The Rules
Guidelines for a successful weekend of Tecmo. The league has run on this rough framework since the dorm-room revival in 2009. Treat it as load-bearing tradition, not a referee's manual.
Weekend Format
Tecmo Heroes weekends are structured around playing an entire season of Tecmo Super Bowl across two or three calendar days. Every team in the matchup is set to MAN mode and every game between two human players counts toward the standings, the statline archive, and the long-running record book.
Six players is the soft cap. With more than four, expect to lose sleep on Saturday night. The organizer schedules tip-off, makes sure stat sheets get filled in, and reads from the Book of Big Red before the first kickoff.
The Book of Big Red
Before the cartridge clicks in, the organizer reads a passage from the Book of Big Red — the long-running tribute to Kelly Stouffer and early-90s Tecmo lore archived at leonardite.com/tecmo. Treat it like a national anthem. You stand for it, you don't talk over it, and you do not fire up the NES until it's finished.
Scouting
Players are expected to review the Paul Schulzetenberg GameFAQ before the draft — the canonical strategy guide. Once teams are selected, a designated reader walks through each drafted roster's strengths and quirks so everyone in the room knows what they are about to face.
Draft Methods
The organizer picks the draft format before the weekend starts. Five options have stuck around long enough to count as canon:
- All Pick
- Least-experienced players select first from the full board. Encourages new players to grab the obvious top-shelf rosters (49ers, Bills, Raiders) without having to muscle their way through a snake.
- Equal Pick
- The organizer selects a single tier. Everyone draws randomly from inside that tier — same talent ceiling, different team.
- Handicap Pick
- Players are placed into tiers by skill before the draft. Tier differences are settled with point spreads on the scoreboard rather than picking advantages.
- Random Pick
- Blind draw from a bag of physical tokens — one per franchise. Drafted teams are pulled out of the bag for the rest of the weekend so every season looks different.
- Division Pick
- All players pick out of the same division. Maximizes head-to-head matchups and forces matchup-specific game plans.
Tier List
The tier list drives Equal Pick and Handicap Pick. It is the competitive shorthand for who is good and who needs a scoreboard spot.
| Tier | Teams | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| S+ Tier | SFBUFGIARAI | Complete rosters across all three phases. Always in the championship conversation. |
| S Tier | HOUPHIKCMIA | Run-and-shoot weapons and elite skill talent. Elite when healthy but one injury away from a lower tier. |
| A Tier | DETCINRAMCHI | One identifiable franchise piece each — Sanders, Fulcher, Ellard, Samurai Mike — surrounded by serviceable starters. |
| B Tier | MINWASDENTB | Each team has some glaring weaknesses but enough weapons to be dangerous. Beatable, on any given Sunday though. |
| C Tier | SDJETATLPIT | Not bad, not great. MEDIOCRE! |
| D Tier | CLEDALPHXNO | Handicap-pick territory. Win one with these and you have a story for the rest of your life. |
| F Tier | GBSEANEIND | Imagine garbage soaked in three feet of fecal water. That's this tier. |
Tiers reflect the league's working competitive consensus and hew closely to the Schulzetenberg guide. They are not gospel — pull a C-tier into a Super Bowl and the tier list bends to you.
Playbook Selection
- Initial selection: 10-minute cap before week 1.
- Mid-season change: one allowed between weeks 8 and 9, with a 5-minute cap.
- First-time players: time limits waived; book may be re-tuned after weeks 4, 8, 12, and 16.
Play Tempo
All games run with both teams set to MAN mode. Estimated wall-clock time is roughly 20 minutes per matchup. Gameplay is continuous — breaks are negotiated, not assumed. Sleep is for the weak.
Lurching
Lurching — selecting NT or DT and immediately diving on the snap to blow up runs at the line — is prohibited in MAN-vs-MAN matches. It's a legal exploit, but the league treats it as bad form.
Substitutions
- WR at RB is illegal unless every healthy running back has been knocked out by injury.
- Backup QB and backup RB may be moved into starting slots freely. Game on.
Game Duration
Plan on roughly 20 minutes per game from kickoff through the post-game summary. With more than four players you will be hard-pressed to finish a full season inside one weekend — the schedule needs to account for that up front.
Photo Documentation
Every game ends with a photograph of the in-game summary screen. Those photos are the source of truth for the record book — see the stats methodology for how we work around Tecmo's in-game maximums.
Meals
Decide who is cooking which meal — or what is being ordered — before the weekend starts. Food planning is the difference between a Sunday Super Bowl and a Saturday-night meltdown.
Original guidelines authored at tecmoheroes.com/the-rules. Spread the book of Big Red and the Tecmo gospel.