SAFFL'25 The SCOOP --- #103 August 3, 2025 Quick Start Time ================ I used to hear from my father that the older you get, time seems to move faster and faster ... and now I can fully agree with that! But the normal swings of the calendar are going to make it seem more so this year. Labor Day is falling on September 1st ... and that moves everything up sooner in the NFL world. For better or worse, SAFFL is just the tail on that dog. (Hmmm ... will this be the year of the 'MAD DOGS'?) Hello and welcome back everyone! Hope the year has been good to you all. Things here at the league office are much the same ... just fine and dandy. I've survived a computer crash (my 15 year old Windows 7 machine flaked out). But I've got all the SAFFL stuff on backup. Yes, the SUPER BEEZ are still champs ... don't need computer records to prove that! We've got a few changes coming into this year ... and I've been noodling on some ideas to help with possible changes in the future. In any case, read on and let's get this season rolling! Ownership Status ================ The first change to report is a bit of a bummmer ... the CHICAGO DOGS will be stepping out of the SAFFL world. The conglomerate ownership of Diann Marquis and college-immersed sons have spread their interests into other directions. Diann says she'll still be tuning into our antics ... and I promise to keep reporting on the follies of her illustrious brothers. Thanks Diann for being a part of SAFFL ... you are welcome back anytime! As for the CHICAGO DOGS franchise ... we now have an opening for a new owner. Please let me know if there's anyone you know of that would like to be part of SAFFL. I've got one hat-in-the-ring so far, but don't hesitate to consult with me or advocate about prospective owners. We could always downsize (and disperse the C-DOGS players). Or we could possibly expand if we have multiple ownership candidates (though expansion would require ownership approval). In any case, I'm hoping to have a clear plan by the time of our Owners' Meeting in a couple weeks. Now a few updates on some of our 'historical' owners and teams ... Some of you may remember, over a decade ago, the relatively brief existence of the SWAMP RATS franchise. Led by a very young Ryan Malburg (Pat's son), the RATS were a springboard for Ryan's interest and passion for pro football. Now college-graduated, working and living in Minnesota, Ryan got married last week ... congratulations Ryan & bride! But here's the kicker ... where does a football super-fan, groom-to-be hold a bachelor party? How about at the 2025 NFL Draft! Yep ... Ryan, groomsmen, and family like King SUPER BEE Pat, rented a suite at Lambeau Field in Green Bay Wisconsin alongside all the action at the draft this spring. The NFL Draft was a 3-day affair ... that must have been some heck-of-a bachelor party! Last year was our 25th anniversary celebration of SAFFL. At the urging of chief BELLEVUE PSYCHO MAULER John Lawitzke, I went about trying to contact some of our former, now emeritus, SAFFL owners. Heard back from the RALEIGH PHANTOMS Dan Gura ... he's still doing very well living with family in North Carolina. Dan's daughters are now at State! NC State, that is. (Close enough!) Like Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, the spirit of the KLONDIKE KODIAKS in Joe Peplinski still keeps an eye on SAFFL on-goings. And some of us that used to work with Joe back in MSU days were able to meet up with Joe for a mini-reunion late last fall. Ron Kraus (POLISH REDSKINGS), John L. (MAULERS), Joe, and I were able to arrange a lunch in Brighton, MI. As fate would have it, I happened to hear from John Rooker (ROOKSTERS) the night before that he was in town (in from Massachusetts) visiting family. So John R. was a 'surprise guest' who was able to make the luncheon, too! We had great fun catching up, telling stories old and new ... all the while checking out who has any hair left. ;) So as always ... retired owners you are welcome to join in on SAFFL activities and action whenever the football (and old friends) fever gets the better of you! Season Recap ============ Let's not pull any punches ... winners of 3 of the last 4 Sparty Cups ... 