Establishing A Keeper-- Guidelines?

[Alcooo]

I've done a Football league with my friends for two years now. The seasons were not related, as we started fresh each time. However, since it's obvious that we are going to do this league every year for hopefully quite a while, I've forwarded the notion of changing our current league into a keeper league; that we should maintain a few of our players for next year.

But, what's the best way to go about this? My league members and I do not want to retain essentially the same team, but we do want a small degree of continutiy (henceforth a smaller amount of keepers). But what provisions should come into play?

Cap the amount of years a guy could be kept by the same team?
Giving up the pick of the player you kept? (for example, keeping Calvin Johnson but losing the 5th round pick that I drafted him in)

Basically, what I'm trying to get at is: How would you establish your perfect keeper league? What rules and provisions would you put in place to have the most ideal keeper league imaginable?

[Dan Lambskin]

there's all different ways as you've mentioned

both of my keeper leagues allow 3 keepers, any position and no player can be kept for more than 3 years.

i would suggest that you dont keep players from this year though and instead start next year fresh as a keeper league

[kingfisch]

What we do that is alot of fun, benefits good drafting, ad keeps owners involed all year is allow each team to keep up to 4 players. Every team can keep a STAR for a first round pick and no more than 3 years, a ROOKIE in which we have a ROOKIE draft that is determined by final league standings, for a loss of a 4th round pick, and 2 SLEEPER KEEPERS which are players drafted between the 10th and 16th rounds, you would then lose the same draft pick the SLEEPER was chosen in for up to 3 years. This works pretty good beacause teams that dont have a real STAR can still build a team around a STAR because typically there are only 4 or 5 teams that keep a player in exchange for their 1st round pick. The SLEEPER KEEPER makes it fun though because teams really try to draft smart to nail a SLEEPER ex. (Brandon Marshall- 13th round, Greg Jennings -14th round, Deshawn Jackson- 11th round) becasue they are cheaper in the long run. These players add the depth and its fun to see who REALLY had a good draft at the end of the year. Try it! Its unique.

[pfwygalways]

Is there a standard for when owners inform the leauge who they are keeping?
5 year league switching to a two player keeper next year.

The leauge right now is going for time of draft. I want more time to prepare.