SimLeague Football - Official Rules
Team Draft | Team Management | League PlayTEAM DRAFT
A. Roster/Salary Cap
After you sign up, you will be taken to the Team Draft Center. You will draft players for the following positions:
| Position | Players |
| Quarterback | 3 |
| Running Back | 3 |
| Wide Receiver | 4 |
| Tight End | 3 |
| *Additional QB,RB,WR,TE | 5 |
| Field Goal Kicker | 1 |
| Punter | 1 |
| Offensive Line Unit | 1 |
| Defensive Unit | 1 |
| Special Teams Unit | 1 |
*Note: The four lowest salaried "Additional" players will start out on your Practice Squad (see below for more information on your practice squad).
Each team owner is given cash based on the league salary cap to cover their payroll expenses. Open leagues will all have a $60 million cap. Theme leagues may have salary caps of $60 million or $80 million depending on what the league founder chooses. This cash may be dispersed any way you see fit. For example, you can choose to spend most of it on just a handful of players or you may choose a more balanced spending approach. Once you add a player to your roster, the player may be replaced at any time until you join a league. Once you create your team, you can only replace a player by using the waiver wire or by calling up a player from your practice squad.
Salaries for all players are not based on actual salary data, but instead calculated using formulas to equate the value of historical players in today's dollars, e.g. how much would '85 Walter Payton be worth in today's market?
Note: You do NOT have to draft your entire team all at once. We save your draft picks for up to 30 days, so if you want to come back and finish you draft, you can!
B. Available Players
Since SimLeague competition is based on ratings that use statistics (i.e. past performance), you may choose from any player, both current and past, that meets the following criteria:
- Durability 25 or higher - equates to playing in 4 or more games in a 16 game season
- Running Backs must have at least 10 Rushing Stamina or 10 Receiving Stamina
Players are not listed by career numbers, but instead individual season statistics. So, you may have the same player on your roster multiple times, as long as the player is from different seasons, i.e. you can have '91 and '92 Jerry Rice on your roster, but you cannot have two '92 Barry Sanders on your roster. The practice of having the same player from different seasons on your team is sometimes referred to as "cloning". If you are joining a theme league, please make sure that this is allowed in the league. In addition, a player may be on more than one team in the league at the same time, i.e. 2 teams may both have '98 Brett Favre on their rosters.
When searching for players, you may search by any combination of the following criteria:
- The player's last name and first name, e.g. "Sayers"
- Team he played for, e.g. "Chicago Bears"
- Salary range, e.g. "$1,000,000 +/- $250,000"
- Season range, e.g. "1965 - 1970"
- Ratings, e.g. "Durability > 75"
Please note that if you draft someone from the current season, please be aware that their statistics/salary may periodically change as the actual season progresses.
C. Joining a League
Once the roster has been completed, you will be asked to give your team a name (the use of profanity is prohibited) and be asked to choose a home stadium. You have over 50 stadiums to choose from, ranging from historic to modern.
Note: The stadium you choose impacts the game with regards to the weather in which your games will be played. For instance, there will be more chance of playing in strong wind in Chicago. Dome stadiums will not suffer from weather effects.
You will also be asked to either:
a.) Join the first available league - your team will be place in the first league with an open spot - this option gives you the best opportunity to start league play as soon as possible,
b.) Create a new league - this
option allows you to create a new private league. After the league has been created
you can your friends to join you.
Note: you have 7 days to fill the league. After
the 7 days, your league will be opened to the public to fill the remaining
spots.
c.) Join an existing league - use this option if you have received an invitation to join a private league.
Your team must be under the salary cap of your chosen league to be placed in that league. Immediately after you save your team, you will be placed in a league. Once the league is full (24 for full-season and 6 for exhibition), each team owner will receive an email notifying them that their league has been set, games scheduled and the date league play will begin. The league schedule will vary based on the type of league you join - exhibition or full-season.
D. Team Draft Tips
When creating your team, remember these tips:
- Draft to your style, i.e. if you are going to play a wide open offense, don't draft a lot of fullbacks.
- Fatigue is a factor. Don't expect running backs that only got 3 carries a game to run the ball 30 times a game. They will get tired (or more likely, injured)!
- You can make changes to your roster using both the waiver wire and your practice squad. That's it! So take your time when drafting.
- During the regular season, players can get injured. Don't expect an overused
player to go the entire season without an injury (he could make it the entire
season without experiencing an injury, but highly unlikely).
NOTE: If you do not have enough players healthy at a given position, players from other positions will have to fill in. If you have no available healthy quarterbacks or less than 5 healthy skill players (RB/WR/TE), you will forfeit the game. Either call someone up from your practice squad or waive an injured QB and pick up a healthy one off the waiver wire.
TEAM MANAGEMENT
Once you have completed your roster and selected a home stadium, you will be taken to the Team Management Center. The Team Management Center is the center of your SimLeague universe. From the Team Management Center, you have access to different areas to help you manage your team:
A. Schedule/Standings
This area of the Team Management Center allows you to switch between teams (if you own more than 1 team), view your team's schedule, view your team's standings, view stats for the other teams in your league, post messages to other team owners in your league, and view boxscores from any day on your schedule.
