Rules

This set of rules is used for all cash prize leagues.

Index

League
Schedule
Roster
Live Drafts
Game Day
End Week
Dropping Players
Acquiring Players
Post-Season
Keeper Leagues
Restrictions
Ghost Teams

Rules

League
1. Each league consists of 12 teams.
2. Each league's teams are divided into three divisions of four teams.
3. The computer places teams into divisions by their Round 1 draft position. The teams that draft in positions 1, 4, 7 and 10 are placed together in one division. The teams that draft in positions 2, 5, 8 and 11 are placed together in another division. Finally, teams that draft in positions 3, 6, 9 and 12 are placed together in the last division.
Schedule
1. The regular season lasts 13 weeks and takes places during Weeks 1-13 of the NFL regular season.
2. Each week, each team plays one other team in head-to-head competition.
3. The schedule is generated and published at the beginning of the season.
Roster
1. The maximum roster size is 14 players.
2. A roster may consist of any combination of quarterbacks (QB), running backs (RB), wide receivers (WR), tight ends (TE), kickers (K), and defense/special teams (D).
3. There is no minimum number of players that must be held on your roster by position.
4. There is no maximum number of players that can be held on your roster by position.
5. A team's roster consists of "active" players and "bench" players. The set of "Active" players is considered to be the team's lineup. The set of "Bench" players is considered to be the team's reserves.
6. A team may activate 1 QB, 1 TE, 1 K, and 1 D. The following FlexLineup options are available when activating RBs and WRs:
  - 1 RB / 3 WR
  - 2 RB / 2 WR
  - 3 RB / 1 WR
7. The maximum number of starters is 8.
8. The website does not allow team owners to activate an illegal lineup.
Live Drafts
1. Team owners participate in a live, online draft, hosted at FantasyBowl.com. Team owners can participate in the draft using a standard web browser that has JavaScript enabled. Most modern web browsers support JavaScript.
2. Before the draft starts, team owners may configure player draft lists that will be used by the draft system if owner miss a pick. If an owner does not pre-configure a player draft list, a standard, default draft list will be provided.
3. Owners are NOT required to attend any part of the live draft if she is unable or wishes not to.
4. There are provisions in the live draft system that will enable owners to specify draft picks ahead of time on an "on-the-fly" basis (not using your pre-configured list).
5. The draft order for the first round is determined randomly and published a short time after the league fills up. The draft order is not determined by the order in which owners joined the league.
6. The draft order for all odd-numbered rounds is the same as the Round 1 draft order.
7. The draft order for the even-numbered rounds is the reverse of the order for the odd-numbered rounds.
8. The draft system enforces picks from 9 AM ET to 1 AM ET, seven days a week.
9. Owners may continue to make picks with no clock restriction from 1 AM ET to 9 AM ET. The draft order is enforced, of course.
10. Draft picks are announced on the live draft web pages and, in the case of the Slow Drafts, via email.
11. When an owner is placed on the clock for a pick, that fact is announced on the live draft web pages and, in the case of the Slow Drafts, via email.
12. When it is an owner's turn to pick, if that owner has not supplied a pick ahead of time via a feature called Draft Claims, that owner is given a window of time during which he may log in and make his pick.
13. When an owner chooses a league to join, she will choose between the following draft pick windows:
  - 2-hour pick window, aka Slow Draft.
    These drafts begin 24 hours after the league fills and typically run to completion within a few days.
  - 2-minute pick window, aka Fast Draft.
    These drafts begin at a pre-scheduled date and time that will be known by each participant before he joins the league. Fast drafts typically run to completion in a few hours.
14. When an owner fails to submit a draft pick within the draft window, a pick is made automatically for her using her pre-configured player draft list.
15. When the system is forced to use an owner's pre-configured player draft list, his team is put on "Autopilot" mode.
16. The system sends a notification email to the affected owner whenever it is forced to turn on Autopilot mode for a team.
17. An owners may turn Autopilot on and off for her team whenever she wishes.
18. When Autopilot is enabled for an owner, all his picks are automatically and immediately taken from either his pre-supplied picks or his pre-configured player draft list.
19. Trading of draft picks is not allowed.
Game Day
1. Each player "locks" five minutes before his NFL game starts.
2. A locked player cannot be activated, benched, acquired, dropped, or traded.
3. The fantasy scores of all players that lock into the "active" slots for a team are summed to produce that team's fantasy score. At the end of the week, the team with the higher fantasy score of the two teams matched up in a game is declared the winner of that game.
4. Each game produces one win and one loss. A game cannot end in a tie. Ties are broken using the following tiebreakers:
  1. Number of touchdowns scored by active players. This includes touchdowns by special teams players.
  2. Yardage gained by active players.
  3. Total points scored by bench players.
  4. Number of touchdowns scored by bench players
  5. If a winner has not been determined using any of the preceding tiebreakers, the home team is granted the victory.
End Week
1. Wins and losses are compiled into the weekly standings.
2. The teams listed higher in their division standings have won the standings tie-breakers over the teams listed below them.
3. The standings order is determined using the following tie-breakers:
  1. Overall total wins.
  2. Total points scored.
  3. Head-to-head winning percentage. This tiebreaker is only used when comparing exactly two teams. If three or more teams have the same wins, this tiebreaker is skipped and the next tiebreaker is used instead.
  4. Winning percentage within division.
  5. Total points scored against.
4. FantasyBowl.com uses data published by the NFL to calculate final scores, determine winners and losers, and generate new standings, waiver orders etc. This data is available to us in its final form early Tuesday morning, and the FantasyBowl.com website reflects this finalized data soon afterwards. Occasionally the NFL issues a ruling change on a play long after the game is over—on Tuesday, Wednesday or even later, for example. FantasyBowl.com will incorporate and re-process any statistical re-ruling that is published by the NFL before 12 PM (noon) ET, Tuesday, for the weekend's games immediately preceding it. Any re-ruling by the NFL that is published after that time will not be incorporated into the system's official stats, scores, results and standings. Re-rulings that are published before the deadline but not learned of by FantasyBowl.com until after the deadline will be incorporated into the system.
