8-team league (1 Viewer)

[BroncoFreak_2K3]

I want to try to set an 8-team league that is a bit on the unconventional side, is fun and competitive. I've done just about every league setup you can think of i the past 15 years of playing fantasy, and I'm a bit burned out with the more conventional 10-12 team setups. Those that have played in or run 8 team leagues, what setups/concepts have you found that allow for good competition throughout the year?

 

[Sabertooth]

All play format might be interesting.

 

[Stinkin Ref]

never been in one.....but

you could go with 3 starting QB's...it would mean on some bye weeks almost every QB playing would be starting in your league...

heck maybe go with 3 starting players at every position...

would increase the value of PK/DST/TE at your draft....and bye week balance would be huge..

 

[Monty Burns]

large starting lineups like 2/3/4/1/1/1 and maybe even add in a flex spot (or 2)....

 

[Papa Schnay]

What about doubling the starting lineup requirements so that you have 2 qbs, 4 rbs, 4-6 wrs, 2 tes, etc...

 

[FF Ninja]

It's pretty easy. It is all in roster manipulation. If you like the depth/roster strengths of a 12-man league then use whatever roster settings you have there and proportion them out to an 8-team league. For instance, if you are used to 3WR then take 3x12=36. 36/8 = 4.5. So now you just make a call on if you'd rather have 4 or 5 WR. Maybe balance it out with other positions. 2x12=24/8 = 3RB. 1x12/8= 1.5 TE. So maybe you have 4WR and 2 TE or 4WR, 1TE, and 1TE/WR. You should definitely go 2QB, though. With only 8 teams, everybody can easily roster 3 starters with starters available on the WW.

Keep in mind you should probably have deep benches so that you don't get stuck with starting caliber people sitting on the WW. If your normal 12 team league has, for example, 9 starters and 6 bench players, take 15x12=180/8 = 22.5. So your starters + bench positions should add up to 22 or 23.

8-10 team leagues with standard lineup sizes are not worth playing. But if you expand the rosters then they become much more interesting.

 

[[icon]]

What everyone else said.

I also like to add flex spots in.

In our office 10 Team Money Leauge:

QB

RB RB

WR WR WR

W/R/T - W/R/T (flex)

TE

PK

DEF

You build a deeper team and use Flex plays to enhance flexibility. For an 8 Teamer I'd DEFINITELY add a second QB and maybe DEF as well.

 

[Coin Flip]

I run one................it has WILD SCORING............beefed up some areas

Must start 2 QBs and 2 Defs since its only 8 teams this makes the value of those positions nice.

We have 15 starters weekly

Lots of points going to be scored in my 8 teamer. I can always adjust next year if I dont like it.

 

[BroncoFreak_2K3]

Yes, the larger starting lineup format I get, and good suggestions here to choose from...I think I would like the WW to come into play in some fashion on a weekly basis, but not have it be loaded with studs all the time.

Any unconventional scoring setups that would keep the interest up?

MFL.com now allows online live Auction drafts, so I want to incorporate this also. So for example, if we are an 8 team league with say 20 player rosters, what would be a good auction salary cap $ per team amount to go with?

 

[Stinkin Ref]

Yes, the larger starting lineup format I get, and good suggestions here to choose from...I think I would like the WW to come into play in some fashion on a weekly basis, but not have it be loaded with studs all the time.

Any unconventional scoring setups that would keep the interest up?

MFL.com now allows online live Auction drafts, so I want to incorporate this also. So for example, if we are an 8 team league with say 20 player rosters, what would be a good auction salary cap $ per team amount to go with?

sometimes you can really manipulate the scoring for defenses to make them more valuable....defenses are a big part of real football, yet in fantasy they are often neglected as far as impacting the score of a matchup each week....

 

[Jason Wood]

I was in an 8-team league for years, and it was fun. As others have said, the ownership has to be knowledgeable and engaged, and you have to think about the league parameters, but it's still a blast. We had 2 starting QBs, and you could use a third QB in your Utility. We also had 2 RB / 3 WR and 2 Flex, and we had extremely detailed performance scoring that had bonuses for all measure of accomplishments.

 

[Donsmith753]

If you want unconventional how about this. Take the top 30% of scorers from each position last year and make them unavailable for drafting. Means you can have normal sized rosters without teams full of studs.

