I was wondering the same thing about a month ago, so I decided to search for a better plan. Here's what I came up with (it's a long process, but pretty cool):
1) you (the commissioner) send an e-mail to each owner, along with a 5-letter word and a number between 1 and 99.
2) you ask that each owner replies ONLY TO THE COMMISSIONER with their owner 5-letter word and number between 1 and 99.
3) each letter in the word will correspond to a number (a = 1, b = 2, etc.). These numbers will be added together to arrive at a word value. The word value is added to the number between 1 and 99 to get a value for each team. These values must be unique. If the last two digits are the same for any teams, they need to re-submit a number so that they are all different.
4) the individual team values are all added together to determine a league base value. this league base value is added to each team value to create a team base value.
5) using ONLY the last two digits of the results for each team, the teams are ranked with the best possible number being 00 and the worst being 99.
6) our league likes to have the ability to choose draft their draft spot, so the team with the #1 ranking from the above steps gets to choose their draft spot first, and so on down the line.
Here's a 4-team example to let you know how it works, because it's a little involved even though the math is quite simple:
TEAM 1 - word = bears, number = 86
TEAM 2 - word = bills, number = 4
TEAM 3 - word = lions, number = 20
TEAM 4 - word = colts, number = 18
TEAM 1 - word value = 2+5+1+18+19=45
TEAM 2 - word value = 2+9+12+12+19=54
TEAM 3 - word value = 12+9+15+14+19=69
TEAM 4 - word value = 3+15+12+20+19=69
TEAM 1 - team value = 45+86=131
TEAM 2 - team value = 54+4=58
TEAM 3 - team value = 69+20=89
TEAM 4 - team value = 69+18=87
league base value = 131+58+89+87=365
TEAM 1 - team base value = 131+365=496 (use only 96)
TEAM 2 - team base value = 58+365=423 (use only 23)
TEAM 3 - team base value = 89+365=454 (use only 54)
TEAM 4 - team base value = 87+365=452 (use only 52)
based on this 4-team league example, the ranking would be TEAM 2, TEAM 4, TEAM 3, and TEAM 1.
it's a great solution because you have no idea where you rank until the last team submits their word and number. there's no way to accuse the commissioner of cheating because the commissioner is the first team to submit their word and number, and it's made public.
