Divisions for 12 team league (1 Viewer)

houston · Aug 16, 2016

What's your preferred format? What format gives a decent team the best odds to get into the playoffs?

4 divisions of 3 teams makes for a nice balanced 13 game schedule, where the division rivals play identical schedules. Less likely here that the top 6 teams make playoffs, as one of the 4 division champs will often be a bad team.

1 division works, but doesn't create any type of division rivalry.

fcreature · Aug 17, 2016

We use 3 Divisions of 4 teams each. We have 4 playoff teams - the 3 Division winners and a Wild Card, which is the team with the most Total Points Scored. This helps to eliminate some of the scheduling bad luck. Division opponents play each other twice, and everyone else once. It's worked pretty well for us over the years.

Ilov80s · Aug 17, 2016

If you divisions, make sure you rotate them each year. I was in a league with 3 divisions of 4 teams and my division had the three best players. The divisions never changed. It got very frustrating (but there were some great rivalries).

Ruffrodys05 · Aug 17, 2016

My league uses 3 divisions of 4 teams. Play division opponents twice, the rest once. 14 week schedule, 3 weeks of playoffs. 6 teams make playoffs; 3 division winners and next 3 best records. We have tiebreakers in place to slot playoff teams. Every team schedule goes; non, non, div, div, div, non, non, non, non, non, non, div, div, div.

Schedules change every year. We shake up the divisions every 3 years based on 3-year combined regular season records of each team. Divisions realign based on ranking the combined records thusly; North: 1, 4, 7, 10. Central: 2, 5, 8, 11. South: 3, 6, 9, 12.

houston · Aug 17, 2016

Ruffrodys05 said:
My league uses 3 divisions of 4 teams. Play division opponents twice, the rest once. 14 week schedule, 3 weeks of playoffs. 6 teams make playoffs; 3 division winners and next 3 best records. We have tiebreakers in place to slot playoff teams. Every team schedule goes; non, non, div, div, div, non, non, non, non, non, non, div, div, div.

Schedules change every year. We shake up the divisions every 3 years based on 3-year combined regular season records of each team. Divisions realign based on ranking the combined records thusly; North: 1, 4, 7, 10. Central: 2, 5, 8, 11. South: 3, 6, 9, 12.

Interesting on the realign. You might to rethink the number balance though. North = 22, central = 26, south = 30.

houston · Aug 17, 2016

I do like 3 div w 4 teams each, but don't like that you have to stretch the reg season into week 14 in order to play div rivals 2x plus all other teams 1x. Forces a week 17 title game if a 6 team playoff.

NFL needs to add a week 18!

Ruffrodys05 · Aug 17, 2016

houston said:
Interesting on the realign. You might to rethink the number balance though. North = 22, central = 26, south = 30.

I think you misinterpreted my process, maybe I wasn't clear enough.

After adding up each teams combined 3-year regular season records I then rank them 1-12. After ranking the teams they are slotted into divisions based on 3-year combined records ranking. Hence; Div A consists of teams ranked: 1, 4, 7, 10. Div B: 2, 5, 8, 11. Div C: 3, 6, 9, 12.

This process ensures that the 3 top teams over that 3-year stretch will not be in the same division.

As far as the 14 week regular season and playoffs through week 17......oh well. Better be prepared to make that run. Yes, it's difficult for various reasons. But, we like a challenge. Nobody has ever complained. We like it. It's tough to win a title. But every team faces this "quandry" at the end of the year and it makes for interesting trades down the stretch. We also allow trades and waivers up until the start of week 17.

No, this is not for everyone. I understand most folks don't like Championships in week 17. I understand most folks don't like trades and waivers being open all year.

Dope · Aug 17, 2016

3 divisions of 4 team like everyone said.

4 teams make playoffs...3 div winners and one wildcard

14 game schedule...2x your three division opponents (that's 6) and 1x vs everyone else (that's the other 8 games)

Playoffs week 15 and 16.

We do the divisions every year by draft order pick

Div 1 = picks 1,4,9,10

Div 2 = picks 2,5,8,11

Div 3 = picks 3,6,7,12

Jrodicus · Aug 17, 2016

houston said:
What's your preferred format? What format gives a decent team the best odds to get into the playoffs?

4 divisions of 3 teams makes for a nice balanced 13 game schedule, where the division rivals play identical schedules. Less likely here that the top 6 teams make playoffs, as one of the 4 division champs will often be a bad team.

1 division works, but doesn't create any type of division rivalry.

