American Professional Football League
1. Organization - Membership and Teams
Requirements for membership - members must own the latest
version of the Action game and the season's data disk.
24 teams, two conferences, four divisions of 6 teams each.
Playoffs - Division winners and 2 wild cards from each
conference (two best records).
The APFL Super Bowl will be played in the same corresponding
real life NFL stadium for the current year's NFL Super Bowl.
Home team for Super Bowl will rotate - NFC in even years,
AFC in odd years.
Tie-Breakers: we use the official NFL Tie-breaker System
Members are not permitted to own more than one team.
Vacant Teams - The commissioner will handle the draft and
general manager duties for vacant teams. Their home games
will be autoplayed by the commissioner. A designee of the
commissioner will coach vacant teams during the playoffs.
2. Schedule and Method of Play
Schedule is 16 games. Breakdown for 16 game schedule:
a. 10 games in division (5 home, 5 away)
b. 1 game each vs. teams in other division in same
conference (total of 6 games)
Method of play - one game per week. Internet/face-to-face
play allowed but not required.
Weekly deadlines:
a. Sunday evening results are distributed
b. Tuesday evening coach's files are due
c. Wednesday evening play game files are distributed
d. Sunday evening results files are due
e. Games not reported by Sunday evening will be autoplayed
by commissioner or his designee
3. Rosters, Trades, Value System and Drafts
Player usage - Injuries, game and season fatigue will
dictate player usage. Home field advantage will not be used.
Skill position players will be required to achieve 1/3 their
actual usage in the following categories: QB - pass
attempts; RB - rush and pass attempts; WR/TE - receptions.
Failure to meet the 1/3 minimum usage requirement results in
free agency for the player. Such players go into the next
season's free agent draft.
The home coach is permitted to override totally ridiculous
injury replacements when playing against the computer.
Examples of such would be using a DB on the DL, especially
when another DL was available.
Roster size - 60 players of which no more than 7 may be
unrated. Teams are required to maintain a 53 man rated,
active roster and carry a backup at every position except
kicker and punter.
Trades may include players and draft picks for the year in
progress plus one year. Retention rights may not be traded
and all trades are final. All trades must be approved by the
commissioner. Trading begins as soon as the Super Bowl is
completed and ends when final rosters are due. Rosters are
also frozen during the rookie and free agent drafts.
Teams are required to select a player from the waiver wire
when they have no eligible starter and/or backup at any
position. A player must be released from the roster to make
room for the new player.
Value System - A custom value system has been created to
provide the APFL environment with a consequence for drafting
and trading players. Every player is assigned value points
based upon his Action ratings or stats for the prior NFL
season. The details of the assigned ratings will be
available each seaosn for all memmebrs to review.
General Draft Guidelines - A lottery draft for the six worst teams
(25% of the league) for the 1st rounds of the rookie and free agent
drafts goes into effect for our 2003 drafts. This serves as a
deterent for any coach to tank his season because there is no
guarantee he will end up with the #1 overall pick in either draft.
There will be ONE lottery drawing and the two drafts will compliment
each other in inverse order of lottery finish. If you end up with the
first rookie pick you automatically get the sixth FA pick and so on.
This ensures that teams tanking the season have no guarantee to end
up with the overall #1 pick in either draft. The non-lottery teams
will draft in inverse order of finish for the remainder of the 1st
rounds of the rookie and free agent draft. All teams will draft in
inverse order of finish for all rounds other than roound one for the
rookie and free agent drafts.
Rookie Draft - The draft (total of five rounds) will be conducted via
email with 12 picks per day giving the rookie draft a 10 day time
line.
Immdeiately after the rookie draft, all teams are required
to reduce their roster to 60 players and the specified value
cap limit for that particular season. All trade and draft
activity from the end of the rookie draft until the end of
the season, must be conducted with each team adhering to the
60 player and value cap limits.
Free Agent Draft - 10 rounds, inverse order of finish.
The draft will be conducted via email with 24 picks per
day giving the free agent draft a 10 day time line.
Draft lists are encouraged in order to move the draft along
and ensure that teams do not get passed over when it is
their turn to draft.
