NFFC To Introduce Keeper Leagues In 2020

[Greg Ambrosius]

Every year the NFFC looks at the growing fantasy football marketplace and wonders if there's a new format or contest that we could add for our players. I mean, we've grown from a 14-team national contest to a 12-team national contest to a Draft Champions national contest, to a Best Ball national contest to high-stakes private contests. We've never stopped coming up with new ideas.

And this year we are ready to expand in another area. In 2020, the NFFC will offer NFFC Keeper Leagues.

These aren't Dynasty Leagues, rather they are Keeper Leagues with a more limited number of players you will retain from year-to-year. We are proposing only five "keepers" per year and those players move up one round from where you drafted them each year. So if this year you got Lamar Jackson in the 10th round and you kept him for next year, he would be slotted as your 9th round pick. You could keep him each year after that a round earlier as well.

We have a lot of the details written, but we still have a lot of things that we need to iron out. And we're asking for your help in those areas. So first let's get to the details of the NFFC Keeper Leagues and then ask for your feedback.

Here's the details:

NFFC KEEPER LEAGUES
Game Information
Entry Fee: $250 (plus $100 deposit), $500 (plus $150 deposit) & $1,000 (plus $200 deposit). All deposits are put toward the 3rd year entry when the same owner returns for Year 3.
Teams Per League: 12
Prizes: Pay Top 3

Overview:
The NFFC Keeper League will consist of private leagues of 12 teams each.

There will be a 2 week "All Play" format to start the season in Weeks 1 and 2 where the top 6 scoring teams in each of those weeks get a Win and the bottom 6 scoring teams get a Loss. Then teams will play every other team in their league once in head-to-head competition from week 3 to 13. Four teams will make the Championship Round where teams will carry their weekly scoring average from Weeks 1-13 and add that score to their scores in Weeks 14, 15 and 16. The highest scoring team in the Championship Round is the league champion and prizes will be paid to the Top 3 finishers.

NFFC Keeper Leagues require a deposit along with the initial entry fee (so $100 deposit with a $250 entry). The deposit is lost when an owner abandons a keeper league within the first two years, which allows the NFFC to more easily sell orphaned teams. Even orphaned teams will require a deposit. The deposit is put toward the third-year entry fee when the same owner returns for Year 3 of his/her Keeper League.

Prizes
The team with the best H2H record after Week 13 will earn $250 (double for $500 and 4x for $1,000 leagues) and the team with the most total points after Week 13 will earn $250 (double for $500 and 4x for $1,000 leagues). One team can win both prizes.

The Top 4 teams will advance to the league Championship Round. Teams will carry their weekly scoring average from Weeks 1-13 into the Championship Round and add that total to their scoring totals in Weeks 14, 15 and 16. The highest scoring team in the Championship Round after Week 16 wins the league prize.

League playoff qualifiers from each league include:
• Seed #1: Best H2H record (total points is the tie-breaker)
• Seed #2: Most total points (next most total points if H2H champ had more points)
• Seed #3: Next most total points
• Seed #4: Next most total points

League prizes are awarded to the top 3 teams in the following format:
• 1st Place: Most points in the Championship Round
• 2nd Place: Next most points in the Championship Round
• 3rd Place: Next most points in the Championship Round

League Prizes - $250 Leagues
1st Place - $1,250
2nd Place - $500
3rd Place - $250
League head-to-head regular season champion - $250
League Total Points regular season champion - $250

League Prizes - $500 Leagues
1st Place - $2,500
2nd Place - $1,000
3rd Place - $500
League head-to-head regular season champion - $500
League Total Points regular season champion - $500

League Prizes - $1,000 Leagues
1st Place - $5,000
2nd Place - $2,000
3rd Place - $1,000
League head-to-head regular season champion - $1,000
League Total Points regular season champion - $1,000

Rosters
Roster Requirements: Maximum of 20 players at all times
Starting Lineup Requirements
Starting lineups will consist of:
• 1 Quarterback
• 2 Running Backs
• 3 Wide Receivers
• 1 Tight End
• 1 Flex (RB, WR, TE)
• 1 Kicker
• 1 Team Defense / Special Teams

Keeper Guidelines:
Each team in each league is allowed to keep a maximum of 5 players (and you can keep less if you want) from the previous year. The players that are kept are bumped up 2 rounds from where they were drafted in the previous year. So if Lamar Jackson was a 10th round pick in 2019, he can be kept as an 8th round pick in 2020. Anyone drafted in Rounds 1, 2 or 3 and kept the next year will be kept as a 1st round pick. If you have multiple players who would qualify as a 1st round pick, then it would fall to the next round, meaning they’d qualify as 1st and 2nd round picks (and even 3rd round for a third player who would move up to 1st round status). The deadline for designating each team’s 5 keepers is April 1st.

Drafts will be scheduled after May 1st for the various leagues. Undrafted free agents who were picked up during the season via FAAB will be designated as Round 15 keepers the following year. If you keep multiple players who were undrafted free agents, the designations would be Round 15, Round 16, etc.

Trades Between Managers:
Trading is allowed in the NFFC Keeper League. All trades will be submitted for review on the NFFC Keepers League site and will be approved or denied by the NFFC Commissioner. All decisions are final. Teams can trade future draft picks for current players, but no team can ever have more than 20 players at one time. Teams that have less than 20 players after a trade will have the ability to pick up a free agent via FAAB without cutting a player.

Scorings, Free Agents
Same scoring as all NFFC leagues and same FAAB as all NFFC leagues. NFFC Keeper Leagues will use $1,000 FAAB and have Free Agent pickups each Wednesday and Friday from Week 1 through Week 13.


