TRADE ANNOUNCEMENT:
A trade has been made between Big Blue and Jars Raiduhs. As it is offseason, it results in everybody traded being kept.

Big Blue receives LARRY FITZGERALD
Jars Raiduhs receives ANDREW LUCK and DESEAN JACKSON

Good trade, guys!

We are now all here, welcome back everybody! The message board is open, feel free to make Keepers trades, and check out the League Settings.

First thing I am going to talk about is money, the last thing I would like to talk about. I am still owed two payments from last year, and Tim said he was going to take care of that. I would like all payments for the 2013 campaign prior to the season starting so that I don't have to chase them down at the end, and in the case of Andy, he is still owed $40 after winning the title. In that specific case, I do not expect you to pay the fee this year Andy...when I collect the $40 from Tim from last year, I will credit you for this seasons' fee and send you the other $20. John, I did not pay you for baseball - please put my payment in for me, and I will do the same for you here in the football league. Here is the total rundown:

PAID: Steve, Paul, Jody, Andy, John
NOT PAID: Doug, Matt, Tim, Jay, Kevin

Total money owed is shown in the DUES tab. Please either mail me a check to STEVE CLARK, PO BOX 82, POUND RIDGE NY 10576, or send me a Paypal payment to LARAIDERS75@YAHOO.COM. If you pay via Paypal, please send $21 so that I don't have to pay the Paypal fee out of pocket. Contact me if you have questions, concerns, or comments. It was suggested by Paul that we raise the entry fee to $30 - I did not put it up for a vote, quite simply because it's hard enough to get the $20 collected on time. Sorry, Paul. I hate being the bad guy running the bank, but that's the crap part of the job of Commish.

Second thing I want to talk about is DRAFT NIGHT. Is everybody happy with the current date and time? Please let me know. Also - this is our second ever attempt at a computer run draft. I have the ability to call a couple of timeouts in case of people not getting in on time, or having a hard time getting into the Draft Room. PLEASE - try to get in at least ten minutes prior to drafting, because I really don't want to find out that guys are having firewall issues when we've all had a month to check our systems and prepare for the worst. My cell phone number is 203-898-5895, however I don't get good cell reception at home. I do, however, get excellent text coverage due to having great WiFi. So please text me if you are running late and/or having issues getting into the Draft Room. It is your responsibility to let me know if anything is wrong, I'm not going to chase you down...which brings me to:

Point three - PLEASE SET YOUR PRE-DRAFT PLAYER RANKINGS! If by some reason you don't make it to the draft on time, or don't make it at all, you will at least have the best opportunity to get the players you want. Last year, Jay fell and broke his collarbone and missed the draft, and I drafted his team to the best of my ability. That happened because this was an offline draft...I cannot do that in an online live draft, the system will not allow me to do it. Jay's injury was the classic case of "shit happens", and nobody could have ever seen it coming. It could happen to me, you, anybody. Please don't skip the very important step of ranking your guys just in case "shit happens" to you.

I am not open to making 'radical changes' to the league for 2013. I think things are working well. But, I am open to tweaking anything and everything. Please review all scoring and settings and let me know what you think, we can go forward from there.

Keepers are due soon - please look at your teams, and make your decisions. You can keep four players, but only one QB and one RB. I would like you to designate your keepers in two different ways: Email them to me, and also, claim them within your team. We never did this before, but I want to try it because I am hoping it will post them properly and be a nice tool we can use going forward.

Good luck to all, please keep open lines of communication with me so that we get everything off the ground smoothly. Please note that as of the time I write this, the divisions, draft order, and schedule are not yet set. I just flew back from Orlando, and boy are my arms tired! I will get everything on that front set for tomorrow.

Talk to you all soon!

Just waiting for Matt to join up, he's on his way. We're just about open for business. I've decided that we're not changing the $ value of the league upward, I never felt that the money was that important to the value of a fantasy league. Besides, I'm the one that has to collect it, and I am not in the position to be "out of pocket" right now. And I'm only going to say this ONE TIME...if anybody has a beef with another player in the league, keep it off the message board and private between yourselves. Starting with 2013, there is a ZERO TOLERANCE policy for bullshit here. I have no problem banishing anybody, including myself, for breaking that rule. Draft date is posted, as is the keeper date. If this is a problem, let me know SOON, not a few days before the draft. This year we are doing it live via the computer, I hate doing it this way, but the current state of the league has way too many guys in different places right now - there's no real central point as there has been in the past for half of us. IF you guys think we could still do this as a phone in draft, please let me know. I can still set up the conference call and make a go of it, but I just feel that at least for this season it makes sense to have the live computer draft, where if somebody cannot make it, the computer will draft based on your pre-set rankings. If I think of any other things I'll bring them up, please do the same!

The MESSAGE BOARD is currently locked. I have decided that until we get all ten teams in the league, which is the time when we will be able to discuss the season, I am putting a moratorium on all message board posting. Feel free to email me suggestions and comments at SCLARK@ICON-INTL.COM in the interim! Appreciate all of your understanding.