LEATHERHEAD-LEAGUE SEASON I

Back in the days at TOG (which some may not even know, another football manager game which did not progress at all) I started just for fun in the german community a private tournament called Leatherhead-League.
Basic idea was to make fun of the 100% passing culture in the regular matchups and to add some fun inside the community.
It lasted 3 seasons and folded when my team moved to RZA.

Just for fun I thought I could start such a league here again as special community game.

Because of the special rules it needs to take place as Friday friendly, but Peter offered some special features to spice it a bit up.

Let's get to the rules:

Playbook / Game Settings
- Offense plays basically 100% run
(Game settings "mainly rush" or rushing plays in the playbook, since still passing plays can happen, it will be tolerated if a few passing plays DO happen, but from my past games I would say the amount of pass plays should easily be under 10%)
- Punts and FG are allowed, if you play the 4th down as a regular play, the rule above does count
- All Offense and Defense formations are allowed
- MOTY or Relaxed as intensity is not allowed

League Structure
There will be 2 Conferences with each having 7 Teams (so 14 Teams in total, downsized from initially 16 teams and 4 divisions in 2 conferences)

Every Team plays
- Against every team of their own Conference (6 games)
- Against 2 Teams from the other Conference (2 games)

That makes 8 games, means at least 8 weeks. (Added 1 game to play each team in the conference)

The schedule will be generated based on the strength of the teams participating.
So strong teams will play strong teams and weaker will play weaker teams (at least with non-division-games)
For the first season here I will play Commissioner/God and will do this on my own judgement.

Locations can be chose as needed or wanted, every bigger stadium with 45.000+ will do.

Every gameday will have normally 7 games, so every team will play.

As for all friendlies on Friday the games have to be setup by YOU. I will post home teams as suggestion, that team is in lead to send an invitation, but of cause both teams can send invitations and clarify the home team on their own.
Please do the setup as soon as possible, before THURSDAY 00:00 (game clock!).
Otherwise the auto scheduler will give you a different friendly and you and your opponent can't play.

I will post the schedule up front when the 16 teams are known.

I hope all participator will play fair and will stay for at least the end of the competition.
If a participator drops out for whatever reason, I will try to find a substitution, but that team can only play the remaining games and the older games of the former team won't count towards playoff spots, so this is just for fun.
If I do a Season II or more, all participants of Season I do have spot guaranteed, if they want it at that time.

Please contact me, if anything is wrong or you need something to talk about.
Most issues can be solved by good communication.

Penalties for rule violations
Managers which do NOT setup their games according to the rules will get a 0-20 game result for that game.
The supposed or played opponent will get a 20-0 game result for that game.

Added rule before first game:
1) TD passes with more than 35 yards will be subtracted from the final result.
2) TD passes with less or equal than 35 yards could be equated with a FG and only 3 to 4 points (depended on the XP try) would be substracted from the final result.

If I was informed early enough and every contact attempts to setup the game as scheduled did fail, the contacting team is free to setup a different friendly.
That is valid for the WEDNESDAY!
In the past this was no real issue.
At the end me, as Commissioner/God will decide.

Conferences will be decided by
- # wins
- direct compare
- # wins against all teams in Conference
- # point difference
- # points scored
- coin toss

Playoffs
The first two teams of each Conference will play in the Half-Final-Bowls (BLOCKS OF GRANITE BOWL and RED ELEPHANTS BOWL) to determine the Conference Champion.
The winners of those will play on the Championship-Bowl (FOUR HORSEMEN BOWL).

The rest of the teams will have their season final with their last regular season match.

The four Division and two Conferences are:

The two Conferences are:

Red Grange Conference

Ernie Nevers Conference

Special Features and Prices
Peter does support the idea and did offer a nice package for the participants, which comes for a price.
Each Participant will have to pay 30 Credits up front
Each BLOCKS OF GRANITE BOWL and RED ELEPHANTS BOWL participant will get 60 Credits as price
Each participant of FOUR HORSEMEN BOWL will get 60 Credits as price
Each manager of the best Rusher/Returner and best Defender of the whole league will get 30 Credits as price
The "best" is determined by the accumulated RZA-MVP-points each player gets over the regular season.
Winner of FOUR HORSEMEN BOWL gets 3 month Supporter-Account as price plus a special Trophy for the trophy case.

Peter will do this manually.

Who can participate?
Since this a Friday game, no Champs of Champs Cup-Participants can play, sorry.
Beside that basically everyone is fine to play.
Since this will be a real played game, team strength will be an issue.
Every team is free to play any roster they want to play with, starters or backups.

When does it start?
When does it start?
Fri 05.08.2016
Schedule will be available latest Fri 29.07.2016

Anything else?
So far I hope I did cover all.
What ever questions might come up in addition will be posted here, inclusing the answers.







It was suggested to treat eventually happening pass-TDs, especially big-plays like FG or even as void them after the game at all.
Another suggestion was to have the rush-focused defenses 5-3, 5-2 and goalline banned.
Both suggestion were open for dicussion, but my personal take on this that this would be too much to look over and it would be too many forced rules to still ahve fun.
So neither of the suggestion leaded to rule changes.

To all new teams and all surviving teams from TOG. Welcome!

Whoever is wondering regarding conference naming, division naming and Bowl naming:

Conference names:
Red Grange
Ernie Nevers

Bowl names:
Seven Blocks Of Granite
Red Elephants
The Four Horsemen

Great Stuff!
PS: That might also explain my College Football blog and my avatar.

PPS: Peter, if I did put something wring into this, please let me know.

List of Teams
*1 Leverkusen Leopards owned by jack6
*2 Guinness Drinkers United owned by Pete
*3 Firenze Fappers owned by Firenze
4 OrangeCrush owned by OrangeCrush
*5 AS Roma Wolves owned by Scratobones
*6 BobBoy Magpies owned by dell_g
*7 Basterds owned by jetto
*8 Rabaul Jacanas owned by Bloodbeak
9 Amersfoort Alligators owned by Cheesehead
*10 Mombasa Lions owned by Buffalo
11 Midnight Marauders owned by Gambler75
*12 Landru Athletics owned by notsch
13 Maykop Dynamos owned by alexshans84
*14 Carrickfergus Knights owned by Doc

Schedule / Standings HERE

I'm in if you look for a super duper weak team...usually our fans call us "bunch of soccer-players"...

Sounds very interesting. I'm up for it.

I am in
3rd and 9 is a rushing down!

Sounds interesting, count with me.

Count me in!!!

Show class, have pride, and display character. If you do, winning takes care of itself.
Paul "Bear" Bryant

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.
Archie Griffin

I never really lost a game in my career, sometimes I just ran out of time.
Bobby Layne

Every team is beatable, you never know. The right moment, the right time, every team is beatable.
Tom Coughlin

So heads up, you soccer sissy.

Its no win if you cant lift a trophy for it

Pete

Nice idea!

Actually I don't think I've any Chance but I think it's still fun. I'm in!

But are you sure you want to allow up to 10% passing plays? If one "happens" at some critical down this may decide the game..

I would like to join this please.