thing1 : If everyone else is fine with moving it up to the 28th, then we can do that. But I want to wait until early August when the league will more than likely be finalized to try and figure out an official draft date and time.

Just an FYI a Saturday or Sunday works way better for me than a Friday night does. I'm ok with the current time although my main money league has not set a draft time/day yet. I'll let you know if a conflict arises.

With regards to the number of teams, I would be happy if we could at least get 10. That would be at least somewhat competitive. 8 is just too few. Everyone will have an awesome team. Then it basically just comes down to a coin flip each week.

Jordanv78 :
kramer4077 :
thing1 :
Barathemos :
Jimmyjamx22 :
mncymk :
Oldschool41 :

Entering the midway point of July, the start of the regular season is a little less than 2 months away. With traning camp coming up and 4 of 5 tagged players signing long term deals, I think now would be a good time to start to talk about the draft and what times works for everyone. While it may be a bit early to know for sure everyone's availability for a draft at the end of August, having a general idea of what time works for everyone now will make it a little easier to settle on an exact date in the near future. Right now the draft is set to August 29th at 8:00 PM ET, but if there are any problems with this date (one of which has already been posted), then we can try to find a better time that works for everyone if need be. Also, with the number of players that we have right now, having anywhere from 2-3 hours free is recommended so that you can at least finish drafting your starters and some (if not all) of your bench players.

Furthermore, I do want to hear everyone's input as to what they would like to see from the league. If there are any scoring settings that you would like to be changed (with good reasoning backing it up) and everyone supports it, then I'd be fine with implementing your suggestions. The same goes with the rosters. But in order for me to know how to set up the league, I do need your feedback.

Finally, we have 8 people, but if possible I would like to have four (or maybe even six) more people join the league, so that (as Jordan stated earlier) it's a fun and more competitive league. If you guys know anyone else who may be interested in joining this league, please summon them to this thread or at least have them contact me about joining.

I think the scoring that David has for his league is fair. I think try to keep it similar to that. 

Also, maybe a couple of mock drafts would help us understand this new format for drafting. 

But, I will go with whatever you guys come up with. I will make it happen, and it won't work for me, I'll just request that it moved a few hours one way or the other. I can use my laptop at work, and I work midnight to noon on weekends, so I can essentially do any time but Saturdays. 

thing1 : You can do mock drafts at any time on Yahoo. You can choose auction or standard leagues.

megamanmaniac : Honestly I feel like we need 2 more people to join this league to have it be a decent competition. 8 team leagues are always sort of lame because everyone has a stacked team and the whole thing turns into a coin flip.

Standard scoring might be a good option with this league with a few tweaks maybe.

Jordanv78 : Well, I've already asked MattyIce, and he says he can't, because we are gonna be busy with the Pick Em League, and the changes we are implementing are going to add more work to us. 

Kruzer : Are you interested in this?

megamanmaniac : I was thinking today that I should bring up the fact that recent circumstances have made it where a member of this league is now permabanned from this site. It might be a good idea about thinking of removing him from the league, just because it creates an awkward situation. Besides, who knows what he will do with the team.

It's ultimately up to you, but I just thought I should bring it up.

Jordanv78 : I talked to him about it and he said that despite being banned, he would be willing to stay in the league. I don't mind him being in the the league, as it keeps an active competitor in the league, but if the majority of people share the same concern, than I'll remove him from the league and try to find a replacement.

megamanmaniac : As long as he's an active manager of his team I have no problem with it. I just didn't want someone in the league that was not watching their team or was dropping all of their players or something like that. If you don't think it will be a problem, I respect that.

megamanmaniac : I'd really like to join this league. I love fantasy football, and I'll be an active manager. I absolutely love auction leagues so I'll be a great addition to this league.

gamerforlifeforever2 : I'll send the invitation right away.

I'm excited for the season to start. Just one more player and we should have a decent sized league. Should be interesting with the Auction format. Don't have as much experience in that format.

megamanmaniac : if your still looking for anyone ill join up

xxdougiexxfreshx : I'll send you the invite link.

I'm looking for two more people to join the league. I will finalize the team list on Sunday, so if you're interested PLEASE let me know.

