2015 Off-Season Update

[Goodell]

The draft tools should be setup and ready for teams to view their pick windows and start to apply player ranking. Even if you plan on being there for all of your picks, if you put one player in the draft queue I'll know you're aware of the approaching draft and ready to go. I'll be contacting teams that don't have players ranked in their queue prior to our start.

Reminder our college draft starts Friday, May 1st. It's round 1 the first day, rounds 2-3 on Saturday, rounds 4-5 on Sunday, and rounds 6-7 finishing up on Monday.

[Joe]

Any chance the draft starts tomorrow night? Not a big deal, just curious.

[sportznut]

Any chance the draft starts tomorrow night? Not a big deal, just curious.

Not officially, but Troy normally turns the draft on early, so I don't think tomorrow night is out of the question. It won't change Friday's time slots though.

[Goodell]

Any chance the draft starts tomorrow night? Not a big deal, just curious.

Not officially, but Troy normally turns the draft on early, so I don't think tomorrow night is out of the question. It won't change Friday's time slots though.

Right. Usually we'll turn it on a little early. I'm hoping to be around here tomorrow night during the draft to update some of our information here as picks made and could turn on the ability for the top slot teams to make their picks a little early the night before if they wish. Only if they wish, nobody has to pick until their pick window time expires of course.

[Joe]

Right, that's what I was getting at. I know its usually on the day before, just hadn't seen anything about it yet. Thanks!

[Goodell]

The draft has been switched on tonight if any teams at the top of the draft wish to make their picks as soon as now. That is not required and no pressure to do so. Teams do not have to pick until their assigned pick window for their selection, but it's available now. Let me know if any problems. Happy drafting.

[Goodell]

Head's up as the drafts come to a close tonight... I'll put all of the players from the draft pool that weren't selected into that league's free agency pool at 8AM ET tomorrow morning.

[Goodell]

There may be some kinks to work out or enhance ahead, but finished the ability to "bookmark" players of interest within free agency to mark a player for later action or keep tabs on certain players.

That may be useful with a batch of new undrafted free agents flooding the market recently.

To use that, go to bid on the player and just click the bookmark button. Then you wan sort by bookmarked players on the main free agency page. To remove a bookmark, click on the player again and you'll see an un-bookmark button to remove them from list.

[Goodell]

In addition to the ability to bookmark a free agent in the system, there's another new addition that'll help with undrafted free agents. We uploaded 1000 players into the draft pool from draft website resources, but there are often undrafted players that get signed and start to make some news that teams want added to our system.

We may have to be careful with this one and I'll keep my eyes on it, but now teams can directly add players to the system. Just SEARCH for the player on the top right of most pages, then if you don't find them click the link on the search page to add player.

That system will track players added and alert me to double-check. Any ineligible player will have all transactions voided. If a person makes multiple mistakes using that or abuses that system, their access to the page will be restricted as well as placing them at risk for team loss. So be careful using that and only add players you are SURE are not in the system already and want to sign. You can still contact me via PM to add players and I'll reply back when added by the league, but this is intended to share the workload a bit and not delay teams looking to sign eligible players I hadn't put in yet.

It's a multi-step process that allows you to double-check for players with similar names, positions/schools, birthdates, etc. before added.

Using that search field at the top right of most pages is also probably the fastest way to locate an undrafted free agent you want to bid on, and can click the UFA link on the search results page to jump directly to their bid page.

[jmdaz44]

Good stuff. Nice work, Commish.