Do you charge anything for a franchise player?

Question

Our league is discussing designating franchise players for the 2009 season.

In our discussions, we plan to grant a two year holdover of the franchise player. I wish to propose that it comes at a cost.

For instance if you keep Tomlinson, then you lose your first round pick, if you keep Carson Palmer, then you lose your fourth rounder.

I would like for this to be creative. So if anyone has ideas I'm all ears.

The most creative idea gets the ten points.

Good luck!

Answer 1

The idea of a keeper league is to be able to have some continuity over the years.  You want to introduce a "cost" for holding a player over, but to take away draft picks for having a good player is not the right way to go.

I'm assuming that you are going to have the same people in the league year after year, so that being said, the only way to make it "fair" every year is draft position.  Once everybody has made their keeper selections, the worst team in the league gets to select first, second worst selects second and so on.

Doing it this way will allow all players to draft in the first round.  If you don't and someone has to wait until the second round to draft, the best player that will be available to them would be the 37th-48th best player (assumptions being that there are 12 teams, 2 keepers per team: 24 players+12 players from 1st round).

If a guy were lucky enough to have Tomlinson and another decent RB like Ryan Grant, he still would be looking at a severely reduced pool of players to choose from and no one should be punished for good drafting the year before.

Your league should always rely on records and points scored in previous years when it comes to drafting.  The NFL does it that way and I think we all know how well they're doing.

Answer 2

We instituted keepers last season.

1. We keep one player only.  Leagues that keep multiple players diminsh the draft.

2. We require that you pay a two-round premium above where the player was originally drafted.  This means that first and second rounders are not eligible.  

This means a few first round worthy players will be kept, but they won't allow a stacked team to emerge by keeping AP, then using their normal picks to take LT, Brady, etc.

This formula forces you to consider young upcoming players, and it alters your draft strategy.

Free agents or otherwise undrafted players are charged a 10th round pick.

Answer 3

Well many keeper leagues make it so that you lose a round higher than what you picked them at the previous year, unless of course it was a first round pick where you would give up a first round pick.  One thing you can try to do is use a players salary, where each player gets assigned a dollar value for their salary, like a million dollars equals one dollar in your league and set a cap.  If you want to franchise a player you have to take the average of the top x amount of players in the league.  Respond if you don't get what I'm saying.  One problem with your proposed idea would be assigning what picks you would give up for each player.  Some people may feel Palmer is worth more than a first rounder.