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 web fee of $5/team, we fund the ongoing development of the FLFFL website.
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 in the system 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.
Adjustments for 2020 Season (Assumed to be temporaray)
- Reduced registration fee from $125 to $75. (This is an attempt to recognize the difficult financial circumstances that many coaches and families are facing at this time as well as to encourage maximum participation.)
- Suspended trade schedule to allow for unlimited trades every week. (This will give coaches the opportunity to adjust their rosters at the last minute in case a player is suddenly not playing or a game is rescheduled.)
- Shortened the FLFFL regular season from 12 weeks to 10, which equates to a 14 week season including our playoffs. (This is an attempt to adjust for the impact should the NFL need to shorten its regular season if COVID surges again in the fall OR if any games are lost in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.)
- Suspended traditional Weekly Reports and Playoff Brackets in their usual PDF formats. (Weekly Reports will be issued via a brief email; the Playoff Brackets will have an online replacement)
New for the 2020 Season
- Added new fundraiser, Last Team Falling (LTF), with a minimum $100 donation to The Pineiro Family whose 4-year old boy, Orien, is battling brain cancer. Initial buy in for LTF is $10/per team.
- Increased registration fee to $25 for Weekly Pick' Em.
New for 2016 Season
- Reduced the penalty for missed XP’s to -1 (from -3)
- Eliminated the penalty to the DEFENSE for a Pick 6 or Fumble 6 scored against the OFFENSE
New for 2015 Season
- Eliminated the +1 / -1 for a game result (enacted in 2016)
New for 2014 Season
- Expansion to 80 teams with 5 bowls, including the new Canandaigua Bowl
- Change in designation for 1 Running Back and 1 Wide Receiver per roster to FLEX positions
New for 2012 Season
- Capped kicker bonus scoring at 15 points (previously had been 25 points)
- Added new fundraiser, NFL Weekly Pick ‘Em (WPE), with a minimum $100 donation to the Ithaca Athletic Boosters in memory of Jackie Roskelly (DOGGERS)
New for 2011 Season
- Added player updates for weekly status reporting (IR, CUT and/or ACTIVATION)
- To simplify the coding for the playoffs, eliminated rule that teams from the same division could not play each other in the first round of the playoffs
New for 2009 Season
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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 — it ended up being a bit more than that (my apologies, Husna!) — but with Noah's gifted support expertise and patience, 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 so in 2002, when John Gorsky, The Commish, decided it was time to pass the mantle of the league onto some unsuspecting soul, Bill raised his hand — both he and his lovely wife, Beth, are still wondering what possessed him to do so on that fateful day.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 80 | 319 | Gold Club, Wk 8 | 51 | King Kong, Wk 16 |
| 2013 | 64 | 344* | The Home Wreckers, Wk 15 | 82 | Brewmeisters, Week 12 |
| 2012 | 64 | 289 | King Kong, Wk 9 | 38 | Bombers, Wks 15 and 16 |
| 2011 | 64 | 313 | Flaming Thumbtacks, Wk 14 | 103 | The Chelsea Clintons, Wk 6 |
| 2010 | 64 | 355 | Flaming Thumbtacks, Wk 12 | 79 | Best Buddies, Wk 9 |
| 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 | The original commish and all participants are still trying to remember... | ||||