Contents
I. GENERAL INFO
A. Entry Fee
B. Payouts
C. Divisions
D. Rule Changes
II. DRAFT INFO
A. Draft Order
B. Draft Rules
C. Owner Removal Rule
III. TRADES AND FREE AGENTS
A. Trading
B. Free Agency
IV. LINEUPS
A. Submitting Lineups
B. Starting Lineup
C. Position Guidelines
D. Injured Reserve
E. Pre-Season Injured Reserve
V. SCORING SYSTEM
VI. POST SEASON
A. Regular Playoffs
B. Toilet Bowl Playoffs
I. GENERAL INFORMATION
A. Entry Fee
The entry is $250 (2022). Annual fee increases will considered and put to a vote during the Buffoon Platoon League Rules Meeting. The fees cover payouts, costs of BuffoonPlatoon.ca hosting, ESPN League Management and the mandatory Commissioners Stipend. The Commissioners Stipend will be determined at the sole discretion of the League Office. The entry fee is subject to change upon approval of 7 out of 12 owners (stipend is independently managed by the League). Fees are due the Monday following the draft. Failure to pay will be deemed conduct detrimental to the League and the guilty owner could be penalized by forfeiting a pick or a loss of waiver priority.
B. Payouts
This now no longer a Men’s League. The payout format of “Winner Takes ALL” has been adjusted in 2022. First place after the regular season gets their entry fee back. Single game highest score gets $200 at season end. The overall winner takes the rest. If the winner chooses to make side deals in order to mitigate their risk, they will be considered in violation of league rules and receive no winnings.
C. Divisions
There is only one division.
D. Rule Changes
Any proposed rule changes can be implemented immediately with the endorsement of the League Office and all owners vote unanimously to do so. If at least one owner does not approve of the immediate rule change, then the rule proposal will be registered and tabled for consideration at the next year’s Rules Meeting for implementation the following season. A simple majority is all that is required to have a rule change pass (7 of 12 owners). Any clarifications to rules to address ambiguities will be ruled on by the League Office.
II. DRAFT INFORMATION
A. Draft Order
The draft order is based on a random draw to take place prior to the season. Owners names will be placed in a receptacle (hat, pitcher, etc.) or an online randomizer. The draft is a “Snake” format 1 to 12 then comes back around 12-1.
B. Draft Rules
The draft consists of 19 rounds. Each team has 1 minute per selection. If the time expires before the pick is submitted, the next team can begin to submit their pick, but the team who’s time expired can still submit their pick at any point. A compliant roster must be drafted and all slots must be filled. Trading draft picks or players during the draft is permitted but approval and completion of the trade is up to the discretion of the League Office.
C. Owner Removal Rule
The Buffoon Platoon isn’t the best damn fantasy football league the world has ever seen for no reason. Because active participation on all fronts is a key ingredient to any successful fantasy league, the League strongly encourages near perfect attendance at the annual draft and active participation throughout the season. The Bilton Jeanstein Clause – All League Owners are responsible for their own internet connection, a PC/Laptop/Tablet/Phone (or make arrangements for another Owner to provide) and their own draft materials. Anyone in violation of this rule will forfeit a 7th round pick.
1. Grounds for Removal
The following conditions make an Owner eligible for removal pursuant to the League Removal Procedures (Section 2 below):
a. An owner fails to attend the draft in person, make arrangements to have someone draft for them (proxy) or set their auto-draft order. For the purposes of this Section 1.A, attending a draft can be attendance at any of the League Office designated locations where team owners must remain for at least 10 rounds. If an owner leaves before 10 rounds and pulls a Houdini or Brownout (disappears) two years in a row, then the owner is “eligible” for removal; or
b. An owner fails to submit an active starting lineup more than three weeks in any given season. For the purposes of this Section, failing to submit an active starting lineup includes, but is not limited to, the following: starting a player on a bye week when they have another player at that position eligible that week, starting a player who is out for the year with an injury, or failing to submit a full lineup. Starting a player who is “questionable” or who has a nagging injury is not a failure to start an active lineup. This is really meant to cover players on bye and those that obviously can’t play due to a serious injury. [Note: Submitting inactive lineups is a pretty good sign you didn’t even check your roster for the week, which is inexcusable. Please take the 2 minutes you need per week and at get a valid roster submitted. Compliance is mandatory.].
c. An owner has circumvented the rules, exploited a loophole or has committed an infraction that is deemed to be a detrimental to the League by the League Office.
2. Removal Procedures
If an owner commits an act that is Grounds for Removal (Section A above), then the following Removal Procedures shall apply:
a. Initial Notice.
(1) Immediately after learning of the violation, the League Office will send out an email (the “Initial Notice”) to all owners notifying the league that an owner has committed Grounds for Removal and that a Removal Vote (see Section B.2 below) will be held.
(2) The Initial Notice will contain the following: a) the name of the “At Risk Owner”; b) the explanation of the Grounds for Removal; and c) a notice to the At Risk Owner that he has the option, within seven (7) days of the Initial Notice, to submit a Written Explanation to the League Office explaining why he should not be removed from the league. Although any factors can be set forth, key information to explain are draft attendance history and the circumstances that resulted in the Grounds for Removal (i.e., why you couldn’t make the drafts or why you failed to submit your lineup three times in a year, etc.). The Written Explanation, if used, are limited to 500 words or less.
