The Rules of SUFFL
updated Aug. 2005 or something like that

Legislative History (Google Group)

1. The League
2. Keeper Rule
3. Draft
4. Weekly Play
5. Scoring
6. Trades
7. Waiver Periods
8. Haupt Trophy
Appendix A - Rule Change History
Appendix B - Rejected Rule Changes

1. The League

1.1 Teams
There are currently 10 Teams in the League owned by 15 active League Owners. Intent to form or break alliances should be made known to the League as soon as such agreements are made. Previous owners may return to League play at the start of any season. A new Owner will be admitted to the League by the Commissioner at his discretion based on an informal survey of Owner opinion. As with all actions performed by the Commissioner, he shall act in the best interest of the League.

1.2 League Office
The League Office consists of Matt Rumbaugh, League Commissioner, and Andy McHargue, League Statistician and Webmaster. The Office resolves most issues regarding trades, rosters, and scoring, but for cases in which additional input may be desirable, the Office may consult with League Owners with appropriate expertise and/or passion. The right is reserved for the Commissioner to rule on special circumstances as he sees fit for the benefit of the league.

1.3 Official Website
The official League website, SUFFL.com, is the central source of information about the League. It contains the current standings, these rules, contact information for all League Owners, and other useful links.

1.4 Other Websites
Secondary websites are the Sportsline.com site, which contains League statistics and rosters, and the Yahoo Groups site, which contains an email archive of discussion on various topics by the League Owners. Other websites such as SUFFL fan sites and imitation SUFFL leagues are allowed by the League, but the League does not take responsibility for any rumors or false information they might contain, nor does the League acknowledge any official connection to them.

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2. Keeper Rule

2.1 Description
A Team may retain one player as a "keeper" from its year-end roster for the following season. The Team gives up its First Round draft pick in order to keep a player. A player may only be kept for one additional year; a Team may not keep the same player in consecutive years. Trading and re-acquiring a player does not renew a Team's right to keep him. Retaining a keeper is not mandatory; a Team which does not keep a player makes a draft selection in the first round of the Draft.
2.2 Process
Each Team declares its keeper decision in the order of finish of the previous year, champion first. Thus each Team can see the players that are being released from the teams which declare before it, and either decides to excercise the right to keep one of its own, or waives that right in hopes of drafting a new player in the first round of the Draft. The deadline for keepers to be declared is two weeks prior to the draft.
2.3 Injury Compensation
In the event a Team's declared keeper incurs a season-ending injury prior to the Draft, the Team may either declare a different player as keeper, or may waive the right to keep a player and make a draft selection in the first round of the Draft.

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3. Draft

3.1 Draft Participation
At least one Owner from each Team is expected to participate in the live draft. In the event neither Owner is able to participate, the Team should appoint another Owner to draft on its behalf, preferably based on a draft list to be provided by the absent Owners. The draft is generally held on the last Saturday in August, though the date may be changed to accommodate the Owners.

3.2 Draft Trades
Draft picks may be traded before or during the draft. The picks may be traded for other players, other picks, or any combination thereof. There is no limit on the number or complexity of such trades, but a Team must make sure to conform to the roster spot requirements below.

3.3 Draft Order
(a) Beginning with the 2001 Draft, the Draft Order is determined by the Pick-Your-SpotTM method: The Teams select their place in the Draft Order, based on the previous year's standings: the last place finisher picking fist, the second-to-last place finisher picking next, etc. until the first place finisher makes the final spot selection, and the Draft Order is established. The deadline to establish the Draft Order is one week prior to the draft.
(b) The draft snakes, so that the first round follows the Draft Order, the second round is drafted in reverse order, and the order continues to alternate for the remainder of the draft.

3.4 Draft Process
The draft is conducted live by phone, online, or both. An official central draft board (should be online) is updated as each pick is made, and all Owners are notified of the selection. All owners should stay abreast of which players are still available. There is a five minute time limit on making a draft selection. If the Team on the clock fails to make a selection within five minutes, the next Team with the next pick may make a selection. The skipped Team may make its selection whenever it is able.

3.5 Roster Spot Requirements
Each Team must make (including the keeper) a total of 18 draft selections -- 2 quarterbacks, 4 running backs, 4 wide receivers, 2 kickers, and 2 teams for defense/special teams, and 4 players at any position. SUFFL does not have a tight end position, but tight ends may be drafted as wide receivers. In the event it is discovered after the draft is completed that a Team has failed to meet these requirements, the Team will be required to add and drop players to meet them.

