Free Nate Newton Fantasy Football League Help Center

With all the capabilities of the MyFantasyLeague.com waiver/free agent system, setting them up can initially be a confusing task.  Which system do I choose?  How do I use different systems together?  This "How To" page will explain the various options in detail to help make the setup and easy process.

Available Waiver Types

Enabling Waivers For Your League

FCFS Waiver Setup

Waiver Request Setup

Blind Bidding Setup

Conditional Blind Bidding Setup

Open (eBay) Bidding Setup

Separating Waivers From True Free Agents

Season-Long Rotating Waiver Order

Available Waiver Types

The first step is to understand what a 'waiver' really is.  In the MyFantasyLeague.com system, a waiver is commonly (but not always) a general term for all player adds and drops.  There are a variety of waiver types at your disposal (see below).  In some cases, however, leagues prefer to split out waivers (aka, recently dropped players) from true free agents .  In this case the waivers can take on either the Waiver Request or Blind Bidding type while the free agent pickups are done using a FCFS method.  There can only be one type of waiver defined at any point in time so not all waivers need be defined with an ending date/time (since the start of a subsequent waiver event will immediately force the end of the preceding waiver event).  The primary benefit of not using an end date/time in waiver definitions is the increased owner understanding due to a less-congested League Calendar report (and corresponding home page module).

No Waivers Allowed. Use this waiver style to prevent owners from performing any waiver moves for a portion of the waiver week.  If you prefer to not allow owners to make waiver moves at any time, you should instead use the Setup > Abilities Setup screen and uncheck all the boxes in the 'Perform Waivers' column for your owners.  This will have the added effect of removing the For Owners > Waivers menu item.

First Come First Served (FCFS). This is probably the most common waiver style used.  The acquisition of a new, free-agent (FA) player is based entirely on timing.  If team A requests a player before team B, then team A gets the player.

Waiver Request. Unlike the FCFS method above, a waiver request method allows a league to use criteria other than time to determine how waiver will be granted.  This is often used by leagues where at least some of the franchise owners are busy and cannot access the league 24x7.  In the waiver request model, the commissioner defines a time for the waiver request period to end (more about this later).  All franchise owners have until this time to submit their requests.  For example, if a waiver request period ran until Saturday at noon, and franchise A's owner was out of town for the week, he/she would still be able to make requests for a player when he/she returned.  Franchise B might also have made the request for the same players as franchise A only earlier in the week.  In this case, the fact that franchise B made the waiver request BEFORE franchise A has no merit.  Continuing with our example, we assume this league uses the current won-loss record for each team as the basis for awarding the waiver.  If franchise A had a LOWER won-loss record than franchise B (ie, a worse record), then franchise A would be awarded the player.  Note that the system also allows for at least five levels of sort criteria to handle ties.

To continue operating as fairly as possible, the waiver request model only allows each franchise the ability to acquire a single player at a time.  As a result, all teams that request a unique player will receive one player before any franchise receives a second player.  The term 'waiver round' is used to specify the period whereby each franchise gets a single waiver request.  Since it's quite reasonable, however, that a franchise would desire more than one waiver in a given week, the commissioner can define up to eight waiver rounds.  This will limit a franchise from picking up a maximum of eight new players in a given waiver window.

Combined vs. Separated Waivers/FAs. By default, the site treats a waiver request period as an event that allows owner to submit requests for *ALL* players.  That is, it makes no distinction between true waiver (recently dropped players) and true free agents (not recently dropped players).  Most leagues prefer this method so no additional setup change is necessary.  However, some leagues prefer to truly separate the two.  When this occurs, then waiver requests may only be made for players that have been recently dropped.  Even in the most active leagues, this greatly reduces the number of players that may requested during a wavier request event.

In order to enable this option, leagues must go to the Setup > Waivers/Free Agents Setup screen to enable (ie, set to "yes") the setting "Allow owners to submit requests for recently dropped (or "locked") players via the "For Owners > Waivers" option, and all other players may be acquired immediately via the "For Owners > Acquire Free Agents" option?".  Once enabled, waiver requests for recently dropped players are made via the For Owners > Waivers screen whereas free agent pickups are now made using the separate For Owners > Acquire Free Agents screen. 

