2021 MFFL Rules Voting Results

There will be no multi-quarterback formations in 2021.

The results of the 2021 MFFL Rules Voting are in! There were a number of changes that will affect the league moving forward, while other proposals were shot down and might not be headed for another vote anytime soon.

Let’s take a look at the breakdown of the proposals that passed and failed.

Note: These rules will take effect immediately.

Proposals Passed

  1. Permanent change to NFT, Draft, and Auction Schedule: Something good did come from COVID, after all. By a resounding, 10-1-1 vote, the league approved the permanent separation of the player selection day. The NFT portion of the Auction will take place on a Saturday morning, to be immediately followed by an offline draft where each pick will have a four-hour window. The third and final piece, the regular Auction, will take place at a later date to be determined each year.
  2. Change RFA designation to mirror NFL: No longer will all drafted players be considered Restricted Free Agents when their rookie contracts are up. Instead, the only RFAs are players who have accrued three seasons in the league. This will include rookies signed via the auction and rookies drafted in Round 4 (see next proposal).
  3. Adding Round 4 to Draft: By a 3-to-1 margin, the owners agreed to add a fourth round to the MFFL draft. As an addendum to the vote, owners declared that players selected in this round will receive a non-guaranteed 3-year contract. Color this writer surprised as to why the fourth-round rookies would receive different contract lengths than players selected in rounds 1-3, but that’s just my editorial opinion. What this means is that only fourth-round rookies will receive Restricted Free Agent status.
  4. Contract Extensions: By a 2-to-1 margin, owners ratified the ability to offer contract extensions to players in the final year of their deals. When the new league year begins on June 1 (and at any time before the end of the calendar year), any player on the final year of his deal can be offered a contract extension of up to three years at either the Transition Tag value, or 120% of his current contract, whichever is higher. The new contract would replace the existing one immediately.
  5. Illegal Lineup Designation: The MFFL continued to define what constitutes an illegal lineup. Following last year’s vote that inserting players on IR or on their BYE week is illegal, owners also declared leaving a blank spot in a roster is prohibited. Of course, all three of these “illegal designations” only apply when there is an available replacement on a team’s bench. Also, there is no penalty for doing this, and no “commissioner override.” So, owners are on the honor system for following these rules. And if they choose not to, ownership in the league will be called into question.
  6. Switch RB2 designation to additional FLEX: By a 2-to-1 margin, owners strongly voted to change the RB2 designation to an additional FLEX. This gives owners tremendous flexibility in roster building moving forward.
  7. Increase Passing Touchdown Points to 4: Quarterbacks just got a little more valuable after the league passed a rule to increase passing touchdowns from 3 points to 4. The increase passed by a wide margin.
  8. Remove Incremental Points for Interceptions: In conjunction with the previous rule, the worth of quarterbacks increased a little bit more as the league voted to remove the incremental points negated for interceptions. Rather than interceptions increasing as quarterbacks throw more of them in a single game, all interceptions will now be negative 2 points.
  9. Points Champion Can Be Super Bowl Participant: Previously, in an effort to give more teams a chance at prize money, the league voted that money would be awarded to the highest-scoring non-Super Bowl team. That has now changed with the passing of this rule. Moving forward, the highest-scoring team regardless of playoff finish will be awarded prize money.
  10. Increase Entry Fee for Administration: By a 7-3-2 vote, the league approved the increase of the yearly entry fee to $80, with $5 from each going to administrative fees. This will help with website hosting and removing ads.
  11. Trade Vetoes: By a strong, 2-to-1 majority, the owners voted to implement a trade veto system. On a second ballot, it was determined that system would be the “challenge flag” principle. (see below)
  12. Voting on Trades with Top 16 Pick: Championship teams are built through the draft, and as such, MFFL owners agreed to monitor the exchange of valuable draft picks to make sure they’re not haphazardly changing hands. By an 8-4 margin, owners voted to make every trade involving a Top 16 draft pick be up for vote. It will require more than half of owners not involved in the trade to vote “no” in order for the trade to be vetoed.
  13. Delay Trading Period Until After Tag Period (Apr. 1): By a 7-4-1 margin, owners decided to push back the start of the trade deadline from January 1 to April 1, which is after the tag period concludes. Essentially, this eliminates the ability of teams to trade Unrestricted Free Agents, as they’re not really property of any team, anyway. In order to trade a UFA, a team must use one of its three tags on that player.
  14. Time of Enactment for Rule Changes: By a resounding 10-1-1 vote, owners agreed to require a two-thirds majority approval of a rule to enact it immediately. A simple majority approval of a proposal will not take place until the following year. This particular proposal, however, does not go into effect until next year, meaning all other passed votes on this year’s ballots take effect immediately.
  15. Fix Rookie Contracts: In a major change for the league, rookie contracts are now fixed and will not be able to be restructured. The proposal passed by a 2-to-1 margin
  16. Executing trade vetoes — “Challenge Flag”: It took a second ballot to get it done, but owners agreed in a 7-5 vote to pass the “challenge flag” proposal. All teams will get one trade challenge flag each season. If a trade is made that an owner deems unfair, he can throw his challenge flag and immediately get a 24-hour vote on Band. If more than half of owners not involved in the trade vote to veto, then the trade is nullified and the owner gets his challenge flag back. If, however, the trade stands, the owner loses his flag and his ability to challenge any trades the rest of the season. Note: this does not apply to trades involving a Top 16 draft pick, as those are mandatory challenges.