3.6 Injury Compensation
In the event a player who is drafted by a Team is found to be already injured, or becomes injured before the start of the season, the Team may drop the injured player and add an undrafted player to his roster. If the injury is discovered after the start of the season, note that the Team is free to select a replacement player during any waiver period as described below.

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4. Weekly Play

4.1 The Active Roster
The active roster consists of 8 roster spots: one quarterback (QB), two running backs (RB), two wide receivers (WR), one utility player (UT), one kicker (K), one team for defense/special teams (D/ST). The utility player may be either a RB or WR. A Team's active roster is determined by the most recent depth chart it has submitted, pursuant to §4.5 below.

4.2 The Depth Chart
A Team's depth chart is a ranking of its players at each position, in the order the Team prefers to insert them into the active roster in the event a player listed as active does not play for any reason (most commonly an unknown injury or bye week). Even if a player does not play due to the coach's decision, he will be considered inactive.

4.3 Weekly Depth Chart Submission
Each Team is expected to submit a depth chart every week to clarify its intent. This serves to avoid disputes about which players a Team "meant" to play. The roster should be submitted at least to the League Statistican, and preferably to the entire league. E-mail is preferable, though last-minute changes may be called in by phone. The depth chart should be in the following condensed format, and should contain the entire roster, or at least as many backups as starters at each position:
QB:
RB:
WR:
UT:
K:
D/ST: 		Montana (Unitas, Bradshaw)
Payton, BSanders (see bench under UT)
Rice, Lofton (see bench under UT)
ESmith (Dickerson, Ellard, AReed, Largent, Monk, Dorsett)
GAnderson (GBlanda)
Pittsburgh (Oakland)
4.4 Depth Chart Carryover
The default depth chart for Week 1 is the order in which the players were drafted. In each successive week, the default depth chart is simply the previous week's depth chart. Thus if a player is benched because he is injured or has a bye week, and no depth chart is submitted when he returns to action, he remains on the bench. Exceptions will be made only in the most obvious cases.

4.5 Process for Determining Active Roster from Depth Chart
(a) Generally, if the starters play they are active; if not, they will be replaced by bench players. What follows is a more detailed explanation.
(b) The depth chart serves as a starting point for determining a Team's active lineup for a given week. For QB, K, and D/ST, if the starter did in fact play, the starter is active; if not, the first player listed on the bench who played will be substituted into the active roster in place of the injured player. For RB, WR, and UT, the bench for all three positions is specified under UT so that it can serve all three positions: if a RB does not play, the first RB on the bench will replace him; if a WR does not play, the first WR on the bench will replace him; and if the UT does not play, the first player listed regardless of position will replace him.
(c) Whether a player played or not is determined by the Gamebooks available from NFL.com. If a player steps onto the field for one play, he will be considered to have played, even if he does not accumlate any statistics available in simplified boxscores that appear in most newspapers.
(d) Examples: In the example above, if Montana does not play, but neither does Unitas, then Bradshaw will be active; if GAnderson does not play, GBlanda will be active; if Pittsburgh is on bye week, or it's the playoffs and they have been eliminated, Oakland will be active; if BSanders does not play, Dickerson will be active; if BSanders and ESmith both do not play, Dickerson and Dorsett (the first 2 RBs listed) will be active; if Rice does not play, Ellard will be active; if Rice and ESmith both do not play, Dickerson will be active for ESmith, Ellard for Rice; if Payton, Rice, Lofton, and ESmith all do not play, Dickerson will be active for Payton, Ellard for Rice, and AReed for Lofton, and Largent for ESmith.


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5. Scoring

I.  Points for the Standings:

A. 10 teams =
        10 points for 1st place in a week
        9 for 2nd
        8 for 3rd
        7 for 4th
        6 for 5th
        5 for 6th
        4 for 7th
        3 for 8th
        2 for 9th
        1 for 10th

Notes:
(1) Ties for weekly standings are resolved by awarding the average number points earned by all teams tied at a place in the week's standings to each team.  For example,
 Team  Pts  Pts for standings
    A  129  10
    B  118  8.5
    C  118  8.5
    D  105  7
    E  102  5
    F  102  5
    G  102  5
    H  99   3
    I  90   2
    J  54   1
(2) Ties for season standings are resolved by the following criteria, in order:
(a) Total raw points.
(b) Head-to-head win/loss record.
(c) Total number of first place finishes.
(d) Win/loss record vs. highest finishing team besides the teams in question.
(e) Highest individual scorer.

