When I started in Fantasy Football in 1995 there were 5 of us in the league. The talent was ridiculous since there were only 5 of us. We almost limited the draft to just the NFC or the AFC. We decided on having 5 Pro Bowl teams instead. A buddy of mine was the commissioner and we only played for total points. About 5 weeks into the season we had to start over because 3 of us had picked up Michael Westbrook on the waiver wire and the commissioner awarded him to each of us. The rosters were a mess. So we all kept one player from our rosters, redrafted, and I took over as commissioner. I didn't formally draft the rules until just prior to the following season when we dropped one guy from the original 5 but added 4 more. The original rules were 3 pages long. Each year the rules got longer and longer until they approached 6 pages.

This was a simple redraft league that had some fairly complex scoring rules that had evolved over the years. I realized that teams won and lost at the RB position and all other positions were well behind the RB in terms of importance, so I adjusted the rules to make the other positions more important. QBs got a bonus for not throwing picks as opposed to a penalty for throwing an interception. I got rid of the TE requirement. Defenses got 3 points per turnover (TOs being probably the most important stat of the game) and bonuses if they held the opposing team to few or no points. Kickers got bonuses for longer field goals. We started 3 WRs to put more of a premium on WRs

All in all, I had a pretty good league. Then one night while watching the Monday Night Game at a sports bar a friend approached me and asked if I would like to get into a new league. He said it would be like none I had ever been a part of. I figured that was a given seeing how I had only been in one league but was intrigued none the less. He told me this league would be the most realistic league any of us had ever heard of. It seems that a dynasty league that had been together for 13 years was breaking up. There was some discord among some of the owners and some of the guys had gone there separate ways. One of the owners in that league, Randy Graefser, decided to round up a few of the owners that still wanted to participate and start the league over again. Except he didn't want to run the exact same league. He wanted to make it the best league ever. He wanted to make it as realistic as possible. He wanted it to as closely mimic the NFL as possible.

I decided that I could run my league and join this league too since I would just be an owner and not a commissioner. I mentioned this new league to a couple owners in my redraft league and three of them decided to join the new league as well. The new league was to be a ten team dynasty league. We wanted to do twelve owners, but didn't have enough quality guys that this league required. We have since found a couple more good owners and are considering expansion right now, but nothing has been decided yet. I don't know how close we are to the NFL, but this league is exactly what I was told it would be - the most realistic league I had ever heard of. Despite not using IDPs we are as close as it comes to the NFL.

While not all leagues are ready for the rules and procedures of this league (my redraft league was not), I thought I would share some of the bigger things that my league does that put us on another level from other leagues. These are things you might want to consider doing in your leagues. I wouldn't recommend taking all of these things and incorporating them all at once, but a couple of them may strike you as good ideas that can be easily infused with your current system.

At the outset of the league, all the owners got together and discussed the rules Randy had composed. After much debate we settled on a rule book that numbered more than thirty pages. The first thing that was alien to me was the salary cap. We were allotted $32 million to spend on twenty players and two defenses. For the first year we would calculate a player's value by multiplying the number of points he scored in the prior year in a standard scoring system by 10,000. This was the player's statistical number. Then we put a $ in front of the statistical number to come up with a yearly salary. For example, if player X scored 150 points the prior year his salary would be $1,500,000 a year. That player could be signed to a one or two year deal for $1.5 million a year with an option year for either. So the maximum contract length was three years. Rookies who had no statistical number for the prior year are assigned a value based on the round they were drafted. We use the round they are drafted in determining contract amounts for rookies the same way today as we did then. First rounders are $1 million, second rounders are $875K, third rounders are $750K and fourth round and later are the league minimum of $500K. If a player scored less than 50 points the previous year, his salary is also the league minimum of $500K.

