Advice on implementing Home Field Advantage for the playoffs (1 Viewer)

Hey Gang! My league is looking to add a home field advantage rule for our playoffs this season. The rule we're looking to add is essentially:

The team with home field advantage chooses the lineup requirements (within the boundaries of our flex options) for both teams.

Basically, this means if the home team chooses to start QB/RB/WR/WR/WR/TE/PK/DT, then the other team must start a roster in that fashion as well.

What I'm looking for is how others who use this rule have actually implemented it - one thing that comes to mind is the timing - it seems obvious that the home team must state the lineup requirement far enough in advance for it to be far for the visiting team, however, that could wreak some havoc for late occurring injuries, scratches, etc. FWIW, we use MFL.

If you haven't ever used this rule, but still have some useful thoughts on what to consider thinking about, I would be grateful for the input. Telling me that it's a dumb or bad idea is irrelevant and will be ignored - the league has already voted to do it.

Thanks in advance!

I think 24 hours before kick off would be fine, although some would argue for 48. The problems arise with Thursday games/etc....

I believe the owner with the advantage must contact the opposing team if he wants to make a switch due to late scratches/injuries/etc...as long as the other team is notified(ideally through a phone call) and has the ability to adjust, it's all good.

I'd just give the team with HFA a 5 point head start instead, but it's your call...

Why not keep it simple? Vegas gives 3 points for home field... make it 2.5 instead. I would not want my starting line up dictated to me... in fact, that would really torque me off.

Rovers said:

Why not keep it simple? Vegas gives 3 points for home field... make it 2.5 instead. I would not want my starting line up dictated to me... in fact, that would really torque me off.

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This type of option was offered to the league - as I said in my post, the league did not vote for this option.

BoulderBob said:

I think 24 hours before kick off would be fine, although some would argue for 48. The problems arise with Thursday games/etc....I believe the owner with the advantage must contact the opposing team if he wants to make a switch due to late scratches/injuries/etc...as long as the other team is notified(ideally through a phone call) and has the ability to adjust, it's all good.I'd just give the team with HFA a 5 point head start instead, but it's your call...

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Great input. I like the idea of putting the responsibility for making it work in the hands of the home team. Maybe a 48 hour initial deadline, with the caveat that late changes may be made, but must first be approved in person (via phone) by the visiting team.

I'd say no later than the end of your unlocking of waivers (Tues/Wed/Thurs...whenever that is). I don't like the rule at all personally.

Best I've seen is regular season weekly avg. point difference as home field.

If you are going with this system (which I suspect your league will regret) you have to give the visitor time to make adjustments. I'd say by Tuesday.

We have a QB/RB/WR/TE flex that the home team gets to pick for each regular season and playoff game except the super bowl (neutral site). We have a hard Wednesday at 12:00 deadline for the flex to be posted on the league message board or the home team losses the advantage. If you start introducing phone calls and texts to the opponents to let them know about flex's you just get into technological problems with people texting at 11:55 and the away team not getting it till 12:05. There's no option to change it after the deadline because the away team may have made trades or free agent pick ups to try and improve their line up and we figured the risk of a late injury altering the home teams chances were just a part of the game.

We've had it for a few years now and really love it. It makes a teams depth play an important role especially at the QB position and historically the home team winning percentage wasn't very high (it was actually like 42% the first season) so it wasn't negatively affecting the outcomes, and it should by design improve the chances of owners who put time more time into the league.

Jersey35 said:

Telling me that it's a dumb or bad idea is irrelevant and will be ignored - the league has already voted to do it.

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That is dumb and a bad idea.

Jersey35 said:

BoulderBob said:

I think 24 hours before kick off would be fine, although some would argue for 48. The problems arise with Thursday games/etc....I believe the owner with the advantage must contact the opposing team if he wants to make a switch due to late scratches/injuries/etc...as long as the other team is notified(ideally through a phone call) and has the ability to adjust, it's all good.I'd just give the team with HFA a 5 point head start instead, but it's your call...

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Great input. I like the idea of putting the responsibility for making it work in the hands of the home team. Maybe a 48 hour initial deadline, with the caveat that late changes may be made, but must first be approved in person (via phone) by the visiting team.

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24 hours, 48 hours, game time decisions, touch base by phone, ouch! You will regret this rule. Just another example of people making the game needlessly complicated.I like the idea of home field since its puts a little more weight on the regular season which can be minimized in H2H format. I've played with fixed points and variable (2 points per win differential).

spider321 said:

That is dumb and a bad idea.

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It is NOT a dumb or bad idea....it is a completely ridiculous idea. Let us know in December what kind of F'd up situation develops.

sheckiec said:

spider321 said:

That is dumb and a bad idea.

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It is NOT a dumb or bad idea....it is a completely ridiculous idea. Let us know in December what kind of F'd up situation develops.

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I'm sort of interested to know why the consensus thinks this is a terrible idea. I had heard it a lot when I implemented for our dynasty league and we've yet to have any problems with it in the 2 years we've been using it. Personally I've always preferred this kind of plan to the arbitrary 2 to 3 points given to the home team each week that some leagues use. Is it that the deadlines are to close to games (which I agree with if you allow the home team to change it's mind right before kick off), or just the method of letting one team pick the flex?

I actually like that idea. As the home team, if your opponent is stacked at RB, you can force them to use a WR or TE at flex, therefore hurting their overall chances. That is the advantage of being the home team. I like it. It is kind of like the NL team having home field in the World Series and forcing the AL team to either sit their DH or put the DH somewhere in the field and benching an everyday starter.

millertyme1 said:

Best I've seen is regular season weekly avg. point difference as home field.

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This is the best way to do it imo.

That's an interesting wrinkle, and I sort of like it, although I have to say, yeah, the potential for things going wrong in terms of line-up changes and miscommunication between opponents seems pretty high.

And if that happens and you end up with a controversy ( "I said we'll be playing *two* tight ends!" "No you didn't!") when the championship is hanging in the balance, man, you'll be in a world of hurt!

Just for reference, in my league we have four teams make the playoffs and the team with the best regular season record gets to pick their first round opponent. We call that "home field advantage".

I think it would be cool for the #1 seed to be able to pick which team they play in the first round. Its not necessarily HF advantage because the #2 seed technically has it as well and wouldnt get to take part in this. But just throwing that out there as an option for your #1 seed. And maybe you could even factor it in, like #1 seed picks what team he faces and #2 seed receives a 2 pt cushion. Something simple, yet interesting.