Welcome to NarFFL 2020: COVID EDITION

And we're back! That's right, we're actually doing this (maybe?)! Honestly we're just as surprised as you are. But hey, all we can do is plan for a season and hope for the best, which is essentially what we've all been doing since March. On that note, we sincerely hope you and yours are weathering this pandemic and staying safe as best you can. It's a scary time. We need a quality distraction. Now, more than ever, we need fantasy football. Our first order of business is to offer a huge congratulations to the 2019 NarFFL Champion /u/BennyJetss of Bacon West! He rode Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry, Saquon Barkley and a pair of wideouts named Davante to a crushing 12-1 regular season performance, capping it all by dropping 197.32 fantasy points in Week 16. In doing so he secured the first Horn championship for "Bacon Best" and has evened the Premier League title race with Envy at 4 apiece. Not far behind, Narwhal has 3 Horns which looks exactly as amazing as you'd expect. You can view the title counts here. Back to 2020, we have some big news! We're expanding the Farm! This means many more people will have the opportunity to play and compete for a permanent spot this year. But as there are still the same number of permanent spots, the competition will be more intense than ever. In the past, all you needed to do was either get the top regular season single week score, or make it to the championship game to move up. With the new expansion, you now have to either have the top score, or win the championship game to move up. The new leagues will consist of 4 new conferences, Tim Tebow, Trent Richardson, Johnny Manziel and Josh Gordon, each featuring a North, East, South, and West division. This year the lottery to join the NarFFL opens Friday, August 14th, at 12pm PDT (3pm EDT) and will remain open for a window of 72 hours. As a new change this year, the waitlist order will be randomized after the lottery selection from all those not picked. That means that it does not matter what time you enter the lotto, it has no impact on your chance for a team. Depending on how that goes, we may keep that process in future years, or go back to the old way of first come first serve to determine waitlist position. The winners will be posted and notified on Monday, August 17th and you will have 48hrs to claim your spot. If you miss your invite your spot will be given away, so set a reminder, opt in to email notification, and be sure to check back then! Don't be this guy.

Signing Up

If you are brand new and haven't connected your reddit account up with NarFFL.com you should do that right now. There's a big orange box up in the corner, click it and follow the prompts. Please note that the previous requirement of a first born has been removed, as we're full up.

You should also make sure you have a FleaFlicker account, because that is where your team and league will exist. We have used FleaFlicker for many years and they have consistently offered us more access and freedom than any other fantasy site. We don't allow a single user to have multiple teams, so you should feel free to use an established FleaFlicker account if you already have one. Remember, you've got to own all of your past fantasy mistakes. It's the only way you'll get better.

Registration is done via a lotto, which will open on Friday, August 14th, at 12pm PDT (3pm EDT) and will remain open for a window of 72 hours. Once that period ends, we will randomly pick from the lottery pool to fill the farm league. To reiterate: you MUST have a FleaFlicker account before you enter. Your Reddit account must also have 10 comment karma and it has to have been created before July 15, 2020. So get out there and make some (positive) posts on /r/fantasyfootball.

If you didn't get picked for the lottery, don't be sad! Your name will automatically be added to the waitlist, which is ordered randomly after the selection of the winners. That means that it does not matter what time you enter the lotto, it has no impact on your chance for a team. Any lottery spots that go unclaimed will be passed to the waitlist, as will any teams that get abandoned during the season. More on this below.

The (not so) fine print: The only data received using reddit authentication is your user name, account creation date, and karma score. No other private information is given to us, but, if you do want to get a little more personal, you can Like the Official NarFFL Facebook page.

Filling Promotion & Relegation Spots

Monday, Aug 3rd - Boot and invite all promoted and relegated teams to their proper spots.

Friday, Aug 7th - 17th waves of invites will go out for those that do not take their spots in time.

Lotto

Friday, Aug 14th @ 12PM PDT - The lotto will open.

Monday, Aug 17th @ 12PM PDT - The lotto will close. Invites to come shortly after.

Leagues

Premier League

Size

144 teams - 12 leagues with 12 teams in each.

You have to log in to Fleaflicker by Monday, August 3rd to avoid getting replaced.

Draft

There is a default draft slot set for each of the Premier leagues - September 7th at 3PM EDT. This is the weekend before NFL Kickoff. This can be changed once there are 12 owners in the league and a majority can agree on a new date & time. Just have one of your league members fill out this form with the name of your league and the new date and time.

Playoffs

For each league, playoffs will be the standard format.

Relegation

Each league will have two relegated teams. To keep owners active that have not made it to the playoffs in their individual leagues, we are giving the winner and runner-up of the consolation playoffs (in each 12 man league) a pass on being relegated. The two relegated owners will be the two lowest ranked teams (by Fleaflicker) out of the remaining four consolation playoff teams. So that means even if a team finishes last in the regular season, they are able to escape relegation by making it to the consolation playoff championship game. The 24 Premier League owners are relegated to the Major League the following year.

Major League

Size

288 teams - 24 leagues with 12 teams in each.

You have to log in to Fleaflicker by Monday, August 3rd to avoid getting replaced.

