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Text File | 1993-11-30 | 52KB | 1,067 lines

Fantasy Football League Manager -- 1993 Edition, Version 1.3 -- Copyright (C) 1993 by Mike Hall ╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ ║ ║ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓┐ ▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓┐ ║ ║ ▓▓┌────┐▓▓ ▓▓┌────┐▓▓ ▓▓│ ▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓│ ║ ║ ▓▓│ └─┘ ▓▓│ └─┘ ▓▓│ ▓▓┌┐▓▓▓▓▓▓┌─▓▓│ ║ ║ ▓▓│ a ▓▓│ o ▓▓│ ▓▓│└─┐▓▓┌─┘ ▓▓│ ║ ║ ▓▓│ ▓ n ▓▓│ ▓ o ▓▓│ ▓▓│ └──┘ ▓▓│ ║ ║ ▓▓▓▓▓▓ t ▓▓▓▓▓▓ t ▓▓│ ▓▓│ ▓▓│ ║ ║ ▓▓┌─┐▓ a ▓▓┌─┐▓ b ▓▓│ ▓▓│ ▓▓│ ║ ║ ▓▓│ └┘ s ▓▓│ └┘ a ▓▓│ eague ▓▓│ anager ▓▓│ ║ ║ ▓▓└┐ y ▓▓└┐ l ▓▓│ ▓┐ ▓▓└┐ ▓▓└┐ ║ ║ ▓▓▓▓│ ▓▓▓▓│ l ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓│ ▓▓▓▓│ ▓▓▓▓│ ║ ║ └───┘ └───┘ └─────────┘ └───┘ └───┘ ║ ║ 1993 Edition ║ ╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ Program and Manual by Mike Hall 7005 Chelsea Street Madison, Wisconsin 53719 (608) 845-3989 CompuServe ID: 71520,2415 The 1993 Edition of the Fantasy Football League Manager (FFLM) is distributed as Shareware. You are encouraged to use it and share it with others that may be interested in using FFLM. However, if you use it on a regular basis to keep track of your Fantasy Football League, you are requested to Register the program with the author. Registration information can be found in this manual, and is also listed when you exit the FFLM program. Comments and suggestions are welcomed and strongly encouraged by the author. Table of Contents Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Starting the Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Data Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Registration Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Main Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Current Week. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Status Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 League Setup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 League Info. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Divisions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Teams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Positions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Scoring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Custom Scoring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Standard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Big Play. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Reset Scoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 The Draft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Keep Players . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Draft Order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Draft Players. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Edit Draft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Player Transactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Browse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Copy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Starters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Trade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Drop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Pick Up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Injuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Injured Reserve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 IR Replacement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Activate IR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Protected Pool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Protect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Activate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Zap Trans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 FFL Info. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Weekly Scores. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Standings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Player Scores. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 All-Stars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Starting Line-Ups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Rosters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Transactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Trans Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 NFL Info. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Player Stats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Rosters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Quit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Acknowledgements and Credits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Introduction Welcome to the 1993 Edition of the Fantasy Football League Manager! ------------------------------------------------------------------- This program is designed to provide you with everything you need to maintain a Fantasy Football League. If you are already familiar with Fantasy Football, it is recommended that you read the Overview and Requirements on the next few pages, and then go ahead and learn the program on the fly. It is completely menu driven, and most of the menu items should be familiar and easy to follow for Fantasy Football fanatics. You can use the Table of Contents as a reference in case you need more detail on the operation of any of the menu items. On the other hand, if you need some more guidance, just read on. This manual will take you step by step through the process of setting up your league in FFLM and maintaining it throughout the season. Finally, if you are not at all familiar with Fantasy Football, it is suggested that you purchase a Fantasy Football book or magazine to learn all about the wonderful