The Drafts
Each
summer before the kick-off of a new NFL season, the BPFL holds
its yearly set of drafts in which teams improve their rosters by
picking up new players and dropping those from their roster who
don’t fit the plans. There are four types of drafts done during
the preseason: The Waiver Draft, the Entry Draft, The Coaches
Draft, and The Supplemental Draft. All drafts use the same
drafting order - a worst to first order using the team rankings
from the previous year, with the BPFL Super Bowl winner from the
previous year having the #1 ranking.
Deadlines
For the annual Waiver
Draft, Entry Draft, and Supplemental drafts below, BPFL owners
are required to submit protection lists and drop lists,
respectively, to the league office. Each year a deadline
is issued for both lists, and it is imperative that this
deadline be observed. Failure to submit either list before
the posted deadline will result in a fine of $25 per day to the
team in violation.
Waiver Draft
Done
via conference call about a month before the Annual GM Meeting
and Entry Draft, the Waiver Draft is in place to help lesser
teams grab useful players from the rosters of teams that are a
little deeper in talent. It is a single round draft in
which, using the same worst to first order used in the other two
drafts, each team selects one unprotected player from another
team’s roster in the league.
Starting
with the 2024 Offseason, changes were made to the number of
protections each team receives, with the goal of distributing
more balance to the weaker rosters.
The amount of protections each team is allowed is based on the rank in which they finished the previous season, and they are distributed in the following way:
Rank
Protections
1 10
2 12
3 14
4 16
5 18
6
20
7
22
8
24
Each
BPFL team can only have one player taken from their roster
during the draft and any player previously taken in the draft is
untouchable. BPFL teams must make a selection from another
team's roster, and can not take a player from their own
roster. Once all 8 teams have picked a player, the waiver
draft is complete. Please note that all BPFL teams are required
to make a pick in this draft in order to keep roster counts
consistent; if you don’t want the player you are forced to pick,
you can release him when you make a pick in the college/free
agent draft.
Entry Draft
The major event of the BPFL preseason meeting is the annual Entry Draft. This draft is for freshly drafted college players, current NFLers previously undrafted in the BPFL, and players released from BPFL teams. In relation to new NFL players, all players that have been officially drafted by an NFL team are eligible for drafting in our league.
A couple of weeks prior to the draft, each team submits the list of players on their rosters that they wish to dump back into the availability pool. There is no maximum number of players one team can get rid of (you can dump your whole team if you want to), but each team must release enough players from their team for them to have a maximum remaining roster of 30 players prior to the draft. It should be noted that because of odd player trades, the amount of players one must release to get to 30 remaining players may vary.
It should also be noted that because of previous trades involving draft picks, that teams may make picks outside of their original draft position. Trades involving the exchange of draft picks during the current draft are also allowed, as long as a team has not reached its 40 man limit for the draft. Draft picks later than the 8th round can not be traded at any time.
The order of the draft is determined using the BPFL regular season standings from the prior year. As mentioned earlier, the first seven picks are made by the worst teams from the year before in order - 8th picks first, 7th second and so on - with the last pick automatically going to the Super Bowl winner. The order returns back to the top of the order for the second round (again 1 through 8, or worst to Super Bowl winner) and so on until all teams have reached their 38 player limit and declare their drafts finished.
All eight BPFL teams are required to have no more and no less than 40 players on their roster upon the completion of their draft. Subsequently, once a team reaches the total of 40 players on their roster their draft is officially complete and they are not eligible to make any team transactions until after the entire draft is complete.
In a
case where a team has mistakenly drafted a roster of 39 players
or less, he is stuck with that roster total until the
Supplemental Draft - no make up picks are allowed. If a
player mistakenly drafts too many players, he must drop down to
40 by releasing the correct amount of players, and those
released players have to be chosen from the team's draft list
from that year. There is also a $25 fine for picking too
many players.
Coaches Draft
It is
during this 3 round draft that BPFL teams draft NFL coaches to
their rosters in order to fill vacant head coach and assistant
coach positions. For more information on coaching, please
see Section 9 - Coaches.
Once
the Waiver Draft, Entry Draft, and Coaches Draft are all
completed, teams may resume trading in preparation for Week 1 of
the upcoming season.
Supplemental Draft
Beginning for the 2008 season, BPFL teams will have the option to participate in a one round supplemental draft on the Tuesday before week 1 games of the regular season. This draft will take place just over a week after the entry draft, and its intention is to help BPFL teams make one last adjustment to their roster before games begin.
To participate in the draft, teams must drop one player from their roster by 11:59pm on the Monday before the Tuesday draft date. This dropped player can be any player on the post Entry Draft 40 man roster, new or old. This supplemental draft is optional, and teams who are happy with their rosters do not need to drop a player and participate.
Once drops are made, each team who decided to participate will then be eligible to draft an unclaimed player at any position to replace him on to their roster. Teams will begin selecting using the same basic reverse standings order used in the BPFL entry draft the week before. Like waiver draft picks, these supplemental picks are not tradeable commodities for BPFL teams.
It
should also be noted that as per the position rule in section 2
of the constitution, an undrafted player's BPFL position remains
the same for the supplemental draft as it did during the entry
draft the week before. This includes any recent position
changes on the ESPN.com depth charts since that time.