Hey everyone, I’ve been here (most of my posting has been in the Club Level) since this site started and this place played a major role in the inspiration for my new venture – Ultra GM. Ultra GM is a new website (www.ultragm.com) (plans for mobile apps down the road), where one can live out the dream of being an NFL GM. Ultra GM lets us take control of our chosen team (presumably the Dolphins for those of us here) fantasy football-style subject to the real NFL salary cap and real player contracts. If I had a dollar for every post here indicating someone believed they could do the GM job better than Chris Grier (or Mike Tannenbaum, Jeff Ireland, Randy Mueller, Dennis Hickey, etc.) I’d be retired and wouldn’t need to start this venture. Ultra GM lets you put (a very reasonable amount of) your money where your mouth is and prove it. In Ultra GM, you pick an NFL team to manage and compete in two different leagues. That just means each week your team’s score is compared to the scores of two different teams in two different leagues. The first one is a 32-team league that mirrors the actual NFL, so you control one of the 32 teams and go head-to-head with other users managing the other teams. The second league is a 14-team league where all the teams start with the same NFL roster. For example, if you choose the Dolphins, you’ll compete with other users who are also managing Dolphins-based teams, as well as the actual Dolphins roster. You’ll be making decisions on trades, draft picks, free agency, player cuts, and even practice squad maneuvers—you name it—all in a dynasty-style format where your roster and transactions carry over from season to season so you can build your team the right way over time. It’s kind of like a combination of fantasy football, a mock draft and/or GM simulator and Madden Franchise Mode. I’m going to create a private ThePhins league (or several if there’s interest) where those interested can compete with one another to see who does the best job as GM. You get to manage the offseason for your own Dolphins-based team and then compete against each other’s unique Dolphins-based teams during the season. Let me know by PM if you are interested in playing in a private ThePhins Dolphins league. Ask general questions here so others can get the answers too.
To answer some questions from PMs: Draft -- You will draft where the Dolphins picked but can trade picks in this draft to move around. Free Agency -- You can bid on and "sign" free agents. Players and their contracts are a package deal so you are bidding on the player and the contract together and will be subject to the salary cap. Trades -- You can trade players and current season draft picks, but subject to the salary cap, so there are dead cap hits if you trade guys like Hill or Ramsey. Practice Squad -- You can sign players to practice squad and poach players from other teams' practice squads. For this, the rules are a little simplified compared to the NFL. You can sign a player to your PS from another team's PS, but anyone else can then sign them from yours. So if you want to "protect" that player, you have to put him on your active roster. We aren't using the rules about the player having to be put on the active roster for a certain number of weeks or restrictions on how many times a player can be elevated, etc. Scoring includes all positions and is calibrated to the relative values of the positions (as established based on contracts and use of draft resources) by position. The first drafts will be in July for leagues that fill and lock by July 1 so ideally you'd be in by then. There is a later draft in August for leagues that fill later, but that gives you much less time to develop your roster through FA and trades. If we don't get enough people for a full ThePhins private league you can play in a public league and still play with others from this forum (or other friends) using the Find a Friend feature. If you do that, you will play against your friends but also people you don't know (yet). The FAQs on the site are pretty extensive and give more details. Let me know if you have any other questions.