Dropping Players
1. A team owner is not allowed to drop a player until that player has spent 24 hours on the team's roster. When a team's roster page asks an owner to drop a player, players that have been added to the team's roster in the previous 24 hours are displayed with a "dash" next to their names, indicating their ineligible status
2. Time spent by a player on a team's bench counts toward the 24-hour rule above.
3. Players need not be activated into the starting lineup to be eligible to be dropped after 24 hours.
4. A team owner is allowed to drop a player during the same week in which he acquired the player, as long as the 24-hour rule above is satisfied.
Acquiring Players
1. Players may be added to a team's roster via any of the following methods: Waiver Wire Acquisition, Free Agent Acquisition, and Trade. Each is described below.
  1. Waiver Wire Acquisitions
    1. Each team is granted an allowance of $100 (mythical) to spend on waivers players for the entire season and post-season.
    2. Each week, early Tuesday morning, all non-rostered players unlock and are placed on waivers.
    3. From Tuesday morning to Thursday, 10 PM ET, team owners place blind bids on players they wish to acquire.
    4. At 10 PM ET on Thursday, the waivers system resolves all waivers bids and distributes players' rights to the teams that won the players in blind bidding.
    5. During weeks in which there is a Thursday game, waivers will be run at 10 PM ET on Wednesday.
    6. When you win the bidding on a player, the amount you bid on that player is deducted from your season waivers allowance.
    7. An owner cannot bid more for a player than she has remaining in her yearly waivers allowance.
    8. When an owner is granted a waivers player, that player does not become part of the owner's team until the owner logs into the system and "rosters" the player. If the owner goes to his team roster page after a waivers player has been granted to that owner, his roster page will ask him to choose a player to drop in order to clear roster space for the new player.
    9. To "roster" a player, an owner needs to simply choose a player to drop to clear roster space when the team's roster page prompts the owner to do so.
    10. Owners must roster new players by 12:55 PM ET on Sunday, or by five minutes before the player's NFL game starts, whichever occurs first. Players that are not rostered by the deadline are automatically returned to the player pool.
    11. Waivers bidding lasts the entire regular season.
    12. Waivers bidding continues into the post-season only for those teams that are still in the running for the league championship.
  2. Free Agent Acquisition
    1. As soon as all waiver claims have been resolved at 10 PM ET on Thursday, all available players that remain unclaimed in the player pool immediately become free agents.
    2. Team owners may acquire a free agent immediately at any time leading up to gametime, as long as:
      1. The player the owner wishes to acquire has not locked.
      2. The player the owner wishes to drop (if a player-drop is necessary to clear roster space) has not locked.
    3. A team may acquire players via free agency throughout the entire regular season.
    4. A team may acquire players via free agency during the championship playoffs until that team is out of the running for the league championship.
  3. Trading Players
    1. Team owners use the "Trade Table" page (available from the team's roster page) to propose, review, reject, and accept trades.
    2. As soon as all parties involved in a trade have accepted the trade, the trade enters a mandatory 36-hour league review period.
    3. During league review, all league members that aren't participating in the trade have 36 hours to inspect the trade. If an owner feels the trade is collusive in nature, he can vote to kill the trade.
    4. If 50% of the team owners not involved in the trade vote to kill it, then the trade is voted down and is aborted immediately.
    5. A trade will trigger as soon as the following conditions all occur simultaneously:
      - At least 36 hours have passed since the trade was accepted by all participating owners.
      - Fewer than 50% of the owners not participating in the trade have voted to kill the trade.
      - All players involved in the trade still reside on the roster on which they originally resided when the trade was created and proposed. If this condition is not met when the trade attempts to trigger, the trade will be immediately aborted.
      - All players involved in the trade are unlocked. If any one player involved in the trade is locked, the trade will enter a HOLD status until all players are unlocked. The trade will trigger when all players unlock for the new week.
    6. If a team loses more players than it acquires in the trade, the team owner will have at least one empty roster spot. The next player the team owner acquires via waiver claims or free agency will be immediately rostered without requiring the owner to drop another player first.
    7. If a team gains more players than it acquires in the trade, the team roster page will ask the owner to drop current player(s) to make room for the new player(s). The team owner must roster these players. Hoarding penalties are applied to any owner that acquires a player via waivers but fails to roster the player before the deadline.
    8. The trading deadline is Week 9. All trades must trigger by the end of Week 9. Any trade in review or hold status when Week 10 starts will be aborted.
Post-Season
1. Six teams advance to the championship playoffs.
2. The three division winners are granted playoff spots in the championship bracket. Three wildcard playoff spots are granted to the teams with the next best records, regardless of division.
3. Regardless of record, the three division champions are granted the top three seeds.
4. The standard standings tiebreakers are used to determine playoff bracket seeds.
5. The team seeded higher (better) in any playoff game has home-field advantage.
6. The quarter-finals are played during Week 14 of the NFL regular season. The #1 and #2 seeds are granted byes into the semi-finals. The #3 seed plays the #6 seed. The #4 seed plays the #5 seed.
7. The semi-finals are played during Week 15 of the NFL regular season. The #1 seed plays the winner of the #4-vs-#5 quarter-final game. The #2 seed plays the winner of the #3-vs-#6 quarter-final game.
8. The finals are played during Week 16 of the NFL regular season. The two winners of the semi-final games play in the championship game.
9. The six teams that fail to advance to the playoffs advance into the Toilet Bowl bracket. These teams are seeded #1-#6 by record, regardless of division, using the standard standings tiebreakers to break ties.