Note: In the event an owner missed the last draft and the owner has made it clear that he will not be attending the upcoming draft, then the League Office can send out the Initial Notice up to 10 days before the upcoming Draft. Thus, if an owner is certain to miss their second consecutive draft (or second draft in a four year period) by missing the upcoming draft, a Removal Vote can be held in time to get a new owner in by the draft if the necessary number of owners determine that the Written Explanation is not sufficient to warrant keeping the owner in the league.
b. Removal Vote.
(1) After the At Risk Owner submits a Written Explanation or after seven (7) days have elapsed from sending of the Initial Notice (whichever is sooner), the other 11 owners MUST submit a vote to the League Office of either (a) Remove Owner, (b) Keep Owner, or (c) Abstain (i.e., no position).
(2) The League Office will then notify the Owners of the results of the Removal Vote. If the League Office receives 7 or more “Remove Owner” votes, then the Owners will be notified that the At Risk Owner has been removed from the League and a replacement will be immediately sought for entry into the league in accordance with the League’s waiting list of owners wanting to join the league.
NOTE: If two or more owners are subject to removal under the Removal Procedures at the same time, both At Risk Owners will vote on whether the other owner should be removed just as though he wasn’t also being voted on for removal.
III. TRADES AND FREE AGENTS
A. Trading
Players, draft picks and defence/special teams can be traded.
Future draft picks can’t be traded. Only picks within the same draft.
Conditional trades are not allowed.
Any disagreement regarding the interpretation of the trade will be resolved by the League Office only.
Important: To start a player you just acquired in a trade, the trade must be REPORTED to the League Office by midnight on Friday. In the event of a Thursday night game, the trades must be reported 1 hour before the Thursday night game time.
There is a 7 Week Minimum for any players to be traded back to a team either directly or indirectly.
Trade Deadline: Midnight on Wednesday before the start of Week 14.
Trade Vetoes: If any owner thinks that a trade is suspicious and “stinks of collusion”, then an owner (with the support of at least 2 other owners) can request a league vote as to whether to veto the trade. If 75% or more of all owners (not including the owners involved with the trade because they can’t vote) agree to veto the trade, then the trade is vetoed. Also, all requests for a veto must be requested to the League Office via email or phone within 48 hours of the League Office announcing the trade. If a trade occurs on a Thursday morning in the event of a Thursday game, owners only have 1 hour from announcement of the trade to get 2 other owners to petition a veto request. Failure to request a veto vote within this applicable time limits means the trade is final. Keep in mind that almost every trade is more favourable to one team than the other, and owners should only veto a trade if it appears the teams are trying to stack a team in exchange for some other benefit (cash, splitting profits, man to mouth favours etc.).
B. Free Agency
Owners are allowed unlimited transactions per season.
Free agent signings begin on Tuesdays and last up until game time (as ESPN allows). In the event of any conflict with these free agent rules and those setup in ESPN, ESPN will govern. Whatever ESPN allows you to do through the free agency and waiver system is permissible, subject to any specific abuse or manipulation rules set forth in the League Rule Book (such the free agency limitation rules in place between weeks 1 & 16).
Process: The League uses the free agency waiver rules set forth by ESPN. For detailed information on how this works, visit the Help page on ESPN, and then click on Frequently Asked Questions, and #13 should summarize how the waiver process works. In a nutshell, during the season the waiver priority is established based on reverse draft order and when a claim is made the Owner moves to the back of the line. Then if you sign a free agent, you drop to #12 in priority, etc. Owners can submit a claim for a free agent on Tuesday, and the priority system results are announced on Wednesday. From Wednesday through Saturday, it’s generally first-come first-serve, unless a player is cut mid week. .
Free Agency Period: Free agency does not open until one week prior to Week 1 of the Season. It remains open until Midnight of the last day of the NFL Regular Season.
Limitation Between Weeks 14 – 16: Teams can sign free agents during Weeks 14 – 16. However, no team can sign a player that has been cut by another team after Week 14. This prevents teams who are out of the playoffs from dumping players enabling playoff teams to sign those players. The standard Waiver Process works during this period, and all teams can sign free agents during Weeks 14 – 16, even if your team is out of the playoffs. Note: Owners cannot sign players during Weeks 14 – 16 and then cut the player the same week to prevent another owner from getting that player during the week (because the player becomes ineligible to sign after they are signed/cut in the same week until they clear waivers again).
IV. LINEUPS
A. Submitting Starting Lineups
You can make roster changes anytime up until the start of the game your player is playing in that week (game time). Game time is identified as the official starting time of NFL games (ex. 4:05pm vs. 4:00pm) as posted on http://www.nfl.com/schedules/ and for our purposes will be reflected as Eastern Standard Time. All starting lineups must be made on ESPN and will be handled in accordance with ESPN’s lineup deadline rules. If ESPN is not working or you do not have Internet access, you can leave lineups via text, email or phone as long as the date and time of the communication are clearly verified and recorded by my voicemail or email.
