Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Nick Krahn on December 14, 2012 at 10:33am

1.  Butler has had a blast!  It has been incredible to scour the waiver wire each week after a disappointing draft and take fliers on so many players.  Some have worked out (Alfred Morris and our trade for Adrian Peterson -- seriously who saw THAT comeback???) while others have been more than disappointing (Rob Gronkowski's injury was just a kick in the shins).  I have always been a fan of defense and the lineman (I actually own a linemans jersey.  B-Town will appreciate it.  Remember Olin Kreutz?  LOVE that guy) so my kids always wonder why we can't pickup Brian Urlacher, Charles Tillman or Henry Melton.  For some reason they don't request Bears lineman.  I wonder why that is.  :)

2.  YES!!!!  

3.  I actually recommended Yahoo and still thinks it is the best free format.  The discussion forums could use some work though so I will second that.  If we could change one thing I think it would be something Yahoo implemented in the middle of the season with rolling daily waivers.  This would prevent runs on players that might become available in the middle of the day due to injury from being first come first serve.  It might provide a nice balance between the two times a week waivers we used in baseball and the free for all format football had.  We benefited from this several times but I recognize I have the benefit of working with my kids (I plead the fifth on whether I ever pulled them from line in the hallway to discuss a pickup).  This would give everyone the chance to sit down at night if they wish and make moves.  Just a thought to make things more fair.  

4.  PPR leagues tend to give an overemphasis on obscure WR's that catch a lot of short throws (Danny Amendola would make us look really smart for instance) and pass catching RB's are Gold in these scoring formats.  They might be closer to real football but I actually like just the standard scoring format.  To me if you start trying to make WR's a premium closer to RB's why not up the scoring for Kickers, Defenses and TE's?  But that is just me.  We will play with whatever format is chosen.

5.  As many as can stay active.  I know we have had trouble with teams only paying attention past the draft and maybe the first few weeks but I would like this format to stay open to as many as we can hold.  Obviously you have to draw the line somewhere and 10-12 teams is optimal with fewer leading to less competitiveness and more leading to harder play.  I try to stick to 12 teams in the leagues I run.  It tends to be a nice balance.  But again I think the spirit of these leagues is the more the merrier.  

6. Weekly questions? A live draft supported with Google Hangout or some other format?  This is a hard one with everyone spread out.

Permalink Reply by Kevin Makice on December 14, 2012 at 11:55pm

1. My football season was easier to share than baseball, which due to a number of non-sports related reasons is rare for me to watch. I never miss Chicago Bears football, however, and have found a good online streaming substitute for the weeks when the Colts ruin my chance to Tivo the game. That has been great for getting my 9yo to wear his jersey and care about or Bears-heavy fantasy squad. Outside of designing our logo, my 12yo is just being polite to listen to us talk (I get more football passion from my 3yo daughter). Overall, I feel we've had a good foundation for future years.
2. Yes.
3. My favorite online service is CBS Sports, but it isn't free. This worked out fine. The badges made it interesting to visit, and I love the third-party service that attempts to summarize games automatically. 
4. I've been in other leagues where getting 100 was a bad week, so I liked the lower ranges a bit more. My main league only gives performance a nod and uses fewer players in the starting lineup (7), so the scores tend to more closely resemble real football. 
5. 16 is the sweet spot, in my experience. More means scarcity at key positions and probably some special bye rules to accommodate the inability of owners to plan for that league-enforced down time. It was a bit too easy to find replacements off the free agent wire.
6. Two things: External newsletter or site (don't rely on Yahoo! for interaction), and some limited injury protections. The latter becomes more critical if we are a keeper league. In my main league, we added an injured reserve spot in response to a team needing to waive an injured Joe Montana, only to have him claimed and stashed on a team that won a few titles when he came back. With an IR, that cut would have never happened.

Permalink Reply by Steve Henry on December 15, 2012 at 12:15am

Great feedback so far... I look forward to hearing from the other owners.

One more question that Kevin made me think of - do we go keeper or not?  Since we did not spell it out at the beginning of this season, I suggest that we do not have any keepers this season.  However, we could go that route next season.  My son is a die hard Steelers fan (tough to swallow for a die hard Browns fan dad but I love him despite this tragic shortcoming).  He is also a big fan of the "star" NFL players.  Every week, he wanted me to make a deal for the "IT" player of the week.  By avoiding keepers, it might make it more fun for the kids.  I'd like to hear the other owners input on this.

Kevin - what did you have in mind for special bye rules?? 

Thanks,
Steve

Permalink Reply by Kevin Makice on December 15, 2012 at 12:42am

RE: Bye rules

We have a 20-team league, so the scarcity is a serious issue. Even scaling back the number of keepers from 8 to 6 (and only one developmental instead of 2) to improve the draft, there are very limited opportunities to pick up starting QBs. Ks have a similar numbers problem, but there are usually plenty available in the draft to make it a strategic choice. WR and TE are equivalent positions (both are treated as WR), and we allow legal formations that have 2, 1 or no RBs, so those positions generally aren't affected by byes as much.

To compensate, we allow temporary trades that last only 3 weeks, to encourage sharing the wealth. Since we are a keeper league, we also have the next three drafts to work with in trading picks, and borrowed players tend to go for a 6th to as high as a 3rd. Often, there is some mutual exchange (a backup K for a backup QB in overlapping bye weeks).

We also allow a special formation of Wishbone, which substitutes the missing QB with a third RB.

Other strategies would be to set aside a pool of QBs and Ks that are not drafted as a shared resource, allowing teams with byes a free exchange for that week without losing their main player. If they really wanted to dump their starter, they could waive/sign as normal to make it permanent. But this would allow the franchise QBs to remain with their teams without having the team suffer that week.

This was all much worse when the byes lasted longer in the season and there were two of them.

I think we could easily work toward a Keeper league, btw, by protecting just 1 or 2 players this year. That would give each team some base continuity without penalizing the freewheeling types like Btown who waived Andrew Luck and Danny Amendola because they weren't going to help any more than the guys who could be picked up later from the available free agents.

Permalink Reply by Nick Krahn on December 15, 2012 at 11:13am

A 1-2 keeper league would be intriguing.  I would hate to make it more than that though.  "Dead" teams could be taken over by new owners and they would then get their selection from what that team had (a few gems there I might add).