B. Coach's Office
This area of the Team Management Center allows you to preview who you'll be playing in your next game, set your offensive and defensive coaching styles, set your depth chart, view your team's offensive and defensive stats, view your next opponent's offensive and defensive stats, view the statistical league leaders, and view the physical condition of everyone on your team.
C. GM's Office
The General Manager's office gives you access to the Waiver Wire and your Practice
Squad. The Waiver Wire shows players that are available to be claimed. You
may claim a player if you don't already have that player on your roster
(the same player from the same year cannot be on your roster twice) and
you have enough available cash to afford to claim the player. You are
required to maintain a full roster of players so in order to claim someone you
must release an existing player. The salary freed up by releasing a player
combined with any available cash you had after your draft equals your
buying power - the maximum you can spend to claim a player on
waivers.
Players are claimed and released constantly as the
same Waiver Wire is used by all leagues. So if you release Corey Dillon, he may
be picked up by someone else in another league or by someone in your
league and vice versa.
Your practice squad allows you to call players up (and send players 'down') at any time. You may only replace a player with another player of the same position.
Limitations:
For exhibition seasons, there is no waiver wire - only your practice squad. You are not limited to transactions (release-claim) per season, but you must pay a 10% transaction charge for each player that you claim. For example, if you want to claim a 1 million player, you'll need to give up 1.1 million. All rosters must be final by the end of the regular season, i.e. you will not be able to waive or claim players after that time. Your practice squad is available the entire season including playoffs.
Team Draft | Team Management | League PlayLEAGUE PLAY
A. The Schedule
For full-season leagues, teams play a 16 game season (plus 4 exhibition games), with both inter-division and inter-conference games. Games are simulated a half at a time. The first half of the game will be simulated overnight (indicated with 'am' next to the date on the schedule) and the 2nd half will be simulated in the early afternoon EST (indicated with 'pm' next to the date on the schedule).
For exhibition leagues, teams play a 4 game season. Games are played daily (overnight and early afternoon EST) for a 4 day season. There are no playoffs or prizes for exhibition leagues.
B. The Results
As soon as the games for each day have been simulated, you can find the results, including complete boxscores in your Team Management Center. League standings are also automatically updated.
C. The Playoffs (FULL-SEASON ONLY)
At the end of the season, the top 6 teams in each conference will be seeded in a 4 round playoff, leading up to a League Championship showdown between the AFC and NFC. The format will be as follows:
For each conference, teams will be seeded 1-6 based on the following criteria:
- The division winners will be selected based on overall win percentage, head to head win percentage between all tied teams, win percentage within the division, win percentage within the conference, overall scoring margin, and then a coin flip.
- The division winners will be seeded 1-3 based on overall win percentage, head to head win percentage (sweep if 3 teams), win percentage within the conference, overall scoring margin, and then a coin flip.
- Of the non-division winners, seeds 4-6 will be determined based on overall win percentage, head to head win percentage (sweep if 3 or more teams), win percentage within the division (if all tied teams are within same division), win percentage within the conference, overall scoring margin, and then a coin flip.
- For tie breakers with 3 or more teams, once a team is decided the winner of a tie break, they will be removed and the remaining teams will go through the tie breaking process again for the next seed.
Note: For win percentage, tie games count as one half win and one half loss.
Teams 1 and 2 will receive first round byes.
Team 3 will play team 6 and team 4 will play team 5, with all games being played at the higher seed's home stadium.
The lowest seed remaining from the round 1 games will play the number 1 seed, and the other team will play the number 2 seed.
The winners of each of these games will meet in the conference finals.
The conference champions shall meet in the League Championship, which is played on a neutral site.
D. Prizes (FULL-SEASON ONLY)
As if the glory and admiration of your defeated opponents wasn't enough, the League Champion also receives 3,000 Reward Points* for use in the WhatIfSports Reward Center!
You can use your reward points towards free Simleague teams, merchandise and other great prizes!
If you're not fortunate enough to win the whole thing, don't worry, you *may* get a parting gift! Depending on how far you go in the playoffs, you may get up to $4.00 off your next full-season football team:
| Round Reached | Credit* |
| 1st Round | $1.00 |
| 2nd Round | $2.00 |
| 3rd Round | $3.00 |
| 4th Round | $4.00 |
Credits are valid for use on future Football Simleague purchases only. Credits not used within 30 days will expire. Credits are not redeemable for cash.
*Note: these rewards change for open leagues depending on the number of times an owner reaches the Championship Game in any league. Teams purchased using a promo code will receive $8.00 in credits instead of Reward Points for winning the Championship, also subject to the following rules.
- The 1st - 5th trips to the Championship game yield the full value of the prizes mentioned above (100%).
- The 6th - 10th trips to the Championship game yield 75%.
- The 10th trip and beyond yields 50%.
Remember, these limitations are for open leagues only -- theme leagues will ALWAYS yield 100% of the prize values!