Rules
It’s the Law!
Society of the Dead Rabbits Fantasy Football League
Official Rules
I. Rosters & Regular Keepers
1. Maximum Active Roster
A team's active roster may not exceed 32 players during the season. The 32-player limit does not apply during designated offseason trading periods or the rookie draft when temporary roster expansion may be necessary.
The Regular Draft will continue for as many rounds as necessary for teams to reach their 32-player roster limit.
2. Regular Keepers
Each team may retain three regular keepers from its previous season-ending roster:
2 offensive players
1 defensive player
These three players constitute the team's original regular keepers.
3. Additional Regular Keepers
Through offseason trades, a team may acquire up to two additional regular keepers who were not on that team's original season-ending roster.
A team may never have more than five regular keepers total:
3 original regular keepers
Up to 2 additional/traded regular keepers
Any trade that would cause a team to exceed the two-additional-keeper limit is void.
Rookie Keepers are not considered additional regular keepers.
4. Maximum Protected Players
A team may have:
3 original regular keepers
Up to 2 additional/traded regular keepers
Up to 6 Rookie Keepers
Up to 2 Developmental Players
This allows a maximum of 11 playing-eligible keepers, plus 2 Developmental Players who are governed by the Developmental Player rules below.
II. Rookie Keepers
5. Rookie Keeper Limit
A team may carry no more than 6 Rookie Keepers at any time.
6. Rookie Keeper Eligibility
Players selected in the Rookie Draft may be retained as Rookie Keepers for three years and do not count against the regular keeper limit.
Rookies selected in the Regular Draft or acquired through regular-season waivers do not receive Rookie Keeper designation.
7. Rookie Year Designation
A Rookie Keeper will carry the year in which he was drafted as part of his designation.
Example: Russell2007
The year designation follows the player while he maintains Rookie Keeper status.
8. Trading Rookie Keepers
A Rookie Keeper may be traded during either the regular season or offseason.
When traded:
The player retains his original rookie-year designation.
The receiving team may retain him as a Rookie Keeper as long as the team does not exceed the six-Rookie-Keeper maximum.
An offseason trade involving a Rookie Keeper does not count toward the receiving team's two additional regular keepers.
If a trade would cause the receiving team to exceed six Rookie Keepers, the trade is void.
9. Losing Rookie Keeper Status
An owner may not voluntarily remove a player's Rookie Keeper designation simply to move that player onto the regular roster.
A player loses Rookie Keeper status under the circumstances described below.
If a Rookie Keeper is dropped during the regular season, the player permanently loses his rookie-year designation and can never again qualify as a Rookie Keeper.
Different rules apply to Rookie Keepers released before the Rookie Draft.
10. Offseason Rookie Keeper Releases
Before the Rookie Draft, on a date announced by the Commissioner, owners may release Rookie Keepers to create roster space or simply because they no longer wish to retain the player.
A released Rookie Keeper:
Enters the Rookie Draft Pool.
Retains his original rookie-year designation.
May be selected in either the Rookie Draft or Developmental Draft.
Retains his original designation if selected in one of those drafts.
If the player is not selected during the applicable rookie/developmental drafting process, his Rookie Keeper designation is lost and he becomes eligible for the Regular Draft.
Once the Rookie Draft begins, owners may not release additional Rookie Keepers until the Rookie Draft is complete.
11. Rookie Draft Picks and the Six-Player Limit
A team's existing Rookie Keepers combined with the Rookie Draft selections it is entitled to make may not cause the team to exceed six Rookie Keepers.
If exercising all of a team's Rookie Draft picks would push the team above six Rookie Keepers, the team forfeits the excess Rookie Draft pick or picks.
12. Quarterbacks in the Rookie Draft
Beginning with the 2020 Rookie Draft, quarterbacks are eligible to be selected in the Rookie Draft.
III. Developmental Players
13. Developmental Draft
A Developmental Draft will be held after each Rookie Draft.
Draft order is determined by a card pull.
Each team may select up to two rookie players in the Developmental Draft.
