Frequenty Asked Questions

How is the league run?
The commissioner oversees the preseason set-up (scheduling match-ups, placing teams in divisions, setting initial player values, watching NFL player cuts and making roster updates), all play throughout the season (including all report generation) and all personnel involved with the FLFFL. If needed, the commissioner makes all rulings concerning the FLFFL — his say is final, except at home!

What fees are associated with the league?
Through a $25/team league maintenance fee, we have a number of positions (commish, game scoring, treasury and webmaster) that are paid shiny pennies on the hour for their hard work.

What fees are associated with the website?
Through a TEMPORARY web fee ($5/team in 2008), we have funded the development of this website, version 1 and version 2. In 2007, we implemented version 3 — It's development extended into 2008. We are planning for some final revisions (v3/v4) to launch in 2009 and possibly 2010.

Where do we get our stats for scoring?
All stats are taken directly from NFL.com.

What controls are in place?
Being that the eyes of league personnel are constantly seeing the numbers for which they score or compile reports etc, we have found that there is an inherent advantage to participation. There is also the balancing disadvantage of less time for detached thought as well as your own roster selection.

In the case of the commissioner, being that this position oversees all roster submissions and that he can employ changes when needed, his roster is emailed to his opponent each week before game time. Note that all roster changes receive a time stamp that can not be overwritten so in the rare cases where a roster has to be adjusted after 1pm, it is self evident and a note is sent to each coach affected by the roster change.

Considerations for 2009 Season (v3/v4)
Addition of player performance report with week-to-week stats for individual player(s) analysis
Addition of personal information for each coach's profile
Addition of scraper for scoring to be used in combination with human scoring
Addition of formating (bold type and/or different colored type) for discrepant scoring so that coaches realize when a score needs to be resolved
Addition of online brackets for the playoffs
Addition/consideration of 1-2 new fundraisers; if available, their fundraising components would be donated to the Jonathan Cancer Fund.
Increased trades to 4 for weeks 2 and 3 to give coaches more options early in the season.
Returned division play to 2 games against each team.

New for 2008 Season
Added side-by-side roster comparison
Added scraper for NFL player updates
Added rankings report for up-to-the-minute playoff seedings
Upgraded game time roster availability so that all rosters are available by 1:30pm each Sunday
Deactivated penalty for offensive players who fumble and the opposing team recovers the ball (-2 points)
Reduced division play to 1 game against each team to allow for a greater variety of opponents.
As web development is slowly turning to web maintenance, the fundraising component of The Last Team Standing Competition is donated to The Jonathan Cancer Fund (JCF), which is the non-profit children's cancer support organization that helped The New Commish's 2-year old niece.
All player entry is done online for the first time including the calculation of all starting values, which means save for the playoff brackets, all of the excel spreadsheets that ran the league only a few short years ago have become a thing of the past... (and once again, I have to thank Noah, who is truly a lifesaver!)

New for 2007 Season (v3)
Added online last team standing entry and maintenance
Added online player value calculations
Added prize money for Regular Season Champion (Runner-Up)
Added prize money for Weekly Hight Points (fourth, fifth and sixth)
Deactivated forum
Added penalty for offensive players who fumble and the opposing team recovers the ball (-2 points)
Simplified playoff tiebreakers (1. Overall record, 2. Division record, 3. Total points, 4. Highest Weekly Score)

New for 2006 Season
Increased prize money for Weekly High Points
Added prize money for Weekly High Points (second)
Added prize money for Weekly Hight Points (third), due to surplus in the kitty (from reduction in web fee from $15 to $5/team)
Added prize money for Regular Season Champion
Eliminated prize money for Average High Points (season)
Reduced regular season to 12 games, which addresses problem of having our league championship coincide with the last week of the NFL's season wherein many games are meaningless to a good portion of the league and others where playoff-bound teams have players with decreased to no incentive to play as they normally would; discussion could still be had that this same scenario exists as early as week 14 of the NFL season, but a one game reduction was held as a starting point.
Heavily considered option to penalize players for a fumble (-2 points) as well as to increase the value of a defensive touchdown (from 6 to 10 points); both suggestions have merit, however we had instituted a number of changes in the past three years so the general consensus was to let things settle out this year and to review again in 2007.