Once enabled, waivers get a bit more complex overall.  Specifically, no FCFS Waiver moves will appear to be added to the League Calendar.  Instead, a new "No Free Agent Moves Allowed" event appears.  Initially this event is not scheduled which allows owners to always (24x7) pick up free agents.  This is the one time where calendar events may overlap.  Both waiver requests and free agent acquisitions may run independent of one other; they may overlap or run at separate times.

Locked Players. A locked player is unavailable to be picked up or requested in the default 'combined waivers/FAs'.  However, when using a separated waiver/FA system, locked players are requested through the For Owners > Waivers screen.  There are several locked player settings:

The player is not locked - (default) Select this option if you don't want recently dropped players to be locked at all.  Using this option, all players (recently dropped as well as true free agents) are treated in the same way.  They are all subject to your league's waiver rules.  For example, if player A is a free agent and player B has been recently dropped, a league that uses a Waiver Request, Blind Bid Request, or FCFS waiver period will treat these two players in the exact same manner.

The next time waiver are processed - Choose this option to lock the recently dropped players until the next time waivers are processed (this is the most common and easiest option).

X days later - A recently dropped cannot be acquired or requested/bid on by any franchise until the specified number of days (you can also enter in a fraction of a day where 1 hour = 1/24th day = 0.0417 and 3 hours = 1/8th day = 0.0125)

A specific future date & time - A recently dropped cannot be acquired or requested/bid on by any franchise until the specified future date/time has passed.

Using any of these latter three options will allow for enabling the "Allow owners to submit requests for recently dropped players..." setting below.

Blind Bidding. This waiver type allows for each owner to place a hidden bid for players.  Typically a fixed amount is given to each franchise with which to use for all bids during the season.  Franchises may only spend these bidding dollars on free agents.  Once the waiver period has ended, the franchise with the highest bid will be awarded the player for the amount bid.  In addition to this 'standard/unconditional' blind bidding, leagues can also use a conditional blind bidding scheme whereby owners can setup multiple, prioritized blind bids.

Conditional Blind Bidding. Conditional blind bids are a lot like waiver request waiver moves, in that owners can enter multiple rounds of waiver moves, and prioritize their picks in each round. Each round's worth of requests is looked at, top to bottom, and the first bid that is considered valid is the one that the system will accept, ignoring future bids in that round. Here's a concrete example of how conditional blind bidding works, assuming franchises 1 and 2, and players A through Z, with a season-long blind bidding limit of $10, and no owners having any money spent on blind bidding.

Read as English, these bids mean:

-Franchise 1, in round 1, wants to acquire player A for a bid of $5, and drop player Z. If that bid cannot be done, he wants to acquire player B for a bid of $8, and drop player Z. Note that even though the bid for player B is higher than the bid for player A, the bid for player A is listed first, and therefore given higher priority.

-Franchise 1, in round 2, wants to acquired player C for a bid of $6, and drop player Y. If that bid cannot be done, he wants to acquire player D for a bid of $2, and drop player Y.

-Franchise 2, in round 1, wants to acquire player A for a bid of $4, and drop player X. Note that this bid does not have a second-ranked bid, so if this bid does not go through, player X will remain on franchise 2's roster.

-Franchise 2, in round 2, wants to acquire player C for a bid of $5, and drop player W. If that bid cannot go through, then he wants to acquire player D for a bid of $1, and drop player W.

On the process waivers page, the system will look at the bids, starting with the highest dollar amount top priority bid, and continue looking at bids until all are processed (either successfully, by doing the add/drop, or unsuccessfully, because the bid is considered invalid), and by default select the bid that it thinks should go through (or "None", if it considers all bids invalid).

Please also see this conditional blind bidding announcement for more detailed information.

  NOTE: Do not change this setting if you have any pending blind bids.  First go to the Process Waivers screen to process the pending bids and then change this setting as needed.

  MyFantasyLeague.com was not designed for "Open/EBay bidding" for free agents, and as such, we do not support or suggest that you attempt this style of waivers.  Only the most dedicated commissioners will want to attempt to implement this style of waivers.  If you'd like tips/tricks on how to set up Open/EBay bidding, please see our Community Forums for suggestions from other MyFantasyLeague.com customers who have experience with the potential "gotchas" associated with Open/EBay bidding.