world of Fantasy Football. There are many books and magazines on the subject of Fantasy Football -- just check the sports section of your favorite bookstore. You can pick up a magazine on the subject for about $3.00 or $4.00. The Fantasy Football books are a little more comprehensive, and they generally cost $10.00 to $15.00. This manual will not attempt to teach you the concept of Fantasy Football. Rather, it focuses on the use of this Fantasy Football League Manager program. It assumes you already have the basics in place for a Fantasy Football League, and shows you how to use this program to help run your league and keep track of the scores, standings, player statistics, and transactions on a weekly basis. Overview The Fantasy Football League Manager (FFLM) is designed to handle all of your Fantasy Football needs. It is a very flexible program that allows you to define and keep track of all aspects of your league. For those leagues that keep "franchise players" from year to year, it has an option to designate which players each team is keeping from the previous year. Then, FFLM allows you to set up the draft order for each team. It even allows you to modify draft picks in any round, in case some teams made preseason trades involving draft picks. For draft day, FFLM has a great option which allows you to enter the players in the order that they are drafted. It will tell you which round you are in, and which team has the next draft pick. Your league can have up to 28 teams in up to 8 divisions. Each team can have up to 30 players in any of the following scoring positions: Quarterback, Running Back, Wide Receiver, Tight End, Kicker, and Team Defense. You can define how many starters are allowed at each position. You also define the scoring for each type of play for each position. Should a Quarterback get 3 or 6 points for a touchdown pass? Should a QB lose a point for each interception? Should a Running Back get bonus points if he rushes for more than 100 yards in a game? Maybe he should get an extra point for every 20 yards of receiving? Should a Kicker get bonus points for field goals longer than 50 yards? You decide, and FFLM should handle any scoring variation that your league has devised. Finally, you create the head to head schedule for all of the weeks to pit the teams against each other according to your league's wishes. Once all of the above items are defined, you start the weekly competition. FFLM handles all of the scoring and statistics for you automatically. No more tedious, time consuming data entry from the box scores in your daily newspapers! FFLM has all of the stats ready for you to use on Tuesday of each week. Just download them from a BBS, and print the weekly results. It's quick and easy, and you'll have more stats available to you then you ever dreamed of having, without having to worry about scoring errors. In addition to handling the stats and scoring, FFLM also handles all of your player transactions. It will keep track of trades, injuries, and allow you to maintain a protected player pool or "taxi squad." It will also keep track of all available players and allow teams to add and drop players from their roster. Each week, FFLM gives you an easy method to enter everybody's starting line-up. It even allows you to fix your mistakes. Finally, FFLM lets you print the weekly results, stats, rosters, transactions, and schedules for distribution to all of the teams in the league. The Fantasy Football League Manager was developed with input from several different Fantasy Football Leagues, so hopefully it will handle all of your league's needs. If you would like to see any features or options added, please call or write the author with your suggestions! Requirements Fantasy Football League Manager should run on most PCs. It requires: 1. An IBM compatible PC. 2. 640K of memory and 500K of disk space. 3. DOS version 3.0 or later. 4. Color or Monochrome Monitor with 80 columns. The program may run on PCs with less memory or an earlier version of DOS. It wasn't tested on anything less than the above platform. Installation Fantasy Football League Manager can be run from a floppy drive or a hard drive. It will run a lot faster on a hard drive. To install it on your hard drive, perform the following steps: 1. Create a subdirectory for it on your hard drive MD C:\FANTASY 2. Change the default directory to point to that subdirectory C: CD \FANTASY 3. Copy the program files from the program disk to the current directory COPY A:*.* or COPY B:*.* The program consists of the following files: FFLM.EXE - the main program file FFLEAGUE.FFL - the league data file (it is created the first time you run the program) FFPLAYER.FFP - the NFL Player data file FFSTATS.FFS - the NFL Statistics file (needs to be updated every week) MANUAL.DOC - the FFLM manual (you're reading it right now) WHATS.NEW - the changes since version 1.0 README.DOC - the lates information on the program FFCONV10.EXE - program to convert data from version 1.0 to 1.1 or above Starting the Program To start the program, just type FFLM. You will be presented with the introductory title screen. It helps to have the current date in your computer's memory, so the program will always ask you to verify the current date when it starts. If the date is correct, just press [Enter]. If not, type the correct date and then press [Enter]. Data Plan One of the best features of the Fantasy Football League Manager program is that nobody in your league has to worry about manually typing in scores and statistics from all of the NFL games every weekend. FFLM keeps track of all of the stats you could ever want, and calculates all of the scores for you -- without any typos or math mistakes to contend with! It can save many, many hours of work and frustration