B. PLAYOFFS
    During the playoffs, if a Team has no active players at any position, the Team does not earn any points for the standings.  In this example, Teams H, I, and J have no active players:
 Team  Pts  Pts for standings
    A  100  10
    B   90  9
    C   80  8
    D   70  7
    E   60  6
    F   50  5
    G   40  4
    H    X  0
    I    X  0
    J    X  0


II.  Points for determining weekly order of finish:
Any situation not clearly covered in these scoring rules will be judged
by the commissioner.

A.  OFFENSE
Any offensive player (QB, RB, WR, or K) can score in any of the following
ways.
Points for yardage can also be negative.
Total points for a player can be negative.
10 points for a TD rush, reception, or pass
1 point per 10 yds rushing
1 point per 10 yds receiving 
1 point per 25 yds passing
5 points per 100 yds rushing (in addition to 1 point per 10 yds)
5 points per 100 yds receiving (in addition to 1 point per 10 yds)
5 points per 300 yds passing (in addition to 1 point per 25 yds)
-3 points for an interception or fumble
2 points for a two-point conversion rush, reception, or pass
1 point for an extra point kick (PAT)
3 points for a field goal less than 40 yds
4 points for a field goal of 40-49 yds
Longer field goals:
yards 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63
points 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 16 20 25 31 38 46
Points for longer FG:
yards = points.

B.  DEFENSE/SPECIAL TEAMS
1 point for a sack
3 points for an interception
3 points for a fumble recovery
6 points for a safety
-6 points for your special teams getting "safetied"
10 points for a defensive or special teams TD
-10 points for your special teams giving up a TD
(fake punts and field goals that go for TDs are counted as special teams TDs)
20 points for a shutout
10 points for holding the opponent to 2-9 points
5 points for holding the opponent to 10-19 points

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6. Trades

Trades may be made at any point throughout the season before the trade deadline, which is the kickoff of the first game of Week 15. Trades may consist of any number of players and any number of teams may be involved. The roster requirements in effect for the Draft are not in effect during the season; a Team may have any number of players at each position. All trades are effective immediately upon agreement of all Teams involved, but are subject to review by the League and the Commissioner; if there is general agreement that a trade is unfair, it may be rejected.
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7. Waiver Periods

There are four "waiver periods" during which Teams may claim a player who is no longer on a team. At the start of each waiver period, every Team that wishes to claim a new player should declare a player of its own to release, which can then be claimed by another team. Each Team then submits a list to the Commissioner including players the Team would like to claim, in order of preference, by the end of the day Wednesday of the week of the waiver period. The waiver order is determined by the current standings, last picks first, first picks last. The Commissioner will process the submitted lists and announce the claims to the League. The waiver periods occur after weeks 4, 8, 12, and 17.
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8. Haupt Trophy

The Haupt Trophy was named for co-founder Richard C. Haupt (1968- ) upon his return to SUFFL play for the 2000 season. Formerly called the SUFFL Plaque, it is handsomely engraved with each year's champion upon it. It is the responsibility of the previous year's champion to have the new champion's name engraved and to ship the Haupt Trophy to the new champion. The new champion must then guard the prize until the end of the following season. If won by a co-owned team, the owners should work out sharing the plaque. The plaque should be present at one of the gathering places on Draft Day.
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Appendix A - Rule Change History

2003:
Draft: Implemented a five minute limit per selection (Rule 3.4)
Draft: Eliminated double-picking, Rule 3.3(c)
2002:
Offensive scoring: -3 for a fumble, 6 Jun 2002.
Draft: Minimum roster requirements lessened. 2 qb, 4 rb, 4 wr, 2 k, 2 d/st, 4 at any position, 19 Jul 2002.
2001:
Draft: Keeper Rule in effect.
Draft: Draft Order determined by Pick-your-spot.
Active Roster: Replaced one WR spot with the UT spot, which can be filled by either a RB or WR.
Trade Deadline: Moved to kickoff of Week 15.
2000:
Keeper Rule will be effective for 2001 draft.
Defensive scoring:
 3 points for fumble recovery by D/ST
 20 for shutout, rather than 40.
 10 for <10 pts allowed, rather than 20.
 5 for <20 but >=10 pts allowed, rather than 10.
 6 for safety, -6 for a safety allowed, rather than +/-10.


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Appendix B - Previously Rejected Rule Changes

Here are some suggestions for changes to the Rules that have come under discussion but have never been passed.
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