Enabling Waivers For Your League

FCFS Waivers Setup

This example creates a FCFS waiver event starting on noon Wed, Sept. 14, and ends on Sun, Sept. 18 at kickoff (therefore FCFS waivers from noon Wed. through kickoff Sun).  In addition, this event type has been repeated for 16 weeks in the season (ending with week 17's kickoff).

NOTE: 12:00 PM is noon and 12:00 AM is midnight.

Waiver Request Setup

In this example the Waiver Request event type has been defined to start at kickoff of each week and continue through Wednesday at Noon ET.  Franchises may submit requests for free agents until this time.  Once Wednesday at noon occurs, the system can auto-process or the commissioner can manually process the pending waiver requests.  In this following screenshot, this Waiver Request has been added to the above FCFS event type:

Blind Bidding Setup

In this example Blind Bidding waivers will start at kickoff and continue through Wednesday at Noon ET.  Franchises may submit hidden bids for free agents until this time.  Once Wednesday at noon occurs, the site by default will auto-process all pending bids.  Alternately, the commissioner may manually process the pending bids via the For Commissioners > Process Waivers screen (auto-processing should be enabled in the Blind Bidding Waivers Setup screen).  In this following screenshot, this Blind Bidding Waiver type has been joined with the above FCFS event type:

Conditional Blind Bidding Setup

For the most part, the setup for conditional blind bidding is the same as for blind bidding (above).  The one exception being that the commissioner must enable the "Are Conditional Blind Bids Allowed?" setting on the Blind Bidding Waivers Setup screen. 

Separating Waivers from True Free Agents

While most league prefer to treat all non-roster players as free agents, some leagues would rather have recently dropped players defined as "waivers" and all other non-roster players termed "free agents".  For these leagues, the site offers the ability to separate the two.

       Unlike the default combined waivers/free agents where the league has but one waiver period (waiver request, blind bid, FCFS, or no waivers allowed), separating the waivers from free agents requires that two separate and overlapping events occur.  For recently dropped players/waivers, leagues must define the "Waiver Request", "Blind Bidding Waivers", and the "No Waivers Allowed" event type.  For true free agents, leagues must define the "No Free Agent Moves Allowed" event type (when not defined, the default is to allow FCFS pickups for all true free agents).

7.	The resulting calendar for the month of September, 2008 looks like this:

Season-Long Rotating Waiver Order

From this point on, any time that an owner successfully adds a player to his roster via a "Waiver Request" (but not FCFS or blind bidding) waiver move (regardless if that waiver request is manually processed by the league commissioner via the For Commissioners > Process Waivers page, or via automatic waiver processing), that owner will move to the bottom of the list, having the lowest priority for the next set of waiver request moves.

NOTE: Use the For Commissioners > Setup > Appearance Setup > Home Page Setup screen to add the "Waiver Wire Order" home page module to have your waiver order displayed on your league's home page for all owners to see.        Also note that deluxe leagues have the displayed wire separated by conference or division as needed.

Setting the Correct Position Requirements

Each week in the fantasy season your team owners will need to define a subset of their overall roster players to be used as their weekly starting lineup players.  The first step necessary to allow for this is to define the overall number of player each team may start each week and the various position restrictions imposed on these starters.  To accomplish this task, go to the For Commissioners > Setup > Players & Rosters > Starting Lineups Setup screen.

       Specify the number of starting coaches for each fantasy team.  Most league's do not use coaches, but they are available.  Define either a single discrete number or a range for your starting Coaches.

       First, you must define if your league will be using individual QB or Team QB (it's extremely unlikely that you would ever use both at the same time).  If your league drafts Peyton Manning (starting QB, IND) for example, then you should define the 'Quarterback (QB)' field.  Most leagues only start one QB here, but you can define more as needed.  If your league instead prefers to draft a Team QB, them instead use the 'Team Quarterback (QB)' field.  In a TMQB environment, if Peyton Manning got injured and Jim Sorgi (backup QB, IND) had to take over, the fantasy team that drafted the IND TMQB would automatically receive Sorgi's points too.  In effect, by using the TMQB, a team is drafting all of the pro team's quarterbacks and will receive fantasy points regardless of which player is actually playing.

The next sections of this screen allows you to define the RB, WR, and TE lineup positions for your league.  If you do not use a position, it's best to just leave the field blank.

