General:

By joining this league, you confirm that you:

• have an adequate understanding of fantasy football to participate
• are familiar with the league’s scoring system, settings and bylaws
• agree to pay applicable league dues/fees; and
• have reliable access to Yahoo’s Fantasy Football site.

Starting line-ups and participation:

Clan McDonald is a “casually competitive” league. Many managers invest a significant amount of time in their team. To respect their efforts there is a minimum level of participation we expect from everyone. That minimum is somewhat subjective but includes:

• maintaining the most competitive roster possible
• submitting complete starting line-ups each week; and
• competing for the duration of the season.

Maintaining a competitive roster includes taking full advantage of all your roster spots (Active and IR) and using weekly waivers, waiver priority and free agency periods.

An incomplete weekly line-up is one that contains:

• empty starting spots
• injured, suspended or inactive players; or
• any other player not reasonably expected to score fantasy points (eg. Players on bye week).

If a manager is struggling to meet the minimum level of participation we need, the commissioner will contact them to discuss it. An occasional incomplete line-up can happen to anyone but if participation becomes a persistent issue, the manager in question may be removed from the league.

The Draft:

The commissioner will attempt to schedule the draft during a two week window prior to the start of the NFL season, ideally on a date and time that works for everyone. If a consensus date and time can’t be reached, the draft will be scheduled to accommodate as many managers as possible. Drafts are conducted online in real time through Yahoo’s virtual draft room. Any manager unavailable for the draft (or any portion of it) will have their players selected automatically by Yahoo’s “autodraft” system. Resetting and rescheduling a completed draft will only be considered in extraordinary circumstances.

Transactions:

All player transactions (adds, drops and trades) must be undertaken with the goal of improving your team. The only trading “currency” permitted in this league is players. You cannot trade draft order, waiver priority, “future considerations” or any form of compensation that exists outside of the players on your roster.

All trades and transactions must be free of collusion and gross negligence.

For the purposes of this league, collusion is defined as an action or agreement that limits (or attempts to limit) open competition and/or provides (or attempts to provide) an unfair advantage.

Examples might include:

• trades with future considerations (e.g. Borrowing a player from another team with the agreement that the player will be traded back at a later date)
• trades with secret conditions (eg. I will trade you Davante Adams but only if you agree not to start him against me next week.)
• making lop-sided trades to “stack” a team.
• Trades or transactions involving consideration outside the fantasy football league (eg. Real money)

Gross negligence is defined as the inability or failure to perform a duty to compete that affects the competitive balance of the league.

Examples might include:

• trading CeeDee Lamb for Taiwan Jones.

Trades will be processed immediately but a review will be completed within 24 hours. If the commissioner has concerns relating to collusion or gross negligence, the managers involved will be contacted to provide more context. The commissioner does not need to prove collusion or gross negligence in order to reverse trades and/or penalize the managers involved.

Managers are free to negotiate trades outside the league site but only trades submitted and accepted through Yahoo will be binding.

Settings:

Settings refer to league details like scoring, league size, roster limits, starting line-up composition and even website/app behaviour (as examples). Settings are not documented as part of league bylaws because they can change from year to year whereas bylaws are less likely to be revised year to year.

A few general notes about settings:

• The commissioner will “open the floor” during the fantasy preseason to allow managers to propose changes to league settings. If changes are proposed, the expectation is that any managers with an opinion or concern will provide feedback (for or against).
• The final decision to implement / not implement suggested changes resides with the commissioner. If the commissioner elects not to implement a proposed change, they must provide a supporting rationale.

Sportsmanship rule:

The “Sportsmanship rule” acknowledges that it’s impractical to have a written bylaw for every situation. Under this bylaw, the commissioner has the right to intervene and resolve issues that appear to contravene the spirit of the rules, even where no documented league bylaw has been broken.

Postponed, rescheduled and cancelled NFL games:

Yahoo fantasy football leagues run on a weekly Thursday to Wednesday cycle. When the NFL is forced to delay games, change a team’s bye week or shuffle the schedule for any other reason, Yahoo’s policy is that they will not “back date” fantasy stats. In other words, game stats count in the week the game is played – period. When it comes to postponed or cancelled games, this is fine when there’s advance warning. The trouble is, that isn’t always the case.

In the interest of simplicity and clarity, postponements and cancellations will be handled in the following two ways:

• If there is uncertainty as to whether a game will be postponed or cancelled and that uncertainty is foreseeable (e.g. weather, COVID etc.), managers will be permitted to manually submit a list of substitutes to the commissioner for any starters affected. Substitutes must be submitted before the start of the substitute player’s weekly game. In the event the postponed game is not completed within Yahoo’s standard fantasy week (Thursday to Wednesday), the commissioner will manually amend affected line-ups to insert the designated substitute(s). If managers do not submit a list of substitutes by the required deadline(s), they will receive zeroes for any players involved in a postponed or cancelled game.
• If a game is postponed or cancelled and the postponement / cancellation was not foreseeable (e.g. stadium power outage or other “act of god”), the commissioner will manually amend affected line-ups to insert the next highest projected eligible bench player. If the manager does not have an eligible bench player, they will receive a zero for that starting spot.