for the league commissioner and/or score keeper. In order for all of this automatic scoring to work, of course, you need weekly statistical data updates. There are several ways to get the data that you need. The quickest way is to download the latest stats from a computer Bulletin Board System (BBS). The weekly stats will be posted on several BBS's every week, including CompuServe and EXEC-PC. The stats will always be available via BBS on the Tuesday after the previous weekend's games. The stats are cumulative, so you only need the latest week's stat file to be up to date. For example, the Week 8 stat file contains all of the scoring and statistics for NFL Weeks 1 through 8. The weekly stat files will always be located on EXEC-PC and CompuServe, among others. The number for EXEC-PC is (414) 789-4210. The stat files will always be called "FFLMnn.ZIP", where "nn" is the week number. For example, the stat file for Week 8 will be named FFLM08.ZIP. If there is an update to the FFLM program during the year, the program will be included with the latest stats as part of the compressed ZIP file. If you don't have a modem, or don't have access to any of the BBS's that have the latest stat files, you can have the weekly stats mailed to you every Tuesday with the Data Plan. With this method, the stats should arrive to you by Thursday of each week. To sign up for the Data Plan updates, you need to be a Registered user of FFLM. Refer to the next page for Registration information. Once you are a registered user of FFLM, you can sign up for the Data Plan for only $10. This amount will be used to cover the cost of the floppy disks and postage. See the next page for information on how to sign up for the Data Plan. No matter which method you choose to receive updated stats, you will need to copy the updated files to your FFLM directory in order for them to take effect. In most cases, the updates will just consist of a single file called FFSTATS.FFS. This file will replace the existing FFSTATS.FFS file that you have in the FFLM directory, so just copy the new file right over the top of the old one. In some cases, the updates will include a file called FFPLAYER.FFP if there are new NFL players to be added. Also, there may be an updated FFLM.EXE file included in the updates if some new program features have been added. Again, these files will replace the existing files with the same names. Registration Information Registration for the Fantasy Football League Manager is normally $40 for the current Edition. But for the remainder of the 1993 football season, you can become a Registered user of the 1993 Edition of FFLM for free! To Register under this special offer, just send your name and address to the author at the following address: Mike Hall 7005 Chelsea Street Madison, Wisconsin 53719 In exchange for the free registration, I would greatly appreciate any comments, criticisms, or suggestions that you have about the 1993 Edition of the Fantasy Football League Manager. If there is some feature missing from FFLM that you feel should be added, please let me know by sending your comments to the above address. If you would prefer to talk to me in person about your ideas, you can call me at (608) 845-3989. I should be available most evenings (Monday through Thursday, especially during Monday Night Football), and also on Football Sunday afternoons! Registration benefits include: - Notification of program updates - A copy of the 1994 Edition of FFLM as soon as it is available - A discount on the Registration of the 1994 Edition - Eligibility for the Data Plan weekly statistics update So be sure to Register right now, and be the first one on your block to receive the 1994 Edition of FFLM as soon as it is ready (Summer of 1994). If you would like to participate in the Data Plan weekly statistics updates, just send your name and address to the author at the above address to become a Registered user of FFLM. In addition, send a check for $10 written out to Mike Hall, along with your preferred media type (3.5" or 5.25" floppy disk). As soon as I receive that information, I'll start mailing you weekly statistical updates through the end of the NFL season. You will also automatically receive any FFLM program updates throughout the year. Because of the potentially high postage costs, all of the disks will be mailed via standard first class mail. The disks should arrive in your mailbox by Thursday of each week. If you would prefer to have the disks arrive sooner, just give me a call, and we'll see if we can arrange an overnight express mail service at a reasonable cost. Also be sure to consider getting account on EXEC-PC or CompuServe so you can download the stats as soon as they are available on Tuesdays. Main Menu ╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ League Players FFL Info NFL Info Quit ║ ╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ The main menu looks like the above box. You can access all of the program functions from the main menu. Just use the arrow keys to maneuver the highlight bar from item to item. Press [Enter] on the highlighted item to select it. As a shortcut, you can also press the highlighted letter for a menu item to select it. To abort a function or go back to a previous menu item, press the [Esc] key. To exit the program, select the QUIT menu item. Current Week The most important thing to keep track of in FFLM is the Current Week. It is boldly displayed on the menu screen at all times. Use the Next Week and Previous Week menu options to change weeks (these options are located underneath the LEAGUE Main Menu item). All statistics and scoring reports are based on the Current Week. Status Line The bottom of the menu screen will always contain a current Status Line. The status line lists several