Proposals Failed

  1. Institute RFA “tenders” instead of typical match rights: Although the league passed a proposal to redefine what a Restricted Free Agent was, the owners shot down the proposal to include “tenders” as the means to protect and keep their RFAs. Meaning: rather than placing a pre-designated salary amount and draft pick compensation on their RFAs, owners will continue to be allowed the chance to match the highest bid on their RFAs without minimum bids or compensation.
  2. 5th Year Option for 1st Round Rookies: Owners shot down the fifth-year option clause, which would have allowed teams to extend players selected in the first round by an extra year, with a salary equal to the Transition Tag value or 120% of the player’s previous salary, whichever is greater.
  3. Combine Draft Picks and Players in Rookie Corral: Owners strong-armed a proposal that would have combined draft picks and players in the Rookie Corral, effectively limiting the number of assets an organization can obtain. There continues to be a 9-player limit in the Corral, and no limit on the number of draft picks a team can acquire.
  4. Rookie Corral Salary Cap: By a convincing, 8-3-1 vote, the league shot down an idea to have a salary cap for players in the Rookie Corral. Much like the previous proposal that was shot down, owners said “hands off” as it pertains to young, developing assets.
  5. Eliminate Kickers: Owners convincingly chose tradition over relevancy in deciding to keep kickers around, by a 7-4-1 margin. Kickers will remain a part of MFFL rosters for the foreseeable future.
  6. Eliminate Defenses: By a slightly closer vote (7-5) than the Eliminate Kickers proposal, owners chose to keep defenses on their rosters moving forward.
  7. Kickers and Defenses on separate roster: Not only are kickers and defenses staying put, they’re not getting jettisoned to their own separate part of the roster. They will remain a part of the 20-player Active Roster and continue to receive a paycheck.
  8. Kicker and Defense roster requirements: Owners want to keep kickers and defenses, and they also don’t want to be told how many of each they need to have on their rosters. By a 7-5 margin, owners shot down minimum roster requirements for kickers and defenses.
  9. Illegal Lineup Penalties: By a 7-5 vote, owners said “no thanks” to penalizing teams that have an illegal lineup. In my own editorial opinion, I don’t think it’s necessary to penalize teams and I think the benefit of the doubt should be given to owners to simply follow the rules put into place for legal lineups.
  10. Switch RB1 designation to additional FLEX: Whoa, hold on there. Just because one RB position was switched to a FLEX, that doesn’t mean owners want to eliminate the position all together. By a 2-to-1 margin, owners voted to keep at least one RB position mandatory.
  11. Switch one FLEX to SuperFlex: By a vote of 7-5 (way too close for comfort for this writer), owners shot down the idea of having multiple hands under multiple butts — er, um, adding the ability to insert a second quarterback into starting lineups. While a novel concept for other leagues, the MFFL will remain a one-quarterback league.
  12. Reduce 1 point per catch to 0.5: This rule proposal had a contingency that it would only go into effect if both points per carry and points per target remained (they do), but it was shot down by a 3-to-1 margin. Catches will remain one full point.
  13. Reduce RB points per reception: By a unanimous, 12-0 vote, the league obliterated the idea to reduce points per reception for running backs. This of course leads me to wonder: who in the heck proposed this if it did not get one vote? Moving forward, it would be nice if the league only allows proposals on the ballot that have been proposed and seconded.
  14. Additional points lost for Pick-6: Owners voted and said that every interception is created equal. In addition to approving the removal of incremental interceptions, the league shot down this proposal which would have increased penalties for Pick-6’s. Now, all interceptions are worth negative 2 points.
  15. Allow Top Seed to Pick Opponent: It was a novel concept but one the league just wasn’t interested in. Owners said “no thanks” to allowing the top seed from each conference to pick their first-round playoff opponent.
  16. Alter contract minimums: Owners voted not to increase the minimum salary for player contracts. This means teams can continue restructuring contracts as long as a player’s salary is at least 25% of his base value in all years remaining on his contract.
  17. Contract Restructuring Deadline: By an overwhelming, 9-1-2 vote, owners declined to move forward the deadline on when teams can restructure players’ contracts. Teams will continue to have until the end of the calendar year to use residual cash to pay down future salaries and otherwise restructure contracts.
  18. Expanded Rosters for Kickers and Defenses: In a 6-6 tie, the proposal to expand the Active Roster size from 20 to 22 has failed.
  19. Remove both Points Per Carry and Points Per Target: Owners voted by an 11-1 margin to group together points per carry and points per target. And then, owners voted by a narrow 7-5 margin to keep the two statistical categories. This, of course, means a bigger discrepancy between the best and worst at a position.

To see the full voting results, click here.