 

[BroncoFreak_2K3]

Just gauging opinions...for an 8 team league with 2 QBs, 3 RBs, 4 WRs, 2 TEs, 1 FLEX (RB, WR, TE), 1 K, and 2 DEFs starting, would it be more fun to have higher scores, or lower score, like that try to stay in the 100 pts range or less weekly? Im going with PPR, but wonder if I need to split the performance scoring criteria for QBs in half in order to keep things somewhat relative across all positions, because we will be starting 2 QBs. I don't want to get too radical with scoring, but I want it different that more traditional scoring setups out there. Thanks for all the suggestions so far.

 

[BroncoFreak_2K3]

If you want unconventional how about this. Take the top 30% of scorers from each position last year and make them unavailable for drafting. Means you can have normal sized rosters without teams full of studs.

Can you explain this further??

 

[Sweet Love]

This would be an administrative nightmare to keep track of, but I have been thinking about a league like this for a while: Limit the amount of starts per player (for arguement sake, say 8 starts). The draft would most likely go "normal", but lets say you own Ray Rice and he is going against the Jets D...do you start him? In traditional leagues, the only "penalty" would be low points. Now you not only have to consider low points, but also a "wasted game" by one of your studs. you could draft Rice and decide not to trot him out until week 5, or you could burn his 8 starts at the begining of the season, knowing you can drop him for a WW player and NO ONE can pick him up (well they could) because his "starts" have been used up. The strategy behind it would cater to addicted dorks like us, and you would really have to forecast your potential starting players weeks out.

 

[-jb-]

Two guys screwed us in a start-up dynasty league (quit 10 min before draft), so we rolled with 8. I will say that no matter what you do, it's never going to be as volatile/exciting as a larger league, but this is what we have in order to make it more competitive from a player selection perspective:

Start

QB

QB

RB

RB

RB

WR

WR

WR

WR

FLEX

TE

PK

ST

DL

DL

LB

LB

CB

CB

More opportunities to get a leg up on your opponents.

 

[Lehigh98]

Add some mandatory roster shuffling which would also make the WW more interesting.

For example, every week you must drop one of your drafted players.

By the end of the year everyone would have almost a completely different team.

Could add the caveat that dropping and readding someone (if you had a high WW#) counts.

As you get into dropping your better guys, you're sweating if they'd make it back to your waiver pick.

One problem I see though is if you do alot of trading you may run out of guys you drafted.

Maybe that means you don't have to drop any more and will also spur on trading as well.

Just spitballing and haven't really thought it through.

 

[Lehigh98]

Draft a "multiplier". Could use NFL teams or college teams.

Anyone on your fantasy squad from that team gets 2x points.

 

[roadkill1292]

If you want unconventional how about this. Take the top 30% of scorers from each position last year and make them unavailable for drafting. Means you can have normal sized rosters without teams full of studs.

Can you explain this further??

Basically it's one way to limit the player pool so each team winds up with a "normal" balance of great-to-mediocre rosters. Another alternative for accomplishing this would be to eliminate a certain percentage of the NFL from being part of the player pool, like making players from the AFC North and NFC West (to randomly pick two examples) ineligible to be on rosters. Or the eight owners could hold a "draft" where they take turns picking NFL teams to stock their player pool until they've gotten to 20 or 24, whatever they think might work best.By doing something like this, you don't have to come up with monster starting lineups. You can play pretty much like a 12- or 14-team league does.

 

[smackdaddies]

play NFC or AFC only - half the owners, half the pool to draft from

 

[GregR_2]

8-team league need ideas to make it fun

Am I the first to suggest adding 4 more teams?

 

[BroncoFreak_2K3]

This would be an administrative nightmare to keep track of, but I have been thinking about a league like this for a while: Limit the amount of starts per player (for arguement sake, say 8 starts). The draft would most likely go "normal", but lets say you own Ray Rice and he is going against the Jets D...do you start him? In traditional leagues, the only "penalty" would be low points. Now you not only have to consider low points, but also a "wasted game" by one of your studs. you could draft Rice and decide not to trot him out until week 5, or you could burn his 8 starts at the begining of the season, knowing you can drop him for a WW player and NO ONE can pick him up (well they could) because his "starts" have been used up. The strategy behind it would cater to addicted dorks like us, and you would really have to forecast your potential starting players weeks out.

This is interesting...hmmm. Im running the league off MFL.com. There may be a way to track number of starts on there...ETA: yep, I can track this week to week automatically on MFL.com...cool. thanks for the suggestion.

 

[BroncoFreak_2K3]

If you want unconventional how about this. Take the top 30% of scorers from each position last year and make them unavailable for drafting. Means you can have normal sized rosters without teams full of studs.

