RFL Rules

Overview

Every sports fan loves a good playoff system. The RFL provides incentive for losing teams to continue active participation through the end of the season, by maximizing the amount of teams who get to play in a Bowl Game.

Qualifying

After the completion of the Regular Season, the RFL Playoffs begin. In a standard 8-team league, there are 4 Bowl Games which provide a chance for every team to participate in extra games.

While every team gets to play in a Bowl Game, only the top 4 finishers from the Regular Season will have a chance to become the RFL League Champion by winning the prestigious RFL Bowl.

There are two separate Playoff Brackets;

• Championship Playoffs — The Championship Playoff Bracket consists of the 4 highest finishers from the RFL Regular Season. The teams are seeded by rank and compete in Round 1. The winners of the first-round games then play in the RFL Bowl for the League Championship. The losers of the first-round games move on to play in the Finger Bowl.
• Consolation Playoffs — The Consolation Playoff Bracket contains the bottom 4 finishers from the Regular Season. Teams are seeded by rank and compete in Round 1. The winners of the first-round games play in the Cereal Bowl, while the first-round losers play in the lowly Toilet Bowl.

Throughout the Playoffs, the team with the higher Regular Season finish is always the Home Team in any game.

Playoffs — (Bracket View)

Bowl Games

Each Bowl Game holds a different level of honor and prestige:

• RFL Bowl — This is the RFL Championship game, named the RFL Bowl for obvious reasons.
• Finger Bowl — This is the battle for 3rd Place in the Playoffs. We named it this because a Finger Bowl isn't the greatest thing in the world, but it's still a classy item.
• Cereal Bowl — This is the battle for 5th Place in the Playoffs. We named it this because a cereal bowl isn't very important, but it beats having nothing at all.
• Toilet Bowl — The battle for 7th Place in the Playoffs. It mostly exists to give the lowest-ranked team one last chance to avoid the stigma of being the worst. We named it this because "if you're in it, you stink" (It is a longstanding RFL tradition for the Toilet Bowl loser to be greeted with a hearty flushing sound of "Sploosh!" from the other owners during the entire off-season).

All-Pro Bowl

After the Bowl Games are completed, the All-Pro Bowl is played. This exhibition game is the RFL version of an All-Star game, and is strictly for fun (although we do keep track of the participants and take a little pride in having our players selected).

Alternate Scenarios

The standard RFL league consists of 8 teams. Although it is possible to play with a different amount of teams, 8 is highly recommended.

RFL roster requirements make it a bit tougher to play with more than 8 teams (16 is the maximum you could have with the current 32-team NFL.). However, if there are more than 8 teams it is recommended to add more Bowl Games, since it isn't much fun to leave some of your owners with nothing to do during the last few weeks of the season while everyone else is still playing. It also helps prevent the lower teams from giving up and quitting towards the end of the season. Believe it or not, players look forward to any type of Bowl Game—half the fun is wondering which one they'll be in.

If there are an odd number of teams in the league, the last-place finisher in the Regular Season standings should always be left out of the Playoffs (at least they'll preserve their First Pick in the next Draft).

If there are less than 8 teams in the league (6 being the bare minimum), the Consolation Round games (Games 3 and 4) and the Cereal Bowl are not played. The 5th and 6th Place teams would play in the Toilet Bowl and any 7th Place team would be eliminated from all Playoffs.

Draft Order

The following season's Draft Order is determined by Bowl Game results, and not the Regular Season standings:

• Toilet Bowl loser
• Toilet Bowl winner
• Cereal Bowl loser
• Cereal Bowl winner
• Finger Bowl loser
• Finger Bowl winner
• RFL Bowl loser
• RFL Bowl winner

NOTE: If any team does not return for the following season, all other returning teams below that spot will move up. Expansion teams always Draft behind returning teams—the RFL rewards loyalty.

You should note that it could be better for you to let the winner of each Bowl Game get the higher pick in the Draft, because you might have unscrupulous owners trying to lose on purpose. We had someone try it once, and it was pretty obvious as he demanded to play injured players and leave half his lineup blank (which I refused to allow). He still managed to lose, but I made him do it legitimately.

I say once because I kicked the rookie and his "first pick next year" right out of the league. I made sure that everyone knew why and that it would not be tolerated. Luckily, our players love the game so much that not being invited back would be devastating to them. The parties, the smack-talk, the games ... it would all be gone.

That's one way to handle it—boot them out the door—but there are ways to try and prevent it. As I mentioned, you could allow the winner of the Bowl Game to pick before the loser. That doesn't stop someone from throwing games to get into a lower Bowl, but most teams aren't eliminated early enough to try that.

If it's legal in your area (You'll have to check), you could have everyone pay some kind of fee to play and award prizes later. Prizes are always a good incentive.

Don't sweat it too much. We've kept the Draft Order as it is, because we've learned is that it's a move that only rookies would try. Any veteran RFL owner knows that there is no real difference between first and second pick, because there are plenty of stars to go around when you've only got 8 teams.

Miscellaneous

Prior to the establishment of the current 17-week NFL season and Bye Weeks for teams, the RFL followed other formats. Early on, the RFL had a 6-team league which forced them to play a Doubleheader in Week 14 and face two teams each. The Toilet Bowl was forced to be played during the First Round and the All-Pro Bowl during Bowl Week, due to the 16-week season.

While various formats had to be adopted as the NFL changed, the current system has been in place for many years and works perfectly with 8-team leagues and 17 weeks. Week 17 is limited to the All-Pro Bowl, since many good players sit out the final week in preparation for the NFL Playoffs.