.

Lastly, once you hit "Export Stage File," you'll take that file (located in your "export" sub-folder within your FOF install folder) and return it to your commish.

We have a MIRC room. The room is on the STARCHAT server and the room name is EFL, Participation in the #EFL room is not Mandatory but I would like to see people come into the room.

99% of league activity will take place in the MIRC room. Highlights, drafts, free agency announcements will be announced LIVE before the ZIP goes up. The room is on the Starchat server, room EFL.

This rules set is a continual work in progress. If you cannot find the answer to a question either through this sheet or through the articles in the link above, please contact us at ShakesRK@aol.com and we will do our best to answer your questions for you.

SPECIAL THANKS:

We would like to thank the Adam from the NAFL for allowing to use some of his rules.