[Nittany Dodgers]

Based on my commitment from the "League Chat" forum, I have put together a long list of items from our rules document that need to be clarified and updated. The vast majority of them are simple changes, with various contradiction sections just needing to be re-written, and accepted. Due to the interests of time, I will not address those until later in the year. The following is a list of issues that I remember coming up, or I have found as being inconsistent in the rules document. I am stating my proposals only for league discussion and feedback, they are not official proposals yet. Once we have some discussion, and I can gague league sentiment, I will formally propose each rule seperately, officially, for league vote (this is all based on the tacit consent of the league rules committee members of course).

Changing Playoff Pool to Four Teams: There was some support for the idea of cutting the number of playoff teams to 4. This would shorten the playoffs by one week allowing us to play our Championship Game week 16, instead of week 17 when many starters do not play. We would have the three division winners, and just one wild card team in the palyoffs, with no bye weeks for any team. A change from the current three wild card team with the top two division winners getting byes in the first round.

Post-season roster moves: There was some discussion of drafting rules regarding post season roster moves based on Kyle's move Championship week. Now that our personal feelings are more detached from the events, what are people's feelings on post season roster moves? We already have rosters frozen for eliminated teams. Possibilities include requiring players picked up in the post season to be played by the team that picked them up the same week. Another possibility is to have bidding end at Midnight Saturday each week of the playoffs, that is, that the high bid as of midnight each Saturday of the playoffs wins the player. This would prevent teams from bidding on players, just to prevent an opponent from picking them up, taking advatage of the 24 hour bid clock. It would, however, open up the can worms that is bid sniping (which I don't think would be a problem). This also would more easily allow a team that meets an emergency situation in the post season to actually pick up a replacement. Thoughts?

Penalties for signing players going over the roster limit: This came up a few times during the season (twice by yours truely) where a team signed its 17th player, but did not post a drop within the 24 hour time period allowed. The stated penalties in the rules are the 20% cap release penalty, in addition to 25% of the contract in question, with a minimum of 250cb and a max of 500cb. We also agreed that the offending team is prohibited from bidding on that player for 30 days. When it happened, Mike waived the 25% penalty for "first time offenders" since the rule was slightly unclear, and harsh. My question is, do we want to keep the 25% penalty in in addition to the 20% cap release penalty and 30 moritorium? It is an extremely harsh penalty (especially when you are bidding on a 100cb level player). However, if we all agree on the rule and are aware of it, then it is not so much an issue. I however am of the opinion that the 20% cap release penalty and 30 bidding moritorium are sufficient. If the player if of any value, they should be signed elsewhere within 30 days, which is the biggest penalty. If the player is some scrub, a 250cb penalty in addition to 20% is pretty harsh, in my eyes. Opinions?

Active Roster Requirements: The rules state that each team must have minimum starting lineup requirements on their roster at all times during the season (ie, 1 qb, 2 rbs, 3 wrs, 1 te, 1 k, 1 d), in addition to the minimum of 13 players. It happened last year when one team did not have a tight end for a number of weeks (and may have happened other times as well), but there were no penalties to be enforced. The rules state that there is a 500 cb penalty for falling under 13 players, but it does not address failing to meet starting lineup requirements. The question is, do we want to keep the minimum starting lineup requirement in (in the interest of fair play) and thus add the 500 cb penalty to teams who fail to have a full starting lineup on their roster, or do we want to do away with this requirement (when, since there is no penalty, we can't really fairly enforce at this point anyways). Thoughts?

Please also feel free to add your own issues to the table.