14. Developmental Player Restrictions
During the season in which a Developmental Player is drafted, that player:
Does not count against the team's 32-player active roster.
Cannot be played.
Cannot be traded.
Cannot be dropped.
15. Developmental Player Options After the First Season
After the player's developmental season has ended, the owner may:
Release the player;
Convert the player to a Rookie Keeper with two years of Rookie Keeper eligibility remaining;
Trade the player; or
Convert the player into a regular keeper.
If a Developmental Player is traded after his developmental season, the receiving owner must designate him as either:
An additional regular keeper; or
A Rookie Keeper.
No other designation is permitted.
16. Released Developmental Players
If the original owner releases a Developmental Player after his developmental season, the player enters the Rookie Draft Pool and retains his original drafted-year designation.
The player may then be selected in either the Rookie Draft or Developmental Draft and will retain his original draft-year tag.
17. Rookie Draft Pool
Players in the Rookie Draft Pool are eligible to be selected in either the Rookie Draft or Developmental Draft.
Players selected from this pool retain their applicable drafted-year designation and remain subject to the league's Rookie/Developmental Keeper rules.
IV. Drafts
18. Regular Draft
The Regular Draft consists of as many rounds as necessary for teams to reach their 32-player active roster limit.
19. Draft Pick Time Limits
During league drafts:
First-round picks: 8-hour maximum
All other picks: 6-hour maximum
20. Converting a Regular First-Round Pick to Rookie Picks
Beginning in 2019, an owner may exchange his current-year first-round Regular Draft pick for two additional current-year Rookie Draft picks.
The Rookie Draft may expand to additional rounds as necessary to accommodate these selections.
The normal Rookie Draft order continues to apply.
The six-Rookie-Keeper maximum remains in effect.
21. Post-Regular-Draft Supplemental Draft
After the Regular Draft, the league may hold an optional Post-Regular-Draft Supplemental Draft on a date announced by the Commissioner.
An owner may exchange up to two players through this draft.
The procedure is:
Owners must declare the player or players they intend to release by the day before the Supplemental Draft.
Once the Supplemental Draft begins, those releases cannot be reversed.
Participating owners draw cards to determine draft order.
The draft uses a serpentine format.
Owners may participate in one or both rounds.
The available player pool includes players released for the Supplemental Draft.
Each selection has a maximum four-hour time limit during waking hours.
Developmental Players cannot be exchanged through the Supplemental Draft.
A Rookie Keeper released through the Supplemental Draft loses his rookie-year designation.
Any player acquired through the Supplemental Draft has no rookie-year designation, even if that player previously held Rookie Keeper status.
V. Trades & Future Draft Picks
22. Offseason Trading
Owners may trade players, draft picks, or combinations of players and draft picks during designated offseason trading periods announced by the Commissioner.
Offseason trades remain subject to all regular, additional, rookie, and developmental keeper limits.
23. The Chuck Rule
A team may have no more than four future-year draft picks traded away at any one time, whether those picks are Regular Draft picks, Rookie Draft picks, or a combination of both.
The rule exists to prevent an owner from sacrificing an excessive portion of a team's future drafts to strengthen one season.
This is known as the Chuck Rule, inspired by the BoneCrushers' memorable attempt to trade away essentially an entire future draft.
24. Responsibility for Tracking Draft Picks
The league's Pick Tracker worksheet is maintained as a convenience, but each owner is ultimately responsible for tracking his own draft picks and ensuring that proposed trades comply with league rules.
25. Late-Season Trade Restriction
If teams trade a player or players after Week 12, those players cannot be traded back to their original owning teams during the following offseason trading period.
Example: If Team A and Team B trade Evans for Julio after Week 12, Team A and Team B cannot trade Julio or Evans back to one another during that offseason.
This rule exists to prevent collusive temporary player swaps.
26. Trade Review and Collusion
A Trade Committee will be formed only when there is strong evidence of collusion.
The league generally allows owners broad discretion to manage their teams, subject to the keeper, draft-pick, and anti-collusion restrictions contained in these rules.
