Everybody that responded so far has been in favor of changing # of keepers to 5 and raising keeper salary to $45 million.
One other idea I've had that might be worth considering.....give me your thoughts in the discussion thread and depending on sentiment, we'll either consider adding it to the league or not.
To give it a little more franchise flair, what if each owner had the ability to protect one future player per decade. This player must have started his career with your franchise in order for you to protect him. Each team would get one player to protect in the 80's, one in the 90's, one in the 00's and one in the 10's. For example, as the Seahawks owner, I might protect RB Curt Warner in the 80's, WR Joey Galloway in the 90's, Shaun Alexander in the 00's and Russell Wilson in the 10's.
In order for this to work, there must be some kind of tradeoff that an owner commits to in exchange for getting to cherry pick what would otherwise be a very attractive draft pick. I propose we develop a formula based on rushing/receiving yards and/or passing yards on a career basis. A sliding scale could be developed that could be used to determine how much the protecting owner must give up in exchange.
For example, if the player falls into category A, then the owner must forfeit his 1st and 2nd round pick in the upcoming draft. If category B, he must forfeit his #1 pick in this year and next year's draft. If category C, he must forfeit his #1/#2 in this year's draft and #1 pick in next year's draft. category D, he must forfeit his #1/#2 in both this year and next year's draft.
The formula could be something like this......each player's career rushing and receiving yds added together and rounded to nearest 1000. The player gets 1 pt for each 1000 yards he had in his career (e.g. 8900 career yds = 9 pts). QB's get 1 pt for each 2000 career yards (e.g. 24,200 career passing yds = 12 pts). If the QB also had 2000 rushing yds, then he would get 14 pts.
Category A = 0-7 pts, B = 8-13 pts, C = 14-19 pts, D = 20+ pts
I'm just throwing this formula and scale out there as an example....I'd say if we as a group like the concept then we could cuss and discuss the specific methods we come up with to facilitate this option.
Let me know in the forums what you think and/or if you have any different ideas that might work better.