items, including the current date and time for your reference. It also contains the current NFL Week. An NFL Week is considered to be from the Wednesday before the weekend's games through the Tuesday after the weekend's games. Next to the NFL Week, you will see the Stats Week. This tells you how current or out of date your statistical data is. The Stats Week will always be one week behind the NFL Week, because all of the games have to be played and completed before the stats are available. However, as soon as the Stats Week is two weeks behind the NFL Week, it is time for a data update! Refer to the previous section on the Data Plan for information on getting updated weekly stats. League Setup The first thing you'll need to do at the beginning of the football season (or when you first get this program) is setup your league. Select LEAGUE from the Main Menu. From the LEAGUE submenu, select SETUP. All of the items listed on the SETUP submenu are listed from top to bottom in the order they should be entered. All of the items are explained below. League Info Enter the setup information for your Fantasy Football League on this screen. First, enter the League Name. It can be up to 40 characters long and is optional. Second, most leagues have a dedicated (or is that designated?) commissioner that keeps track of the stats and enforces the league's rules. Enter the commissioner name here. It can be up to 40 characters long and is optional. The last two items on this screen are the Number of Teams and the Number of Divisions in your League. You must have at least one Team in order to perform most of the functions in this program! Also, you must have at least one Division, but all references to Divisions will be ignored unless there is more than one Division. Divisions If your league has a lot of teams, you may want to break the league into divisions. This option will allow you to enter or edit the divisions and the division names. The FFLM program supports up to 8 divisions. Teams This item allows you to enter or edit team names and coaches. To add a team, type the team name and the coach/owner's name. If you have defined divisions, you'll also be able to select which division the team should be in. The divisions will be presented in a "pop-up" pick list. These pop-ups are used throughout the program to select a single item from a list of available items. Use the up and down arrow keys to highlight the division you want. Press [Enter] to select that division. Press [F8] to add the team to the league, or press [Esc] to stop adding teams. The [F7] function key will take you back to the previous team. Positions This menu item will present you with a screen that lets you determine how many players will start at each position. FFLM supports the following positions: Quarterback (QB), Running Back (RB), Wide Receiver (WR), Tight End (TE), Kicker (K), Team Defense, and Special Teams. A typical starting line-up for a Fantasy Football League would consist of 1 Quarterback, 2 Running Backs, 2 Wide Receivers, 1 Tight End, and 1 Kicker. Some leagues use more running backs and wide receivers. Also, some leagues like to add a Team Defense to the line-up for each Fantasy Team. By doing this, you can add a defensive twist to the game instead of focusing entirely on offensive scoring. An entire NFL Team Defense is used as one position, as opposed to using individual defensive players. Then points are scored whenever any player on the NFL Team Defense scores points. For example, if you have the Pittsburgh Steelers Team Defense on your Fantasy Team, and Ron Woodson intercepts a pass and runs it back for a touchdown, then your Fantasy Team would get the points for that touchdown. A Team Defense can also score points for safeties, fumble recoveries, sacks, etc. Some leagues like to use the same concept for Special Teams. FFLM allows you to use an entire NFL Special Team as a single position. By using this option, you can get points for kick and punt returns. Many leagues treat Tight Ends the same as Wide Receivers. If that is the case with your league, answer yes to the appropriate question on this screen. With this option selected, all Tight Ends will be considered the same as Wide Receivers for all aspects of your League, and the number of starters for the Tight End position will be ignored. Another option on this screen lets you select a Minimum Score that a player can score during a week. This can allow your League to prevent negative scores if that is desired. For example, many leagues subtract one or two points for each interception thrown by a Quarterback. So, if a QB throws two touchdown passes for 12 points, and throws two interceptions for minus 2 points, he would have 10 points total. But if he doesn't throw any TD passes, and throws 3 interceptions, then he would have -3 points for the week! Just enter 0 in this option if you would prefer to have a minimum score of zero for individual players. Scoring This item will present you with several options. You can select one of the common scoring methods described below, or you can enter customized scoring definitions on the Scoring Definition Screen for any or all of the positions. You can also reset the scoring definitions if you want to start over from scratch. The following scoring methods are supported: Touchdown Run Field Goals Made and Missed Touchdown Pass Extra Points Made and Missed Touchdown Reception Safety Defensive Team Touchdown Sack Pass Attempts Defensive Team Interception Pass Completions Defensive Team Fumble Recovery Passing Interception Points Allowed by Defensive Team Passing Yardage Rushing Yards Allowed by Defensive Team Number of Rushes Passing Yards Allowed by Defensive Team Rushing Yardage Total Yardage Allowed by Defensive Team Number of Receptions