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We have a few new owners with us this year, and probably some old ones who have forgotten already as well <g>.
The way the draft site works is like this:
You use the Reports to view the available players. If you see a player that you want to keep an eye on (for potential drafting), you click the blue flag icon to the right of their name/stat line to add them to your watch list (you must be logged in for this). Your watch list is your own private "cheat sheet" to use during the draft. As players are drafted, they are deleted automatically from all of the watch lists... so you never have to worry about cleaning it up. It'll take care of itself automatically.
The beauty of the watchlist is that it greatly simplifies your draft research. Our player pool is pretty small, so it's not as useful as a large draft with 500+ players available, but it still lets you narrow down the 200+ players to a much smaller list to work from. And again, it's private -- only you can see it when you're logged in.
When it comes time to draft (when you're on the clock), you will see a green + sign next to the player names in all the reports/watchlists/ etc. So you simply click on the + sign to select the player (you'll be taking to a confirmation screen for safety purposes).
Our draft works a little differently than most leagues. Whereas other leagues typically go with a forced time limit per pick (12 hours, etc), ours is a little more flexible/interestin g. The default hours per pick will be set at 12 hours. However, each team is assigned a starting time bank limit of 2400 minutes. It is up to each team to properly manage their time in the draft. They can do this by controlling how much time they want to allocate for their next pick on the clock.
For example, if I know I'm going to be away from the computer for a long time, I might set my clock time to 24 hours. That way my pick will not be skipped until I make my selection, or 24 hours is up (whichever occurs first). However, if I take 20 hours to make my selection, that's a hit of 1200 minutes against my timebank, leaving 800 left for the rest of the draft.
Once a team's timebank is empty (0 minutes) that team will be automatically skipped when their pick is up (unless they have a draft list set up - more on that to follow).
Each team has control over setting their clock time to best balance their time. Bottom line is that the timebank forces each team to be attentive during the draft and avoids prolonged delays/bottlenecks. If you don't want to chew up a large chunk of time, a draft list is the solution.
A draft list is simply a subset of your team's watchlist, ranked in order. Let's say you have 50 players on your watch list that you're tracking. But there's about a dozen of those players that you really want. Using the "Draft List Manager" link on the draft site, you can copy players from your watch list to your draft list (from the left pane to the right pane). Once you add players to the right pane, you can move them up/down to rank them in the order you want them. Again, this is all private and only viewable by you).
Just like the watch list, as players are drafted they will automatically be removed -- so you don't need to ever touch it once you set it up, unless you want to re-rank or add/remove players.
At the bottom of the Draft List Manager screen, you'll see these two options:
I'll explain each.
If you turn this option ON, when your team goes on the clock it will auto-draft the highest ranked player available on your draft list. It's that simple!
If you turn this ON, after a player is auto-drafted to your team it will turn OFF the Draft List Enabled Option. This way if the draft flies by several rounds before you can check on it you don't have to worry about it making a bunch of auto-picks for you. This gives you a chance to reorder/reorganize your draft list between each pick, guaranteed.. . provided you have enough time left in your timebank.
If you turn this option OFF, it will always use your draft list and auto-pick until you either disable the Draft List and/or turn on the Auto-Shutoff.
Once you're logged into the site, you will see a menu option with your team's initials (for example, mine says "TRR").
If you click it, you will have these options specific for your franchise:
I'll explain each.
If one of your draft picks was skipped (by your clock time and/or your timebank expiring), you can use this option to make up your skipped pick at any time.
This is where you control how much time you want to be on the clock for your upcoming draft pick. Set it low, you'll be skipped early but save that timebank. Set it high, you'll have a lot of time for your next pick at expense of your timebank balance.
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