Doing Keepers

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A hand-full of members in my league were disappointed this year on my decision not to do keepers. When Yahoo Plus added the keepers feature, the idea grew very popular in my league. Each team would choose 2 players, in any position, on their roster from last year. Last year, I communicated the possibility of starting keepers in 09. Consequently, I received many protests from other members, who drafted late or poorly. Its a shame since I had Steven Jackson and Andre Johnson, as my to-be keepers.

I decided to side with the protesters for two main reasons: (1) I mentioned we would do keepers after the 08 draft; some members did not draft properly to do keepers (2) I'm adding 5-6 new members in 09, which means I would need to do a private draft. A private draft with 5-6 new players would be very awkward.

I like the keepers idea because it gives members a sense of identity. Yahoo Plus allows you to set 1-5 keepers. Each team would, in a sense, have a core of players to build the rest of their team around. Another advantage would be making the yearly draft shorter, allowing more focus on ranking NFL rookies.

I just felt my league was not properly set up to do keepers. This year I making changes and communicating to all members, prior to the draft, that keepers will be activated in 2010. Yahoo Plus finally added the IR position this year. I've implemented 2 IR spots for each team. The IR spots will allow members to keep their franchise guys on their roster even if they go on the real-life IR or DL.