Screw it, ill join.

Jordanv78 :
kramer4077 :
thing1 :
Barathemos :
Jimmyjamx22 :
mncymk :
Oldschool41 :
gamerforlifeforever2 :
xxdougiexxfreshx :

WARNING! THIS IS A LONG POST!

Alright. The draft (as of right now) is scheduled for Saturday, August 29th at 8 PM. This is not the official, finalized draft date and time, but if nobody has any objections to this, then this will more than likely be the date and time that we meet. Now there's a few things that I want to discuss before the draft begins.

1) Auction Drafting

First and foremost I want to make sure that everyone is comfortable with how an auction draft works. I'll give you a quick rundown in case you are unfamailiar. Based on the draft order, you can be one of the first or last people to nominate in a round. You have 30 seconds to nominate a player. Once a player has been nominated, everyone will have 30 seconds place a bid. You can click "Bid" which automatically bids one more dollar than the last person who bid, or you can manually enter a dollar amount that you want to bid on a player and then click "Bid" (this dollar amount has to be greater than the dollar amount of the previous bidder). Once the timer reaches 10 seconds, any bid made before the timer reaches zero automatically resets the timer back to ten seconds. This is to prevent people from bidding at the very last second and winnign a player. Once the timer reaches zero, the person with the highest bid will forfeit that much money from their budget and that player will be added to their roster.

1a) Budgeting

This is pretty much a subsection of the first point, but this is pretty important so please pay attention. You start off with $200 (none of which are real). As you bid and buy players, your budget (the amount of money left for you to spend) and max bid (the maximum amount of money that you can use to bid on a player) will decrease. Eventually (depending on how aggressively you draft), you will run out of money and will no longer be able to bid on other players you want to bid on. Do be aware of your budget and how much you're willing to spend on players. Now this doesn't mean wait until everyone else spends all of their money then outbid everyone, because by this time all of the top tier players will be gone (of course if you want to do this then I won't stop you). Just keep in mind how much you spend, how much you have left, and how much you're willing to spend on a player (for example spending $80 on Adrian Peterson is awful budgeting, so don't do something like that).

1b) Bots

This is one thing that I feel obligated to address more so than anything else. I cannot stress how important it is to show up to the draft. If you are unable to make it to the draft, then a bot will be bidding in your place. One essential difference between a bot in a Standard draft and a bot in an Auction draft is that THE BOT CAN and generally WILL RUIN THE DRAFT! Unlike in standard where you can set Pre-Draft rankings and have a player selected for you, in Auction you don't have anywhere near as much control of who you draft and how much you spend. It's not impossible to set your draft rankings for auction (you would have to go through every player and insert a dollar amount representing how much you would want to bid on the player), but that's a lot more work and it could still allow you to end up drafting a player that you didn't want on your team. Furthermore, as I stated earlier, bots can and generally will ignore things like bye week and roster needs and try to buy players that don't necessarily address needs, which can force other drafters to have to pay more for a player the bot doesn't even need. So please, try as hard as you can to make it to the draft. And if a bot does find it's way into the draft, then I is recommended that the live drafters nominate players that they don't want or are worth less than their projected values (like Arian Foster) to make the bot lose all of it's money as soon as possible.

1c) Drafting Strategies

One last little side note that I want to mention about auction drafting are a few different strategies that you can use when drafting. I'll only list 5 basic strategies. Feel free to use one of these strategies, combine strategies, or come up with your own strategies.

Aggressive - One strategy is to draft very aggressively, where you're willing to spend a lot of your money early to grab a few of the top players in the draft. This strategy is good for getting elite studs on your team and allows for consistent fantasy production (barring injury or mishap). However, since it ends up being very costly, it becomes significantly harder to address depth issues until the later rounds when most of the decent players are already gone.

Conservative - Another strategy is to draft conservatively, where you're not as willing to break the bank early, but decide to wait for steals later in the draft. This strategy is good for finding solid players in some later rounds for (generally) less than they would normally go and being able to outbid other players. It also allows you to add depth to your roster more easily. However, being conservative can cause you to miss out on players you really wanted. In addition, being conservative can cause you to have money left over, none of which can be used afterward, essentially wasting your budget.

