You may trade players and/or draft picks prior to the draft. All trades during the season will be determined by majority voting. Off Season trading is allowed. Trade will not auto-approve and teams have 5 days to protest a trade.
There will be no trade deadlines during the season. During the regular season, draft picks may NOT be traded. (This rule is to avoid the problem where teams trade away many of their future selections and then does not return to the league the next year.)
Keeper Status follows the traded player. When trading players, the players draft status (position) and keeper status (years he can be kept) is traded with the player.
Trading Keepers
In the event a trade involving one team having more than one 1st RD keeper, the team may only keep 1st RD Keepers if the team possesses the same amount of 1st Round selections. For example, if you want to keep two or three 1st RD Keepers/Players, you must make sure your trade acquires the other teams 1st RD draft selection along with your 1st RD Keeper or else your team will end up with more 1st RD Keepers than 1st RD selection available.
Unlike keeping players/keepers from other Rounds, in order to keep multiple 1st RD Keepers, you MUST have the available 1st RD draft selection(s). When keeping multiple players from the same round, the team is required to use succession rounds in the reverse order. For example, if you have three players drafted in the 3rd RD that you want to keep, you will use your team’s selection in Round 3, Round 2 and Round 1 to keep all three players. In this same scenario, you will not be able to keep your 2nd RD Keeper or 1st RD Keeper if you do not possess additional selections for those Rounds.
The main objective of this keeper league format is to reward teams’ ability to draft well, especially in middle to late rounds. The more “diamonds in the rough” your team drafts, the better your chances of keeping them without exhausting a high round selection. It’s easy for team to find a great player when drafting in Rounds 1 – 4. Most teams tend to find it more challenging when drafting in the middle to late rounds when all the popular and proven players are gone.
Do not be discouraged just because your team does not possess high round selections after your team used the top 5 round picks on Keepers. Just look at the recent draft (2008) 1st Round selections when L Tomlinson(1st overall), S Jackson(4th overall) and Joseph Addai(6th overall) turned out to be mediocre and Tom Brady(5th overall) didn’t even make it out of Week 1. And then you see players drafted in Rounds 4 or later in the following list excelled:
DeAngelo Williams (5th RD)
Matt Forte (6th RD)
Roddy White (6th RD)
Jay Cutler (6th RD)
Chris Johnson (8th RD)
Steve Slaton (11th RD)
Phillip Rivers (12th RD)
Kurt Warner (13th RD)
Eddie Royal (13th)
Steve Breaston (14th RD)
Antonio Bryant (Free Agent)
