2009 Expansion Draft

Those new expansion teams will each select one of the 11 open teams to put into the draft pool. All 53 players on that selected open team will go into the pool as well as any draft pick that team currently has.

For an example, O'Fallon Renegades have the 3rd pick overall in the Rookie Draft in September by virtue of their 3-13 record. They are an open team. If a new coach selects to put them into the Expansion Pool than all 53 players on the O'Fallon roster (which can be seen on the yahoogroups file page) will go into the Expansion Pool. As well as all 12 draft picks that O'Fallon has in the September Rookie Draft. O'Fallon has 12 picks because O'Fallon owns the rights to the Miami Valley 2nd and 3rd round picks. So all 10 of O'Fallon's 1-10 round selections plus Miami Valley 2nd and 3rd will go into the Expansion Pool.

When an Expansion Team drafts they will draft players AND draft picks from the pool. So at the end of the draft they will have a combination of 53 players/draft picks going into the September Rookie Draft. They may choose a more veteran approach and have 45 players and only select 8 draft picks. Or they may choose to go for the future and select 15 draft picks and 38 players.

There is some strategy in play there because the Expansion Teams will be competing with one another on draft picks. It is possible for the same expansion team to get 4 or 5 first round draft picks if he picks them high enough. At the same time, there are some VERY good players that he will be missing out on in order to do this.

So to answer the concern that current coaches have about the draft. Eric Morgan and his Florida Rooks have the 4th pick in the draft. They will have no worse than the 4th pick in September. However, if one of the expansion coaches does not select O'Fallon to go into the Expansion Pool than O'Fallons picks will disappear and Florida (as well as everyone else) moves up one.

By the way, if O'Fallon is not selected Miami Valley does NOT get back their 2nd and 3rd round selection, they simply disappear. Miami Valley was already compensated for those draft picks so it is unfair to the others for Miami Valley to have both the player they traded them for and to get them back.