Offseason Content: First user-submitted content of the offseason

Alert PFFL'er "The Five C's" has sent in a critical lesson: why Quarterbacks should have short names:

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/pictures/view/197056/

Editor's warning...

PFFL Offseason Content: The Offseason 001

Alright -- as the long, cruel offseason is underway, we at the PFFL will try to keep you entertained as best we can while we wait for football season to come back.  First up, the first webisode of "The Offseason" -- a funny-as-shit mini-series that a friend of mine put together.  Sure, it's college-football-themed, but it's entirely too appropriate not to use this to kick off the PFFL's offseason content!

PFFL Offseason Overview

Well it's officially the offseason in fantasy football, and as if that weren't cruel enough we don't even know how long this offseason is going to last...

But that doesn't mean things aren't happening with the PFFL, in fact, just the opposite!  We've got tons of things going on, and wanted to give you a quick update of what we'll be up to this offseason.

• Offseason Content
• New Website
• Recruiting Plans and Update
• Sport Expansion: The Commish is looking for a Fantasy Baseball League - contact me if you have a league!

We're not going to hassle you all with a lot of emails for the next few months, but if you want to keep up with the PFFL you should check the blog or like us on Facebook -- we'll do our best to keep you all going through the long fantasy winter!

PFFL Update: Sport Expansion

While we're still 100% focused on building out the PFFL, The Commish always has an eye on the future too.  We're playing Fantasy Basketball for the first time, and I'm looking to find a Fantasy Baseball league this year too -- anybody got a good league I can join?  Send me an email if you've got my info or use the "contact us" form above.

Now, if there's enough interest, we could form a single league of 12 guys (or however many makes sense in Fantasy Baseball...I don't even know!) and just call it "Tier-1" of the Professional Fantasy Baseball League, and get things sort of informally started this year.  We're going to wait until Football is really taking off before spending too much time on other sports, but there's no reason we can't at least get the ball rolling on baseball and basketball in 2011...other than the fact that we don't know how to differentiate the two acronyms (PFBL vs. PFBBL??).

Also, if anyone is REALLY into Baseball, Basketball, or any other fantasy sport, I'd at least consider the possibility of "franchising" these other sports to an interested "Commissioner" that could help build and grow it.  Let me know if you think you'd be into that!

PFFL Update: Recruiting Plans and Update

So only FOUR players from 2010 are officially out for 2011, which means we've retained over 90% of our players year over year.  That is fantastic news.  Now, we've got a long way to go to get to 252 players for 2011, but mark my words -- we will get there.  Here's a little insight into our approach:

First of all, we know damn well that it's a long time until football season, and most people aren't even thinking about it yet.  Worse, right now we don't even know if there's going to BE a 2011 season at the moment, so there's not much sense trying to get people to sign up right now.  So here's the plan: we're going to spend the next few months really getting ready for the 2011 season -- first and foremost that means a new website that makes it easy for people to sign up and join us, but beyond that we need to add some new tools if we're going to support 252 players.  Well that website is in development now, and we're hoping to have it ready by the time the NFL has sorted itself out.

Now, we imagine that recruiting is going to be pretty damn slow until "the fever" starts up again around July and into August, so we're not going to go too hard at it before then.  However, we're going to test the waters with a few small scale marketing efforts over the next couple of months, and if we need it we'll be ready to roll with that when crunch time hits -- we'll put in as much as we need to make sure we fill up all the spots for 2011.  So for you members or prospective members out there, don't wait too long to get your friends in for this year!

Finally, what we'd love to do is get a line out the door -- anybody past that magic 252 number can sign up anytime for 2012, and they'll be first in line for a tier-3 spot if they get signed up.  So when we do get close to filling up, don't slow down -- keep spreading the word and let's keep building up our league!

PFFL Update: New Website

Blogger has been great to the PFFL, but the time has come for us to build a real website for our growing organization.  The immediate goal is to get a fully-functional website up that will inform users about the PFFL (like this blog does now), allow you to create and account and sign in to the good stuff.  We're not going to replace Yahoo, Sportsline, or ESPN this year (we'll do that in 2012...and absolutely blow them out of the water while we're at it) but for now we want to do something to improve your 2011 experience -- more features, better analysis, more fun.

A lot of what we need is purely selfish -- we need to create some automation to allow us to scale up to 252 playing members in 2011, which means we can focus on delivering great content and timely updates rather than spend all day logging into Yahoo sites and manipulating spreadsheets.

So keep your eyes peeled -- the new site will be up soon, and we'll give all you returning members an early sneak peek at what we're putting together.  Got feedback?  We'd love to hear it -- our goal is nothing short of having the best fantasy football application and website out there, and while we've got a ton of innovative ideas ready to go we also will take all the feedback we can get.

PFFL Update: Offseason Content

Alright -- as the long, cruel offseason is underway, we at the PFFL will try to keep you entertained as best we can while we wait for football season to come back.  We're going to make this site more of a true blog during the offseason, with whatever funny shit tickles our fancy.  See something funny out there?  Send it my way and I'll blog it, or feel free to contribute anything you like.

First up, the first webisode of "The Offseason" -- a funny-as-shit mini-series that a friend of mine put together.  Sure, it's college-football-themed, but it's entirely too appropriate not to use this to kick off the PFFL's offseason content!

Signup Update

Alright, the Signup Deadline has come and gone, so how are we looking?  Not bad, I'd say.  31 of our 43 unique players from 2010 have confirmed that they'll be BACK in 2011, and a few others might still be able to claim their Tier-2 spot if they act quickly.  We have 13 new folks that will join us in 2011, so that's 44 total spots filled, which is great.

So now what? Well, first I should point out that ONE of our illustrious Tier-1 members has decided NOT to return for 2011, so that means we've got an open slot.  I'd love to hear feedback on how we should decide who gets it, but we might do something fun like have a contest or something.