Proposed Changes for SFFL 2000

Last Update: January 24, 2000

The following articles are proposed for the 2000 SFFL Season. Please review these articles so you will be well versed in there intended purpose when it comes time to vote on them.

Article I. - DEFEATED

The league office hereby proposes that we expand the league from 10 teams to 12 teams.

This expansion will require the following changes to the current division make up and associated scheduling:

The existing North and South Divisions would become the North and South Conferences with 6 teams each. Some realignment would be required as detailed below.

The Conferences would be split into two (2) Divisions with three (3) teams each thus forming the four (4) divisions: Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, and Southwest.

The makeup of the Conferences and Divisions would be:

Northern Conference

Northwest Division
Eager Beavers
SQUONK
-Rob Stevens-
Northeast Division
Elephants
Hackers
Rough Riders

Southern Conference

Southwest Division
Fighting Lounge Chairs
Invaders
THRAK
Southeast Division
Private's Parts
Young Guns
-Larry Guidi-

These are what seemed to be a "semi-logical" distribution of the existing teams. These are based on approximate geographical locations, traditional alignments, and rivalries. The hardest decision was breaking off the Parts from FLC, Invaders, and THRAK as these are original founding teams that have always played one another. Just today (12/7/99) I swapped the Rough Riders and SQUONK because of the rivalries (RR's - Hackers, SQ - EB's) although they don't make sense geographically. I've tried to split these based upon (1) rivalries, (2) geographical location. It just makes the most sense. Other suggestions will be entertained -within reason.

A 13 game regular season would be maintained with every team playing each divisional teams twice (6 games) and all other teams once (7 games). See the sheduling sub-section at the end of Article I.

A 3 week playoff system would be maintained with the following scenario employed: *

Divisional/Conference Championship Playoff:

The top two teams in each Division play in round one;

The Divisional Champions will play for the Conference Championship;

The Conference Champions would play for the Cross-Dressed Championship.

Wildcard Conference Playoff (Second, less preferred option) :

The best Conference team (East or West Divisional team) in the Conference would receive a first round bye;

The other Divisional "winner" in the Conference would play the best runner-up of the Conference in a wildcard game. (potentially from the other Division.)

The wildcard winner would play the best Divisional team (the bye team) for the Conference Championship;

The two Conference Champions would play for the Cross-Dressed Championship.

*The big difference between these two are whether there are 8 or 6 teams which make the playoffs.

The Regular Season Schedule
The exact schedule will be finalized later as it will be such that the Cross-Dressed Championship teams will meet again in week #1. As in the past the first week of the season would be a non-Conference week (North-South). In week #7 we would now have a non-Divisional week (NWest-NEast, SWest-SEast). In generic terms for this demonstration assume that teams 1-3 are the NorthWest Division, 4-6 the NorthEast Division, 7-9 the SouthWest Division, and 10-12 the SouthEast Division. The schedule is arranged such that you never play more than two (2) Divisional games in a row, yet there are many key games in the final two weeks of the season. The Lord Almighty Commish likes this critial mass scheduling, as it will keep the races tight to the very end of the season and thus keep all teams interested, involved, and (hopefully) in contention.
KEY:

Divisional Game

Non-Divisional

Non-Conference

Article II. - PASSED (8-1)

The league office hereby proposes that we change the scoring system as follows:

Quarterback Passing TD's scored as 3 points each.
Quarterback Rushing TD's remain scored as 6 points each.

This change is proposed to equalize the scoring between positions and make a star Runningback or Wide Receiver as valuable as a star Quarterback. This change would be similar to what we did with the Wide Receivers last season. Statistically during the 1999 13-week regular season, the average total of the top ten:

Quarterbacks: 233 points
Runningbacks: 167 points
Wide Receivers: 193 points (normalized, i.e. drop M. Harrison and average 2-9: 187 points)

Recalculating the top 10 Quarterbacks utilizing the proposed change results in a more reasonable average of 171 points each. On an individual basis:

STL: current - 304 (proposed-208)
MIN: 246 (168)
IND: 242 (176)
CIN: 233 (182)
OAK: 228 (174)
DET: 227 (170)
CAR: 222 (156)
CHI: 213 (156)
TEN: 210 (171)
WAS: 202 (145)

This places Quarterbacks at a slight premium to Runningbacks and behind the Wide Receivers.

Article IIa. - PASSED (8-1)

The league office hereby proposes that in conjuction with Article II:

Change the Wide Receiver scoring from "1 point for every 7 yards" to "1 point for every 8 yards".

This change would reduce the average of the top 10 Wide Receivers to 178 points (normalized, i.e. drop M. Harrison and average 2-9: 170 points). This would bring the Wide Receiver scoring in line with the existing Runningback scoring and the proposed Quarterback scoring. This Article is only applicable if you are in favor of Article II.

Article III. - DEFEATED (1-8)

The league office hereby proposes that we change the team and starting line-ups:

Each team would maintain a roster of 10 players instead of the current 11 players. This proposal is contingent upon the passage of Article I - League Expansion.

Each team would be required to start 1-Quarterback, 1-Kicker, and any combination of 3 Wide Receivers or Runningbacks. It would be at the owners discretion whether their offense would be run or pass oriented. This proposal is only valid if Article II and Article IIa - Scoring Changes are passed.

Article IV.

The league office hereby proposes one of the following days for the SFFL 2000 Draft Day:

5:30pm Friday August 25, 2000

5:30pm Friday August 18, 2000

12:00pm Saturday August 26, 2000

12:00pm Saturday August 1, 2000

5:30pm Friday August 11, 2000

Article Va. - DEFEATED (1-8)

Private's Parts hereby proposes a new draft order:

The draft order would be based upon last season's final record. The worst team would draft first and we would continue worst to first. The standard serpentine order (1-10, 10-1) would be utilized for the full 11 rounds of the draft.

Article Vb. - WITHDRAWN

The league office hereby proposes a bid draft:

We would no longer have a draft order, but a salary cap. All teams would be allocated so many SFFL dollars and players would be auctioned off. All teams would have to fill out their full roster without exceeding their salary cap. The highest bidder for any given player would then retain the rights of that player for the season. The details of this would need to be fleshed out, but this is a common practice in many leagues.

Article VI.- DEFEATED (3-6)

Private's Parts hereby proposes a new playoff selection process:

The best team in each division at the end of the regular season would obviously be in. The wildcard teams would be based upon the four (4) best teams in the rest of the league. This proposal will be contingent upon disappoval of Article I - League Expansion or may be incorporated in some fashion based upon owner agreement as part of Article I - League Expansion.