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Are you ready to take your Fantasy league to the next level?
A keeper league could be what
you're looking for. By definition, a keeper league is a fantasy football league that carries NFL players
assignment to a Fantasy team over from year-to-year.
After your 1st draft (often the most crucial) you will have to make decisions on what players to keep and which ones to drop for next year’s replacement draft. Replacement drafts typically include rookies and veteran NFL players not retained by other team owners.
Retirement, injuries, and declining fantasy productivity help change the dynamics of your keeper league. Fantasy teams who were once strong may become the laughing stock of the league, and weaker teams may become dominant. Good management and talent evaluation is crucial in keeper leagues.
Young stud players are at a premium in keeper leagues.
The beauty of keeper leagues is that there is no one right answer. Strategy? Perhaps “win today forget about the future.” Others prefer to draft for the future. Often times, a happy balance of future talent and current stars works best. In any case, it’s all up to you.
Often, trades and drafting are more important in keeper leagues than in re-draft leagues. In keeper leagues, you can often ride one good decision for years.
I was in a re-draft league for years. Later, it hit me that the same team managers
come back every year. In 1999 we evolved from re-draft to keeper league format. Overall, it’s been a huge
success. Below, I’ll share some tips and lessons learned.
The concepts below have worked in my very competitive league. Still, we encourage you to carefully
modify them to best fit your situation.
Dedication
Like any sports league, it helps to have a great commissioner. Someone that oversees the league, handles complaints, makes proactive suggestions, and ensures the integrity and overall success of the league. If you’re reading this article, perhaps you’re the #1 candidate for the job.
A good commissioner is always accessible and cannot imagine his/her life without fantasy football. This person becomes the focal point and the glue that keeps the keeper league together, year-after-year.
Don’t start a keeper league unless you firmly think it will be around for years to come. If you have just started playing fantasy football, a keeper league may not be for you, at least not yet. As a rule of thumb, you generally need to have several years experience in a re-draft league before you take the step up to keeper format.
Optimal Size
The best size for a keeper league? Having 12-teams may be ideal. It offers a nice balance of four 3-team divisions or three 4-team divisions. “The more the merrier” is a nice phrase, but having more than 12-14 owners dilutes the NFL talent. When this happens, some keeper league owners can lose interest.
Rules
You must have detailed rules. Without them you leave your league open to debate. I’ve lead many passionate meetings discussing rules. This is a chance for everyone to give input and put their thumbprint on the league. However, changing keeper league rules can often lead to problems. My advice -- once you get a robust system, keep it stable.
Rarely should you change Starting Lineup requirements… “Well we are only going to start 2 WRs instead of 3 for next year.” If you do that, you might ruin an owner’s dream of having the three best WRs on his/her team and worst yet, years of strategy go out the window.
One of the most interesting things about keeper leagues is they invite historical comparisons. They give you the ability to look back: Who belongs in the Hall of Fame? Who had the best team of all time? When you change rules, you often have no basis for comparison.
The moral of the story, spend plenty of time thinking over your keeper rules before starting our keeper league. Make sure everyone is happy from the beginning and keep things stable. For
my guidepost rules, click
here.
Communication
As a commish, you must give people ample warning to key dates, such as the draft and trading deadline.
Owners should provide email addresses and multiple phone numbers. This list of contacts should be given out to everyone in the league and any changes should be updated as soon as possible. This provides everyone in the league an opportunity to contact owners in various ways. Building relationships is crucial for trades and to discuss how the league is going.
To promote open communication, have everyone “give a speech” before the draft. This gives everyone a chance to openly discuss the league.
In some leagues, a note taker writes down what each person said and if anything has to be voted on, it’s done while everyone is present.
Communication is vitally important. If good owners feel like they don’t have a voice, they’ll lose passion and will eventually leave.
Responsibility
The commissioner has the most responsibility. If you are not up to the task, make sure you find someone who is.
The team managers should be responsible as well and care about the league enough that little tasks that a commish may ask them to perform should be done without question. There is no reason why the commissioner must do everything. In our league, in addition to the commish, we have someone who is responsible for lineups and historical stats. Another team owner focuses on rules, etc.
The Bullpen
From time to time, even in the best keeper leagues, some managers do not come back the following season. Having a full league is critical in keeper style. So, you always want to have some dedicated managers waiting in the wings. Being in a separate re-draft league allows one to scout out good fits for your keeper league. Believe it or not, we have 10 people waiting to get into my keeper league.
Perks
Everyone needs a reason to keep coming back. Winning a large cash prize is one way to keep everyone motivated.
Here are a few other perks we came up with that keeps everyone interested in our league. Your goal is to make the playoffs and to win the trophy. With this in mind, make sure you get a trophy with substance and have the whole league chip in on buying this beautiful piece of hardware. Your trophy should have enough room to where winners' names can be engraved on it for at least 25 years. This will be the prize for the winner and they will be able to keep it for a whole year. This is the ultimate in bragging rights!
The sad fact is over half the league won’t make playoffs. So what do you do? We created the Toilet Bowl. The winner actually obtains a toilet seat with past winners' names on it. It’s kind of embarrassing, yet funny because you were the best of the worst. Thankfully, the rules say the toilet seat should never actually be used.
Other ideas include a record book, box scores on CD, newsletters and having a dedicated website for fun.
Two years ago we did a pro-bowl in week 17. The two participants from the championship game had to use a player from each team in their conference and make a pro bowl lineup. This provided us with some conference pride. It added some extra fun after the champion was declared.
Best Bet
The greatest thing about a keeper league? For me, it’s the fact I’ve been able to keep in touch with some extremely knowledgeable NFL fans and some wonderful people. I’ve established bonds that will likely last a lifetime.
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