       After the QB position, the next most common set of positions include the RB, WR, and TE.  The site presents you with three separate ways to define these based on your league's needs.  You can select...

NOTE: If your league considers WRs and TEs to be one and the same, there is no need to use the change player position page to manually change all WRs to TEs. Simply choosing one of the WR+TE combined positions above will automatically enforce this rule for you, and there will be no need for any extra work on your part.

Specific vs. Flex Lineups

While most leagues typically use a specific number of starters at each position, some leagues prefer to offer a range.  For example, instead of the specific requirements to start 2 RBs, 2 WRs, and 1 TE, some leagues may add another player of any RB/WR/TE.  While one owner could start 3 RBs, 2 WRs, and 1 TE, another might start 2 RBs, 3 WRs, and 1 TE, while yet another would start 2 RBs, 2 WRs, and 2 TEs.  This is setup as follows:

RB: min=2, max=3

WR: min=2, max=3

TE: min=1, max=2

There's still no way to start more than the six players at these positions (this is constrained by the Total Starters option above) as well as at least 2 RBs, 2 WRs, and 1 TE.   Another common example using individual defensive players (IDPs) is to start up to three at any of DL/LB/DB.  Define these positions as follows:

DL: min=0, max=3

LB: ,min=0, max=3

DB: min=0, max=3

Here, one owner could start one player at each position while another could start three DBs.

       Define the FB position ONLY if you league requires fullbacks to be used independently of running backs.  Use the KR position ONLY if your league defines some players to score points only when they are returning kickoffs and punts.  If you prefer to allow all WRs, DBs, etc. that return kicks & punts to also receive other points (ie, WRs for receptions, etc.), then do not use this option.  Instead, just define Kickoff and Punt Return scoring rules to the WR position.

When using either of these positions, the commissioner must manually change individual players via the Change Player Position screen as needed (to FBs or KRs).

       Next, you must define if your league will be using individual PKs or Team PKs (as in the QB decision above, it's extremely unlikely that you would ever use both at the same time).  If your league drafts Jason Elam (PK, DEN) then you should define the 'Place Kicker (PK)' field.  Most leagues only start one PK here, but you can define more as needed.  If your league instead prefers to draft a Team PK, them instead use the 'Team Place Kicker (TMPK)' field.  In a TMPK environment, if Jason Elam was injured and his backup had to take over, the fantasy team that drafted the DEN TMPK would automatically receive the backup's points too.  In effect, by using the TMPK, a team is drafting all of the pro team's kickers and will receive fantasy points regardless of which player is actually playing.

       You can similarly define Punters (PN) or Team Punters (TMPN) as needed by your league.  Most leagues do not use punters, but they are available.

       Specify the number of starting defensive linemen (both defensive ends and defensive tackles) for each fantasy team or Team DLs.  Most league's do not use DLs (opting instead to use the Def position), but they are available.  As always, define either a single discrete number or a range.

       Specify the number of starting linebackers for each fantasy team or Team Lbs.  Most league's do not use Lbs (opting instead to use the Def position), but they are available.  As always, define either a single discrete number or a range.

       Specify the number of starting defensive backs (both cornerbacks and safeties) for each fantasy team or Team DBs.  Most league's do not use DBs (opting instead to use the Def position), but they are available.  As always, define either a single discrete number or a range.

       If your league uses both flex offensive players and flex defensive players, then you should define this field as the total number of independent defensive players (IDPs) for your weekly lineups.  This will prevent a team owner from substituting an extra IDP for a higher scoring IOP.

       Enable and define this field if your league uses a separate defensive team OR a combined defensive team + special teams position.  For the latter, just define both Def-type (such as Total Yards Against) and ST-type (such as Punt Return Yardage) rules to the Def position.  The only leagues that typically do not use this are those that instead use individual defensive players (IDPs).  A single number or range is again supported.

       Specify the number of starting (pro) offensive teams for each fantasy team.  Most league's do not use the Off position, but it is available.  As always, define either a single discrete number or a range for your starting Offensive team.

       Only define this field if your league uses a separate special teams position.  For leagues that combine the ST with the Defensive Team, use the setting above.  A single number or range is again supported.

       In the first section, you are required to define the overall number of starter for each franchise each week.