Special Teams Yardage Receiving Yardage Special Teams Touchdown Total All-Purpose Yardage Individual Punt/Kick Return Custom Scoring Where appropriate, each of these scoring methods can be adjusted for performance. For example, if you want to award more points for "bigger plays", you can define a basic receiving touchdown to be worth 6 points, while a 50-yard or better touchdown could be worth 9 points or whatever amount you decide. Each of these performance scoring methods is defined by a "table" on the Scoring Definition Screen that looks like the following sample: ┌───────┬────────┐ │ Yards │ Points │ This example might be the definition for a ├───────┼────────┤ rushing touchdown. A basic touchdown run │ 0 │ 6 │ would be worth 6 points as expected. But │ 20 │ 7 │ a touchdown run of 20 to 39 yards would be │ 40 │ 8 │ worth 7 points, and a 40 to 59 yard TD run │ 60 │ 9 │ would be worth 8 points, etc. Basically, │ 80 │ 10 │ you just have to make sure there is a point │ 100 │ 11 │ value in the first row of a definition table │ 0 │ 0 │ and a zero in the yards value of the table │ 0 │ 0 │ in order to define the basic scoring for that │ 0 │ 0 │ scoring method. Then you can use the rest │ 0 │ 0 │ of the rows in the table to add bonuses for │ 0 │ 0 │ big plays or better performances. └───────┴────────┘ For the custom scoring method, there is a separate Scoring Definition Screen for each offensive position (QB, RB, WR, TE, K). This is so you can give different values to the same types of scores for each position. For example, if your league wants to put more emphasis on Running Backs, you can give a touchdown run a higher value for Running Backs than for Wide Receivers. Or if you want to reward strong, mobile Quarterbacks, you might define higher values for Quarterback Rushing Yardage than for Running Back Rushing Yardage. Finally, if you don't want to mess around with any of the Custom scoring definitions, you can select one of the predefined common scoring methods. They are described below: Standard The Standard Scoring Method awards the following points for all positions: Passing Touchdown = 3 points Rushing Touchdown = 6 points Receiving Touchdown = 6 points Field Goal = 3 points Extra Point = 1 point Defensive Touchdown = 6 points Defensive Safety = 2 points Big Play The Big Play Scoring Method awards the following points for all positions: Passing Touchdown = 3 points plus 1 point for every 10 yards of the scoring distance. For example, a 45 yard TD pass would be worth 3 + 4 = 7 points, while a 3 yard TD pass would be worth 3 points. Rushing Touchdown = 6 points plus 1 for every 10 yards Receiving Touchdown = 6 points plus 1 for every 10 yards Field Goal = 3 points for 0 to 39 yards 4 points for 40 to 49 yards 5 points for 50 to 54 yards 6 points for 55 to 69 yards 7 points for 60+ yards Extra Point = 1 point Missed Extra Point = -1 point Defensive Touchdown = 6 points plus 1 for every 10 yards Defensive Safety = 2 points Performance The Performance Scoring Method awards the following points for all positions: Passing Yardage = 1 point for every 50 yards of passing. For example, if a player has 210 yards of passing in a game, that would be worth 210 / 50 = 4 points. Throw an Interception = -1 point Rushing Yardage = 1 point for every 25 yards of rushing Receiving Yardage = 1 point for every 25 yards of receiving Field Goals = same as Big Play scoring method above Defensive Team Yards Against = -1 point for every 100 yards of offense given up by your Team Defense Defensive Interception = 1 point Defensive Sack = 1 point Defensive Fumble Recovery = 1 point Reset Scoring This option will Reset all of the Scoring Definitions to Zero. In other words, it clears everything out so you can start over. Although it doesn't make perfect sense for all of the possible combinations, any or all of the Scoring Methods can be combined. To combine both the Performance and the Big Play Scoring methods, just Reset the scoring, and then choose Performance followed by Big Play. Now all of the scoring rules for both methods will be applied. Schedule This menu option allows you to enter the schedule for the head to head competition each week. Press [F7] or [F8] to scroll through the weeks. Just enter the Opposing Team Number next to each team listed. You can enter a zero (0) to signify a bye week. A standard schedule is provided for leagues with 7 to 12 teams. Just select the appropriate schedule from the menu if you have 7 to 12 teams in your league. It is best to have an even number of teams in your league to avoid bye weeks. For the 7 or 8 team schedule, each team plays each other twice during weeks 1 through 14. That leaves weeks 15 through 18 for you to set up a playoff or some free-for-all games for your Fantasy League. For the 9 or 10 team schedule, each team plays each other twice during weeks 1 through 18, with no room in the regular NFL season for Fantasy League playoffs. Finally, the 11 or 12 team schedule assumes the league has 2 divisions (teams 1 through 6 in one division, and teams 7 through 11 or 12 in the second division). Each team plays every team in their division twice, and every team in the other division once in during weeks 1 through 16, leaving weeks 17 and 18 for a Fantasy League playoff. Hardware This menu item allows you to set up a couple of options for your monitor and printer. First, you can select to use a 43/50 line screen for reports. If you enter "Y", then any reports that are longer than 23 lines (the standard report screen length) will compress the text on your monitor to either 43 or 50 lines, depending on your hardware. If your video adapter or monitor does not support the compressed mode, then this option will not work. The next two settings are for printed reports. You can select the default