You CAN NOT submit your lineup to a 3rd party. It must be to the League Office or on ESPN.
If Thursday or Saturday games are scheduled, you must deactivate any player (playing in an early game) that you started the prior week prior to the early game if you don’t want him to remain in your starting lineup.
If you want to start someone in the Thursday or Saturday games, then you only need to active those players prior to those game times.
Failure to deactivate a prior starter locks them into your starting lineup.
If an owner fails to submit an active starting lineup more than three weeks in any given season, the owner is subject to a vote on removal. See details under Owner Removal Rule above.
If an owner starts any player deemed ineligible in accordance with League Rules (such as a player acquired after the Friday night deadline, a player traded back to a team in violation of the 7 Week Trade Back Rule, or starting a player that shouldn’t be on your roster (e.g., accidentally picking up a player you didn’t draft and starting the player), then it will be considered an illegal lineup if the ineligible player is in your starting lineup at the start of the ineligible player’s game time. Note: If ESPN modifies the procedure and you can’t activate players to get a full lineup after the first game starts, then this rule will follow ESPN’s procedures.
Any owner deemed to have a non-compliant roster or line-up for a given week will forfeit the week and be subject to supplemental disciplinary action from the League Office. This may include and is not limited to fines, removal of points for, additional wins vacated or any combination thereof.
After much consideration the roster compliance rule for this league going forward will be as follows.
A penalty will be levied at the Commissioners discretion for non-compliant rosters when the week begins (starting Sunday 1pm game time) if it can be proven that the opponent gained an advantage by the violation, again at the League Office’s discretion. The burden for proof is low, and will depend on whether the owner had all his roster spots filled with players that were relevant to that weeks matchup.
Each week rosters must be compliant for the Sunday 1pm Game, you must fill all your roster spots with an eligible player. This applies to all owners regardless if you have any players involved in the Thursday night matchup. Roster eligible players include actives, non-actives, players on bye weeks etc. The key is no blank roster spots allowed. This begins at ‘game time’ (1pm) on Sunday each week.
Upon the start of the 1pm Sunday game players may be transacted as per normal ESPN protocols the remainder of that weeks games. Commissioners will be monitoring rosters, however the league office will not be hand checking every roster for every Sunday 1pm game time infraction. Information corroborating a non-compliant roster must include verified time and date stamp.
After submission to the League Office, the Commissioners will weigh the potential infraction(s) to determine a non-compliance penalty. Interpret this as you will, the League Office retains authority to hand down penalties without prior warnings or owner consultation.
B. Starting Lineups
Roster Limits
| Position | Start | Max. Allowed on Roster |
|---|---|---|
| Quarterback (QB) | 1 | 4 |
| Superflex (Offensive Player Utility) | 1 | N/A |
| Running Back (RB) | 2 | 6 |
| Wide Receiver (WR) | 3 | 8 |
| Tight End (TE) | 1 | 3 |
| Flex (RB/WR/TE) | 2 | N/A |
| Defensive Player (DP) | 2 | N/A |
| Team Defense - Special Teams (D/ST) | 1 | 2 |
| Place Kicker (K) | 1 | 3 |
| Bench (BE) | 4 | N/A |
| Injured Reserve (IR) | 4 | One Injury - 3 for Covid-19 |
C. Position Guidelines
All players must be started in their true position. The positions will default to those allowed by ESPN.
D. Injured Reserve
At any time, all teams are allowed to place a player on the Injured Reserve (IR) as allowed by ESPN. In 2020, the league expanded from 1 IR spot to 4 IR spots. The 3 new IR spots are reserved for Covid-19 designations. This was done to ensure every team has a reasonable chance to field a complete and compliant roster.
V. SCORING SYSTEM
League scoring system is head to head points. The tie breaker is Points For. If that does not break the tie ESPN rules will govern. All scoring rules are available at ESPN under League > Settings > Scoring. The scoring system is included below for convenience only. The scoring in ESPN will govern.
VI. POST SEASON
A. Regular Playoffs
Automatic Bids: The top 7 teams receive spots in the Playoffs (2022). The playoffs start week 14 and last 3 rounds. (Rule change in 2015)
Seeding: The #1 seed will receive a BYE. The #2 seed will play the #7 seed. The #3 seed plays the #6 seed, and #4 plays #5.
The playoffs take place during Weeks 14-16 of the NFL season.
The League Champion receives the Traveling Trophy.
The Trophy must be returned to the League Office at the draft.
B. Toilet Bowl Playoffs
The five teams not qualifying for the playoff enter the Toilet Bowl playoffs. The highest seeded team receives a first round BYE. The team that finishes dead last in the final playoff standings will be declared Toilet Bowl Champion. This is a double elimination situation. First team to lose two consecutive games in the Toilet Bowl will be declared the ultimate loser.
The Toilet Bowl Champion is awarded nothing. This is nothing to be proud of.
The ultimate loser of the Toilet Bowl will be ridiculed and mocked throughout the entire offseason. They will also pay the winners entry fee for the next season. The amount will not exceed the entry fee of the season that they finished last.
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