In one of my leagues with 3 divisions of 4 teams, I won the division with a record of 5-8. I started the year 4-3 but went 1-5 the rest of the way, losing to 4 non-playoff teams (and almost losing to the worst team in the league. This league does not use victory point scoring,

The "best" team to not make the playoffs was 6-7, so it's not like they were a stellar team anyway. I ended up winning the 'ship, and 2 other teams from my division, with records of 4-9 and 5-8, ended up making the final game of the loser's bracket.

In another league with 2 divisions of 6, 4 of the playoff teams came from 1 division, and they each had more victory points than the winner of the other division - who got a 1st round bye. There were teams in the lesser division that had better records, but the victory point scoring evened things out.

So...things happen. I wouldn't worry too much about having one the division winners being a "bad" team because that can happen anyway. The best thing to do, imo, to try and ensure the best teams make the playoffs is to go by victory points.

Ghost Rider · Aug 17, 2016

A decent team shouldn't get better odds to make the playoffs. Only the best teams should make the playoffs. 12 teams, no divisions, and top 4 make the playoffs after a 14-week season. That is the best way to go.

Jrodicus · Aug 17, 2016

Ghost Rider said:
A decent team shouldn't get better odds to make the playoffs. Only the best teams should make the playoffs. 12 teams, no divisions, and top 4 make the playoffs after a 14-week season. That is the best way to go.

Any double-header or all-play weeks in there?

If not, then that set-up becomes a bit of luck of the draw on who you play twice.

Cowboysfan8 · Aug 17, 2016

houston said:
What's your preferred format? What format gives a decent team the best odds to get into the playoffs?

1 division works, but doesn't create any type of division rivalry.

The way to get the best teams in the playoffs consistently in my experience is 1 division

Ghost Rider · Aug 17, 2016

Jrodicus said:
Any double-header or all-play weeks in there?

If not, then that set-up becomes a bit of luck of the draw on who you play twice.

Yes. Play two or even three opponents a week, which cuts down on the luck factor a bit. With that system, the best teams will likely finish at the top.

Having 6 or 8 teams in the playoffs in a 12-team league is pure silliness.

Jrodicus · Aug 17, 2016

Ghost Rider said:
Yes. Play two or even three opponents a week, which cuts down on the luck factor a bit. With that system, the best teams will likely finish at the top.

Having 6 or 8 teams in the playoffs in a 12-team league is pure silliness.

All-play every week, imo, is the best system for making sure that the top 4 teams make it.

However, it also isn't as much fun. Divisions provide more of a rivalry, h2h matchups provide more banter, and trying to beat 1 player instead of the field can alter strategy.

At the end of the day, for me anyway, it is about finding some sort of happy medium between what is fairest and what is the most fun.

Pwingles · Aug 17, 2016

fcreature said:
We use 3 Divisions of 4 teams each. We have 4 playoff teams - the 3 Division winners and a Wild Card, which is the team with the most Total Points Scored. This helps to eliminate some of the scheduling bad luck. Division opponents play each other twice, and everyone else once. It's worked pretty well for us over the years.

Ilov80s said:
If you divisions, make sure you rotate them each year. I was in a league with 3 divisions of 4 teams and my division had the three best players. The divisions never changed. It got very frustrating (but there were some great rivalries).

this is how my dynos work, its works well

Dope · Aug 17, 2016

Jrodicus said:
All-play every week, imo, is the best system for making sure that the top 4 teams make it.

However, it also isn't as much fun. Divisions provide more of a rivalry, h2h matchups provide more banter, and trying to beat 1 player instead of the field can alter strategy.

At the end of the day, for me anyway, it is about finding some sort of happy medium between what is fairest and what is the most fun.

This.

All-Play every week is the best possible way to ensure the best teams make it. It's also the least fun.

The banter. The increased pressure in a late season division game against a guy you are tie with...that's why I play this game.

houston · Aug 17, 2016

Ruffrodys05 said:
I think you misinterpreted my process, maybe I wasn't clear enough.

After adding up each teams combined 3-year regular season records I then rank them 1-12. After ranking the teams they are slotted into divisions based on 3-year combined records ranking. Hence; Div A consists of teams ranked: 1, 4, 7, 10. Div B: 2, 5, 8, 11. Div C: 3, 6, 9, 12.

This process ensures that the 3 top teams over that 3-year stretch will not be in the same division.

No, you made sense. I was just saying that your divisions aren't as balanced as you think. Your team with the 3rd best record has a much easier division that the 1st best record team. Not sure you intended to do that.

[icon] · Aug 17, 2016

I've set up pretty much every one of my leagues the same:
12 teams - 1 division
top 6 teams make playoffs with 1/2 seeds getting bye's into the second round.