number of lines per page for your printer. The default, 58, works well for laser printers. You may want to use a higher number like 62 for dot matrix printers if you want to fit more lines on each page. The last setting lets you select whether or not to eject the page after a printed report. Be sure to select "Y" for laser printers. You can leave it at "N" for dot matrix printers, especially if you want to print multiple reports on a single page. The Draft The DRAFT option on the LEAGUE submenu allows you to perform the most exciting and tedious portion of most fantasy leagues -- the draft -- with ease. Keep Players First, select this option to enter all of the players (if any) that each team is keeping from the previous year. Some leagues have designated "franchise players" which stay with a team from year to year. Other leagues have multi-year player contracts which allow players to stay with a team from year to year. If your league doesn't have this type of option, then just skip this item. Draft Order After you select this option, you will be presented with the Draft Order Screen for Draft Round #1. Each team will be listed along with the number of their Draft Pick for the current round. The default setup is that Team #1 gets Pick #1, Team #2 gets Pick #2, and so on. Obviously, this isn't always the desired picking order. Just use the up and down arrow keys to scroll through the team numbers, and change the draft picking order as needed for the current draft round. There are several function keys available to help you with the most common drafting methods. Press [F4] if you want to give each team a random pick for the current round. Yes, these are really random numbers that are generated! Press [F5] if you want to copy the order of the picks for the current round to all future rounds. Use [F7] and [F8] to scroll back and forth from one draft round to the next. Use [F6] to reverse the order of the picks for the current round. Many leagues like to reverse the picking order for every other round. To accomplish this, select the picking order for Round #1. Then press [F5] to copy this order to all of the future rounds. Now use [F8] to scroll through the rounds, and press [F6] in all of the even numbered rounds to reverse the order. Draft Players After you have finalized the draft order, you are ready for the agonizing pleasure of drafting your own fantasy dream team! Select the Draft Players menu item to start the draft. The Draft Round, Draft Pick, and Team Number will be listed at the top of the screen. All of the available players will be listed in a pick-list that occupies the rest of the screen. Use the up and down arrow keys to highlight the desired player. Or start typing the player's last name to quickly advance to the desired player. Just press [Enter] to select the player and add them to the current team. Easy! Continue this process until the end of the draft. If you hold your draft on several different days, or if you are entering the draft picks after the fact, you don't have to enter them all at once. Just press [Esc] to stop the action. The next time you select the Draft Players menu item, you will continue the draft where you last left off. Edit Draft What happens if you make an incorrect draft pick? No problem. Just use the Edit Draft menu item to delete a draft pick. All of the picks will be presented in order by round. Just highlight the pick that was made in error, and press [Enter] to select it. The pick will be recalled. To make a new draft selection, go back to the Draft Players menu item. It will recognize that a pick was deleted, and allow you to reselect a player for that round and pick number. You can do this anytime during a draft to correct errors. Information Do you need information on the program and how to register it? This option will show you everything you need to know. Just press [Enter] to view and advance through the infomation. Player Transactions Once your league is setup and all of the teams have drafted their players at the beginning of the season, you are ready to start the competition! One of the major activities in most leagues is the player transactions. There are trades, injuries, free agent pick ups, disappointing players dropped, and players to protect. FFLM will keep track of all of these types of transactions for you via the PLAYERS submenu on the main menu. Browse This option lets you browse through an alphabetical list of all of the important NFL players (that is, all of the Quarterbacks, Running Backs, Wide Receivers, Tight Ends, and Kickers, as well as all of the Team Defenses). Use [F7] and [F8] to scroll through the list. Press [F4] to find the next player that is on the same NFL team as the currently displayed player. Press [F6] to find the next player that is on the same Fantasy team as the current player. Press [F5] to find a specific player. You will be asked to enter all or part of their last name. Copy This function will copy all of the starting line-ups from the previous week to the current week. Use this before entering the starting line-ups for the week. Most teams play the same players from week to week, so it can save you some time when entering starting line-ups. Starters Use this option to enter the starting line-ups for all of the teams. You will be presented with a list of teams. After selecting the appropriate team, you will be presented with the team's roster. Use the [Spacebar] to select or unselect a player. When the entire line-up has been selected, press [Enter] to save it, or [Esc] to abort your changes. Trade This option allows you to keep track of player trades. You will be prompted to select the team that will be receiving a player. After selecting the receiving team, you will be prompted for the team that is trading a