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How Would You Fix Traditional Season-Long FF? (1 Viewer)

just_want_2_win

just_want_2_win

Footballguy
There are a few threads regarding the long-term viability of traditional season-long FF in the face of increasing daily league FF popularity. The questions surrounding traditional FF leagues center largely on injuries, especially at RB, and being stuck with decimated rosters. How would you fix traditional FF?

Here is just some brainstorming in no particular order:

  1. Start only 1 RB.
  2. Flex out one or both RB slots.
  3. Increase roster size for more stashing to ride out byes and injuries.
  4. Keep benches very small to emphasize the WW and trading.
  5. Allow for one in-game injury substitution.
  6. Make flex all positions other than QB.
  7. Multiple waiver runs daily since news changes so quickly.
  8. Larger roster but some portion has to be declared inactive on Sunday. Then be able to sub-in, out, depending on injury, etc.
  9. Steal a page from the dailies and ignore Thurs. Night Games. In other words, daily FF provides games that don't count Thurs. results -- do the same in traditional FF.
  10. Eliminate head-head and go to best-ball.
  11. Re-train ourselves as owners and stop relying on FF advice and instead look at more non-FF centric info such as coaches, OLs, etc. Are we all just putting too much stock in FF advice that does see the full picture?
  12. Stop following ADP-based draft strategies like lemmings and make our own decisions.
 
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This would be a nightmare to track, but put a limit on how many times you can start a player in a given season. For example, if you cap it at 8 games, it would dramatically increase trading (lack of trades being a big gripe about traditional FF), and also add a new dimension of strategy to the came (i.e. do I start Murray this week or wait a couple of week so I have him for playoffs?).

 
I think most of the things you have listed are things a lot of people would expect as "fixes" but I see most of them as treating symptoms and not the problem.

I will speak more from a dynasty league point of view than redraft but I generally observe and experience that the issues with the traditional leagues are:

-burnout form the grind (and with TNF, there really is no way to fix that).

-dead teams decimated by injuries.

-People getting frustrated that "their team was 3rd highest scorer but got beat by this guy"

Those kinds of things.

So, I definitely think best ball is a good idea, although I realize some people just gotta have that H2H juice flowing.

I also think if there was a way to break the season into two half seasons or play quarter leagues side by side with the traditional that it may keep people interested?

I don't know exactlty but its easy to see that society, in general, is much more instant gratification and shorter attention span than it was 20 years ago. The "grind" of a fantasy season used to feel too short to some people. They would lament the 5-6 months of dead time between football seasons and openly wish the USFL has made it so they could play most of the year.

Now, by week 4, people are setting their rosters on fire and looking for other things to do.

 
Sweet Love said:
This would be a nightmare to track, but put a limit on how many times you can start a player in a given season. For example, if you cap it at 8 games, it would dramatically increase trading (lack of trades being a big gripe about traditional FF), and also add a new dimension of strategy to the came (i.e. do I start Murray this week or wait a couple of week so I have him for playoffs?).
Click to expand...
We have talked about it using MFL and kicked around the idea of setting players with cap room and reducing the cap by X amount each week depending on who was started. Very interesting "survivor-ish" type of idea but, like you say, a nightmare to track.

 
Mandate trading and even mandate one waiver move each week. Inactivity is the biggest problem I see now and days. With large rosters its easy to make a move a week.

Start only 1 RB and allow way more flex position.

Example: 1QB, 1RB, 2WR, 1TE, 4 Flex with one option of being a QB. K and D that you must use all year with exception of one on the wire you choose for a bye week.

All leagues must be PPR and should only be half a point a catch.

 
For the first time this year, I am doing a survivor fantasy league, and enjoy it a lot more than my other 2 "standard leagues."

Each week an owner can pick his own team (any lineup he wants), but you can only start the same player once during the course of the entire season. Brings a ton of strategy to the game. We start 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 K, 1 D.

There were 37 people in the pool to start. For the first 3 weeks, the bottom 3 scores were eliminated, and from now on the bottom 2 scores get eliminated. Certainly would suck if you were eliminated early, but I'm still around, and it's a blast to plan for. We also have weekly prizes for the top 2 scorers.

I still enjoy the standard leagues, but this has certainly brought more excitement and strategy to my week.

 
The nice thing about FF is there are so many different flavors and varieties that there isn't really a "fix" needed.

Owners need to think about what they'll enjoy most and find or create a league with those rules in place.

I'm in at least one league that incorporates each of your fixes except:

Allow for one in-game injury substitution.

