I've played ff for several years but I'm going to start my own league this season.My initial idea is to have much larger starting rosters without getting into IDP. I think it gives a lot more options to build a great team, and you really have to hit on some sleepers to have a monster team.12 owners.2 qb3 rb5 wr2 te2 k2 d/stI was going to do a basic scoring system. Points awarded for return yards as well. I'm also thinking rosters will be tight...only 4 backups total. It would make things awfully difficult come bye weeks and would lead to a lot of waiver wire activity.Does anyone play in a league similar to this?Please give constructive criticism or just flame away. Either way I appreciate the help.ETA - Wasn't sure if this was the proper forum. If it's not, mods please move.
I created a league that is pretty similar, except using IDPs. Here is some feedback. While I definitely have my preferences, I'll try to just be objective about plusses and minuses and let you decide what you want to do from there. The biggest problem with having 2 starting QBs is that there are not enough NFL starting QBs. 4 teams at least won't have bye week fillers, and as some starters get demoted or hurt, a team might not even have 2 NFL starters. A way to negate the negatives without much downside is to make your 2nd QB a flex QB/RB. A #2 fantasy QB will almost always be a better option than a #4 fantasy RB... so it amounts to a 2nd QB slot as that is what everyone will want to start there, but gives flexibility on bye weeks or for bad injury situations that you're not taking a 0 in that spot.My league uses 1 QB, 2 RB, 1 flex QB/RB, 4 WR, 2 TE, 1 flex WR/TE (which is normally a WR), so is very similar to yours except that you have an extra RB. The 3rd RB slot will make RB be the most valuable position still though not as bad as standard lineup leagues. If some parity in value across positions is something you want, you might want to consider dropping the 3rd RB but keeping the rest the same. Also, having staggered PPR (like .25 RB, .5 WR, 1.0 TE) would also help the parity of TE and WR. In my league, the top TE would normally be a legitimate top 6 pick if we drafted (we don't, we auction).On your number of backups... small numbers of backups increases waiver transactions but decreases interaction between owners. That is, if backups are on rosters teams have to trade with each other. When the same desirable players who aren't starting are on waivers, no trades are needed. I tend to put a premium on interaction between owners since most of my leagues exist to bring my friends together and help us stay in touch. Also, one can make some arguments both ways on whether few backup spots help or hurt more skilled owners, but I think the hurting more skilled owners is what wins out. While there is skill necessary in juggling only a few spots... I think the bigger impact is that the skilled owner who can identify values in the draft/auction won't have roster space to be able to do anything with them and so will lose out to the guy who has to wait and see the player doing well during the season.On return yards, one idea that I went with and love is that we have a separate team kick return unit. While we have IDPs, you could still do the same separate from your team defense. It would get any punt or kick return yards and TDs, while your team D would get turnover points, yardage allowed, points allowed, etc.Other ideas there if you're looking for a larger league.... head coach position ,where you get points if your head coaches NFL team wins, and additional points for margin of victory. We go with 3 points for a win and 1 additional fantasy point for each 2 points in margin of victory. So a 10 point NFL win would be worth 8 fantasy points. A 30 point blow out would be worth 18. Nice thing about it is that it's an area where skill in predicting NFL success can really show through.Another idea is to add punters. After 4 seasons using them and a lot of thought I prefer just going with gross punting yards and not giving points for inside the 20. Reason there being predictability again... the punters on bad teams will tend to be the good fantasy punters, especially if you just have points for yards. But if you give inside the 20, it tends to lessen the gap between the top and bottom ones. We used to use 1/20 yardage but are changing to 1/25 because punters can have big variances in their weekly scores and I wanted to lessen their weekly impact a bit.The same comment about not being enough QBs for 2 QB also could apply to kickers. If you did like punters I could see going with a 1 K, 1 P, and 1 flex. Oh, and if you do go with punters, I suggest you make sure that kickers only get FG/PAT points and that punters only get punting points. If you have an NFL player who both punts and kicks it can make him one of the most valuable players in the league if you allowed them both points. Normally I allow any player to get points for anything he does, but this is one place I make an exception.