I've played in leagues with divisions before... sucked seeing lesser teams make it into the playoffs because they played in a weak division.

superbigpimping420 · Aug 17, 2016

Ruffrodys05 said:
I think you misinterpreted my process, maybe I wasn't clear enough.

After adding up each teams combined 3-year regular season records I then rank them 1-12. After ranking the teams they are slotted into divisions based on 3-year combined records ranking. Hence; Div A consists of teams ranked: 1, 4, 7, 10. Div B: 2, 5, 8, 11. Div C: 3, 6, 9, 12.

This process ensures that the 3 top teams over that 3-year stretch will not be in the same division.

As far as the 14 week regular season and playoffs through week 17......oh well. Better be prepared to make that run. Yes, it's difficult for various reasons. But, we like a challenge. Nobody has ever complained. We like it. It's tough to win a title. But every team faces this "quandry" at the end of the year and it makes for interesting trades down the stretch. We also allow trades and waivers up until the start of week 17.

No, this is not for everyone. I understand most folks don't like Championships in week 17. I understand most folks don't like trades and waivers being open all year.

I am with houston. He does not have a problem understanding you. But, the divisional reshuffling would be more equal if you mixed up the rankings instead of always putting the 3rd best team in Division C. Which is unarguably (sorry this is just math, no feelings involved) a weaker collection of teams when compared to Division A.

This would be a more equivalent way to mix the divisions: A (1,5,8,12) B (2,4,9,11) C (3,6,7,10)

To explain: Once you have your list of teams ranked 1 through 12 (based on a 3 yr cumulative regular season record), lets break those 12 teams into 4 groups. Group W : [ 1,2,3] Group X : [ 4,5,6] Group Y: [7,8,9] and Group Z: [10,11,12] Now, lets assume that each of these three groups represents a group that is statistically proven to be similar in performance, that the team with the lowest number in each group is also the team from each group that is the best performer, and furthermore that the entire purpose of this exercise is to balance the power of the league across each division as much as possible. If we take 1,4,7, and 10 and put them into the same division ( as your method does) then you are taking the most powerful member of each group and forming a division of the most powerful teams from their respective group. If you wanted to optimally balance the power you would distribute the members from each group into the divisions in an alternating pattern to ensure that no division represents more top performers or lower performers from across the different groups. How do we do this?

Make sure that each division has an average rank of the 2nd ranked team from each group:

A( W1 X2 Y2 Z3 )

B( W2 X1 Y3 Z2 )

C( W3 X3 Y1 Z1 )

identikit · Aug 17, 2016

Divisionless is the answer.

Ruffrodys05 · Aug 17, 2016

superbigpimping420 said:
I am with houston. He does not have a problem understanding you. But, the divisional reshuffling would be more equal if you mixed up the rankings instead of always putting the 3rd best team in Division C. Which is unarguably (sorry this is just math, no feelings involved) a weaker collection of teams when compared to Division A.

This would be a more equivalent way to mix the divisions: A (1,5,8,12) B (2,4,9,11) C (3,6,7,10)

To explain: Once you have your list of teams ranked 1 through 12 (based on a 3 yr cumulative regular season record), lets break those 12 teams into 4 groups. Group W : [ 1,2,3] Group X : [ 4,5,6] Group Y: [7,8,9] and Group Z: [10,11,12] Now, lets assume that each of these three groups represents a group that is statistically proven to be similar in performance, that the team with the lowest number in each group is also the team from each group that is the best performer, and furthermore that the entire purpose of this exercise is to balance the power of the league across each division as much as possible. If we take 1,4,7, and 10 and put them into the same division ( as your method does) then you are taking the most powerful member of each group and forming a division of the most powerful teams from their respective group. If you wanted to optimally balance the power you would distribute the members from each group into the divisions in an alternating pattern to ensure that no division represents more top performers or lower performers from across the different groups. How do we do this?

Make sure that each division has an average rank of the 2nd ranked team from each group:

A( W1 X2 Y2 Z3 )

B( W2 X1 Y3 Z2 )

C( W3 X3 Y1 Z1 )

It's cool. I was just responding to OP about what other leagues did. While you are right about strength of teams per division.....it is what my guys voted on. Wasn't my solution, but it's what they wanted. Thanks for yours and houston's input, it's appreciated.

superbigpimping420 · Aug 17, 2016

Ruffrodys05 said:
It's cool. I was just responding to OP about what other leagues did. While you are right about strength of teams per division.....it is what my guys voted on. Wasn't my solution, but it's what they wanted. Thanks for yours and houston's input, it's appreciated.

no worries. I'm kind of a nerd. and saw an opportunity for math.

Divisions for 12 team league (1 Viewer)

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