5 times SAFFL Champions in all ... the FAIR HAVEN SUPER BEEZ are the reigning dynasty in SAFFL. The DISSEISORS may be WANNA-BEES, but nobody can touch the SUPER BEEZ for now. (I have this vision of Pat dancing with the Sparty Cup ... blasting MC Hammer ... "can't touch this!") Last season began looking like the DISSEISORS were in great position to repeat as SAFFL champions. Having a roster loaded with up-and-coming Detroit Lion stars (DISSEISORS affiliate), DISSEISORS had a bounty of riches. So many that they went looking to get something for talents they could not protect. DISSEISORS kicked it off pre-draft swinging a trade with the COOL CATS sending away WR Jameson Williams for a 2nd rounder plus 1st round upgrade. But maybe it was Jamo who was the secret-sauce in DISSEISOR-land? DISSEISORS stumbled out to a 1-and-3 start ... and the COOL CATS blazed to 5 quick wins without a blemish. DISSEISORS would rebound to make the playoffs, but the COOL CATS became the early top dog getting to a 9-1 record by midseason. Around-the-league, the 2023 runners-up GOLDEN STATE CATFISH started strong with a 6-2 burst. Going back to their super-heavy-on-offense draft strategy, the CATFISH controlled the draft by creating scarcity and forcing at least some SAFFL teams to overpay for marginal offensive players. The REYNOLDS RANGERS also started well, getting to 6-2 early and looking stronger every year as they've built up their roster since joining the league. On the downside, the RICHMOND RIDGEBACKS, a once-dominant franchise in the old SAFFL era, had everything go south at the start losing their first 3 games. The RIDGEBACKS would come back strong later, but lower playoff seeding might have held them back at the end. The BARRACUDAS also had a rough ride, dealing with first-time parenting, and their SAFFL team stumbled without a single win until week 8. That would be the BARRACUDAS only win for the season. And how about them MOOSE? Are they good? Are they bad? For the first 10 weeks of the season they went W-L-W-L-W-L-W-L-W-L ... by week 11 the flip-flopping might have just left the MOOSE too tired as they faded out of the playoffs. The SUPER BEEZ know the drill. Stay focused ... plug the main holes in the draft ... make a few key pickups along the way ... and let good things happen. A somewhat unusual 1st round pick going defense in LB Blake Cashman turned out to be a gem as Cashman averaged 20 points a game, plugging one hole in the defense. And it was during ZOMBIE-fest that the BEEZ plugged another by getting DT Zach Zeiler (for a reasonable $200) who ended up delivering a superb 23 points per game. The BEEZ started out winning their first two games. But then in week 3 had to face their kryptonite ... the WARM MILK. Since 2020, in the regular season the BEEZ are 1-3-1 against the MILK. And in week 3, the MILK took the BEEZ down to their knees once again. (Do bees have knees?) But steady as she goes ... and the 7-3 BEEZ came sailing into their week 12 showdown with the 9-1 COOL CATS. A preview of the Sparty Bowl, the BEEZ put up a strong 400+ point victory putting the CATS on-notice that the BEEZ were gearing up. From there on in, the SUPER BEEZ would not lose again. An eight-game winning streak would close out the season. Putting pedal-to-the-metal, the BEEZ tossed aside brother RIDGEBACKS both during Rivals Week and then again two weeks later in the playoffs Final Four with 400+ point mashings. Finishing with a rematch against fading COOL CATS in the Sparty Bowl, the BEEZ cruised to Sparty Cup #5. A classic performance from a classy team ... congratulations once again, Pat! Protected Player Reminders ========================== Nothing new ... same as the past two seasons. As we all start evaluating our rosters, here's a quick summary of protection rules: - All protected players must fit into roster starter slots. - Each team must protect exactly 20 players. - At least 5 protected players must be from a team's NFL affiliate. - FAs (picked up after last year's draft) must have started at least one game for your SAFFL team (while also active in an NFL game) in order to be protection eligible. Feedback I've gotten about having all protected players fitting into starter slots has been nearly all positive. Maybe a few tougher decisions deciding who to keep, but there's been a clear improvement in the draft player pool (particularly the 1st round). Team-to-team trading seems to have seen an uptick, too. Trades ====== The trade market is already warming up. We've got one that just got put through today: GOLDEN STATE CATFISH trade