VI. Waivers & Player Pickups
27. Weekly Waiver Deadline
Waiver pickup day is Wednesday at 7:00 PM Eastern Time.
Pickup requests must be submitted to the Commissioner before 7:00 PM Eastern.
There is no limit on the number of waiver pickups an owner may request.
28. Waiver Priority
Waiver priority is determined in the following order:
Power Rankings
Record
Points Scored
Worst pre-trade Regular Draft first-round position
For the final criterion, the worse original draft position receives the better waiver priority. For example, an owner originally drafting 6th receives priority over an owner originally drafting 2nd.
The team with the worst applicable ranking receives the highest waiver priority.
29. Waiver Processing
The Wednesday waiver process uses the league's established serpentine method.
After Wednesday waivers are completed, eligible free agents may be acquired on a first-come, first-served basis until they become subject to waivers again.
30. Players Who Must Clear Waivers
A player must go through the following Wednesday waiver process before being acquired if the player:
Was dropped;
Became available after the weekly waiver process; or
Has already played a game during the current NFL week.
A team may not drop a player that the team acquired during that same week.
A team also may not drop a player who has already played during the current week.
31. First Waiver Period
The first regular waiver period occurs on the first Wednesday following Week 1 games.
32. Trade and Pickup Deadline
The Commissioner will announce the season's final trade and pickup deadline.
VII. Starting Lineups
33. Weekly Starting Lineup
Each team's weekly starting lineup consists of:
QB
RB
RB
WR
WR
WR
TE
OF
K
DL
LB
DB
DF
DF
34. Lineup Submission Deadline
Each individual player must be submitted to the starting lineup before the scheduled kickoff of that player's game.
There are no automatic or default lineups.
An owner may communicate that the team is using the “same lineup as last week,” but some form of communication must be made. A lineup will not automatically carry forward without communication.
VIII. Scoring & Player Eligibility
35. Official Scoring and Position Eligibility
Official league scoring is based on NFL.com.
Player position eligibility is determined by ESPN.com, using the position listed in ESPN's Roster section rather than its Depth Chart section.
If a player carries two eligible position designations, the player may be used at either position.
The Commissioner may change the official scoring source if a more practical format becomes available. Owners will be notified of any such change.
36. Position Changes
If a player's listed position changes after that player has been drafted or acquired, the player retains the position eligibility he had at the time of acquisition.
Position eligibility will therefore be verified at the time of draft or pickup.
37. Offensive and Defensive Scoring
Offensive players cannot receive defensive points.
Defensive players cannot receive offensive points.
38. Negative Yardage
Negative yardage is treated as zero rather than subtracting from positive yardage in another category.
Example: A player records 46 rushing yards and -5 receiving yards. For league scoring purposes, the applicable total remains 46 yards rather than 41 yards.
IX. Quarterback Rules
39. Individual Quarterbacks
Beginning with the 2020 season, the league abolished the former Team QB system.
Quarterbacks are drafted and rostered as individual players in all drafts.
40. Injured or Benched Starting Quarterback
To protect an owner from catastrophic point loss when a starting quarterback is injured or benched during a game:
If the backup quarterback records 7 or more pass attempts, the league will assume that the original starting quarterback was injured or benched.
The owner who started the original quarterback receives the applicable team quarterback statistics for that game, including qualifying:
Passing points
Rushing points
Receiving points
This protection applies only to that game.
If the submitted quarterback records no pass attempt, the league will assume that he did not start, and the fantasy team receives no quarterback points under this protection.
Owners remain responsible for monitoring game-time quarterback decisions.
41. Two Fantasy Teams Starting Quarterbacks From the Same NFL Team
If two fantasy teams start different quarterbacks from the same NFL team, the Commissioner will determine which quarterback was the actual starter.
The fantasy owner with the actual starting quarterback receives protection under the injured/benched quarterback rule.
The other fantasy owner receives only the statistics actually produced by the backup quarterback.
