Also some interesting choices to be made in San Antonio (Will Clint Stoerner start ?) and Scotland (Craig Nall has lost skills but his INT is superb).  If Nall was a backup i think some of the losing teams should trade for him to be their starter for 1 or 2 seasons.

Oldest players in the league now are the two kickers who i thought would retire..

K Jose Cortez - Montreal
K Jim Tarle - San Antonio

IF Cortez starts this year he could create a major major record which might not ever be beaten, you dont get many players make it to their 15th season in leagues like this.

Cortez's first season in the league...

http://www.fwl.org.uk/teams7.htm#A9

Drafted in the 3rd round at the end of season 6 !  Quite different back then !

By the way was very very surprised HB Curtis Alexander didnt retire !  Gives Mark a big headache, last year he gave the job to Alexander (After Battle played poorly) and Alexander did well.  But hes aged badly this offseason, i hope hes not cut or inactive all year but its a shame Alexander didnt retire last year.

Well all the FA's were lost.

I went through and noted down the names of all the FA's and then unretired all of them (Theyre the same players so they keep the same stats).  Think i did it to about 50 or so players, and yes it was a painful job !

I've had one team send me in FA requests already which is fine, but i think it'll be good to get other GM's on board first and then allocate the FA's.  Be unfair for NY and other teams other wise.

Davids now got the FWL files so i cant make any roster moves etc so it'll give me time to get a list of FA requests from all the teams and then once i get the files back (with the rookies) I'll allocate FA's then.

I think its actually quite good a fair few players have retired in the league, makes it a bit more fun to try and fill the holes by trading/drafting and gives the league a bit of a change.

Unsure how you can change the schedule, perhaps David can tell me if theres a utility to do that.

I've always used the schedule the software creates but granted there have been a few 'strange' ones in the past, specially when a team plays the same team in two weeks home/away

I'd like to ask for a new standing policy that the AFC West not be allowed to send the same team to the AFC East for home-and-home series in back-to-back seasons. It's nothing to do with the fact that it's the Surge--I don't like the FBPro crossover scheduling problem, but even though it's unavoidable, we can at least spread the weirdness around, rather than have it concentrated to just one team. When the East is weak (as it is right now), the teams in the West who don't have the crossover are put at a disadvantage. When the East is strong, having to crossover is a liability for the West team. Best to distribute that as much as possible, no?

I notice that we didn't lose the free agents this time, which I think sometimes happens after retirements. That's fine, but particularly for the depleted Knights, it would be valuable to give a new GM the chance to make some FA bids before having to face the draft. (That's true for all of us, of course, but for a vacant team with so many sudden roster holes, it's even more crucial.)

Not too many surprises on the list this year, although I notice that David has shifted his magic anti-retirement powder to his kicker, and Mario seems to suffer the surprise young-player retirements more often than the rest of us...

I'm grateful to be honored, although my vote went to Jimmy.

As for Kingsbury, it's enough for me that he led the league in picks.

Whoever the new Knights GM will be they'll have a ton of work to do.  New York do have some talent but were hit very hard by retirements, 10 players !  Plus they still have some veterans remaining on the team (8 players in their 10th or more seasons).

They do have Payton at HB and also have 3 good QB's who should have a great battle for the starting job.

But the Knights are painfully thin at LB and the d-line.  Whoever the new GM is will have a ton of work to do

Well Jason will get the award then, great work Jason.

Its always tough to vote, after seeing who the FWL Champions are i think TC deserves a ton of credit as well, hes been in the FWL a fair while and has turned around the Surges fortunes with an amazing season, best in their history

I think we need Kliff Kingsbury to turn into Matt Lytle Mk II and fumble 40 times a year for Jason.C though   I'm sure he misses that !

O  WR6    81  Cook, Jhun               OK     2     90 86 89 83 87 76 75 69
A  TE1    85  Helfman, Marcus          OK     9     90 86 85 86 78 87 76 78
  G2     76  Redzinak, Ray            OK    11     77 84 91 91 76 75 73 78
A  LB4    57  Robinson, Terrence       OK    10     81 76 79 81 68 75 71 68
A  S3     29  Newsome, Richard         OK     9     81 77 73 75 74 78 81 77

Mainly looking for draft picks