League Rules

“1980: Time Machine Football League”

Commissioner - bhicks42
Vice - Royalsblues
Trade Committee —Snowman33, Dalbpho8, ScottCornelius, lordehawke
The goal of this league is to rewrite history with your team. We will try to stay as accurate as possible with expansion and changes made by the real life NFL.

FIRST OF ALL, if there’s a problem with another owner, the commissioner, a vice, a league problem, a complaint, etc. SEND ME, (commissioner) YOUR CONCERN IN A PRIVATE MESSAGE. If the problem is me, PM the vice. The chat box is not there for drama and complaints. It’s a shame that this has to go in the rules as everyone should have manners.

1. TEAM CHOICE-- We will choose teams as soon as the league fills. Draft order will be chosen at random. We will start with 1980 and conclude with Super Bowl XV (15) and progress through time with real life progressions.

2. TEAM DETAILS -- Team logos and details will be edited to reflect what they had during the time frame. If we can’t get the current logo to look good we may make an adjustment when the time comes.

3. SEASON START -- We will have a 45 player roster limit. We will play a 16 game season with no pre-season.

4. FINAL ROSTER SIZE -- When the games begin, the roster limit will be set to a final 45. If you do not, the commissioner must make changes to your roster in order to play the season and you may lose someone you wanted to keep.
** For the 1981 season, you can request 1 Tight End to switch to a WR. This is to help with low #s at WR.

5. League Minimums- You must have the following to run sims.
11 defensive players
5 O-line
6 skill players
1 QB
1 RB
3 WR
1 TE
1 Kicker
1 Punter

6. TRANSACTIONS, FREE AGENCY, ETC -- This is an import league. No contracts, real life progressions . Please act responsibly. Heavy unfair trading or dropping star players could get you banned from the league or possibly other sanctions against your team. “Protected Picks”-protected picks are ok, if you trade and protect a pick, your pick for the following year will be held until your protected pick has been decided. You can protect a pick as a “Top 3” “Top 5” “Lottery” or anything within reason.

7. Off-season—
At the conclusion of the 1980 season we will have the playoffs and Super Bowl XV (15). The first step of the off-season will be progressions and then the 1981 draft.

7a.Postseason Awards
MVP (league vote)
DEFENSIVE POY (league vote)
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR (league vote)
Johnny Unitas Award (QB)
Jim Brown Award (RB)
Don Hutson Award (WR)
Forrest Gregg Award (OL)
Deacon Jones Award (DL)
Chuck Bednarik Award (LB)
Dick Lane Award (DB)
Ray Guy Bacci Award (K/P)


7b. **“Franchise Hold”—Football is a huge league. There are over 1,000 players to track! This task can not possibly be expected to be put on 1 person. When a player leaves or “retires” for a season and comes back, we need a way to track it. An example of what I'm talking about is James Harrison. If you check out his career, he plays in 1 game in ‘02 for Pittsburgh so he will join our league there. In 03, Baltimore cut him and he didn’t play in 1 game. In ‘04 when he comes back to the league, he would enter our league as a free agent. This happens fairly often with players but most of the time they aren’t the studs that we notice. If I used a high draft pick on Harrison in ‘02 I would want to keep him. Another case would be injuries. A player that’s injured in training camp and sets out a year would also go to Free Agency.
Basically what we will do here is this, if you have a player leaving your team, and you want to keep him, you will have 2 spots for a “Franchise Hold” if you want to use them. When they come back to the league after they set out, they will come back to you.

8a. DRAFT — After the playoffs each season, we will import the rookies who came into the league for that season. They will be added to Free Agency and we will have a live draft to place the players. Draft order will go from worst to first with exception to the first 5 picks. We will run a slow draft through 3 rounds and at the conclusion of the draft we will finish up the draft with supplemental rounds. Amount of rounds depends on the amount of players available.
You can only trade draft picks for the next 2 seasons out. Ex: 1980 season you can trade the picks from 1981 & ‘82.
*As of 2-21-23 each team can trade their first, second or third round picks up to 2 years out.

