One account does everything
On a hosted fantasy platform, the provider owns account, league setup, data feed, draft timer, and usually an import path. You may expect roster, history, and identity to follow automatically.
MANAGER GUIDE // START HERE
GRIDIRON 2000 · DYNASTY · For managers arriving from any platform
Manager guide
Play the room. GRIDIRON 2000 is a private league room, not a second account at your old provider. Bring your football knowledge; the commissioner sets this league's rules, membership, and draft start. This guide gets you from invite to game day in one pass.
From invite to ready.
Do these five things before your first pick or weekly lock.
- 01
Sign in with an admitted identity
Only accounts with an explicit invitation may enter. Ask the commissioner for access. Use Google sign-in with the account you want to use. Claim the open team seat, or ask the commissioner to adjust the admission policy in /admin (sign-in required). Your Gridiron seat is separate from any Sleeper, ESPN, or Yahoo account.
- 02
Read the live league rules
Open /scoring (sign-in required) and check roster slots, scoring values, draft rounds, lineup locks, free agency, waivers, trades, and the weekly schedule. This is the current league configuration.
- 03
Build your team's Big Board
Rank players at /board (sign-in required). The order is private to your team seat, shared by its primary and co-manager, and read first when the team is on the clock. Add backup names.
- 04
Mark ready and choose autopick
In /draft (sign-in required), use Mark ready when prepared and Mark not ready if that changes. Turn on autopick if you may miss your turn; it uses your board first and best available ADP when your board is empty.
- 05
Set a lineup every week
Use /team (sign-in required) to fill starting slots before each player's game locks. Bench, reserve, and injury states are visible there.
Open the room with intention.
Run this list before inviting managers or announcing the draft.
- Confirm identity and format.League name, season, timezone, teams, divisions, roster shape, and scoring on /scoring (sign-in required).
- Invite the right Google accounts.Use /admin (sign-in required), then verify each person signs in with the exact invited address.
- Check the player list.Confirm the pool holds enough players to draft from, then read its freshness label and last-success time. LIVE is fresh from the source. CACHED, STALE, or DEGRADED keeps a labeled last-good snapshot usable. OFFLINE or UNAVAILABLE is not eligible to start a real draft.
- Publish the draft window and order.Set date, timezone, rounds, pick clock, and order. Randomize before pick one; decide what to do with unclaimed seats.
- Ask managers to build boards and mark ready.Readiness is a signal for the commissioner, not a hidden auto-start trigger.
- Start the draft yourself.The scheduled window is a reminder. The draft stays closed until the commissioner types
START.
What is intentionally different.
The commissioner chose these rules.
The league owns the room
The league keeps its own record. The commissioner rules on every dispute. Gridiron shows player-source status and keeps manager boards private. There is no automatic Sleeper, ESPN, or Yahoo migration.
Explicit controls
The commissioner starts the draft, can pause or extend the pick clock, and settles corrections. The UI says when a control is locked or unavailable.
Honest fallbacks
Saved or built-in player list remains usable, but approximate ranks and missing enrichment are labeled. A source that has not published is not presented as a zero.
Private by default
Google identity, league membership, picks, boards, and transactions belong to this league. Public guides never require a seat.
Ready first. Start second.
The draft room shows who is ready, who is on the clock, and the player source’s exact freshness state.
Commissioner-controlled start: the scheduled date opens a window, not the draft. Only the commissioner can type
START to open pick one and arm the pick clock.Mark ready — or mark not ready
Use the action that matches your current state after you have a board, backup plan, and draft tab you can monitor. Readiness tells the commissioner who is prepared; it never forces a start.
Your team's private queue
Primary and co-manager drag players into one shared seat order at /board (sign-in required). Picked players leave the available list; the draft tape and autopick use the same top available targets.
Fallback, not mystery
Autopick chooses the first available player on your Big Board. If empty or exhausted, it falls back to best available ADP and is labeled AUTO.
What happens if a manager is away?
Leave autopick on, or let the pick clock expire. An unclaimed seat also runs through the clock and then autopicks. The commissioner can pause, extend, force autopick, undo the most recent pick, or reopen a slot.
Know which terminal to open.
These concepts are separate on purpose. Each page shows its own lock, status, and next action.
Lineups
Set starters and bench players in the Team Terminal, plus reserve or injury placements when the league config includes those zones. Set or auto-fill the best lineup before each player's game starts; locked slots cannot be edited after kickoff.