4. Rule Changes, Disk Changes and Miscellaneous
Suggestions for rule changes may be made to the commissioner
anytime during the year. These suggestions will be screened
by the commissioner, and if approved submitted to the league
for discussion. Discussion of rule proposals will be held
during the off season. Following discussion, a vote among
league members will be held. Each member receives one vote;
a 2/3rd's vote is required to make changes to the league
rules. The commissioner reserves the right to institute a
rule change without league approval or banish a member from
the APFL if it is perceived that undue harm is being done to
the APFL without these changes. These actions by the
commissioner will be communicated to the league and
objections to the changes will be recognized followed by a
reasonable discussion period. If more than 50% of the league
objects to the commissioner's actions, then the commissioner
is barred from taking action.
Any topics not covered by league rules will be addressed by
the commissioner as needed. It should not be assumed that a
lack of a rule against a practice permits its usage.
Any 3-rated player will have his positions expanded. A
3-rated offensive lineman becomes a C-G-T, a 3-rated
defensive lineman becomes a DL, a 3-rated linebackler
becomes a LB and a 3-rated cornerback or safety becomes a
DB.
Errors have been found on past seasons disks, and sometimes
the ratings included are blatantly inaccurate. Errors will
be corrected by the commissioner when discovered.
Questionable player ratings may be presented to the
commissioner for modification. The commissioner is
responsible for these corrections. If Dave Koch issues a
season disk correction, we will use that revision up until
the start of the season.
Each coach must provide the commissioner with any address
changes (home & email) and preferences for their team's
name, colors and helmet. Failure to do so will result in no
changes to the modify team menu for that team.
All teams must select and announce to the commissioner which
stadium they will be using for that season. Team are not
allowed to change their stadium during the course of the
stadium. To do so could alter the competitive balance of the
league and will also result in the commissioner
auto-replaying the game.
The commissioner is solely responsible for all membership
issues. The commissioner reserves the right to investigate
and rule on any perceived or reported indescritions by
members and rule accordingly with or without the assistance
or approval of the rest of the league.
Revised 07/06/02
Recent Rule Proposal:
Gentlemen,
With 18 member votes tallied, the results stand 16 in favor of the proposal
and 2 against. Since the 16 yes votes already provide a 2/3's majority, there
is no need to tally any of the outstanding votes. The proposal passes.
However, in reading the comments contained along with the votes and
understanding some of your concerns, I am prepared to add some guidelines to
the proposal. If there is a substantial opposition to these guidelines, we
will go back to the drawing board.
Here is what we will be following:
1) Beginning in 2003, the rookie draft will be expanded from two rounds to
five rounds. You now all have three additional picks in your war chest for
the 2003 rookie draft. Congratulations!
2) The active squad will consist of 53 rated only players and the inactive
squad will consist of 7 unrated only players.
3) The free agent draft will be reduced from ten rounds to five rounds.
However, if after the end of the 5th round teams still have spots to fill on
their 53 man active roster, they will be allowed to continue drafting.
4) Drop the value cap ceiling from 85.0 to 82.5 (revised upward from 80.0
since the original plan was to reduce the value cap by 2.5 per year until a
workable, reasonable level is attained).
Here are the guidelines I would like us to follow based upon some of your
concerns:
In order to discourage teams from acquiring rookies that they can't
accommodate on their roster and then trade them away for multiple, future
picks, each team must have roster space on their inactive roster prior to the
rookie draft in order to be able to draft rookies. Since the most inactive
spots a team can have on their roster at any time is seven, teams are
restricted from drafting more than seven rookies in any given season. This is
meant to discourage teams who are over the cap from trading for (as an
example), five additional rookie picks thereby drafting a total of ten
rookies and then turning around and trading three of those rookies that they
wouldn't be able to keep on their 7-man inactive roster anyway for future
picks. By having to clear roster space on the inactive roster prior to
drafting rookies, a team is limited to drafting no more than seven rookies.
Teams can still trade drafted rookies for future picks, this stipulation is
only limiting teams from cornering the market on more than seven rookies and
then trading players that they wouldn't be able to keep on their roster
anyway. What we will do is hold the rookie draft in early June, giving
everyone ample time to digest their roster and the NFL draft so they can make
precise decisions on whom to draft and which unrated players to cut so they
can clear up inactive roster space. This guideline insulates the league from
owners who will either attempt to manipulate their cap implications or draft
players they cannot retain on their roster due to roster space limitations.
This will help us manage the expanded rookie draft in a more realistic
fashion.