       NOTE: This number must equal the sum of all the individual position starters defined in the remainder of this page.

Specify How To Support Missing Lineups

On occasion a team owner may not be able to submit his weekly lineup.  A common practice is to address this by copying that team's previous lineup for the current week.  By default, lineups are not automatically copied over, however you can check and of the boxes to enable this for your league.  If unchecked, a team that does not submit a lineup for a given week will score zero fantasy points.

As Soon As The Previous Week's Final Results Are Available: - When checked, this option will automatically carry everyone's lineup through to the following week as soon as the previous week's results are finalized (typically late Monday night).

As Soon As Preliminary (Thursday, Saturday and Sunday) Results Are Available: - Select this option to automatically have all lineups resolved for owners who did not submit lineups by the first game of the above preliminary day.

As Soon As Final (Monday) Results Are Available: - Select this option to automatically have all lineups resolved for owners who did not submit lineups for the week.

See the For Commissioners > Setup > Players & Rosters > Starting Lineup Setup screen for more information.

Define When Weekly Lineups Are Due

The system supports a variety of ways to define when a weekly starting lineup is due.  These options get set using the For Commissioners > Setup > Transactions Setup > Weekly Lineup Setup screen.

There are four different ways to set the time in which each franchise owner must have their weekly lineup submitted.

       This option requires that the entire weekly starting lineup be defined by the start time of the earliest game during the week.  For most weeks this will be the early Sunday game, however, there are a few weeks that start with either a Thursday or Saturday game.  See the 2008 NFL Schedule for more information on when the early games occur.

       This setting requires all players in early (Thursday, Friday, or Saturday) games to be started/benched at the kickoff of their individual game.  All other players must be started/benched at the start of the first game on Sunday.  By using this setting the playing status (started or benched) of all players in early games will be locked at the kickoff of that player's game.  As a result,  not actively starting an early  player is the same as actively benching that same player (unless no lineup is submitted and the league allows lineups to be copied over from the previous week).  He cannot be started at a later time.

       Each player must be started or benched by the kickoff of their respective pro game.  While this is by far the most flexible of all options, franchise owners need to be aware of when each player on their roster plays each week.  It's easy to not start some players in the early games only to realize (too late) that there are no other players at a given position to start in the late games.

       All players must be submitted based on the custom-defined For Commissioners > Setup > League Calendar Setup screen. NOTE: When using this setting, be sure to adjust as needed based on the 2008 NFL Schedule.

MyFantasyLeague.com offers a variety of ways to assist your league in holding it's draft.  Understanding all of the options and when they are best used can be very helpful to your league's draft experience.  There are three primary drafting scenarios available to you with MyFantasyLeague.com. 

1. Offline draft without a PC.

2. Offline draft with a PC.

3. Online draft.

Drafts can also be broken down by physical location. 

A. All your league members get together in one place to hold the draft.

B. Most of your league members are in one location with a few 'outsiders'

C. Most (all) of your league members are geographically separated.

While there are no strict requirements preventing you from using any scenario (1-3) with any location (A-C), the following are the preferred options:

Now that you've determined the best draft for your league, the next step it to understand exactly how to prepare for it.

1. Offline draft without a PC .  In this low-tech approach where all members are together for the draft, one person simply records all the picks on paper.  At the completion of the draft, the commissioner must use the For Commissioners > Setup > Load/Unload Rosters option to manually enter in each team's draft picks.

2. Offline draft with a PC .  Similar to #1 above, this scenario adds a single PC (which does not need to be connected to the Internet during the draft).  Download & setup the FFLM program as the commissioner can hold the draft offline.  Once completed, the draft order and results can easily be exported to an online league.  NOTE:  There's no charge to use FFLM in the preseason for drafting.

3a. Online draft with MFL .  This fully Internet-based draft requires each owner to have access to an Internet-connected PC.  (Owners without Internet access can still contact the commissioner to have him/her enter their picks).  The draft can either be run in a few hours (using the live draft) or over several days.

Detailed Steps for Offline Draft without a PC

(Before the draft)

(During the draft)

2. Bring paper and pen (or similar) to the draft.

3. Record each pick as it occurs for the entire draft.

(After the draft)

4. Go to your league home page and select For Commissioners > Setup > Load/Unload Rosters.

5. Choose a franchise from the pull-down list.

Detailed Steps for Offline Draft with a PC

(Before the draft)

2. Download and install the FFLM program to your PC.

3. Click on the desktop icon to run the program.

4. From the main program window, select the File > New League menu item (click OK for the popup message).  The Setup toolbar button will now activate.