RB-Heavy - Using this strategy, you invest your money in Running Backs before addressing other needs. Doing this can allow you to grab top notch Running Backs early and can lead to a very strong rushing attack for your fantasy team. However, it usually means that you won't have as much money to invest in receivers and quarterbacks and other positions. If you like a strong rushing attack for fantasy, then this may be the strategy for you.

WR-Heavy - Using this strategy, you invest your money in Wide Receivers before addressing other needs. Similarly to the RB-Strategy, you'll have top WRs and lean on the pass game to lead your fantasy team. However, similarly to RB-Heavy, you'll have less money to spend on other positions.

Balanced - A fairly common strategy, using this strategy means you don't invest heavily into one specific group, but you try and build a balanced team, addressing all of your needs. This can help you have strong players at all positions, but unless the fantasy gods are blessing you, chances are your position group won't dominate everyone else's.

2) Roster Positions

Now that I gave a quick overview on how auction drafting works and what strategies are available, I'll talk a little bit about the current roster position settings. Right now, the league is set to have:
1 quarterback
3 wide receivers
2 running backs
1 tight ends
1 flex (WR/RB/TE)
1 kicker
1 defense
6 bench positions
If you have any suggestions of your own I'd love to hear it. As for my suggestions, one of the things I would consider doing is removing 1 or 2 bench spots. Aside from having to deal with bye weeks, 6 bench spots seems excessive, so that's why I might bump it down to 5. Another thing I considered adding was one individual defensive player (IDP) to the mix, to add a little spice to the rosters. If you all object to this then I won't add it, but I think adding an IDP would make the league a little more interesting.

3) Scoring settings

The current scoring settings can be found here. As of right now, there's nothing that I would want to add or change, but a few other statistical categories that I could add to increase/decrease fantasy production is sacks, pick-sixes, receptions (essentially making this league a PPR league), return yards, and bonuses for yardage reached (for example if a QB reaches 300 passing yards he gets 1 extra fantasy point, at 400 he'd get 2 extra and at 500 he'd get 3 extra). I don't plan on adding anything for this yet, but if you think that I should add any of these, then please let me know as soon as possible. In addition, if there's anything concerning the current setting that you think can be improved or should be fixed, then please let me know.

4) Trading

The trade deadline is currently set to November 20th (between Weeks 10 and 11). All trades can be vetoed by the majority of the league owners (which is why activity is important). There is one thing that I must mention, because I've seen this happen in the past. DO NOT VETO TRADES BECAUSE YOU THINK IT WILL MAKE ONE TEAM OVERPOWERED. The reason for vetoing a trade is because it is a very one-sided deal. Even if you THINK it is slightly lopsided towards one person, don't just veto it because you think it'll make one team too good to beat. That's not why the veto function is there, and if I see that happening I will consider making it Commissioner vote only and you can explain to me why you think the trade should be vetoed. I don't want to see fair trades being vetoed because you don't want a team to be better. Let's say that in a hypothetical scenario, someone who already has Eddie Lacy would be trading away Alfred Morris and A.J. Green for Matt Forte and Brandon Marshall. To me, this isn't an unfair deal, as the person is weakening their receiving corps to strengthen their running attack (obviously this doesn't include projected fantasy value, but for the sake of this example let's assume that it is ever so slightly tilted in the favor of the person trading for Matt Forte). I wouldn't want to see something like this vetoed to prevent the person's running attack to become stronger. This example hopefully shows what I mean when I say vetoing to prevent a team from getting better (because that's pretty much the reason people trade). To sum it all up in a sentence, veto because the deal is unfair, not because it benefits a team.

5) Comments/Suggestions

That's pretty much all I have to say as of right now. If you have any comments that you want to share, suggestions for the league, or questions/concerns about anything, please say so as soon as possible. The sooner you bring them up, the sooner they can be addressed. Other than that, good luck to everyone this season.

megamanmaniac : I'm ok with that draft day/time although if I had to choose, I would prefer a time closer to when the season starts.

draft date/time is good for  me. i say add the idp for the most part thats usally what i go for. I like having jj watt on my team