Steelers select Stewart:Re-allocation Draft Recap

PFL Re-allocation Draft | rounds 1&2

The first two round of the Player Re-allocation Draft have brought in some surprise selections. The order is the same as the PFL (Student Graduate) Draft, with the team with the worst record  in 2016-17 getting the first pick and champions, the Landor Knight having the last pick. Teams from the four departed teams were available to select, any unselected players become free agents on 1st May 2017.

Player Re-allocation Draft this weekend

PFL Player re-allocation Draft | PFL HQ

by Ryan Solis, PFL Reporter.

This weekend will see the sixteen PFL teams pick the top players from the four now-defunct members- Amorgan Blues, Pottsburgh Cardinals, Seafax Storm and the Victoria Panthers.

Each of the teams will take turns to draft the top players from those old rosters. This includes the top two picks in the 2016 PFL Draft- Victoria’s QB Kelvin Stewart and Amorgan’s OL Paul Ortiz.  A new start for both players, who endured difficult rookie years, but also showed a lot of promise as they were adapted to the higher level of play.

There will be five rounds, with 80 players selected. The remaining 120 or so players will be free agents, free to sign with any team at any time. During the Re-allocation Draft, teams will be free to trade and waive selection rights at any time. With the increased salary cap for the next three seasons, teams may feel like they have a bit more room this season for another star or two!

This unprecedented draft, gives teams two ways to rebuild their teams this year. With youth from the PFL Player Drafy- picking UFB’s most promising rookies and the Re-allocation  Draft with veteran player available.

Paul Ortiz and Kelvin Stewart get to be drafted again this weekend!

A League In Crisis, or Badly Managed Teams?

By Douglas Bryan

The PFL has announced its decision to contract, following debacles at four of the twenty teams this past year. The league have no choice with two of them (Seafax and Victoria), but have been said to have been ruthless in dealing with the Amorgan Blues and Pottsburgh Cardinals.

With four teams gone, a 20% reduction, the league now must find a way to re-house some of the staff (players, administration and coaches) and union officials are said to be holding the league to account to do this. The question remains is this a league in crisis, with financial prudence required to keep the whole thing together or are talking about a few badly managed teams?

In 1993 we lost the Adelphia Rams to bad finance. In 2008 we lost the Burnham Bulls in similar fashion, although they were replaced by the Harteford Hawks and Adelphia Phoenix respectively.

Looking at the state of the other teams, it appears everyone else is not overspending (the Eagles appear to be playing fair nowadays) and living within the leagues means. So, at face value, it appears that the rest of the league is doing just fine and without the tax cases we would have been looking at an 18 team league.

We await to see the financial projections and accounts of the remaining teams before we can be completely safe in the knowledge that all is okay.

The good news from the remaining teams is that for the next two seasons at least, they are likely to have a larger salary cap as the television money was guaranteed (and the number of live games will be unaffected) so there should be 20% of the pot to share around, theoretically!

How much of this can be pinned on Commissioner David Thomas and the administrators of the league and the affected teams is probably going to be debated for quite a time to come. Even being part of the league (yep, I’m on the payroll), I’m not sure exactly how much more could have been done from the league offices to prevent this from happening.

How Contraction may be a good thing for the league

By Jim Murray

It’s been a rough year for the league and their image on the financial front. Having three teams failing and one unsure of its fate was always a burden for this league. Now that the unfortunate fate of the ‘failing four’ has been finalised, we can take stock of the league- as it now is.

Taking a step back, the league now looks in good shape. All remaining teams have good finances, the teams all look competitive on and off the field. Now that  the fat has been trimmed, the competition looks more even and more intense. With player re-allocation making the Hawks, Steelers and Eagles a bit more stacked- this could lead to a league with more parity.

The Television companies can now boast exclusive games for five of the seven/eight weekly games. This means more exclusive games for the remaining teams and more exposure out of their local areas. More exposure can lead to more support.

Having sixteen teams means that now everybody plays everyone at least once, with home-and-away ties still remaining for divisional games. This means not waiting two years to see non-conference opponents. With this parity, there’s no real strength of schedule advantage, or any excuses to be hid behind.

So, in summary, although it has been a harsh exit for the four teams we have lost, this may make the league a stronger, more dynamic and exciting league to follow over the next few years.

Commish/Owners agree to changes

By Scott Pierson, PFL Reporter

The Professional Football League have set out their plans for the 2017-18 season and the near future. The PFL Executives and the sixteen representatives of the league members set out the format for the reduced league structure . Here’s the rundown of what’s been decided:

• Abolishment of conferences/Re-alignment. The teams will play as four groups of four teams. The structure being the same as the NFC or AFC in the NFL. New Jorg move into the Eastern division, Caligara move into the North, Rochester into the Central. This was decided to shake up the divisonal match-ups as well as make the play-offs as open as possible- meaning some fresh match-ups, instead of the usual suspects being in Conference finals.
• PFL Team Roster updates. The limit of players active in as quad increased in a squad is raised from 50 in 2016 to 54 in 2017. The Salary Cap has been increased to ß75 Million ($50m) as the Television contract remains the same, with the number of games being shown exclusively live remaining unchanged.
• Reduction of play-off teams. With four less teams, the league has reduced the play-off teams competing for the Crystal Bowl, from 10 to 8. This eliminates the bye week for each conferences top three teams. The four Divisional champions will all automatically qualify, with a guaranteed home game. The following next four best-teams determined by record will qualify. The Top two-ranked teams after the first round will also have the home-field advantage.
• Start of Season delayed by one week. The season has been delayed by one week, meaning pre-season games will also shift. the season openner will be on Friday September 22nd  2017 and it all finishes on February 4th 2018. This means that the league will run for 20 consecutive weeks, followed by the eight team play-off tournament, culminating in Crystal Bowl XLVIII on March 4th Each team retains their two bye weeks during the regular season.

New PFL Divisonal Alignment:

Eastern	Central
Adelphia Phoenix	Chakota Wasps
Landor Knights	Oakland Ravens
Melborg Giants	Rochester Trojans
New Jorg 96ers	Tallassea Oilers

Northern	Western
Ballymore Tigers	Eregon Eagles
Caligara Bulldogs	Hallas Stars
Harteford Hawks	San Andreas Miners
Iomagh Steelers	St. George Sharks

Commissioner & Owners meet this weekend

By Ryan Solis, PFL Correspondent.

The PFL Executive Committee will meet this weekend and it is due to be one of the most interesting in recent times. With the league compacting from 20 teams to 16, there will be lots of things to sort out. Divisional re-alignment, conference structure, schedules, play-off format and roster sizes are all going to be thrashed out this weekend.

It is believed that the league will be continuing with an eighteen game season spread over twenty weeks, with two less teams making the play-offs; eight teams instead of ten.

We don’t know if the conferences will be kept, how they will align- we know there has to be change as the AC East only has three teams and the NC West has five.   The start of the season will also be open for debate. Currently the season lasts twenty weeks and then follows three rounds before the Crystal Bowl- five weeks in total. The date of 4th March is already booked up for the Crystal Bowl. With one less round of play-off action (if that is confirmed) the season will either:

• need to start one week later
• have an extra weeks break before the Crystal Bowl
• break for a week before the play-offs
  or
• move the Crystal Bowl forward by one week.

We’ll report back from the meeting to give the lowdown on what may be a heated executive meeting. We haven’t even touched on any proposed rule changes!