RFL Rules

Basics

The Commissioner of any official Realistic Football League™, like any other Fantasy Football Commissioner, is an extremely-important part of the process.

While the original RFL Commissioner oversees the Official Leagues, there are others who choose to use their own rules. In any case, there are certain basic procedures that every Fantasy Football Commissioner should adhere to. While every Commissioner will need some free-time for the basic paperwork, the biggest single problem they will face is that they have to listen to all complaints or problems.

Whether or not they participate in the league as an owner, a Commissioner should have the following qualities;

• Be trustworthy. Nobody will continue to participate in a league run by a cheater.
• Be fair and impartial. Do not favor any team, including your own, over another. The continued existence of your league will depend upon this.
• Consider the stated rules when faced with any disputes and/or decisions. Almost any football situation will be covered by the existing rules, if you examine them thoroughly.
• Most disputes will arise from an owner's personal desire. They could care less what you decide the next time it comes up, as long as it benefits them today. Be very careful of this when making a decision, as it is unfair to the other players.
• Be consistent. Always consider how your decision will impact things in the future. Once you make a decision on a matter, handle that situation the same way every time and it eliminates future complaints. You don't want your league to fall apart because you made a bad decision, but definitely correct things if it turns out that you were previously wrong.
• Never let your personal feelings influence a decision. This is not your league; it depends upon, and belongs to, everyone who is participating. If you forget that, you will soon find yourself alone.
• Be firm. Once you make a ruling, it should be final—unless you have made an error.
• Players ("Owners") are going to complain (especially new players). It's inevitable. Use prior owners to your advantage, because they will be used to the rules and your way of overseeing the league. Existing players resist change, because they prepare in a certain manner and count on things to stay the same. These are your best friends when you need backup in making decisions and explaining things to new players. It helps to poll existing players for feedback when making decisions.
• Be polite and answer questions. Once players get used to this unique system, they tend to love it. Have some patience with new players until they catch on. Remind them that this was meant to be different from other types of Fantasy Football.

You will be new at this also. If you need assistance on a matter, contact us and we'll try to help. It is our goal to have this great system catch on with more people, and we don't mind helping along the way. The original Commissioner has vast experience with the RFL (He created it) and there is probably nothing he hasn't already heard or seen at some point.

Participation as an Owner

Complaints of cheating should never be a problem, since you should immediately be providing your weekly lineup to your opponent just like everyone else. However, you will run across owners who feel that you have an advantage in some manner. In some way you might, because you know weekly results and transactions before everyone else, but that can be a meaningless advantage and the only alternative is that you do a lot of work and don't get to play.

If you are a trustworthy person, then don't sweat it. If you aren't trustworthy, then you very quickly won't have anyone willing to play in your league anyway.

Make every attempt to let others immediately know what you are doing with your own team transactions and lineups. The biggest problem is that roster transactions are First-come, First-served. When someone is trying to get the same player that you want, you will need a way to prove that your own transaction came first, or you could face complaints.

This problem can be handled in a variety of ways:

• Have another owner designated to accept your transactions and verifiy the times that you made them. (This is least-desirable, but works when everyone does not have internet access)
• If everyone has internet access; use a group e-mail, where every owner receives a notice of all transactions at the same time.
• Use a web site or voice-mail system to show real-time transactions (That's what we do). It's hard to argue when they can see or hear it before they attempt to make a transaction.

It isn't as much fun, but it's actually easier for the Commissioner not to participate as a team in the league. If you try to run more than one league, definitely consider limiting your participation as an owner to that league. The main reason is that you are available as an emergency replacement owner if someone decides not to show up on Draft Day (There is nothing worse than having to tell a bunch of eager owners to go home). Since you want to draft close to the start of the NFL season (to avoid selecting injured players), a No-Show owner risks a delay that would alter your entire RFL schedule.

If you have more than one No-Show owner at a Fantasy Football draft, you definitely need to find some new friends. But remember that it's possible to draft and play with less than 8 owners, it just requires some schedule adjustments.

Disputes and Voting Procedures

The cure for most disputes is very simple—make a ruling and move on. It's just a game.

The ultimate goal of this is to have some fun with your friends. If they didn't like you, they would not have agreed to participate. If someone has a problem with you and you haven't done anything wrong, then let them accept the ruling or let them leave. A league cannot be run without a Commissioner (Who would cook the hot dogs at the Draft?), and a Commissioner cannot function properly with constant headaches.

For major disputes or situations, the Commissioner should allow all uninvolved owners to hold a vote (If the Commissioner is also an uninvolved owner, they are also allowed to vote) and honor a majority-rule decision, providing this can be done before it affects the scoring of any games. In the event of a tie in voting, the Commissioner then retains full authority to make the final decision. In any case, it's best to use a majority vote when the Commissioner is an involved party to the dispute.

Commissioner Duties

There are a variety of duties, including handling whatever comes up during the season, but there are basic responsibilities for any Commissioner:

• Create and distribute results, standings, forms and notices to owners in a timely manner.
• Handle all disputes and rule interpretations.
• Enable a group communication system between all players and yourself.
• Strictly enforce time limits during the draft. If you don't, there is usually at least one unprepared person who will make the draft last all day long (and ruin any Post-Draft party).
• Keep a master list of the Draft.
• Maintain all current rosters and track F/A Points used.
• Track and maintain a list of all roster transactions.
• Track and maintain a Disabled List for injured players and their replacements.
• Track and maintain a Waiver Wire List for released players.
• Enable a system for owners to get opponent lineups when NFL games start.
• Maintain all weekly lineups.
• Score each game correctly.
• Create a monthly newsletter (Optional, but it's fun).
• Do not involve yourself in reminding others about roster or lineup mistakes. This is unfair to their opponents.
• Monitor and enforce that lineup starters are not altered after they have started playing in their games.
• Have some fun with it—it's good to be the boss! Create some fun awards or certificates to hand out (Toilet Bowl awards present a wide realm of possibilities for laughter).

I know it sounds like a ton of work, but running a league by hand or PC isn't that bad. It was only when we added more leagues (due to extremely high demand from friends, relatives, etc.) that it became way too much to handle or I'd have lost my day job. That's when I created the RFL Software—and it was a life-saver.

The main benefit of the software is time-management. I only have to enter the scoring one time, and clicking for roster transactions is a breeze. After that, I push a few buttons and everything is computed and printed automatically. With A-17 making the weekly RFL scoring downloadable from the internet, you don't even have to enter the stats each week!

With the software and a color printer, I had everyone remarking on how great the RFL was. Give it consideration over running your league manually. The software even creates HTML that you can use on your web site. If you want to be 'Big-Time', it's the only way to go!

Miscellaneous

Occasionally, 'creative' team owners or other circumstances may cause strange situations to occur which are not explicitly-covered in the RFL rules. In any such situation, the Commissioner has sole authority to settle the dispute and make a ruling. The Commissioner should consider allowing teams to voice their opinions on the matter before making a final decision.

The Commissioner should attempt to adhere to the intent of all existing rules when making a decision, and afterwards conform to that ruling if the same situation occurs. Any changes to the new rule should be made during the off-season, so the owners are prepared in advance of a recurrance.

Throughout the years, the original RFL league has settled many different types of situations. If there are any questions, the original Commissioner can give you his opinion as to how he would officially rule on a matter (He's seen it all). You may contact him from this site.