5. Select the "File > Import from MyFantasyLeague.com" menu item to import your league's information, such as the teams, rosters, salaries, scoring rules, and draft order from MyFantasyLeague.com.

6. Go to the Draft > Set Draft Order menu item to define or confirm your draft order using any of the draft setup buttons or by manually entering the information into each round (for a fully customized draft).  For more information on exactly how this works, please click on the Help button while accessing this Setup Draft Order screen.

7. Once your draft is properly defined, click on the 'OK' button to save changes.

NOTE: If you will be using a different PC for the draft, be sure to copy the League.leg file to this new PC. You'll also need to install a copy of the FFLM setup program on this new PC.

(During the draft)

8. Run the FFLM setup program and open your league (League.leg, by default).

9. Go to the Draft > Interactive Draft menu item to hold your draft and make each team's picks.

10. Periodically (and when finished), click on the Save button to store your current draft results.

11. From the main program screen, click on the Exchange toolbar button to open the Import/Export screen.

12. Enter the 5-digit league ID for your (already created) MyFantasyLeague.com league and your league's commissioner password.  Click on the Verify League & Password button.

13. Verify the teams in FFLM correspond to the Franchises in MyFantasyLeague.com.

14. Click on the Export tab.

15. Click on the Transfer the Draft Results button to transfer your league's draft picks.  NOTE: You can only upload the draft results once.  Also, be sure to ONLY transfer the Draft Results. Do not transfer the Rosters or use any of the other options on the Export tab, since all of that information is already setup in MyFantasyLeague.com.

Detailed Steps for Online Draft

(Before the draft)

1. Use the For Commissioners > Setup > General League Setup screen to specify an online, MFL (email or live) draft.

2. Go to your league home page and use the For Owners > Basic (or Advanced) Franchise Setup option to define individual team names.

3. Use the For Commissioners > Setup > Draft Setup > Draft Start Date/Time Setup screen to define the time in which your first draft pick *may* be made.  You draft can, but does not have to start at this exact time.  It cannot start before this time.   NOTE: If you don't see the Draft Setup screens, you will have to go to General League Setup to enable one of the 'online draft' settings.

4. Define your draft rounds & order on the Draft Order Setup - All Rounds screen.

       NOTE: If your league requires a completely customized draft you may need to use the FFLM setup program (see Detailed Steps for Offline Draft with a PC section above).

5. (Optional) You may also want to define some of the settings found in the For Commissioners > Setup > Draft Setup > Draft Timer Setup screen. 

6. Go to Reports > Fantasy League  Reports > Draft Report to verify your draft order.

7. All owners must use the For Owners > Draft option to enter the draft room.  For the live draft screen, click on the "Live Draft" link located at the top of the Draft screen.

(During the draft)

8. Go to Reports > Fantasy League  Reports > Draft Report to verify your draft order.

(After the draft)

There's nothing required after the draft as all players are automatically added to the correct roster immediately.

Important Note: 2011 is the first season we're offering live auctions on MyFantasyLeague.com. We consider this brand new functionality "beta" quality now. That means it will hopefully work for many of our customers, but we definitely cannot, and do not, guarantee that it will work for you and your league-mates. We hope to get feedback from the folks that do use it so that we may improve it for 2012 and beyond. If you'd like to try out this new beta-level feature, feel free to, and be sure to let us know about your experiences. But, we strongly suggest that you have some sort of backup plan in place, so if you find that part-way through your auction it's not meeting your needs, you'll have a fall-back plan to implement.

So, you're considering running your "live auction" for drafting via the MyFantasyLeague.com web site? Great! Since your live auction is one of the most important parts of the season, it's essential that you do a little preparation for running your auction on-line, to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible. Therefore, we strongly encourage you read and understand all of the following potential "gotchas" related to running your live auction on the MyFantasyLeague.com site.

