Help me think through these house rules.
 

I'm trying to find a good balance of...

DIFFICULTY: I don't want it to be easy, but I don't want the "random bad luck" feel of, say, the one and done, where if I get a rough draft class, I'm stuck with it for a decade.

SPEED: I'm competitive, and if there's a detail that matters, I find myself paying attention to it. I'd like to avoid running Change Tracker 2 on the entire league 4 times a season, in other words. My problem is that if there's a competitive advantage to be gained by so doing, I will do it. I find myself tweaking the depth charts and playing times in preseason, even, to play my veterans a minimal amount of time to shake off rust. But that takes up too much time in SP.

USE OF MORE ELEMENTS OF THE GAME: In most of my SP careers, for example, I find myself barely bothering with FA1, and my FA2 work is limited to undrafted rookies usually. I also find myself just using the same game plan throughout a career usually. I'd like to have to make year-t0-year game plan decisions based on talent.

"SIGNATURE" PLAYERS: I like having my stars around for 7-10 seasons, so I don't want house rules that are so stringent that I can't keep anyone past their rookie contrant

So, with these things in mind, I'm considering these house rules:

No trading.
Easy one that will help me stay in my place in the draft every year.



No signing any players (other than draftees) who are RFA age.
This should help with the Change Tracking stuff. I spend a LOT of time focusing on finding FA creepers in SP. If I'm not allowed any signees other than my seven draftees



AI sets depth charts and playing time.
If a guy gets pissed over playing time, he's gone. Given that I won't be grabbing a bunch of creepers all over the place, this shouldn't be a huge deal.


Cap outs allowed.
This will allow some cap maneuvering each season--hopefully enough to keep the stars around.


Only "classy veterans" can renegotiate: guys in year 7 or more with team, loyalty>50, leadership>50.
This will limit renegotiations severely, but give a little more wiggle room for guys willing to help the team.



Injuries=250
This is for difficulty. With the AI handling depth charts, it shouldn't bog me down much.



Take no more than 53 players to training camp.
This should speed me up quite a bit, too. Quite often, I take 4-7 guys to camp who never even play a down in preseason, so I'm just going to limit it to 53 by rule. If someone gets hurt, I can sign a veteran.



AI signs draftees.

This should help a lot with speed, and a little with difficulty. I might even have a rookie holdout.




I'm finishing up the second decade of the Draft-A-Decade dynasty, and intend to pick up in 2021 with new house rules at some point today, tomorrow morning at the latest. I'd love your input and ideas on these suggested rules, and any others that my help me achieve the ideals above.

You still going to enjoy yourself with this rule in place?

That remains to be seen. I think so. My problem is that I tend to be all-or-nothing with this sort of thing, and I know how valuable having a bench full of creepers is. Ideally, I'd like to have to rebuild from time to time.

I think I'm going to ease up on "no trading," and change it to this:

Trading is only allowed during the draft, and will only include picks in the current draft.

If you want to make it a hair more realistic, in my last dynasty I also added, you may not trade picks with a team in order to draft a player at a position which the teams lists as one of it's top 3 needs. Realistically, a team which needs a QB and sees one on the board should not make a trade which is fair by draft pick valuation with you if there's a QB on the board.

I think this adds a bit of realism and also a good touch of difficulty as it makes very hard to get a top of the draft QB.

I was also thinking about adding no trading with divisional opponents.

Honestly, I don't think I'll be making enough trades to add anything else to that. If I find I need that to add to difficulty, I'll add it later. Thanks for that input, though!

It'd be interesting to add a house rule to attempt to sign the best UFA every year (call it the Snyder Rule...although it's probably no longer applicable lately). This might unbalance your salary cap stuff though. It's also in contradiciton to your "Classy Veterans" rule.

I'm a big fan of the slut rule: can't say no to any offer. A 4rth rounder and a 13/27 LDE for my starting SLB? Cash or charge?

here's another idea: the Bengal rule. You have to have at least 3 red flags on your roster at all times.

Oh, god. That would kill me. I just saw the PC offer me a 2nd round pick for a 85/85 WR in his 4th year, who had at least 11 TD catches in all 4 seasons. Yikes!

-- Steve --

I'm not a big fan of rules that introduce too much luck.

I've started this career.

http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...ad.php?t=62880

No Mentors. Except those players you develop into mentor or that are FA's signed as non-mentors that develop into mentors (ie. they become mentors you do not have to cut them). The only mentor FA's you can sign are those you are planning on starting and not having for the mentor skill.