Constitution

Constitution 2027

The eNFL Constitution
 
The eNFL is a Front Office Football multiplayer league that uses real teams and seeks to simulate the NFL.  The league originally began play on November 23, 2003.

• The league runs on FOF2007 ver. 6.4. Years 2003 to 2015 were simmed on FOF2004.
• The league was created with the official 2003 real player file from FOF2004.
• Personality profiles and team chemistry are off.
• Injuries are set at 150.
• Salary cap increases vary.
• Games are simmed 3x per week unless otherwise noted.

The league is administered by the Commissioner with the help of four League Administrators who serve on a rotating, volunteer basis (hereinafter "the League"). The Commissioner runs the league on a day-to-day basis and has final say on all league matters. The League Administrators assist the Commissioner in setting league policies, making and enforcing rules, monitoring for fairness and realism, protecting the integrity of the league by observing trends inside the eNFL and in the outside FOF community, and generally ensuring that things run smoothly and help is given or problems solved where needed.

III.  LEAGUE RULES

Important: If you have any doubts about whether a contemplated action might violate a rule, you should contact the Commissioner for clarification before taking that action.

1. Participation:

• GMs must remain active throughout all stages of a season by means of submitting regular weekly exports and participating in league matters.

• If you miss three or more consecutive stages without notifying the Commissioner in advance, you will be asked to check-in via email and your team may be put on computer control until you submit a stage file or respond.  If you don't respond and continue to miss stages, you may lose your team.

2. Player Usage:

• The general rule during the regular season is simple: you must start your starters and, taking into account both the short run and the long run, attempt to put your team in the best position to win.  You have discretion in determining your starters, but your decisions must be in good faith and backed by logical football reasoning.  You may not "tank" the season simply because you are out of the playoffs.  The League will determine in its discretion whether this rule has been violated and fashion an appropriate remedy, including but not limited to dropping a team in the draft order or taking away draft picks.

• There are two exceptions to this rule:

• A player injured to any degree may be inactivated or benched until fully healed.

• Once a team has definitively clinched a playoff berth, that team may rest its starters if it so chooses.

3. Contracts:

• Three Year Rule:  All offers to unrestricted free agents in early free agency must be for three or more years (early free agency is the first 12 stages of free agency prior to the draft).

• No Backloading:  Excessively backloaded contracts to unrestricted free agents will be voided (last year salary that is > 2.5x the previous year salary is considered excessive).

• Renegotiation in Final Year Only:  Renegotiations are prohibited except in the final year of a player's current contract.  This rule does not apply when a player is holding out or when using the "cap out offer" option.

Stage files with contract violations will be excluded from the sim.  If a violation is not discovered in advance, the contract will be voided at a later stage.  In the case of a renegotiation violation, the GM will have the option to promptly resign the player to the exact terms of the original contract.

All contracts are subject to review under the Catchall Rule (Rule 11).

4. Signing/Releasing Players:

• You may not release and resign a player in the same stage.

• You may not sign free agents after your team has played its final game of the season.

5. Franchise Players:

• You cannot franchise a player more than two consecutive years in a row. 

• Teams must submit a file for the Franchise Players Stage. If you do not, the Commissioner will franchise a player for you (this is a safeguard against a team unintentionally missing this critical stage because of a sick child, an unexpected project at work, an angry wife, getting stuck in traffic, etc.)  You are not required to franchise a player.  If a player is franchised under this rule and you didn't want to franchise him, simply notify the commissioner and the contract will be voided with no cap penalty or "injustice".  A thread will be posted in advance of the stage where you can instruct the commissioner which player, if any, you want to franchise in case you can't submit a file.

6. Roster Limit:

• The roster limit is 70.  Because going over that limit can cause problems with the league file, you should make sure you have room on your roster for any free agents you try to sign.  If you unintentionally end up with a couple extra players, you can release them in the next stage.  Any more than that, however, will result in contracts getting voided immediately to get you back down to 70.

7. Trades:

• Procedure: Trades must be posted in the Trade Confirmation Forum.  Once the details have been posted and both teams have confirmed, the trade will be processed.

• No same-year "sign and trades" of unrestricted free agents allowed.  If you sign an unrestricted free agent at any point during the year, even if he was on your team the previous year but you let him become a free agent, you may not trade him until the following season.  Note: this does not apply to restricted free agents; you are free to sign and trade your restricted free agents if you wish.

• Trade deadline is Week 6.

• The League has the discretion to reject trades it concludes are unreasonable or would otherwise harm the integrity of the league.

8. Position changes:

• Position changes are allowed as long as your scout says the player will retain 80% or more of his ratings.  Anything less than that requires advance League approval.

9. Amateur Draft:

• The draft is conducted using Front Office Football Conscriptor by J. David Baker.  The clock runs daily from 1:00 pm to 11:00 pm Eastern until the draft is complete.  Teams have one hour to make their picks.

• You must register for the draft before it begins.  Unregistered teams will be given 15 minutes to pick.  If no pick is made, the team will be put on immediate auto-scout pick until the GM contacts the Commissioner.

• If a teams gets skipped by 10 or more teams, it will be given a scout pick.  Time penalties will apply.  For each skip, the team's allotted time will be cut by 25%.  After three skips, the team will be put on immediate auto-scout pick until the GM contacts the Commissioner.

• All draftees must sign contracts by Week 6 of the regular season.  The Commissioner will sign/cut players if necessary. 

10. Franchise Movement:

• Franchise movement or renaming is not allowed.

11. Catchall Rule:

• It is neither possible nor desirable to attempt to fashion a rule for every conceivable situation. Accordingly, this rule empowers the League to make whatever decisions are necessary to protect the integrity of the league and to prevent or to remedy any action the League determines to be an attempt to exploit a loophole in the game's design or otherwise gain an unfair advantage, and to impose any penalties it deems reasonable and just, including but not limited to mandated cuts, voided contracts, draft order changes, loss of draft picks, and team revocation.