Open Team Terminal → (sign-in required)Waivers + free agency
After the draft, undrafted players are free agents. You can sign one immediately until their own game kicks off; Thursday's game does not lock Sunday or Monday players. Once a player's game starts, they stay on waivers until the week's games finish and the next daily waiver run. A dropped player is on waivers until the clear window passes. File a claim in the Player Pool; mode, priority or FAAB, and resolve time are shown there.
Open Player Pool → (sign-in required)Trades
Send an offer, accept or decline incoming offers, and counter when needed. An accepted trade may enter a review window; the configured commissioner or league-veto policy decides what happens next.
Open Trade Desk → (sign-in required)Scoring
Scoring values, roster shape, schedule, locks, waivers, and trade policy are the source of truth. Official corrected stats win over provisional news, and a closed week keeps its locked lineup and result.
Read Rules + Scoring → (sign-in required)Pick'em
Pick one team against the displayed market spread at /pickem (sign-in required). Lines freeze Thursday, but each game stays pickable until its own kickoff. After you enter the week, a missed kickoff is a loss while every later game remains open. A tie against the spread is also a loss. Pick'em is its own W-L game; no fantasy roster seat is required.
Open Pick'em HQ → (sign-in required)Signal Wire
The Wire is a mixed-source alert surface for publisher feeds, community tips, and curated social posts. Signals stay provisional, never mutate fantasy scores, and show source/trust context. Market sightings are human-entered; this league does not log into or scrape another account.
Open Signal Wire → (sign-in required)Know who you are, and what the data knows.
Two kinds of state are visible because they have different consequences.
Sign-in is not migration
Only accounts with an explicit invitation may enter. Ask the commissioner for access. Google sign-in proves which person is asking for access; it does not pull an old provider account, roster, record, or history. After admission, the manager claims an open seat, and an optional co-manager invite can be attached from the Team Terminal.
- Use an identity admitted by this league's membership policy.
- Ask the commissioner to correct an invite before claiming the wrong seat.
- Keep provider passwords and sessions outside this league.
Read the state label
LIVE means a fresh successful source refresh. CACHED is a fresh saved snapshot; STALE is older than the refresh window; DEGRADED means the latest refresh failed but last-good data remains. OFFLINE is rehearsal-only, and UNAVAILABLE means there is no usable list. When known, the interface shows the exact last-success time.
Coverage is a planning signal, not a player count.
The pool holds more players than the draft needs.
One readout. Separate rooms.
Commissioner HQ is one page for a commissioner who runs more than one league.
Read across leagues
- Shows configured peers, seats, readiness, draft status, player pool health, and attention flags.
- Links to the owning league's home, admin, or draft page when action is needed.
- Surfaces an unavailable peer without pretending its state is current.
Merge league state
- It never mixes two leagues. Each league keeps its own record.
- It does not give a commissioner a cross-league write button.
- Each league keeps its own identity boundary, rules, and source decisions.
Bring the league over by hand.
No automated migration exists. That is intentional: a commissioner should verify what becomes the new league record instead of silently importing stale or disputed data.
Bring the decisions
- Manager names and invited email addresses.
- Team names, abbreviations, divisions, and visual identity.
- Roster slots, scoring values, draft date, clock, waiver mode, and trade policy.
- Player preferences, rebuilt as one shared Big Board per team seat.
Do not expect a copy button
- Sleeper, ESPN, or Yahoo login sessions and passwords.
- Existing rosters, draft picks, waiver priority/FAAB, trades, records, or league history.
- Provider-specific scoring quirks or disputed stat corrections without commissioner review.
- Private provider data that this league has not deliberately entered or sourced.
Practical manual migration checklist
- Freeze the old league.Export or screenshot the rules and standings you want to reference, then agree on a cutover time.
- Set league rules with the commissioner.Ask the commissioner to set league format, teams, divisions, and timezone.
- Use each control where it actually lives.Use /admin (sign-in required) for invites, seats, roster shape, draft order/clock, and announcements. Verify the resolved roster, scoring, schedule, waiver, and trade rules on /scoring (sign-in required) before inviting the league.
- Invite managers.Send the new league URL and invite the Google email each manager will actually use.
- Verify every seat.Have each manager claim or confirm the correct team before the first draft action.
- Rebuild boards and draft order.Managers rank targets; the commissioner checks order and readiness, then explicitly starts the new draft.
- Record exceptions.Put carried-over keeper, credit, or historical notes in the commissioner announcement or league record instead of hiding them in an import.