1. First, determine if a MFL live on-line Auction is really what you want to do. We recommend live auctions on MyFantasyLeague.com only for leagues that want to conduct an auction all at once, where the owners are geographically separated (i.e., not all together in the same room). If all owners are together in one room, or, you'd like to conduct your auction in a more "slow" email-type fashion, we do not recommend the use of the on-line live auction feature.
2. Next, make sure your auction is set up properly.

   a. Set your league up to conduct an online Live Auction. Go to your For Commissioners > Setup > General League Setup page - make sure that the "At the start of the season, rosters are determined by:" option is set to "On-line, Live Auction that happens all at once, taking a matter of hours to complete (BETA)."

   b. Define your Auction start time via the For Commissioners > Setup > Auction Setup > Auction Start Date/Time page.

   c. Go to your Setup > General Auction Setup page to define your parameters of your Live Auction. See the How do I use the General Auction Setup Screen for details on each parameter.

3. Next, make sure all owners log into the live auction room to get a feel for exactly how this live auction will work. This is probably the most important step of all - all owners need to at least experiment with the live auction pages a little bit before the start of your live auction to make sure that they don't have any problems accessing those pages from their computer, and get a general feel for how things work before your auction actually starts. Otherwise, you may well spend the first half-hour or more of your auction just making sure everyone is logged on properly, and understand what they need to do on the site.
4. Finally, understand what to do in case of unexpected problems during your live auction. For an important real-time event like a live auction, if things go wrong, they can snowball in a hurry. You need to be sure that even after you've done all of the above important steps, you consider the following.

   a. When the commissioner accesses the live auction screen, he can see 'Commissioner Controls' including:

   Pause Auction - use this to suspend the timer between auctions - for example, if you want to take a mid-auction break

   Resume Auction - use this item to resume a timer from the time that it was previously paused

   b. If someone starts a player or bids on an auction that you wish to undo, you can do that by going to the For Commissioners > Setup > Auction Setup > Delete Auction to clear the Auction.

   c. Sometimes, owners may have unanticipated computer problems, Internet connection problems, personal emergencies, etc. that cause the best laid plans to go to awry. Do you have a backup plan in place in case any unforeseen problems occur?

   d. If you have other problems that you can't immediately solve, please use the Help >Help Center option available from all league pages - that page goes over in detail all of the options you have available to you for getting further assistance for your auction problems.

   In conclusion, we know that your live auction on the MyFantasyLeague.com site will be a great success, but to ensure it's success, you need to follow these important instructions above!

   IMPORTANT NOTES

   While it's possible to run a live auction without the league commissioner present in the live auction room, we strongly recommend that a league commissioner be present at all times for a live auction. The "Commissioner Controls" mentioned above are essential for recovering from problems that might happen during the course of a live auction - without a commissioner present, no one will be able to pause the auction timer, delete auctions, or any of the other sometimes necessary commissioner options mentioned above.

   In some circumstances, all owners may have to use the "Refresh" button on their web browser to get an up-to-date live auction page. If any of the following events happens in your live auction, "Refreshing" your live auction page will bring it back up-to-date: commissioner changes the auction timer length on the "General Auction Setup" page, (or, anything else along these lines that causes the setup to change during the Live Auction).

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There are a variety of ways to define your league's fantasy playoffs.  This 'How To' document will explain the solution for the most widely used playoff types

Common Types of Fantasy Playoffs

1. Head-to-Head, Single-Elimination.

This most common type of playoff setup uses brackets to define matchup pairs.  Each week the winner (and any predefined bye teams) advance and the loser is removed from future championship matchups.

The setup for this style of playoffs, is performed using the Setup > General Playoff Setup screens.

(Option A)

Select A Packaged Playoff Bracket.  Designed for leagues that can use one of the six pre-defined, common fantasy playoff brackets.  Simply name the bracket & title of the champion, specify the starting week, and choose the number of teams involved.  Once a packaged playoff bracket has been selected, you can later edit it on the General Playoff Setup (see option b below) screen. 

Seed Playoff Teams.  Once your playoff brackets have been defined AND your league's regular season has ended, you'll need to use this screen to define the seeds for each of the playoff brackets. Simply select each seed from the list of teams and assign accordingly.   If your league has multiple brackets, the seed positions are independent from bracket to bracket and always start with seed #1.  Furthermore, if the winners/losers of one or more brackets are then seeded into another bracket, you will need to use this screen once the 'preliminary' bracket has been completed (and the teams are known).