When a player's contract expires he is eligible for Free Agency. Each owner is given two tags a year which he can apply to two players to make them restricted free agents. The Franchise Tag allows the owner to resign that player at 80% of the highest bid for the player or get 2 first round draft picks in either of the next 2 seasons from the owner that signed the Franchise player. The Transition Tag allows the owner to match the highest offer as well, but he has to pay the full value of the highest bid, or accept a single first round pick in the next 2 seasons. Only owners with the requisite number of first round picks are allowed to bid on restricted free agents.

Bids on restricted free agents can be quite complex. The bidder can offer a signing bonus that will be immediately subtracted from the salary cap of the owner who signs the player. A bidder can front load or back load a contract. For example, at our Free Agent Bidding Night last March an owner bid for Terrell Owens $1.5 million this year and over $8 million next year. The owner who tagged Owens with his Transition tag matched the offer and is going to be on the hook for a salary that is in excess of 25% of his entire cap in 2004 should Owens remain on his team. And then, if the owner decided to extend his contract he will have to pay the higher amount between the average of the first two years of the contract or pay him his statistical value. Unless Owens scored more than 450 points his salary will be around $4.5 million for his option year since that is the average of the first two years of his contract.

Owners can also offer performance bonuses to restricted free agents. An owner can offer a $2 million performance bonus to Ricky Williams if he amasses more than 2,000 rushing yards in the following season. This money is not immediately subtracted from the salary cap, but it might as well be because the owner has to remain $2 million under the cap in order to pay that bonus should Ricky attain the 2K yardage mark. But if Ricky does not make that goal, the owner can use that money to pay down contracts for players for the following season, thus giving him more cap room the following year.

Once an owner signs a player he can use one of two no-trade clauses which would allow him to save 10% of the value of the players contract, except signing bonuses because they are taken right out of the cap as soon as the player is signed, but if the owner trades the player, 50% of the player's contract is subtracted from that owner's salary cap immediately. For example, if an owner signs LT to a 2 year deal totaling $5 million each year and then gives him a no trade clause, his contract would be reduced to $4.5 million each year, but if he trades LT after he gave him the clause, then $2.25 million would be subtracted from that owner's salary cap for that season.

Salary becomes a driving force when it comes to making or killing trades. A trade may look great when it comes to the talent on the table, but the cost may kill a deal. For instance, most people would agree that LT for RW straight up, right now, is a fairly even deal. Not in my league. LT is playing under the final year of his rookie contract and makes just under $2 million based on his statistical number when his contract was extended to the 3rd year. Ricky Williams on the other hand just signed a fat 2 year deal in March at our Free Agent Night that pays him $6.5 million a year. The only way to pull this one off is if the Ricky Williams owner was willing to take some more salary, usually in the form of the bloated contract of some chump or injured player. It seems that each owner needs a calculator, an accountant, a mathematician, an abacus and a laptop on Free Agent Night as well as when negotiating a simple trade.

The league is a head to head league with two 5 team conferences. To spice things up a little more, we adopted a rule that addresses Home Field Advantage (HFA). In the NFL, the home team has a decided advantage over the road team. We tried to incorporate that advantage into our league. In our league, the home team may pair two players at the same position as a single starter. Whichever player scores more points is added to the home team's total for the week. So if an owner pairs Gardner and Coles as one WR and starts Marty Booker as his other and Gardner scores 12, Coles 9 and Booker 11, the owner will get 23 points from his WRs

The HFA rule is a double edged sword sometimes. It's excellent when dealing with game time decisions. For example, if Priest is gimpy and he is going to be a game time decision and the Priest owner has Larry Johnson, he can pair the two guaranteeing himself the K.C. starter that week. The flip side to HFA can be maddening. Two years ago I paired two RBs that scored 22 and 24 points, respectively, but my other starting RB only got 5. So, instead of getting 46 out of my RBs that week, I got 29. I lost by 9 that week.