DEN TE Evan Engran to RICHMOND RIDGEBACKS for SEA DE DeMarcus Lawrence and RICHMOND RIDGEBACKS for KC HC Chiefs Coach Once we are past the draft, you can make offers and consummate trades by yourselves directly from the ESPN pages. But if it is just easier to skip the ESPN multiple page clicking, please feel free to contact me and I'll gladly handle the mechanics of putting a trade through for you. What's Cooking ============== I'm going to work up an preliminary plan to handle potential SAFFL future expansion. I understand there's some strong concerns about overly diluting the player pool and also being unable to protect favorite players. But at the same time I want to be prepared for expansion possibilities, especially as the NFL is looking at both expanding the length of the season and adding international teams. Nothing has to be finalized this year ... but I'd like to get thinking going so that if circumstances arise favorable to expansion, we can avoid the scramble in figuring how expansion would be accommodated. I'll bring some ideas to the Owner's Meeting and we can take it from there. The past couple seasons we discussed whether to tie performance in consolation games to gaining a higher position in the following season's draft. I'll be bringing this up again at the Owners' Meeting and see if this idea has gained momentum. If anyone has ideas, comments, new approaches, please feel free to pass them along. I very much appreciate it. Keeping things the way they are is convenient and comfortable, but it's good to find ways to keep SAFFL evolving in ways we enjoy. ESPN and SAFFL Websites ======================= SAFFL is reactivated and renewed on ESPN as usual. You'll find your team just as you left it last season. Players cut that became ineligible at the end of the season have been restored to the player/draft pool. Here is the link for our ESPN site (unchanged): http://games.espn.com/ffl/leagueoffice?leagueId=31549 If you bookmarked a link last year, you may find you are looking at last season's rosters and standings. Use the URL above or look for a link at the top of your ESPN pages to take you to the current (2025) season. Also, the old SAFFL web server is up and running on the Amazon cloud: http://www.saffl.org Take Note! watch out for your browser trying to insert 'https' instead of just the simpler 'http' at the beginning of the URL. Many web sites have gone to secure servers … that's why there's an extra 's' in the 'http'. The simpler non-secure server has been fine for us, though I may look at making both non-secure and secure access available just for convenience. Remember you can always get to the ESPN site by going to the old SAFFL web page and clicking on the ESPN Fantasy Football logo near the top. Updates will be ongoing as we approach Draft Day. NFL Affiliates ============== Every SAFFL team has an exclusive tie to an NFL team that grants preferential access to that NFL team's players. To see the list of affiliations, go to: http://www.saffl.org/affiliates.htm If you wish to change affiliates, just let me know. You may affiliate with any NFL team not already spoken for. Changes can be made starting today but no later than Wednesday August 13th. IMPORTANT! If you switch to a new affiliation, you CANNOT acquire and protect pre-draft any of the rookies that the NFL team drafted this year. Scoring Model ============= Last season we had a bit of a time with trying to understand and/or correct how ESPN was treating 'Stuffs'. It's a key defensive stat, especially for defensive tackles (DTs). Scoring DTs would be difficult otherwise. What I eventually learned is that Stuffs and TFLs (Tackles for Loss) are not the same things from ESPN's perspective. If you look at various sources for NFL statistics, some report Stuffs, some TFLs, some both (ESPN does ... just in different places!) Bottom line ... SAFFL only uses Stuffs. Here's the best definition that I was able to put together from ESPN documentation and what showed up in our SAFFL results: A STUFF can only occur on a running play, and it can be for ZERO or negative yards. A TFL can occur on either a running or passing play, but it can ONLY be for negative yards. ESPN & SAFFL do not count TFLs ... they count STUFFS! Now as for other scoring issues ... looks like we finally cooled off a bit on overall point inflation. Back when we switched over to ESPN in 2017, I set