BFFL 2020 Preview

On Sunday August 23rd, 11:00 AM PST, our draft day festivities will begin virtually. The tentative schedule for the events will be as follows:
11:00 – Virtual Trophy Ceremony
11:05 – Owner’s Meeting Elections (See below)
11:25 – Rule Proposals and Open Floor
12:00 – Virtual Envelope Selection Process
12:10 – Break/Strategy Session (Longer if needed for lunch)
12:25 – Draft Begins (Estimated 4 hours)

More information to follow on Slack in the coming weeks. Before the draft begins, we will hold our owner’s meeting. A couple of GMs have reached out with some updates they would like to propose, but before we proceed with business we have a couple of seats open for election including:
League Manager: New Position as a result of 2019 rule changes, 3 year term.
Assistant League Manager: Vacated seat as Mr. Bradley has retired, 2 year term.
Competition Committee, North representative: Incumbent is Dennis, 2 year term.
Competition Committee, East representative: Incumbent is Ryan Poole, 2 year term.

With four open seats for election this will be the biggest shakeup in the administration since the inception of the league. I would recommend reading the BFFL 2020 Rules Recap league page update that detailed the roles and responsibilities of the league manager separate from the commissioner as well as other rules to be enforced in 2020. Another big task for the league before the draft will be to reallocate the prize structure and increased payouts due to the increased buy-in passed last season. The BFFL expects to see substantial increases in prize money for the winner and runner up in addition to money being allocated to the fantasy awards. Starting last season the fantasy awards were voted on by the league and will now have monetary prizes. This could potentially incentivize people to making the next great trade, scour the waiver wire for the league winning free agent and hopefully foster the competitive spirit within the league more than ever. I highly recommend people attend our dress rehearsal draft technical test to be held on Wednesday August 12th at 8:00 PM PST (more details in Slack).

We will be heading into arguably the most challenging season of fantasy football in league history. With the uncertainty of COVID-19 it is reasonable to assume there will be some procedural updates from the league within the season if a large population of players are threatened, and other foreseen issues. It could be as substantial as a shortened, possibly canceled season. Without a bubble, players will test positive. Players play through the common cold and other minor illnesses quite often. If a player shows up with a high temperature on gameday that is from the common cold, that may no longer be an option to have them play through minor illness. A team wide outbreak could threaten to postpone games as well. If games are outright cancelled and there are an uneven amount of games played from all teams, that would obviously have a large ripple effect on fantasy football leagues across the world. The Competition Committee has shown a swift response with the passing of the COVID-19 Stimulus Bill last month and may be called upon to enact further emergency powers should the season be threatened.

Hopefully all games can be played and a fair winner will be determined. However it is inevitable that players will test positive or false positive and be placed on the COVID list. Somebody (possibly multiple teams) will get unfairly sabotaged with multiple players testing positive. The expanded IR slots and free agent acquisitions will hopefully mitigate some of these frustrating setbacks and help a team to replenish their rosters if necessary. I encourage all General Managers to do their best to manage free agent acquisitions wisely this year and utilize trades more than ever before as additional transactions when needed to improve your roster. This could be as simple as trading bench depth for bench depth just to ensure you have enough active players heading into the playoffs when that time comes late in the season.

It’s never easy to predict how a team will utilize a new player but consider the following three cases this season:
1.) A player traded to a new team
2.) A new coach and/or offensive/defensive scheme(s) overhaul
3.) Rookies entering the league

With only an approximate fourteen days of padded practice (available to every team but they don’t have to utilize it and probably won’t) and no preseason, players may need to use meaningful NFL regular season games to learn schemes, adjust to their new teams or adjust to the league entirely which could lead to slow starts, early slumps and a lot of early season trading/roster overhauls. This will most certainly affect how people think about the draft and weigh the talent of a rookie versus their opportunity and learning curve in the league. Because of this you may be able to score some excellent value on rookies this year in the draft or get burned in the process.

Another thing you should be aware of is the smaller preseason rosters. Most teams (with the notable exception of the Detroit Lions) will opt to have a smaller league mandated roster during their training camp so they can practice in one facility versus having two separate facilities due to number of personnel allowed in a single practice facility. This is significant because with fewer opportunities, talented players may get cut and end up on active rosters somewhere else down the line and it would be nearly impossible to predict which no-name player will emerge with a prominent role and become a meaningful contributor on a fantasy roster…and there is no preseason to debut these players to a national audience. This season will require the most active scouting of NFL team transactions throughout the season because somebody we are not even aware of may become a factor down the road.

This will certainly go down as an interesting season and possibly a disaster. I encourage all General Managers to reach out to their Competition Committee representatives and voice any concerns during draft day so we can work together as a league to help mitigate preventable issues this season. Thank you all for ten great seasons in the book with this league and hopefully many more to come in the future. Good luck to all general managers and may the best man win!

If you have any recommendations for more upcoming content, please feel free to reach out to me.