player away. Then you will be selected with the latter team's roster. After you select a player, the trade is done. In most cases, teams trade one player for another. To handle this situation, use the Trade menu option twice, once for each player that is changing hands. You can press [Esc] anytime during the Trade transaction to abort it. Drop Use this option to drop a player from a team. After selecting a team, the roster will be displayed. After making a selection, the player will be returned to the pool of available players. Pick Up Use this option to add a player to a team. You'll be presented with a list of all the available players in alphabetical order. You can start typing a players last name to jump right to a specific player. Press [Enter] to select a player, or [Esc] to abort. Injuries In most leagues, teams are allowed to replace injured players, either permanently or temporarily. Usually, if a player is on the NFL injured reserve list, than a Fantasy team is allowed to put that player on their injured reserve list. This menu option will allow you to manage players on injured reserve (IR) and their replacements. Injured Reserve Use this option to place a player on the injured reserve list. The player will be unavailable for starting line-ups until he is activated and taken off of injured reserve. IR Replacement This option will allow you to choose a replacement for an injured reserve player. You'll be given a list of all available players. In most leagues, the IR Replacement has to be let go when the original injured player is reactivated. Use the Drop Player function for that purpose. Activate IR Use this option to activate a player on the injured reserve list. Protected Pool Many leagues support a "Protected Player Pool" or a "Taxi Squad" for inactive players. With all of the bye weeks in the NFL this year, it is especially helpful to have some extra players during those off weeks when half of your normal starting line-up is not playing. This menu option will help you manage a Protected Player Pool. Protect Use this option to put a player from a team's roster in to the team's protected pool. Your league will have to determine how to handle the protected pool. FFLM doesn't set any limits on how many players you can put in the pool, or how long they can stay there. It will just keep track of which players are in the pool, and when they were put there. Activate Use this option to reactivate a player from a team's protected pool. The player will be returned to the team's regular roster. Zap Trans Even though we hate to admit it, mistakes happen! The Zap Trans menu option will let you undo any transactions that were entered mistakenly, so nobody ever has to know that you make mistakes! When you select this item, you'll be presented with a list of all of the transaction sorted by week and team. Highlight the transaction in question, and press [Enter] to delete it. All of the affected team rosters will be updated to reflect the change. Remember that some transactions rely on others. For example, Team 1 might drop Joe Montana one week, and then Team 2 might pick him up the next week. If you delete the first transaction in which Team 1 drops Montana, then the second transaction won't make any sense, because Montana wouldn't be in the available player pool for Team 2 to pick up. Therefore, if you are going to delete the first transaction, you also have to delete the corresponding second transaction! FFL Info This menu item gives you access to all of the scores, stats, and player transaction information for your league. You can quickly view the information on the screen, or you can print it out to study or distribute to the rest of the teams in your league. When you select one of the reports, a short pause will occur while the report is generated. Then a report window will appear, and the first screen full of information will be displayed. You can use the up and down arrow keys, as well as PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End keys to scroll through the entire report. If you want to print the report to your printer, just press [F5]. If you want to print the report to a standard ASCII text file, press [F6]. You will be prompted for the name of the output file. You can specify a drive and path if desired. Weekly Scores This item will list all of the teams in the league, along with their scores and opponents. This will quickly show you who won and who lost, and by how much. Teams with bye weeks will also be listed. Standings This item will list each team from best to worst as of the current week. If your league has divisions, the teams will be broken down into their respective divisions. Each team's record (Wins, Losses, Ties) will be listed first. Next, the Points For and Points Against will be listed. These are broken down into totals, averages, and maximum and minimum. Then the average Win and Loss Margin will be listed, followed by the current winning or losing streak that each team is having. Last but not least, next week's opponent is listed. This is the type of report that you will probably want to print out each week to distribute to all of the teams in the league, so they can all see how everybody else is doing. Player Scores This report will break down the scoring for each team to the player level, so coaches can see who scored for them, and who they should or should not have started. It gives new meaning to 20/20 hindsight, and tends to be rather frustrating, but hopefully it will give coaches insight into who they should start for the next game! The players will be broken down by fantasy team and then by position. Each player will be listed along with their position, name, NFL team, and points scored for the week. Their points will be followed by an asterisk (*) if they