Last year, Stephen April suggested the AFL become a money league. Our league was pretty split on the idea, with a very narrow majority of 7 managers voting to pursue the idea further and the other 5 saying they had no interest in participating in a money league.

Because the majority was so slim and I wouldn't want to replace nearly half the league if the other five decided not to continue playing - I'd really prefer not to have to replace anybody since our league has been so stable for the past four seasons - I took the entirey of the offseason and this season trying to come up with a solid money league structure before bringing it back up.

The structure I came up with was this:

Buy-in: $50 per manager

Specific are yet to be determined, but a proposal by Stephen April suggested we make the AFL a money league. His proposal suggested we “at least have the league reimburse [Cory] and then if voted yes we can determine how much we’d wanna do per team and then break down for league winner, etc.”

The AFL has never been a money league, and I’ve taken care of costs for our ad-free and EDGE subscription on FleaFlicker each year, plus the cost of the trophy each winner gets. I’ve enjoyed the bragging rights being the main thing driving competition but am open to the idea of getting some money involved.

In our preliminary vote, the proposal passed by a slim margin with 7 voting “yes” and 5 voting “no.” While many league rules simply require a majority vote, this is a change I feel needs heavier support. Similar to a few years ago when we shot down the idea or a relegation league.

At that time, I required a unanimous vote to institute a relegation league. My fear was that if 11 voted in favor and 1 voted against, that one person might decide to quit the league in the event he was ever relegated. So I wanted to make sure everyone was on board from the start. As it turned out, the vote was perfectly split with six in favor and six against.

While turning the AFL into a money league perhaps shouldn’t require a unanimous vote, we are dealing with people’s money and so if we do this, we need to do it right. We’ll continue down this avenue as we progress through the offseason.

We held a vote on a few items regarding injured reserve.

On the first item, we had three options:

Option 1 – Any player, whether or not they have an injury designation, may be placed on injured reserve at any time. Once placed on IR, the player may not be dropped, traded, or activated for a minimum number of weeks TBD by the next item on our ballot.

Option 2 – Any player with any injury designation [minimum TBD by a later item on our ballot] may be placed on IR. Once placed on IR, the player may not be dropped, traded, or activated for a minimum number of weeks TBD by the next item on our ballot.

No – Leaves IR rules as they currently stand.

In the first round of voting, six managers voted Yes to Option 1, five managers voted No, and one managers (Response 7) voted Yes to Option 2.

Option 2 was eliminated, the Respondent 7’s second-choice vote was added to the total. The result:

Yes to Option 1 – 7 votes

No – 5 votes

With Option 1 passing, we were able to ignore the result of the ballot item referring solely to Option 2 (Doubtful would have passed on an 8-4 vote over Out, after eliminating Questionable with only two first-choice votes). It also meant we could ignore the question regarding whether we should decrease each team’s IR allotment, which was only in play if Nopassed on this first item. The majority of managers (9-3) voted to leave available IR spots at 3 if No had passed.

Instead, we only had two other items to worry about as they related to injured reserve. One was to decide whether we should increase the number of IR spots from three to four. By a vote of 7-5, the majority of the league voted to leave available IR spots at 3.

On the vote to decide how many weeks a player must remain on IR before they may be dropped, traded, or activated, there was no need for vote redistribution after the first round as we had a simple majority.

3 weeks – 7 first-choice votes

3 weeks & if not activated after 4 must remain on IR for rest of season – 4 first-choice votes

4 weeks & if not activated after 5 must remain on IR for rest of season – 1 first-choice vote

4 weeks – 0 first-choice votes

Our new IR rules, item 3.1 in our league rulebook, will read: Any player, whether or not they have an injury designation, may be placed on a team’s IR at any time.

Once placed on IR, the player may not be dropped, traded, or activated for a minimum of three weeks.

After adding TAXI squads this past year, we learned a bit about the mechanism and its potential. Initially, each manager was allotted one TAXI squad spot on their roster and it had to be filled with a rookie by the end of Week 1 and that player had to remain there all season. If that requirement was fulfilled, that player could be kept as a second keeper the following season at a 16th round valuation.

Only three managers this year did this, with Drake London eligible to be kept as a TAXI Keeper by Sean Kennedy, Rachaad White eligible to be kept as a TAXI Keeper by Will Massimini, and Jameson Williams eligible to be kept as a TAXI Keeper by Stephen April.

The question on our ballot was whether we should allow players added to the TAXI later than Week 1 also be eligible as a TAXI Keeper, so long as they were added by a set deadline and had never appeared in any team’s starting lineup. We had three options:

Yes (Week 8) – A rookie must be on the TAXI squad by the end of Week 8 to be eligible as a TAXI Keeper.

Yes (trade deadline) – A rookie must be on the TAXI squad by the trade deadline to be eligible as a TAXI Keeper.

No – Make no change to current TAXI rules.

In the first round of voting, six managers voted Yes (Week 8), four managers voted No, and two managers (Responses 8 & 9) voted Yes (trade deadline).

The last of these was eliminated and the second choices for Respondents 8 and 9 were added to the total. The result:

Yes (Week 8) – 8 votes

No – 4 votes

As a result, players added to the team’s TAXI squad by the end of Week 8 and who remain there through the end of the season and have never appeared in any starting lineup during that season may be kept in the 16th round in addition totheir manager’s traditional keeper.

