Task 6 Category 1

Let me preface this write up with this disclaimer: I am basing this point task write up off winning the lottery for being commissioner for a day or week. There have been some features I wish we could alter or at least experiment with. However, as someone who has only been around in a limited capacity for only 15 months, the juxtaposition does not look great when bringing such radical ideas to grizzled veterans who have contributed for years and years. Nonetheless, a voice is only a voice if it speaks. On an aside before I start, this is not a collection of potshots, just ideas and suggestions. The league has implemented many new positive features that have tremendously boosted the user experience.

This list will contain issues that I feel still exist or still are a hurdle for the daily experience of the average user. The first issues will revolve around the DSFL. The DSFL has issues that are detrimental to retention and marketability. For one, rookies are broke and I think a great solution to that would be to create a rookie scale contract, similar to other professional leagues. When rookies are officially drafted to the DSFL, they will get a 5 million dollar salary AND a waiver for T3 equipment. This would create a balance of having financial stability and ease them into the T6 equipment grind to hopefully decrease the burnout rate. Now, once they get drafted to the ISFL, all rookies will be issued a standard 3 year contract (which equates the max DSFL send down length) and annual pay will be based on their draft position (Round 1/2 = 5 million, Round 3/4 = 4 million, Round 5+ = 3 million). Not only will DSFL players keep their decent pay before getting barraged into the minimum prison, but might also deter ISFL GM's from calling up players so early.

A majority of players will prefer to be called up early to the ISFL regardless, mainly because the DSFL is limited and is filled with unattractive football. Now I have a few ideas to make the DSFL more entertaining. The first is to amend the inactive rule. Currently inactives are benched in favor of human players or played out of position to fill gaps. Now, when DSFL players go inactive, their TPE will be scaled down to 200, 150, or left the same if they have earned less than 150; the excess TPE will be banked until the user returns or the player is auto-retired. If there is a human counterpart, that inactive will still play behind the human on the depth chart. The biggest change is: DSFL teams will be allowed one free position switch so GM's can fill gaps and remove bot players off the roster.

The other part to this plan would be to expand the TPE cap to 350. I know most people argue that the disparity between rookies and 4 years DSFL players is a lot, but yet I see plenty of callups with under 500 TPE going against 7,8,9 year ISFL veterans. In my 4th season, I only had about 800 TPE earned, and I was already playing against wide receivers well over 1100 TPE and my stats pretty much sucked. Meanwhile, Brandon Prince played the spell RB in New York with only about 400 TPE in his second season and he had a monster game against a loaded Berlin defense in the Ultimus. My main argument is this: people complain about how the DSFL is run-heavy, how high penalty totals ruin games, how skill positions and Quarterbacks are limited --- well why not open up the TPE cap and let teams diversify and build more unique strategies? Put some life into the DSFL rosters, playbooks, and strategies. If players actually saw themselves producing more often, and if every game wasn't a derivative of the same run-run-pass, penalty, penalty, sack, punt/missed field goal then maybe more people would be interested in watching, interested in staying, interested in getting more involved with the inner workings of their team.

Hopefully this would create more retention in the DSFL when players actually start having competitive games based on skill and not based on who makes the last mistake. Plus, once you keep those rosters at least 2/3 full with active players, it becomes easier to assimilate those new players into the DSFL. I mean sure, they will have to face tougher competition, but if their teammates are just as good, will it matter since they won't have such a big burden? They'll be able to slide in and eventually become a major contributor themselves.

This last idea I made up while writing this point task. So let us say, people still find staying down in the DSFL an unattractive option. The red button option would be to bribe people to send down. Every player that stays down until the trade deadline after their first season will get a T3 waiver. Something radical, but sometimes shakeups clean out the rut and bring the true shine out. I was going to talk about other issues but I'm positive I already hit 800 words.