out have average game scores match NFL averages, just times 10 (the 'times 10' was unavoidable without fractional scoring). So a 250 point target for average points was envisioned. Well, I guess with trying to balance positional values, along with changes from where ESPN sources its statistics, we gradually moved up to average scores in the 300 to 330 range. Given 300 is a nice round number, I'm going to keep that as my target if/when tweaks to the scoring model are needed. Let me know if you think some other target would be better. One other objective is to create enough variability in the players at a position, so that finding better players does make a difference. Kickers and punters and coaches are a bit harder to so with due to ESPN providing limited statistics to evaluate them on. I'm going to test out some different ideas with them these next couple weeks and see if there might be some useful adjustments. Owners' Meeting =============== I'm looking to hold the Owners' Meeting within the next two weeks, likely sometime between August 14th (a Thursday) and August 18th (a Monday). We've seemed to settle on East Lansing most often as a good spot to meet in person. Good chance we do so again. Let me know if you have some other interesting location in mind. Officially, we only need three owners present (quorum). But of course, the more that can make it the merrier! I'll have my phones, WhatsApp, Zoom, available to help with remote call-ins for those interested in joining up. Keep you eyes on the email over the next couple weeks for a specific time and place. Draft Day ========= The plan is have a live draft as we've done almost every season. The DISSEISORS did a fantastic job hosting the draft last season, and they have generously offered to host again barring other options arising. If any of you would like to host, please let me know and I'll be glad to help working out the ideas/details/logistics with you. We could also take the draft to a 'neutral site' such as a restaurant/pub/grille/etc. if someone wants to recommend an appropriately accommodating place, I'm all ears. We'll be using the ESPN Fantasy Football service again to provide draft support. Even when you can't make it live, there are ways to program your preferences and let ESPN do the detailed picking for you. ESPN has worked smoothly now for several years, even with pausing the draft as long as we have good communication links. For the past couple seasons, I've been able to get the ESPN software to work very well with our league structure. Pre-draft trades, round-robin drafting, and our picks starting in ESPN round 1 are supported. I'll be doing some tests pre-draft to make sure this is still true, but things so far look good. Again, if you want to make a trade pre-draft, just contact me and I'll put it through. The draft date has yet to be set ... likely sometime Labor Day weekend as usual. I'll be in touch the next couple weeks to find out what works best for you all. Itinerary -- What to Be Ready For and When ========================================== The event dates this year are looking pretty solid, but as usual we've got to settle on the specific dates for the Owners' Meeting and Draft Day. Here's what's on tap: Thu. August 1 ..... League Office Open - ESPN roster access available Sun. August 3 ..... Scoop #103 emailed (this document) Mon. August 4 ..... First day for NFL Affiliate changes Wed. August 13 ..... Last day for NFL Affiliate changes Sat. August 16 ..... Owners' Meeting (tentative -- sometime that weekend) Mon. August 18 ..... Scoop #104 emailed (with Owners' Meeting notes) Sat. August 23 ..... Protected Lists set, rosters locked, non-keepers released Mon. August 25 ..... Scoop #105 emailed (with final Draft Day details) Tue. August 26 ..... Last Day to pickup NFL Affiliate players Wed. August 27 ..... Draft Day rehearsal, technology tests Labor Day Weekend .. Draft Day (TBD Fri/Sat/Sun/Mon). Tue. September 2.... Scoop #106 emailed (with draft day results) Thu. September 4 ... NFL Season Begins - Dallas Cowboys vs. Philadelphia Eagles Fri. September 5 ... NFL in South America (Brazil) ... Chargers vs. Chiefs Showtime! ========= Let me know if you have any email or phone number changes. As usual, I'll keep everyone posted about on-goings via email, with occasional text messages about time-sensitive events. Go Green! Go White! Go State! Go SAFFL!