Long Island Electric Football Official Rule Book (2000)

Long Island Electric Football Official Rule Book (2000) Still debating several Issues.

We are with you in electric football. Like your leagues, what we have are eight extremely competitive coaches who were also competitive athletes who compete on one of nine game boards we own. The coaches spend countless hours tweaking their teams to peak performance levels, and because we have spent countless hours developing each individual player base, like your leagues, the standard we set is the same as most outstanding leagues around the country. Our League rule is, only the best-of-the-best 11-electric football figures can make the team for the season. As a result, coaches have difficult choices to make as to who they will put on the field.  We don't have 30-40 players on a team in our league for a reason. The biggest disparity in electric football, which is the most important, are the rules, over weighted and over-sized custom players, turning of players and the endless countdowns which takes extra time and actually interrupts the natural play on the field, and finally, people who cheat to gain an advantage.

The Players Figures: The LIEFL uses the "rare" Tudor 67 Big Men players with no exceptions.  We love the artistic work coaches have done with their player figures, but in our league we don't allow over-sized custom made player figures because it simply changes the professional uniformity of the league. All LIEFL teams MUST have official NFL Tudor Regulation size, and officially licensed painted uniforms in both home and away jersey's professionally decaled using only NFL teams. 

The Rule Issues:  Over the years we have competed in at least 15 tournaments outside of the LIEFL, which provided us with great insight into rules, strategies, and skill-level, as well as the attitudes of coaches we competed against. Here is what we learned. We learned that first, we can compete with the best of them, next, that the biggest conflicts are over rules, so our rules committee, which consists of eight people debated for weeks about rules until we finally collaborated and came up with our own variation of rules so that everyone protects the integrity of the hobby.We know that some coaches are insistent over rules as a "must-way" of doing things, but they seem to be put off by running leagues.  We don't care who passes, and you shouldn't care that we run. It's good old fashion smash mouth electric football, and it works! Even in the NFL, the running teams utilize the skill to control the clock and the ball.

In our clarity, the official version of the Tudor rules was created by hobbyists like us, but the problem is we all see the play-by-play on the field differently in what's best for the game and the coaches. Like your leagues, our rules benefit everyone, and not just tailored for the few or a few people who made rules to manage their style of play. We all do this. One of the biggest issues to us with the rules is set-up times and formations for the offense and defense, time counts to turn men, and other arguable rules. 

The Essence of Time: We find that one of the most important factors in moving a game along is time. Because we are working professionals like almost everyone else around the country, we have strict rules which engage the competition and propel the progress and the speed of the game. Our goal is always to make the game more competitive, while keeping tradition and originality in tact. A few philosophical differences exist in our league approach in terms of time to set-up plays, regulation size player figures sizes and weight, and the format in which we use to play the game on the field. These fundamental differences are what make each league unique.

In previous years, the LIEFL used to give one-minute to complete set-ups, but we now utilize a 40-second for coaches to complete a set-up for both offense and defense with no re-sets like we have witnessed in other leagues where more time is taken to move and turn several players. In our league both teams have to set-up within seconds of the 40 second regulation time or we walk you back 5 yards. Time management is crucial and the offense must complete their set-up at the same time as the defense.  It's all about never interfering with the natural flow of a game with all these stops.

Like most great competitive leagues, having set-up times are important to us. We feel it forces our coaches to think about play-making and the big picture before the game. In the LIEFL, if the team and opponents don't frustrate and break coaches down, the time will. Our regular season games are 30-minutes with post-season games set at regulation time of 60 minutes with two timeouts per half. We don't whine, we just play the game and make the necessary adjustments. When our fastest set-up coach had his team set up in 30 seconds consistently in games on offense, we realized the game speed standard had to change with all of us compromising on a 40 second complete set-up clock. This new standard for us would change the game to be more competitive, even with the most experienced of EFL coaches. If coaches want to be competitive in the LIEFL there has to be a plan with quick-thinking strategies in order to constantly improve how to handle fast 40 second set-ups without delays and penalties. 

In our first seven-game season format in 2008, managing the clock was a frustrating challenge for coaches who struggled handling the chaos, but these days after working smarter and as a result of the 40 second time-stress set-up rule, there are 10-15% more plays. We know you understand how that goes when the rigors of being able to play hard under duress could cause big mistakes that cost teams wins and losses. It gives coaches a realistic feel to the sport of football, of how stress affects and impacts performance in a time-driven league. We feel that is one important factor in determining what is missing from the national rules.  Way too much time is given again, to turn players, have other countdown rules, and impact the flow of the game.