Multiple waiver runs daily since news changes so quickly.

Larger roster but some portion has to be declared inactive on Sunday. Then be able to sub-in, out, depending on injury, etc.

Steal a page from the dailies and ignore Thurs. Night Games. In other words, daily FF provides games that don't count Thurs. results -- do the same in traditional FF.

frankly, none of those appeal to me.

Your other fixes are on the person, and I know I've stopped worrying too much about what other people think about players

  1. Re-train ourselves as owners and stop relying on FF advice and instead look at more non-FF centric info such as coaches, OLs, etc. Are we all just putting too much stock in FF advice that does see the full picture?
  2. Stop following ADP-based draft strategies like lemmings and make our own decisions.
 
Weekly leagues are a fad, most people will get bored of them really quickly. It's 99% luck in the short term. Nobody knows when a player is going to have a huge week.

The grind due to Thursday night games is getting old though. I miss being able to have waivers later in the week and have a break. I wasn't a big fan at first but best ball leagues are gaining in popularity. I think it's a viable answer, if somewhat flawed imo.

 
Shutout said:
-People getting frustrated that "their team was 3rd highest scorer but got beat by this guy"
Click to expand...
I've always thought a system where every owner plays every other owner every week could work- a Play-All league, if you will. So if you ranked first for a given week you're 11-0, or if you're last you're 0-11. By the end of the season you'd have a record like 180-180 or something.

Well, you wouldn't have people #####ing about their unlucky match-ups in H2H.

 
just_want_2_win said:
There are a few threads regarding the long-term viability of traditional season-long FF in the face of increasing daily league FF popularity. The questions surrounding traditional FF leagues center largely on injuries, especially at RB, and being stuck with decimated rosters. How would you fix traditional FF?

Here is just some brainstorming in no particular order:

  1. Start only 1 RB.
  2. Flex out one or both RB slots.
  3. Increase roster size for more stashing to ride out byes and injuries.
  4. Keep benches very small to emphasize the WW and trading.
  5. Allow for one in-game injury substitution.
  6. Make flex all positions other than QB.
  7. Multiple waiver runs daily since news changes so quickly.
  8. Larger roster but some portion has to be declared inactive on Sunday. Then be able to sub-in, out, depending on injury, etc.
  9. Steal a page from the dailies and ignore Thurs. Night Games. In other words, daily FF provides games that don't count Thurs. results -- do the same in traditional FF.
  10. Eliminate head-head and go to best-ball.
  11. Re-train ourselves as owners and stop relying on FF advice and instead look at more non-FF centric info such as coaches, OLs, etc. Are we all just putting too much stock in FF advice that does see the full picture?
  12. Stop following ADP-based draft strategies like lemmings and make our own decisions.
Click to expand...
Its not broken. So you don't need to fix it. The dailies are just a different game. I do both because I enjoy both. No different than I golf but I also play basketball.

The tradition game is a game with a set rules. You all play by the same rules. Just dominate your opponents. If RB's are scarce then stop drafting a kicker and 2 WR's with your first three picks and draft some depth at RB (just an example).

LOL at guys who always want to "fix" things. Translation. I don't want to do any work and still want to beat my friends.

Spend a little time preparing for the draft and managing your team and you can win regardless of the rules.

 
voiceofunreason said:
Weekly leagues are a fad, most people will get bored of them really quickly. It's 99% luck in the short term. Nobody knows when a player is going to have a huge week.

The grind due to Thursday night games is getting old though. I miss being able to have waivers later in the week and have a break. I wasn't a big fan at first but best ball leagues are gaining in popularity. I think it's a viable answer, if somewhat flawed imo.
Click to expand...
Weekly leagues are not a fad. And if they legalize gambling across the US, this "fad" will get exponentially bigger overnight.

 
for idea 1/2

I like the idea of getting rid of rb/wr/te all together

and if you normally do 2/2/1

do 1 qb

1 kicker

1 defense

5 flex spots

 
Reprogram sites to allow in-game (or halftime) subbing/benching due to injury/performance.

Nothing like sitting down to an exciting day of Sunday football to see Calvin Johnson suddenly limping around the field at 1:10pm.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
One rule I put in place around 10 years ago that has worked perfectly is to allow teams to declare a backup for for players who are question marks going into the game. Not really an issue for early games but what if you want to start an iffy player in the afternoon, Sunday night or Monday night?