By logging in, you confirm that you wish to participate in NarFFL 2018.

Draft

There is a default draft slot set for each of the Major leagues - September 7th at 3PM EDT. This is the weekend before NFL Kickoff. This can be changed once there are 12 owners in the league and a majority can agree on a new date & time. Just have one of your league members fill out this form with the name of your league and the new date and time.

Promotion

Win your league and you move up. All 24 league winners earn a ticket to the Premier League to fill the 24 slots left by the relegated Premier League members.

Relegation

Each league will have two relegated teams. To keep owners active that have not made it to the playoffs in their individual league, we are giving the winner and runner-up of the consolation playoffs (in each 12 man league) a pass on being relegated. The two relegated owners will be the two lowest ranked teams (by Fleaflicker) out of the remaining four consolation playoff teams. So that means even if a team finishes last in the regular season, they are able to escape relegation by making it to the consolation playoff championship game. The 48 Major League owners are relegated to the Minor League the following year.

Minor League

Size

576 teams - 48 leagues with 12 teams in each.

You have to log in to Fleaflicker by Monday, August 3rd to avoid getting replaced.

By logging in, you confirm that you wish to participate in NarFFL 2018.

Draft

There is a default draft slot set for each of the Minor leagues - September 7th at 3PM EDT. This is the weekend before NFL Kickoff. This can be changed once there are 12 owners in the league and a majority can agree on a new date & time. Just have one of your league members fill out this form with the name of your league and the new date and time.

Promotion

Win your league and you move up. All 48 league winners earn a ticket to the Major League to fill the 48 slots left by the relegated Major League members.

Relegation

Each league will have two relegated teams. To keep owners active that have not made it to the playoffs in their individual league, we are giving the winner and runner-up of the consolation playoffs (in each 12 man league) a pass on being relegated. The two relegated owners will be the two lowest ranked teams (by Fleaflicker) out of the remaining four consolation playoff teams. So that means even if a team finishes last in the regular season, they are able to escape relegation by making it to the consolation playoff championship game. The 96 Minor League owners are relegated out of NarFFL. These owners are welcome to try and sign up for the Farm League the following year.

Farm League

Size

576 teams - 48 leagues with 12 teams in each.

Members

Every year the Farm League will be comprised of new people. As opposed to the other tiers, no spot in the Farm League is guaranteed year to year.

Draft

There is a default draft slot set for each of the Farm leagues - September 7th at 3PM EDT. This is the weekend before NFL Kickoff. This can be changed once there are 12 owners in the league and a majority can agree on a new date & time. Just have one of your league members fill out this form with the name of your league and the new date and time.

Promotion

Two teams from each Farm league will be promoted to the Minor League the following year.

The Champion The team with the highest single-week score during the regular season (excluding the Champion). That means that ANY team is capable of having a week that will get it promoted at any time. We chose this as our second criteria to keep everyone fully invested the whole year.

Relegation

All teams that are not promoted will be removed from the league in the off-season and will have to sign up again the following year.

Notes & Changes

Draft Roster Change Explanation

For the duration of the draft period we are instituting tighter roster restrictions (3 QB, 3 TE, 1 K, 2 DST), which should combat issues with autodrafted rosters. An example league using this restriction can be found here, where all teams were autodrafted. As always, if you believe you will be autodrafting, it is suggested that you fill out your predraft rankings ahead of time (see below).

Unclaimed Spots

After the lottery is completed and returning players have signed into their accounts on FleaFlicker, some spots may be unfilled, either by players who decided to quit or by players that couldn't make the commitment. These spots are filled from the tier below based on rankings from the previous year (Majors->Premier, Minors->Majors, Farm->Minor, Waitlist->Farm) in a trickle-up fashion. Rankings are based on wins first, then points scored. An invite is good for 24 hours, after which it will go to the next person in line. This is a first come first served promotion. An invite is not a guarantee of a spot.

Draft Rankings

Draft rankings are set when the leagues are activated, which is done early in the pre-season. So please, do yourself the favor of resetting your rankings close to your draft. We would especially encourage this if there is even a remote possibility you are going to miss your draft. This can be done on the 'Draft Ranking' tab within the 'Draft' Page. The selector is on the top right.

A note from Fleaflicker "Please let your users know this: They must reset their draft rankings to "Redraft" right before the draft if they want to use our most up-to-date rankings or else they'll use whatever rankings we had when you went live and activated the league... Note that their custom draft rankings will be erased by doing this, but it's the best way to get our experts' rankings before the draft if they have none, etc."

Promotions

Relegations

Note: Due to some owners replacing inactive owners midseason, there may be duplicates in these lists. Don't worry, we've got it all worked out.

Lottery Open Friday, August 14 th @ 12PM PDT Lottery Closes Monday, August 17 th @ 12PM PDT Claim Team Deadline August 19 th (48 hours after invites are sent) Renew Deadline August 3 rd Preseason Week 1 August 13 th Draft Deadline September 9 th Week 1 Thursday September 10 th NarFFL Playoffs December 10 th