How to have a practice squad as part of your league

[voltron]

So our league came up with the idea of having a 7 player "Practice squad", where you "develop" specific players.
We would ideally like to not be able to use these players as normal, but could activate one of them if another player goes to IR. Or some variation of this.

Has anyone seen a site that allows this type of thing? Or do you have any ideas on how to make this happen?

Or does anyone have anything similar they are doing that is working well?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or ideas!

[Warren]

I guess I really don't see the reason for a practice squad when you can just extend the rosters by seven players, I really don't see the difference. Practice squads can turn into another way for a team to tank and continue to get high draft picks by keeping elite talent protected yet unavailable for starting lineups- just ask the guy who had AJ Green on his practice squad all season and had Mike Thomas on his active roster. The only way I could see a practice squad being interesting is if a team could claim a player off another team's practice squad and then having to surrender a pick in whatever round of the following draft that the player they are claiming was drafted in the previous year. If the team wouldn't want to lose that player for a draft pick, he would then have the opportunity to bring the player up to his active roster and have to cut someone else.

[kris_kapsner]

We have a practice squad for our league and I think it works very well. Our rules allow you to groom young players but not make it just an extension of roster space because the less experienced the player is, the easier it is to fit him on your practice squad. That differs from just another roster spot that you can throw any player into.

This is how it works in our league and myfantasyleague.com has a taxi squad feature that allows us to do it. I just clipped the following from our bylaws.

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The taxi squad is designed to be a place to groom young players into players that can produce from a fantasy stand point for any given team. Taxi squad players are designated prior to the start of the fantasy season. Every owner may allocate up to 5 years worth of NFL experience to their taxi squad. Rookies count as 1 year, 2nd year players count as 2 years and so on. There is no requirement to use the taxi squad and there is no minimum number of the 5 slots to use. However, players must be allocated to the taxi squad before the start of the fantasy season, which starts at midnight of the last preseason game.

If a taxi squad player is added to an active roster at any time during the year, they lose their taxi squad status. Players can't be sent to a taxi squad that are on active rosters. However, should an owner want to use a taxi squad player during the season, they can activate the player from their taxi squad if they make room for him.

If any taxi squad players are traded for, they can be kept as taxi squad players for the new owner. But, they must be moved to the taxi immediately when the trade is completed, otherwise they will lose their taxi squad status. This is the only way for a team to actually hold more players on their taxi squad than the normal 5 years NFL experience maximum.

[rangerdave]

We utilize a practice squad in the Legion of Doom on FleaFlicker. Here are our rules:

1. Practice squad (PS) limited to 5 players.

2. PS players are newly drafted rookies or newly signed undrafted free agents with no NFL game experience, regardless of where they were picked in the NFL draft.

3. Practice squads are to be filled by players taken in the regular draft. Failure to draft enough PS eligible players shall result in a PS of less than five players. No PS players shall be added after our NFL season draft concludes, unless via trade (see rule 4 below). A list of PS players shall be posted (per rule 8 below) prior to the first game of an NFL season. Any player not listed on the Invision PS thread shall become a part of his team's active roster (or will need to be released), and will no longer be PS-eligible.

4. PS players must remain on the PS for an entire LOD season, unless traded. If traded for another PS player during a LOD season, they must replace that player on the PS, and cannot be placed on the active roster. If traded for an active player during a LOD season, that player must be added to the active roster before his next scheduled NFL game.

5. PS players can remain on the PS for multiple seasons, but if they are ever promoted to the active roster during the regular season, they will lose PS eligibility.

6. Until Flea allows for PS designation, LOD PS players are to be put on the IR list.

7. The league officers, or someone they select, will monitor all PS and IR activity.

8. A team's PS will be posted on Invision in a thread where only site Admins can post.

9. No trades will be allowed with attached conditions involving any PS player. A PS player can, however, be part of a trade which involves conditions attached to non-PS players.

10. The LOD draft shall be expanded by 5 positions to allow for PS player drafting every year. Teams have until the the start of the first NFL game of a season to set their PS, at which point active rosters will be reduced by five spots.

11. Violation of any rules involving a PS player will result in that player being released to the free agent pool.

We will be exploring options for promoting PS players and poaching them from other teams in the offseason.