Brandon Marshall a couple weeks back was a perfect example. Bad info out there suggested he wasn't going to play. In many leagues the Marshall owner was then forced to use a much lesser early Sunday game option. In my league the owner was able to start Marshall and then declare on the league message board a backup choice in the event Marshall didn't play.

The key to the rule is that the player in doubt cannot play even a single snap. Sometimes an injured player will appear in the game and accumulate no stats causing the owner to think he didn't play and argue that the backup should be used. No such controversy in my league. NFL.com shows whether a player played even one snap from scrimmage. Even if the player was used for one play as a decoy, that means he played and his stats are used with the declared backup staying on the bench.

If you're worried about a player being limited you just go with the other option. But this eliminates the scenario where the stud goes off in a late game but isn't used because of bad or late breaking info.

This is a rule that every league should have due to it's simplicity and the ease of confirming whether a player appeared in a game or not.

 
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No "fix" needed.

Not interested in the gambling aspect of weekly stuff. It may be "here to stay", but that doesn't affect how I enjoy my league. BTW, it will peak, like online poker, when people realize they're losing consistently.

 
daveR said:
No "fix" needed.

Not interested in the gambling aspect of weekly stuff. It may be "here to stay", but that doesn't affect how I enjoy my league. BTW, it will peak, like online poker, when people realize they're losing consistently.
Click to expand...
the rake is excessive. it's easier to make money in yearly leagues at phenoms.

 
daveR said:
No "fix" needed.

Not interested in the gambling aspect of weekly stuff. It may be "here to stay", but that doesn't affect how I enjoy my league. BTW, it will peak, like online poker, when people realize they're losing consistently.
Click to expand...
The odds are stacked against you no matter how good you are, thats for sure.

 
Well you definitely can't get rid of the 2 RB spots.

How else am I gonna crush all the people that waited until the 4th round to draft a RB?

 
dagwood said:
voiceofunreason said:
Weekly leagues are a fad, most people will get bored of them really quickly. It's 99% luck in the short term. Nobody knows when a player is going to have a huge week.

The grind due to Thursday night games is getting old though. I miss being able to have waivers later in the week and have a break. I wasn't a big fan at first but best ball leagues are gaining in popularity. I think it's a viable answer, if somewhat flawed imo.
Click to expand...
Weekly leagues are not a fad. And if they legalize gambling across the US, this "fad" will get exponentially bigger overnight.
Click to expand...
And if they make daily fantasy football illegal, which will probably happen fairly soon, it will get exponentially smaller overnight.

Daily fantasy football leagues will go the same route as online poker. I just hope they don't bring *real* fantasy football down with it.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
dagwood said:
just_want_2_win said:
There are a few threads regarding the long-term viability of traditional season-long FF in the face of increasing daily league FF popularity. The questions surrounding traditional FF leagues center largely on injuries, especially at RB, and being stuck with decimated rosters. How would you fix traditional FF?

Here is just some brainstorming in no particular order:

  1. Start only 1 RB.
  2. Flex out one or both RB slots.
  3. Increase roster size for more stashing to ride out byes and injuries.
  4. Keep benches very small to emphasize the WW and trading.
  5. Allow for one in-game injury substitution.
  6. Make flex all positions other than QB.
  7. Multiple waiver runs daily since news changes so quickly.
  8. Larger roster but some portion has to be declared inactive on Sunday. Then be able to sub-in, out, depending on injury, etc.
  9. Steal a page from the dailies and ignore Thurs. Night Games. In other words, daily FF provides games that don't count Thurs. results -- do the same in traditional FF.
  10. Eliminate head-head and go to best-ball.
  11. Re-train ourselves as owners and stop relying on FF advice and instead look at more non-FF centric info such as coaches, OLs, etc. Are we all just putting too much stock in FF advice that does see the full picture?
  12. Stop following ADP-based draft strategies like lemmings and make our own decisions.
Click to expand...
Its not broken. So you don't need to fix it. The dailies are just a different game. I do both because I enjoy both. No different than I golf but I also play basketball.

The tradition game is a game with a set rules. You all play by the same rules. Just dominate your opponents. If RB's are scarce then stop drafting a kicker and 2 WR's with your first three picks and draft some depth at RB (just an example).

LOL at guys who always want to "fix" things. Translation. I don't want to do any work and still want to beat my friends.