We will create a platform that will allow for trade offers and will also show traded picks for the next year when they are done. We will have a platform that will evaluate the fairness of all trades and will have one person dedicated to allowing or disallowing those trades. All decisions made by that NFFC Commissioner will be final.

We believe that Keeper Leagues will be another way to keep our owners engaged during the off-season and active during February, March and April. This year no drafts will be held before the NFL Draft and we'll host Keeper League drafts after that. We will form leagues before that and if you have a group that wants to form its own private Keeper League we can arrange for that as well. We know this could be another way for many of you who have formed friendships through the NFFC to enjoy another competitive league together and trading of draft picks or players could be something unique to our format for you.

Anyway, we look forward to your feedback and are excited to jump into this space. We know that the high-stakes market already has Dynasty Leagues, but we think a format with fewer keepers could make each year a little more interesting and fun. We await your feedback and will finalize this format shortly. Thanks all and enjoy.

[Coltsfan]

I really like this Greg! I was wanting to do add some dynasty leagues this year so this is great timing.

For me the price point is perfect, 80% payout seems fair, I love the scoring systme, the playoff format and the prize distribution.

My only concern is the 1 round per year on the keeper. I might look at a couple of rounds just to make it a bit easier on teams to rebuild. Obviously I love the thought of drafting players early an building a monster team but it's probably not in the best interest of the contest to make is so that leagues will quickly become unbalanced with little hopes of recovering.

You might want to make a strong deposit for the next year - especially when trading first round picks. Great idea!



Wayne

[Greg Ambrosius]

I really like this Greg! I was wanting to do add some dynasty leagues this year so this is great timing.

For me the price point is perfect, 80% payout seems fair, I love the scoring systme, the playoff format and the prize distribution.

My only concern is the 1 round per year on the keeper. I might look at a couple of rounds just to make it a bit easier on teams to rebuild. Obviously I love the thought of drafting players early an building a monster team but it's probably not in the best interest of the contest to make is so that leagues will quickly become unbalanced with little hopes of recovering.

You might want to make a strong deposit for the next year - especially when trading first round picks. Great idea!

Wayne

Great feedback Wayne. We are really looking for that feedback on the rounds. Moving it to 2 rounds is kind of our thought, too, but wanted to see feedback. A lot of local Keeper Leagues use 1 round, but the higher-stakes leagues may need 2 rounds to keep owners in place for years and years.

We are thinking of a deposit with these teams to help in case we have any turnover with these teams. Obviously, the fewer teams in each league that you have to fill the better for the league. And a $100 deposit would help in that cause, but we haven't finalized that yet.

Again, great feedback and keep 'em coming.

[Steel Lugnuts]

I'm sure a lot of people are new to keeper leagues and would like to jump in, but the $250 fee may be too much, I'm thinking add a $100 league.

And definitely need to add some sort of deposit for the following year if future draft picks are included in a trade, we had a guy trade all his picks for players to try and win that year, then quit the following year. That's the main reason I quit that keeper league.

The dynasty league I'm in does have this stipulation put in place, and was worked great. Of course, this is one league where the designated commish oversees and handles it to make sure it happens, not sure how it would work with NFFC overseeing multiple leagues. I suppose the league could designate one commish (or two co-commishes), to make sure the rules are followed.

[Coltsfan]

Is this still a possibility this year?


Wayne

[eliasond]

What happens if you have 2 players you want to keep that would both be designated as 1st rounders? Does 1 become a 2nd rounder or are you only allowed to keep 1 of those 2 players?

Related question - what if you want to keep 2 undrafted free agents next year? One is a 15th rounder, what is the second one? 14th round, 16th round, or you can only keep one such player?

[Coltsfan]

I think my biggest fear is that this makeup will be all about who hits on the late round pick that breaks out. You can have great drafts rounds 1-6 but it doesn't matter very much as most get tossed back in the fold and you start over each year. I have never played in a keeper league before - only dynasty. The Arian Foster type of players will dominate for years in this setup since you have to give up 75% of your core each year.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Is this still a possibility this year?


Wayne

Yes. We haven't posted the link yet because we were debating one aspect of it. I think we're ready to unveil.

[Greg Ambrosius]

What happens if you have 2 players you want to keep that would both be designated as 1st rounders? Does 1 become a 2nd rounder or are you only allowed to keep 1 of those 2 players?

Related question - what if you want to keep 2 undrafted free agents next year? One is a 15th rounder, what is the second one? 14th round, 16th round, or you can only keep one such player?

Correct, 1 of them would be your 2nd round pick. So you'd be keeping your 1st and 2nd round picks.

15th and 16th round picks. We'll have to spell that aspect out in the rules.

[Greg Ambrosius]

I think my biggest fear is that this makeup will be all about who hits on the late round pick that breaks out. You can have great drafts rounds 1-6 but it doesn't matter very much as most get tossed back in the fold and you start over each year. I have never played in a keeper league before - only dynasty. The Arian Foster type of players will dominate for years in this setup since you have to give up 75% of your core each year.

Correct, but that's why we are offering a Keeper League rather than a Dynasty League. In a Dynasty League, someone can throw a few years away by grabbing low round bargains and then kill it for years and years and years. In this Keeper format, you are only keeping 5 players each year, and while you may have a nice advantage with an Arian Foster type, it's not like you are keeping your entire starting roster. You still need to go back into the draft and build around that core group of five keepers.

I think it's interesting and intriguing on how to win now, while still winning in future leagues.

We are struggling with the deposit needed to own a keeper team because inevitably someone is going to abandon a team and we'll be stuck trying to sell it. The deposit will help us sell a team at a fair cost for the new buyer, so we're coming up with that cost before launching this. Stay tuned and we should have this live soon. We definitely want to get it on Registration before the NFL Draft and then start hosting drafts after that. Thanks all.