With one of the Yes options passing, there was one other vote to consider, and that was whether to expand the TAXI squad from one spot to two. Eight managers voted yes and four voted no. This will expand our TAXI squads to allow each manager to keep two rookies on it, and players may be added or removed from TAXI squads at any time, but only one may be kept as a TAXI Keeper and only those who qualify based on the first TAXI item on this ballot will be eligible.

One other set of changes to our league involves our newly-established Pro Bowl.

By a 7-5 vote, our league voted to prevent Sabol Bowl managers from participating in the Pro Bowl. As it happened, that was the case this year as Sean Kennedy and Cory Puffett were the best managers in the league by scoring and breakdown, were thus tapped to play in the Pro Bowl, and then both lost in the Wild Card playoff round.

On the item to determine when Snyder punishments should be announced by the Pro Bowl managers, we had a tie vote. Six voted to announce the punishments before the Sabol Bowl and Snyder Cup begin and six voted to announce the punishments after the Sabol Bowl and Snyder Cup end.

Usually for a tiebreaker I would look to see if there is a consensus between the two commissioners. There is in the case (both voted for after the Sabol Bowl ends), but in this case I decided to first look to see if there would be a consensus between the two managers who played in the Snyder Cup this year, and there was.

Both voted in favor of announcing the punishments before the Sabol Bowl and Snyder Cup begin, so that is what we will do. Perhaps it will increase some of the stakes during the Snyder Cup match.

Finally, I decided that the 6-game minimum for Pro Bowl eligibility was just too little. We had three eligible players this year averaging fewer than five points per game. One averaged just 2.5 points per game in his six regular season appearances.

Our options were:

10 games – Players must appear in a minimum of 10 starting lineups during the AFL regular season to be eligible for the Pro Bowl draft.

9 games – Players must appear in a minimum of 9 starting lineups during the AFL regular season to be eligible for the Pro Bowl draft.

8 games – Players must appear in a minimum of 8 starting lineups during the AFL regular season to be eligible for the Pro Bowl draft.

In the first round of voting, six managers voted 9 games, five managers voted 8 games, and one manager (Response 10) voted 10 games.

The last of these was eliminated and the second choice for Respondent 10 was added to the total. The result:

9 games – 7 votes

8 games – 5 votes

Players will need to appear in at least 9 regular season AFL starting lineups to be eligible for the Pro Bowl. This would not have affected this year’s Pro Bowl. The only players who appeared in the Pro Bowl with fewer than 14 starts were the Buffalo Bills (13 starts), Tyler Bass (13 starts), CeeDee Lamb (13 starts), George Kittle (10 starts), and the San Francisco 49ers (9 starts).

Before we get to the last change for 2023, here are the ballot items that did not pass:

Starting Lineups

Our current starting lineup consists of one QB, one RB, two WRs, a TE, two FLEX, a kicker and a defense. We had four proposed options for this ballot item:

Change TE to Receiver FLEX – This would remove the starting TE position from our lineup in favor of a WR/TE flex position.

Change 2nd FLEX to 2nd RB – This would undo a change we made a few years ago to change our second starting RB position to a FLEX.

Make combined change – This would institute both changes outlined above, turning our lineup into a QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR/TE, FLEX, K, DEF format.

Keep Current – Stick with QB, RB, WR, WR, TE, FLEX, FLEX, K, DEF.

On this item, there was no need for vote redistribution after the first round as we had a simple majority. Here was the result:

Keep Current – 8 first-choice votes

Change 2nd FLEX to 2nd RB – 2 first-choice votes

Change TE to Receiver FLEX – 1 first-choice vote

Make combined change – 1 first-choice vote

Other No Votes

By an 8-4 vote, managers voted not to add punters to the AFL’s lineup as a 10th starting position.

With 8 first-choice votes, managers voted not to institute an earlier trade deadline for teams with low playoff-probabilities after either Week 5 or Week 8.

With 8 first-choice votes, managers voted not to allow the #1 seed in the playoffs (or the top seeds in the Butkus and Snyder consolation brackets) to select their first round opponent.

And that brings us to the final ballot item each offseason. In the event there is a league dispute over an issue involving both Cory Puffett and Eric Meyer, we elect a new Assistant to the Commissioners each offseason to settle those disputes.

The Assistant to the Commissioners must have been in the league for the past three consecutive seasons and cannot serve in the role in consecutive years. We introduced this position in 2021, and Evan Ash was elected the first Assistant to the Commissioners. Stephen April took over the position in 2022 and is the only non-commissioner ineligible to hold the position in 2023.

Here are the results of that vote, where a first-choice vote was worth 2 points and a second-choice vote was worth 1 point:

Alex Mayo – 1 second-choice vote (1 point)

Brandon Saunders – 2 second-choice votes (2 points)

Will Massimini – 2 second-choice votes (2 points)

Andrew Perez – 1 first-choice vote (2 points)

Alex Kincaid – 1 first-choice vote (2 points)

William Battle – 1 first-choice vote (2 points)

Anthony Battle – 2 first-choice votes & 1 second-choice vote (5 points)

Sean Kennedy – 1 first-choice vote and 6 second-choice votes (8 points)

Evan Ash – 6 first-choice votes (12 points)

Evan Ash will return to the position of Assistant to the Commissioners in 2023.