Keeper leagues operate under the same rules as regular prize leagues with the following exceptions.
After each season, each team chooses three players from its previous roster to keep for the upcoming season.
Team owners are given the opportunity to select his keepers from the previous season after he pays the entry fee for the new season.
The players not selected to be kept will be dropped from their rosters and made eligible for the draft.
On draft day, all kept players are made ineligible for the draft. They will already reside on the rosters of the teams that kept them from the previous season.
The draft order for the first year is randomly determined, as specified in the regular rules above.

The draft order for each season after the first is determined using the finishing order from the completed season. The chart below displays how the new season's draft position is determined by the completed season's finish order. Note from the chart that if you do not make the playoffs, you will be better rewarded for finishing higher in the standings. Also, if you make the playoffs but are eliminated in the semi-finals, you will be better rewarded if you win any conslation games (such as the 3rd-place game). This is to keep teams from tanking once they've been eliminated from championship competition in order to obtain a better draft position.

If Previous Season Used Four-Team Playoff
Previous Season Finish	Following Season Draft Position
5	1
6	2
7	3
8	4
9	5
10	6
11	7
12	8
3	9
4	10
2	11
1	12

If Previous Season Used Six-Team Playoff
Previous Season Finish	Following Season Draft Position
7	1
8	2
9	3
10	4
11	5
12	6
6	7
5	8
3	9
4	10
2	11
1	12

For all seasons after the first season, the draft order will NOT be reversed for even-numbered (alternating) rounds. Every round will follow the order dictated in the chart above.

Restrictions
1. A team owner may enter only one team into any one league. Multiple teams are allowed only if each team is entered into different leagues.
2. Gameplay will be ruled anti-competitive if it is considered to harm the integrity of the league. Examples of anti-competitive gameplay are collusive trading, throwing games, failing to attempt to field a winning weekly lineup, and the like.
3. Anti-competitive gameplay will not be tolerated and will usually result in league expulsions for team owners responsible. FantasyBowl.com reserves the right to consider anti-competitive gameplay on a case-by-case basis and handle each case as it sees fit to most benefit the integrity of the league, website and fantasy football community.
4. FantasyBowl.com reserves the right to remove any owner's access to his team or teams without warning. Refunds will not be granted in these cases. See also: Refund policy
Ghost Teams
1. Any team whose owner has abandoned it either voluntarily or involuntarily (via expulsion, e.g.) will be turned into a ghost team.
2. A ghost team automatically scores the league average points each week, regardless of which players are listed in that team's active lineup.
3. If your team is playing against a ghost team, your team must score more than the weekly league average to earn a victory.
4. The scores for the players in the ghost team's active lineup are not counted when the system calculates the league average.
5. The players on a ghost team will not under any circumstance be returned to the free agent pool for acquisition by other teams.
6. If a team is switched to a ghost team mid-season, that team's scores from previous weeks will not be re-calculated using the weekly league averages for those weeks in question. The resuls of those past games will remain final.
7. FantasyBowl.com operators may convert a team into a ghost team at any point during the week, but ghosting a team will never be retro-active to a previous week.

Please send any questions regarding rules to league.master@fantasybowl.com.

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Screenshots

Overview

Standings

Team

Lineup Changes

Bye Week and Injury Alerts

Waiver Claims

Box Score

Player Stats

Rules

Index

Rules

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