These are some of the things we do to make our league like the NFL when it comes to rules. Now I want to talk about the other things we do to try to mimic the NFL when it comes to our culture and tradition. First, Randy asked everyone for a team name and a logo as well as a color scheme. I named my team the Knights. My logo is a shield with two crossed swords behind the shield. My colors are silver, red and white with a little black. I realize this is very Ohio Stateish, but I thought the color scheme was very appropriate for a team called the Knights.

When I showed up at the convention center for the draft I saw my table. It was the one with the mini-helmet with my team logo on it. Behind my table hung an eight foot banner with my team name and logo on it. On the table in front of the podium sat the trophies. The biggest being a trophy similar to the Lombardi trophy for the Super Bowl winner. The winner will have his name engraved on the trophy and be able to keep it for a year. The Super Bowl winner also gets a smaller version of the Lombardi trophy that he gets to keep forever. The Super Bowl winner also receives a one of a kind Super Bowl ring that is his to keep. There are also large conference trophies for the conference champions. These will also have the names engraved on them and be passed to the next year's conference champion. And again, there are smaller versions of these two trophies that the owners get to keep. One of the owners found a regulation size football on a tee made out of cement. It has to weigh 40 pounds. It has been painted gold and the owner with the worst record has to lug it around to all planned functions for a year. His name is also applied to this, "trophy," in the form of his name and the year scrawled in permanent ink on the side.

Behind the podium was the draft kit taped to the wall. The kit included giant sheets of paper with the names of the teams along the top and columns to put player names under the team names. Sheets with each players name on a sticker the width of a standard sheet of paper were to one side. Once an owner turns in his card indicating his selection, he goes and finds the appropriate sticker with that player's name and adheres it under his team's name on the board. While part of me misses having the draft at a sports bar or at my place with a tub full of ice and beer nearby, it doesn't get any more authentic than this.

Our Free Agent night is held in a conference room at a local hotel. The team banners are hung and we bring our mini helmets. But right next to the room is the hotel bar. Which probably isn't a good thing considering the calculations that are necessary to have a successful Free Agent Night. We follow up Free Agent night with the awards banquet in which the league MVP, GM of the Year, and Rookie of the Year (as voted on by the owners prior to the end of the playoffs) are given plaques and the Conference and Super Bowl trophies are given to the appropriate owners.

After that we eat. The conference that lost the Pro Bowl pays for all the food and beer. Our Pro Bowl is held week 17. The 3rd place owner in each division coaches his conference's team. Each conference fields a team of 2 QBs, 3 RBs, 4 WRs, 2 TE's, 2 PKs, and 2 D/STs Each team in the conference has to have at least 2 players on the Pro Bowl team. The losing conference has to pay for all the food and beer at the banquet dinner. Can you get any closer to the NFL? Just like the NFL, our Pro Bowl is after the season. Just like the NFL, you never know who's going to show up since a lot of teams have playoff positions locked up and they sit fantasy studs to ensure their health. Just like the NFL, the game means nothing and is only a reason for people to party. Just like the NFL, it's only good for a little bragging rights. And just like the NFL, nobody really pays attention.

One more thing we do that sets this league apart is I write at least one newsletter a week. I have another article that explains what that entails. To be brief, I treat every team like it's a professional football team. I try to incorporate real world events like player suspensions and bye weeks into the weekly previews of the match-ups or recaps from the previous week. I throw out trade rumors and trash talking I overheard during the week. I also pick who I think will win each matchup, but I'm notoriously bad at it.

Of course we couldn't mimic the NFL without having an official line for each matchup Randy puts out a weekly Vegas Line. He goes to a couple of websites that predict what each player will score each week in terms of fantasy points and then he predicts what each teams' starters will do. The Vegas Line is surprisingly accurate. Prior to last year it was close to 75% accurate. Last year it dipped a bit, but it was still well over 50% correct.

These are just a few of the things that set my league apart. I'm sure there are a million other possible rules that leagues are using out there, but I thought I would share this particular combination of rules and traditions. In closing, I must give the appropriate props to Randy Graefser. This league was his brain child, and all his hard work and research has truly made it the best league I have ever heard of.