2022 HFFL Season Syllabus

New HFFL Logo Large (1)

Welcome to the 2022 HFFL season!

And so we begin our 16th HFFL season!

A special welcome to our 2022 rookies! You should read over everything carefully so you understand how the HFFL runs.

Basics

The HFFL exists as 3 separate leagues of 12 teams each, but they are all part of the HFFL universe! There are two lower leagues and one upper league. The lower leagues are the Premier League (PL) and the Elite League (EL) and the upper league is known as The League of Champions (LOC).

3 League Schematic

Everyone starts out in one of the lower leagues. To get to the League of Champions, you have to earn your way in. Those managers playing in the League of Champions this year won their way in last year. More on advancement later.

Our leagues are hosted on Yahoo Sports. It’s a pretty great platform and, better yet, it’s free!

This year, the leagues and draft orders look like this:

League of Champions
1Matt R
2Spencer P
3Stephen G
4Joe D
5Eric M
6Luke A
7Peter T
8Taylor L
9Ron R
10Caleb Z
11Jonah T
12Mike M
Elite League
1Zack T
2Eamonn M
3Hyatt H
4Dan E
5Wayne T
6Jay S++
7Peter C
8Tyler L
9Andrew K++
10Aaron W
11Chris A
12Jake L
Premier League
1Chris T
2Liam E
3Nate E
4Allen S++
5Nick L
6Kevin vdS
7Tom Mc
8Brian P
9Nick G ++
10Greg K
11Seth R
12Eric H

++ Denotes a rookie

Now you can officially scope your competition! And don’t forget to find the rookies and welcome them to the madness!

Drafts

In-person drafts are back on the menu this year! Very exciting! However, we’re still dealing with Covid-19 as you all know. So with that in mind, all leagues will use the standard Yahoo online draft tools this year. That means if you’re not comfortable coming to the church building and drafting together, you can easily draft remotely via your Yahoo league page or via the Yahoo Fantasy Sports app on your mobile device.

If you’re coming in person, feel free to bring a drink or snack FOR YOURSELF. We’re not going to do a community snack table this year.

The LOC conducts an auction (salary cap) draft. If you’re in the LOC and are new to auction drafting, check out the Auction Draft FAQ post here.

The Premier League and the Elite League conduct standard snake drafts to select players. That means you draft 1-12 in round one and then 12-1 in round two and so on.

A Word About Draft Orders

The actual snake draft orders are reflected in the league assignments grid above. The orders were determined using the final standings from last year for the returning teams and the rookies were randomly assigned a draft number and inserted into the order. In cases where two teams had the same draft stock number, a coin flip determined the order. In cases where three teams had the same draft stock number, a random draw determined the order. In the interests of openness, here’s how that broke down for each league.

Note: League of Champions draft order is mostly irrelevant due to the nature of salary cap auction drafts. 

The Elite League draft will be Monday, August 15th at the church building OR online via the Yahoo site/app. Be there at 7pm, snake draft beginning at 7:15pm sharp!

The Premier League draft will be Sunday, August 28th, at the church building OR online via the Yahoo site/app. Be there at 7pm, snake draft beginning at 7:15pm sharp!

The League of Champions auction will be held Monday, August 29th, at the church building OR online via the Yahoo site/app. Show up around 7pm to get situated. Auction begins promptly at 7:15pm.


These are the dates that worked for the overwhelming majority of the owners. The Yahoo draft tools work well on mobile or in a browser, so you hopefully can join one way or another.

If you simply CAN’T participate in your draft at that time, Yahoo will auto-draft for you. This is less than ideal, but it works okay. However, it definitely works WAY WORSE for the Salary Cap Auction draft. Rank your players early on Yahoo if you can’t draft yourself.

Remember, you can’t win your HFFL Super Bowl on draft night, but you can probably lose it. We want everyone to feel good about their team and that starts at the draft.

Rules

The rules are all outlined on your Yahoo league pages, so check them out there. I will mention (because it gets asked every year) that points scored by special teams count for the team defense. So if the Colts get a kickoff or punt return TD, the Colts defense gets those fantasy points.
 

In Season Stuff

The rookies among us will also appreciate a word on Weekly Waivers and Free Agent Blind Bidding.

 At the start of the first game of the week, any player that isn’t on a roster is placed on Waivers. These players cannot be picked up immediately by teams. If a team wants one of these players on waivers, they must bid on him from their imaginary waiver budget ($100). The bids are blind, so you don’t know if any other team is bidding on this player or how much they are bidding. Strategy is key here. Then on Tuesday, the team with the highest bid gets the player and the other teams keep their money. This levels the playing field for those guys who aren’t watching every game on Sundays looking for breakout performances and snatching those guys up. If no one picks up a player on waivers, then on Tuesday he’s a free agent again and anyone can pick him up, “for free”, immediately. You’ll get the hang of it.

And just remember, there is no ACTUAL money involved with the HFFL. Just fun!

Playoffs and Advancement

AKA, how do I get into the League of Champions next year?
 
At the end of the HFFL regular season, the top 6 teams in each league will compete for their league Super Bowl title and the bottom 6 teams will compete for their league’s coveted Toilet Bowl title (Consolation Bracket). Now, when the playoffs are complete, the top 3 teams in each league (the title winners and the 2nd and 3rd place teams) will earn eligibility to the LOC for next season. BUT ALSO, each league’s Toilet Bowl winner will also earn eligibility!
 
So that means that even if you finish the regular season in 12th place, you could win every game in your consolation bracket and earn a ticket to the LOC for next year! The playoffs matter for every team!
 
Here’s a graphical way of looking at it. So four teams from each league will be win tickets to the LOC for next year.
 
HFFL Playoff Advancement

They’re baa-aack! Weekly Pick’em and Survival Groups!

If just picking games is more your thing, join our HFFL Pick’em group or our Survival group.

In Pick’em, just pick the winners of each NFL game every week. Best picker wins!

Join Pick’em here. Group # is 4622 and the password is “river”. 

In Survival picks, you pick ONE team to win each week. Once you’ve picked a team, you can’t pick them again for the rest of the year. If your pick loses, you’re eliminated from the game! Scary!

Join the Survival group here… IF YOU DARE!

HFFL Universal Blast

Each week, you can expect a goofy wrap-up post/email to appear in your inbox: The HFFL Universal Blast. There will also be chatter on the Fantasy Sports group on the Church Center App! Get the app as I’ll use that to communicate with everyone and not get lost in email inboxes.

You can also check HiawathaFantasyFootball.com which houses all the back-issues of the Blast and lots of other information – including career statistics for everyone and other geeky numbers.

Okay, that should do it!

Now… let’s go!!

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