Spend a little time preparing for the draft and managing your team and you can win regardless of the rules.
Click to expand...
Right here, bud. your choices are to a) play by existing rules b) create a league that incorporates rules that in your opinion make the game better, or c) quit the game. Otherwise, i don't think there's anything to fix. It's more about the people you play with than anything else.

 
cloppbeast said:
Shutout said:
-People getting frustrated that "their team was 3rd highest scorer but got beat by this guy"
Click to expand...
I've always thought a system where every owner plays every other owner every week could work- a Play-All league, if you will. So if you ranked first for a given week you're 11-0, or if you're last you're 0-11. By the end of the season you'd have a record like 180-180 or something.

Well, you wouldn't have people #####ing about their unlucky match-ups in H2H.
Click to expand...
:yes:

Straight H2H is just silly, and I haven't run a single league that relied on it solely since 1996 (even in the USA Today / Lotus 1-2-3 days, I always reserved one or more playoff spots for the total points leaders). I'd be perfectly content if all of my leagues went All-Play tomorrow and I wish more of the larger free sites supported it.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
You can build your "dream" fantasy league already. The real question is who will be up for playing it.

In reality, we would all love leagues where the sharks get all the players. That's because we spend so much time researching that its not fair that Joe "Who Doesn't Care" Schmoe can just swoop in the morning of WW picks and takes said player because ESPN projected him for big points.

Honestly, talking about how to "fix" leagues is fun, but unless you have that group of cut-throat hardcore friends, prob wont happen.

I say this from the position as someone who would love all the suggestions from OP, but play in a league where its just casual and even the person who cares the least is competitive due to the set-up.

 
RoxSolid said:
For the first time this year, I am doing a survivor fantasy league, and enjoy it a lot more than my other 2 "standard leagues."

Each week an owner can pick his own team (any lineup he wants), but you can only start the same player once during the course of the entire season. Brings a ton of strategy to the game. We start 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 K, 1 D.

There were 37 people in the pool to start. For the first 3 weeks, the bottom 3 scores were eliminated, and from now on the bottom 2 scores get eliminated. Certainly would suck if you were eliminated early, but I'm still around, and it's a blast to plan for. We also have weekly prizes for the top 2 scorers.

I still enjoy the standard leagues, but this has certainly brought more excitement and strategy to my week.
Click to expand...
For those of you who've never tried the bolded approach to lineups, you really should. It's my first year playing in a league of this type, and it's a blast. It's not necessary to combine it with a survivor format BTW - ours uses straight total points for a 16-week season.

The best part about it? Since there's no draft and no permanent rosters, it scales to literally any number of owners - we do it as a neighborhood thing with 6 guys but you could just as easily do it with 60.

Another thought I've been kicking around is combining this format with a standard one - an abbreviated draft (~8 rounds) of guys you can hold all year; another 8 guys you pick weekly on a "one-time use" basis from the (much larger) UDFA pool; and doing best-ball scoring among them each week at each position. Only thing holding me back would be finding a site that could even remotely support that sort of thing.

 
cloppbeast said:
Shutout said:
-People getting frustrated that "their team was 3rd highest scorer but got beat by this guy"
Click to expand...
I've always thought a system where every owner plays every other owner every week could work- a Play-All league, if you will. So if you ranked first for a given week you're 11-0, or if you're last you're 0-11. By the end of the season you'd have a record like 180-180 or something.

Well, you wouldn't have people #####ing about their unlucky match-ups in H2H.
Click to expand...
In one of my leagues, prize payouts go to the top 3 in H2H, total points and all-play record. So there's still the H2H competitiveness, but plenty of chances to win money if you have a good team but bad H2H luck.

 
tandl71 said:
Reprogram sites to allow in-game (or halftime) subbing/benching due to injury/performance.

Nothing like sitting down to an exciting day of Sunday football to see Calvin Johnson suddenly limping around the field at 1:10pm.
Click to expand...
I had thought about that before. Traditionally, a player is locked in or out of a FF lineup at kickoff, or five minutes before. What if it was 30 minutes after kickoff, or end of the first quarter, first half, etc... I haven't thought it through but on the surface that seems kind of like a compromise between traditional and best-ball.

 
Also, a lot of these "fixes" are for serious FF'ers. My oldest league is pretty casual, and most people would not go for most of these changes. Several of the guys don't even watch games - not religously, anyway.

 
Warrior said:
And if they make daily fantasy football illegal, which will probably happen fairly soon, it will get exponentially smaller overnight.

Daily fantasy football leagues will go the same route as online poker. I just hope they don't bring *real* fantasy football down with it.
Click to expand...
What gives you any indication that this is going to happen?

 
Ignoratio Elenchi said:
Warrior said:
And if they make daily fantasy football illegal, which will probably happen fairly soon, it will get exponentially smaller overnight.