In the end, this progressive fast time set-up balances the competition quickly, but it also pushes coaches foreign to our league to think on their feet, make split second decisions, make mistakes, and define the need to make adjustments and corrections to each coaches playing style. We suggest you try this mode in your league to see how your time-competition changes the speed of the game. Our highest scoring 30-minute game last season was on August 14, 2019, when the LIEFL #19 Ranked Tampa Bay Buccaneers (66-86), beat the very tough LIEFL #17 Ranked  San Francisco 49ers (66-76), 35-31, in an opening day stunner! There were several high-scoring, high-stake games like this.

Play-by-Play on the field and the Natural flow of the Play: In the LIEFL when it comes to passing, we strongly believe that if we get burned on a passing play, we get burned, that's part of the game! We also have no rule against linemen touching elbows and we never will as long as coaches do not stack their line, we are good. We find that rule to be open for debate against other leagues and Tudor Rules. We embrace and respect all styles of electric football, but what works for some doesn't always work for all.

One of our play-by-play rules on the field in the LIEFL is coded that when a receiver catches a ball we do not allow the defender closest to the receiver to suddenly be turned around with the game stopping to chase a receiver in any way. Again, it interferes the the actual play that was naturally meant to be. We don't ever change the continuity of any play. We believe a coach needs to be prepared at every level win or lose when it comes to running, passing, receiving and defending in real-time with the only game turn-off to pass the ball and hit a receiver.

RULES: The on-going Debate of rushing and passing rules and the  "Great Equalizer": 

We have been playing the hobby as long as most people around the world.

As for Rushing the ball. For us, bull-rushing, in-your-face, smash-mouth bully-ball electric football is considered a style of play whether we win or lose. In the NFL when the offense is on the inch-line breathing down the defenses' throat crunched together the way the Chicago Bears did it in 1985, when William "Refrigerator" Perry did in Super Bowl XX against New England with his one-yard touchdown run. The defense didn't like it, and fans and players were whining because they couldn't stop the Bears front line or Perry, but they had to adjust and accept it that Perry tanked them.

Our rule is simply that "as long as there are five core lineman on the line of scrimmage, three guards and two tackles, with two receivers on the ends on offense, and anywhere from one to four men in the backfield," it's game-on as long as there are no stacks of five men in the backfield! We call this style of electric football the great equalizer. It forces coaches to defend against the great running teams just as coaches have to defend against the great passing teams. It balances out. We also feel that the great coaches are one's who can do it all; pass, run, kick, play tight defense, and be special teams experts.

O                              OOOOO                   OO

                                    OO

                                      O

In our league, we don't allow passing sticks, strings, custom crafted passing enhancement tools, or special guides in passing. We expect our coaches to use "raw" talent to pass in the LIEFL. Coaches must be able to develop passing skills using a Tudor Games provided official kicker/passer. If an opponent wants to live by the pass, they need to develop the skill to win by the pass with no exceptions.

One team may get buried by the passing game,  but another team may equalize the game with the running attack, and it's just a theoretical strategy that works well in balancing the game in our league. It is a fair balance of agreed upon rules, and when we compete against other people in tournaments, we go 50/50 on rules. We see many different rules in other leagues vs. the new standardized Tudor Rules. The contention with that is that we didn't necessarily all agree on the rules, but we do agree to disagree.  That is what makes the game so exciting!

The sign of an exciting league is when each year different teams make it to the Super Bowl, but as you all know, when a team wins two in a row, that is special in a competitive league. After another tremendous 2019 season of growth in our league, with the defending 2018 LIEFL Super Bowl XIV Champion, Wild Card #11 LIEFL-All Time Ranked Los Angeles Rams (8-3) (76-80), beating the #1 LIEFL-All Time Ranked AFC Miami Dolphins (7-3) (143-33) in a thrilling Super Bowl XV 44-41, in overtime, the Long Island Electric Football League is back with our 2020 regular season, playoffs and our sixteenth big show, Super Bowl XVI. Super Bowl Sunday is very special to us. The Rams are fighting for their third straight LIEFL NFC title and Super Bowl in 2020. We will provide a Game Day Program featuring the league, highlighting the players, and announcing the All-Pro Team for the season as well as film from the previous Super Bowl if you like this sort of thing in this super exciting league!

LIEFL OFFICIAL RULES.pdf