Can you explain this further??

Basically it's one way to limit the player pool so each team winds up with a "normal" balance of great-to-mediocre rosters. Another alternative for accomplishing this would be to eliminate a certain percentage of the NFL from being part of the player pool, like making players from the AFC North and NFC West (to randomly pick two examples) ineligible to be on rosters. Or the eight owners could hold a "draft" where they take turns picking NFL teams to stock their player pool until they've gotten to 20 or 24, whatever they think might work best.By doing something like this, you don't have to come up with monster starting lineups. You can play pretty much like a 12- or 14-team league does.

ahh gotcha.

 

[Jeff Pasquino]

I want to try to set an 8-team league that is a bit on the unconventional side, is fun and competitive. I've done just about every league setup you can think of i the past 15 years of playing fantasy, and I'm a bit burned out with the more conventional 10-12 team setups. Those that have played in or run 8 team leagues, what setups/concepts have you found that allow for good competition throughout the year?

#1 2QBs start#2 2QBs start

 

[Lash]

ok, gonna take a little to let this sink in but it is by far the funnest league i have run as a commish

8 owner league

16 teams

each owner owns TWO teams

two divisions

each owner owns ONE team in each division

one division made up of ENTIRELY AFC players

one division made up of ENTIRELY NFC players

each division ONLY plays teams in that same division during the year

top four in each division make playoffs

each divison gets a playoff winner from that divion then the next week is the superbowl so weeks 14/15/16 are playoffs

theoretically you could play yourself in superbowl (although never came close to happening in the 5 years we ran this so far)

only REAL quirky thing is that in offseason or even during season if a player changes conferences in NFL you have to give him to your other owned team in the separate division in the fantasy league

obviously you cant trade with opposite division and one thing that commish will have to monitor is the "if you help my stacked AFC team win it's division with a trade i'll trade you something for your NFC stacked team to help them win"

so we made a rule that owners could only trade with each other within ONE of the divisions during any given year to stop even the hint of the quoted sentence above taking place

 

[BroncoFreak_2K3]

ok, gonna take a little to let this sink in but it is by far the funnest league i have run as a commish8 owner league16 teamseach owner owns TWO teamstwo divisionseach owner owns ONE team in each divisionone division made up of ENTIRELY AFC playersone division made up of ENTIRELY NFC playerseach division ONLY plays teams in that same division during the yeartop four in each division make playoffseach divison gets a playoff winner from that divion then the next week is the superbowl so weeks 14/15/16 are playoffstheoretically you could play yourself in superbowl (although never came close to happening in the 5 years we ran this so far)only REAL quirky thing is that in offseason or even during season if a player changes conferences in NFL you have to give him to your other owned team in the separate division in the fantasy leagueobviously you cant trade with opposite division and one thing that commish will have to monitor is the "if you help my stacked AFC team win it's division with a trade i'll trade you something for your NFC stacked team to help them win"so we made a rule that owners could only trade with each other within ONE of the divisions during any given year to stop even the hint of the quoted sentence above taking place

This would actually be fun with a bunch of fantasy geeks.

 

[Lash]

ok, gonna take a little to let this sink in but it is by far the funnest league i have run as a commish8 owner league16 teamseach owner owns TWO teamstwo divisionseach owner owns ONE team in each divisionone division made up of ENTIRELY AFC playersone division made up of ENTIRELY NFC playerseach division ONLY plays teams in that same division during the yeartop four in each division make playoffseach divison gets a playoff winner from that divion then the next week is the superbowl so weeks 14/15/16 are playoffstheoretically you could play yourself in superbowl (although never came close to happening in the 5 years we ran this so far)only REAL quirky thing is that in offseason or even during season if a player changes conferences in NFL you have to give him to your other owned team in the separate division in the fantasy leagueobviously you cant trade with opposite division and one thing that commish will have to monitor is the "if you help my stacked AFC team win it's division with a trade i'll trade you something for your NFC stacked team to help them win"so we made a rule that owners could only trade with each other within ONE of the divisions during any given year to stop even the hint of the quoted sentence above taking place

This would actually be fun with a bunch of fantasy geeks.

oh and MFL pulls this off easilywe just named our teams for example: Lash-AFC and Lash-NFCand you have to pay attention when drafting that the owner chooses the correct conference picks 1.01 thru 1.08 were AFC and picks 1.09 thru 1.16 were NFCeach conference picked in reverse order for fairness so if you got the 1.01 then you'd get the last pick in the other