(Option B)

General Playoff Setup .  This screen will allow you to define up to ten separate playoff brackets for your league.  While most leagues will only use one for playoffs and some will use another for a "toilet" bowl, it's also not uncommon for some leagues to use additional brackets to determine 3rd place, 5th place, etc.  Although not necessary, some leagues have also defined separate brackets for each conference and one final bracket for the championship game.

Playoff Schedule Setup .  The next step in the playoff setup process is to define your matchups.  For the first round, you'll be required to specify the specific seeds for each game. It's common to schedule the highest and lowest seeds like this: Seed #1 vs. Seed #4, Seed #2 vs. Seed #3. Of course, you are free to seed your teams as needed.

NOTE: If your league awards a first-round bye to one or more franchises, be sure to not schedule these teams in the first round.

You'll also need to define the teams that should play in each additional round through the championship.

NOTE: Some league require that the highest advancing seed plays against the lowest advancing seed each week.  As these teams are not known until after the games for a given round have completed, you may be required to adjust matchups each week to ensure these seeds compete against one another.

Seed Playoff Teams .  Once your playoff brackets have been defined AND your league's regular season has ended, you'll need to use this screen to define the seeds for each of the playoff brackets. Simply select each seed from the list of teams and assign accordingly.   If your league has multiple brackets, the seed positions are independent from bracket to bracket and always start with seed #1.  Furthermore, if the winners/losers of one or more brackets are then seeded into another bracket, you will need to use this screen once the 'preliminary' bracket has been completed (and the teams are known).

2. Head-to-Head, Multi-Week.

This style of playoffs is similar to the above single-elimination bracket, however, two teams play against one another for more than one week (typically two).  The winner is determined by adding the scores for each franchise across the defined weeks.  As in single-elimination, the loser is removed from future championship matchups.

Currently h2h multi-week playoffs are not automatically supported by the system.  As a result, the simplest way to use this playoff format is to have each playoff owner submit their lineup and manually add up the point values across weeks as necessary.  The Weekly Summary report can be used as a good reference for each franchise weekly score.

3. Multi-Way Matchups.

In this scenario, three or more teams play in a given week and a subset advance to the next round.  Like H2H multi-week, this style is not automatically supported.  Also like H2H multi-week play, the best way to offer this is to have each playoff owner submit their lineup and use the Weekly Summary report to determine which team(s) advance.  Only allow these advancing teams the ability to submit another lineup.

4. Total Points.

In total points playoffs, each franchise participant submits a weekly lineup for the duration of the playoffs.  At the end of the playoff term, all weekly lineup scores are added together and the franchise with the most total playoff points declared the winner.

This playoff format is supported by having each playoff owner submit their lineups each week and manually add up the point values across weeks as necessary.  The Weekly Summary report can be used as a good reference for each franchise weekly score.

5. Combination.

While any combination of the above is possible, the most common approach is to use a head-to-head, single elimination (#1) with a total points (#3) system for playoffs.

To setup a combination playoff league, please see the individual setup requirements as detailed above.

NFL Playoffs:  New League vs. Existing League

MyFantasyLeague.com offers free playoff league so existing customers can either extend their regular season league for their fantasy playoffs or choose to use a new playoff league altogether.  Typically the decision is best made based on a few specific playoff league requirements.  Please ask yourself the following questions regarding your playoff league:

1. Does my league's playoff keep the same rosters as in our regular-season league?

YES: It's much easier to simply extend your regular-season league's season through week 21.  Go to Setup > General Scoring Setup and change the 'Calculate Fantasy Results' option to run through week 21.

NO: You might want to copy your regular-season league to a new, playoff league.  More information will be available in December.

2. Does my league's standings continue to accumulate through the NFL playoffs?

YES: You will need to continue using your regular season league.  Go to Setup > General Scoring Setup and change the 'Calculate Fantasy Results' option to run through week 21.

NO: You might want to copy your regular-season league to a new, playoff league.  More information will be available in December.

NOTE: Weekly fantasy playoff points will always add to the regular season YTD total points calculation for each franchise.

NOTE: For NFL playoff leagues, use the Setup > Appearance Setup > Reports & Other Settings screen to enable the restricted display of playoff team players in all free agent lists.