New for 2005 Season (v2)
Added higher scoring levels for milestone yardage achievements
Reflecting a continued growth and expansion beyond our Ithaca roots as well as our founder's sense of humor, changed names of Bowls (Finger to Fingerlakes, Septic to Cayuga, Toilet to Seneca, Flush to Keuka)
Added prize money for Weekly High Points
Added forum
Capped maximum starting values at 2750
Raised maximum starting values to 400 (for running backs and receivers) and 800 (for qb's, kickers and defenses)
Added online redundant scoring (reduced by 90% the need for revised report issues)

New for 2004 Season (v1)
Thanks to a higher power, Bill meets Noah at a wedding and will not leave him alone until his fabulous wife, the lovely Husna, agrees that Noah will meet with him for a web development session or two or three — the league formally enters the virtual age with the launch of our website.
Added higher scoring levels for extraordinary yardage achievements
Added (near) game time roster availabllity
Reduced multipliers (by 5) for starting values at all positions

New for 2003 Season
Last Team Standing is introduced as a fundraising effort for the league's web development — Due to major upsets in the first 2 weeks, the competition ends in week 3. Behind the scenes, the initial attempts at putting up a website do not proceed as the complexity of the formulas and interaction with the reports proves too much for the the limited capabilities of The New Commish... Aw, pickles!

New for 2002 Season
The New Commish assumes governance of the league — it immediately moves into a virtual age using email for the bulk of team submissions. Behind the scenes, a massive rewriting of code begins as Bill, who uses Office merges with John who had used Lotus. Much credit for the conversion and upkeep of the formulas goes to Ken Smoker (Dropkick Specialists) who with patience and perserverance helped Bill fill in all the X's and O's, and then tweak them many, many times.

Who is The New Commish?
Bill Wynkoop is a Syracuse native who relocated to Rochester in 1987 after graduating from RIT — he is a notorious homer to the big 3 programs at SU as well as Buffalo Bills football so please expect and accept all bias towards these great teams and their graduates. His sister-in-law, Jackie Mandyck Gorsky (aka A Mulligan) introduced him to this new fangled thing called Fantasy Football in 1998 and in 2002, when John Gorsky, The Commish, decided it was time to pass the mantle of the league onto some unsuspecting soul, he raised his hand — both he and his lovely wife, Beth, are still wondering why.

Who was The Commish?
John Gorsky, with very humble means similar to the original Fools of the AFL, was the main force in the motley group who began the FLFFL in 1994. He wrote all the formulas that are the basis of what we use today and he established the existing format for our trade schedule, salary cap and player value changes.

After running the FLFFL for 8 years (1994-2001), he decided to hand over the reins of the league, he remains committed to it and is frequently consulted for league issues; Beware that he is also a Bills fan, and some say he has a devilish nature.

How did the FLFFL start?
Ithacan lore has it that in 1994, a number of men decided that they wanted to find a place to play a new-fangled thang called fantasy football — as the tale goes, they chose a league managed through a prominent newspaper, which promptly folded 3 weeks into the season.

Undaunted, they co-opted the basic set-up of the league, wrote some formulas in Lotus and muddled through a makeshift season that turned into the inaugural (and much storied) year of the FLFFL.

Interesting Statistics of No Consequence

Year	# of Teams	High Score		Team	Low Score*	Team
2009	64	306		Houndogs	48	Western NY Knights
2008	64	290		Flaming Thumbtacks	58	Flanders Giants
2007	60	330		Sentinels	36	Popeyed Pirates
2006	48	304		Team Blackhaus	45	The Zards
2005	48	314		Flaming Thumbtacks	78	Dropkick Specialists
2004	34	318		Flaming Thumbtacks
2003	36	327		Cardinals in the East	49	Dropkick Specialists
2002	42	326		Gold Club
2001	50
2000	54	339		LA Bombers
1999	44	311		Alcatrask
1998	48	324		Hot Flashes	50	Woodchucks
1997	48	292		Dog Pound	34	RST Intimidators
1996	26	277		Coyotes	65	Woodchucks
1995	18
1994	Still trying to remember...