started. If they did not start, but scored more points than the other players at that position, then their points will be followed by an exclamation point (!) to signify that the coach should have started them. After all of the players have been listed, a team summary will be presented. The total score for the starters will be listed first (this is the actual score for the team for the week), followed by the opposing team's score and the result (win, loss, or tie). Then the total score for the "bench" will be listed. This total comes from all of the players on the current team that didn't start this week but scored some points. Then comes the sometimes agonizing part. The "potential" score for the team will be listed. This comes from taking the best players at each position for the current week. All-Stars This will list all of the best players at each position for the current week. The top five scores at each position will be listed. The list may get pretty long, because all fifth place ties will also be listed. Starting Line-Ups This will list all of the players that have been selected as starters for the current week. It will list the teams according the schedule for the week, with opposing line-ups listed side by side. The report is intended to be distributed to all of the teams before the current week's games, so the Coaches can use it to keep track of their progress on Sunday afternoon. Rosters This will list all of the players on each team as of the current week. Players will be sorted by position. Transactions This will list all of the player transactions as of the current week. Transactions will be sorted by week and team. Drafted players and players kept from last year will not be included in this report. Only transactions that have taken place during the year will appear. Trans Errors This will list potential conflicts in Transactions that were made in your League. Conflicts may occur if you use the "Zap Trans" feature to delete a transaction that was made by mistake. If you delete a transaction that depends on another transaction, then it could cause a conflict. Run this report to see if there are any conflicts, and use the information in the report to fix the faulty transactions (if there are any). For example, let's say a Team drops a player in Week 6 and another Team picks that same player up in Week 7. If you delete the transaction for the Player Drop in Week 6, then the transaction for the Player Pick Up in Week 7 doesn't make sense, because the player wouldn't be on the available player list. Schedule This will print your Fantasy Football League head to head schedule for the entire year. For playoff weeks, where the schedule is not determined yet, the report will say just that. NFL Info This menu item gives you access to NFL rosters and schedules. It also gives you access to the statistics on all of the NFL players that are listed in FFLM. Player Stats This is perhaps the most useful report for team coaches and owners. It will list all of the players in the NFL in each of the Fantasy Football scoring positions. It will list all of the Quarterbacks, followed by the Running Backs, Wide Receivers, Tight Ends, Kickers, and Team Defenses. Each position will be sorted from best to worst players at that position. All of the pertinent statistics for each position are listed. For example, Quarterbacks are listed with their attempts, completions, percent completions, passing yardage, passing touchdowns, interceptions, number of rushes, rushing yardage, and rushing touchdowns. Each player will also be listed with their total NFL points for the year, followed by the total FFL (Fantasy Football League) points for the year. Since the FFL points depend entirely on how you define the scoring for your league, this column will vary from league to league, and could deviate quite a bit from the NFL points. For example, most Fantasy Leagues give a QB 3 points for a passing touchdown, whereas a QB always gets 6 points for a passing touchdown in the NFL. The players are sorted from best to worst based on the FFL points, since those are the points that make the difference in your league. Finally, each player is listed with an asterisk (*) next to their name if they are available in your league. By using this report every week, you'll be able to quickly find the "best" available players in your league. Of course, this is truly a statistical "best", and just like the stock market, past performance is no guarantee of future results! Good luck. Performance This will break down the scoring for a single player for each week up to the current week. It will list total fantasy points, and break that number down into all of the relevant stats for each week. Rosters This option will list the roster of any NFL team that you select. All of the players will be sorted by position and then by name. This will come in handy if you want to take advantage of an NFL team that is currently "hot", and you want to find some obscure Wide Receivers or Running Backs on that team. Schedule This will print the NFL schedule for the current week. You should find this especially useful for remembering all of those bye weeks this season. It would be a shame to start a player that isn't even playing! Quit That's all folks! This option will get you back to where you started, and should be used immediately if your boss is approaching. Acknowledgements and Credits The Fantasy Football League Manager 1993 Edition was written by Mike Hall and is Copyright (c) 1993 by Mike Hall. It was written entirely with Borland's Turbo Pascal and the excellent Object Professional tools from Turbo Power Software. Special thanks to all of the members of the various Fantasy Football Leagues that helped contribute to the making of this program. You know who you are!