X. Regular Season, Standings & Playoffs
42. Playoff Qualification
The top four teams advance to the league playoffs.
43. Playoff Seeding Tiebreakers
When teams have identical records for playoff qualification or seeding, ties are broken in the following order:
Power Rankings
Points Scored
Coin Toss
These are playoff/seeding tiebreakers and are separate from the waiver-priority procedure described earlier.
44. Regular-Season Ties
Regular-season games may end in a tie.
45. Playoff and Super Bowl Ties
During the playoffs and Super Bowl, the designated home team wins a tied game.
This is the league's home-field advantage.
XI. The Losers Bowl
46. Losers Bowl Qualification
The bottom four teams participate in the Losers Bowl.
The Losers Bowl determines the following season's Regular Draft order.
47. Losers Bowl Format
The Losers Bowl is a two-week, rotisserie-style playoff.
There are no head-to-head matchups.
Draft position is awarded according to total points scored during the Losers Bowl:
Highest point total: 1st overall Regular Draft pick
Second-highest point total: 2nd overall pick
Third-highest point total: 3rd overall pick
Fourth-highest point total: 4th overall pick
XII. Owner Responsibilities & Stat Corrections
48. Weekly Score Verification
Owners are responsible for reviewing:
Their team's weekly box score;
Their win/loss record; and
Their cumulative points in the Standings.
Any scoring or standings error must be reported before kickoff of the following week's first game.
Once that kickoff occurs, the previous week's:
Scores,
Win/loss results, and
Cumulative point totals
are locked and will not be changed.
49. Waiver Results Will Not Be Reversed
If an error is discovered after Wednesday evening waivers have already been processed, and correcting that error would have changed waiver priority, the completed pickups will not be reversed.
An owner may request a short extension when circumstances prevent that owner from reviewing league data before the normal deadline.
XIII. League Traditions & Named Rules
50. Super Bowl Naming Rights
If a team wins the Society of the Dead Rabbits Super Bowl three times within a four-year period, that team earns the right to name the following year's Super Bowl.
Example: Rabbits Suck Bowl.
51. The Roger Maris Rule
The first Super Bowl champion following the addition of an extra game to the league's regular season, and whose championship occurs under the pandemic/year-ending-in-2 circumstances established by the league, receives an asterisk (*) associated with that championship and the manager's name.
From that point forward, league communications shall address that manager by his name immediately followed by an asterisk.
Example: Roger*
Because some rules are written in ink and others apparently require an engraving tool.
XIV. Retired / Historical Rules
The following provisions are retained as part of league history but are not currently active rules.
COVID-19 Injured Reserve
During the COVID-era rules, NFL-designated COVID players could be moved to a league COVID IR without a numerical limit.
When the player was activated from the NFL COVID list, the fantasy owner was required to make the appropriate roster move. Any player dropped as a result became subject to the normal waiver process.
After the Regular Draft, owners could move qualifying players to COVID IR and acquire replacement players on a first-come, first-served basis before Week 1.
Normal waiver procedures resumed following Week 1.
Postseason COVID IR
Before postseason play began, players on COVID IR had to either be removed from COVID IR or dropped.
During the postseason, a team could acquire a replacement player only when COVID caused the team to lose its entire rostered availability at a particular position.
The replacement had to play the same position.
Once the COVID-designated player returned from NFL COVID IR, the temporary replacement had to be dropped.
Example: If a team had two defensive linemen and both were unavailable because of COVID, the team could acquire a defensive lineman. If one defensive lineman was injured and only the other was unavailable because of COVID, the team could not acquire a replacement under this exception.
Rulebook Interpretation
Where these rules establish a numerical roster, keeper, rookie, developmental-player, or future-draft-pick limit, a transaction that would cause a team to exceed that limit is not permitted.
The Commissioner will announce dates and deadlines for offseason trading, drafts, trade deadlines, pickup deadlines, and other league events where the rules call for a date to be announced.
These rules are intended to preserve competitive balance while retaining the traditions that have accumulated throughout the history of the Society of the Dead Rabbits Fantasy Football League.