8b. Draft Order- Teams that didn’t qualify for the playoffs are assigned draft slots 1-18. The order is determined by the standings at the end of the regular season: The clubs with the 5 worst records will go to the Draft Lottery. The tram with the 6th worst record will pick 6th and 18th worst will pick 18th.
Teams that did qualify for the playoffs are assigned draft slots 19-28. The order is determined by the results of the previous year’s postseason play:
* The 2 teams eliminated in the wild card round pick in slots 19 & 20 in the reverse order of their final regular season records.
* The four teams eliminated in the divisional round pick in slots 21-24 in the reverse order of their final regular season records.
* The two teams that lost in the conference championships pick in the 25th & 26th spots in the reverse order of their final regular season records.
* The team that lost the Super Bowl has the 27th pick in the draft.
* The Super Bowl champion has the 28nd and final spot in each round.


8c. DRAFT LOTTERY — To help prevent tanking we will implement a draft lottery. The last 5 picks will be ranked on Draftpicklottery.com and the results will be posted. It will be a weighted lottery and odds will look like this:
Team 1 (last place)-30 balls
Team 2- 30 balls
Team 3- 20 balls
Team 4- 15 balls
Team 5- 5 balls

9. TRADING DEADLINE -- After week 12, trading will be turned off for the season.

10. PLAYER HEALTH -- Per league vote, injuries will be set to a 4 day max.

11. SANDBAGGING/TANKING -- Don’t lose on purpose or “Tank”. If there’s a question as to whether you are tanking or not, you probably are. Trading guys away isn’t tanking if you’re building. Your team can’t gain anything by losing on purpose. Please don’t make my job harder than it already is.

12. POST-SEASON -- The top team in each division will be ranked 1-3. The teams with the 4th and 5th best records in each conference will be the wildcard teams. The bracket will break down like this:
1 vs 4/5(wildcard)
2 vs 3

13. EXPANSION- I plan to follow expansion just as the NFL did it and there will be more details to come here…..

15. TRADE COMMITTEE— We will form a trade committee and trades will be subject to review. If Necessary, the trade committee and Vice will vote. If there’s a tie, I, (commissioner) will break the tie.

16. *** New TMFL Tie breaking rules (as of 2/27/2024)

FOR PLAYOFF SEEDINGS
Two Clubs
1. Head-to-head (best won-lost-tied percentage in games between the clubs).
2. Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the division. *** Only if all clubs in same division, otherwise move to step 3.
3. Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the conference.
4. Strength of victory in all games. (Point Differential)
5. Best points scored in all games.
6. Best points allowed in all games.

Three or More Clubs
(Note: If two clubs remain tied after one-or-more clubs are eliminated during any step, tiebreaker restarts at Step 1 of two-club format. If three clubs remain tied after a fourth club is eliminated during any step, tiebreaker restarts at Step 1 of three-club format.)

1. Head-to-head (best won-lost-tied percentage in games among the clubs). *** Only if all clubs played each other, otherwise move to step 2.
2. Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the division. *** Only if all clubs in same division, otherwise move to step 3.
3. Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the conference.
4. Strength of victory in all games. (Point Differential)
5. Best points scored in all games.
6. Best points allowed in all games.

FOR DRAFT ORDER
1. Record
2. Strength of victory in all games. (Point Differential)
3. Best points scored in all games.
4. Best points allowed in all games.

League Settings

Year Range of Stats	1980 - 2023
Roster Size	45
Rules	Pro (NFL)
Two Point Conv	Yes
Defense	Draft Individual Players
O-Line	Draft Individual Players
Keepers
Change Stats Allowed
Free Agency
Drops
No-Drop List
Injuries	(2 games max)
Player Training	(3 schedule days)
User Sims