Daily fantasy football leagues will go the same route as online poker. I just hope they don't bring *real* fantasy football down with it.
Click to expand...
What gives you any indication that this is going to happen?
Click to expand...
Yeah, serious investors have poured $150 million dollars into Fanduel and Draftkings over the last 12 months. I'm assuming they did their due diligence before cutting that nine-figure check. They seem to be happy betting that daily games will pass legal muster.

 
I'm in a league that allows RB, WR, TE, or QB at flex. Superflex, we call it in the biz. It's also PPR. So half the guys play it like a 2-QB league and the other half go more WR or RB heavy. Also lots of bonuses for 100+ and 200+ yards for rushing and receiving, 300+ yards passing, and TD plays over 50 yards. Not unusual for studs to score 40+ in a given week, and overall scores to top 200. This league has always been a blast to play, no less so because daily fantasy games exist. I'm on the fence about ever playing the daily games and leaning toward no.

 
Adam Harstad said:
Ignoratio Elenchi said:
Warrior said:
And if they make daily fantasy football illegal, which will probably happen fairly soon, it will get exponentially smaller overnight.

Daily fantasy football leagues will go the same route as online poker. I just hope they don't bring *real* fantasy football down with it.
Click to expand...
What gives you any indication that this is going to happen?
Click to expand...
Yeah, serious investors have poured $150 million dollars into Fanduel and Draftkings over the last 12 months. I'm assuming they did their due diligence before cutting that nine-figure check. They seem to be happy betting that daily games will pass legal muster.
Click to expand...
THis and this.

seems pretty strong to say it will be illegal soon without some kind of reasoning, article, link etc.

 
I've been thinking about starting a league where instead of submitting a starting lineup and picking a guy for the entire game, you start a guy for a half our a quarter. So you could play Maclin in the first half of his game, and Crabtree in the 2nd half of his game. Or you could play both in the first half or both in the second half, as long as it added up to 60 minutes for that spot.

An offshoot would be that you could sub players at the half, so if your guy is sucking in the first half, you can substitute him out for someone who still has a half to play.

I think that would be pretty cool.

 
You know what made fantasy football popular? The fact that you can be competitive without really doing much research or work. You don't have to be a diehard. Things like H2H games, half the teams in the league making the playoffs. Those are what made fantasy football work. The day long leagues have the same appeal. It doesn't matter how bad you screw up you still can win next week.

I think the best way to fix fantasy football is to include a bit more luck. Add more flex starters, maybe extra QBs. Make extra point events. 1 point per first down, 1 point per target, maybe your defense gets an extra point per 3 and out.

 
dagwood said:
voiceofunreason said:
Weekly leagues are a fad, most people will get bored of them really quickly. It's 99% luck in the short term. Nobody knows when a player is going to have a huge week.

The grind due to Thursday night games is getting old though. I miss being able to have waivers later in the week and have a break. I wasn't a big fan at first but best ball leagues are gaining in popularity. I think it's a viable answer, if somewhat flawed imo.
Click to expand...
Weekly leagues are not a fad. And if they legalize gambling across the US, this "fad" will get exponentially bigger overnight.
Click to expand...
Everyone has an opinion, but for me they are already boring. One argument I could agree with is it might cause people to lose interest in fantasy in general at a quicker rate.

Also the idea that gambling will become legalized everywhere and this will become huge is a really big leap. This really isn't happening.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
voiceofunreason said:
dagwood said:
voiceofunreason said:
Weekly leagues are a fad, most people will get bored of them really quickly. It's 99% luck in the short term. Nobody knows when a player is going to have a huge week.

The grind due to Thursday night games is getting old though. I miss being able to have waivers later in the week and have a break. I wasn't a big fan at first but best ball leagues are gaining in popularity. I think it's a viable answer, if somewhat flawed imo.
Click to expand...
Weekly leagues are not a fad. And if they legalize gambling across the US, this "fad" will get exponentially bigger overnight.
Click to expand...
Everyone has an opinion, but for me they are already boring. One argument I could agree with is it might cause people to lose interest in fantasy in general at a quicker rate.

Also the idea that gambling will become legalized everywhere and this will become huge is a really big leap. This really isn't happening.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what this has to do with legalizing gambling. Fantasy football is already legal AFAIK. And it's already huge. Sites like Fanduel are paying out ~$10 million a week during football season.

People might get bored of it at some point, I don't know. But right now it's big and still getting bigger.

 
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