Dynasty Division Realignment? (1 Viewer)

[CBower4545]

We are moving are re-draft league to a dynasty league this season. It will be 12 teams and three divisions. A new idea has been proposed.Instead of having our divisions selected and then "locked" for the course of the league, we could realign the division based upon record of the previous season after each season. 1-4 in one division, 5-8 in the next, and 9 - 12 in the last. So far it has been met with mixed reviews. One owner strongly opposes it. He believes it penalizes successful teams too much, and he likes the idea of creating rivalries via being "locked" in direct competition. The argument for is that rivalries are created by more then just being stuck in the same division. They have and will continue to develop on their own as a league progress with or without "locked" divisions. Six teams make the playoffs in our league, so regardless of the divisional draw if your team is good enough to make the playoffs it will make the playoffs. This realignment throws a bone to the bottom teams. One of the bottom four teams will now be guaranteed a playoff spot, although there seeding will be based on their record.

It prevents the dynasty from becoming too much like baseball. Where the best team is not necessarily guaranteed anything but the bottom teams never can make the playoffs. If this gets to the point that these teams enter the season with no hope for the playoffs their interest will fade away. being realigned with other bottom teams will give every team a reason to hope for the next season. It gives the best teams a little extra challenge for the new year. Now each team can put their bragging rights to the test against last years best.

I just hoping to get some of the opinions of those here. Good idea? or Bad idea? experience?

 

[Anthony Borbely]

It prevents the dynasty from becoming too much like baseball. Where the best team is not necessarily guaranteed anything but the bottom teams never can make the playoffs. If this gets to the point that these teams enter the season with no hope for the playoffs their interest will fade away. being realigned with other bottom teams will give every team a reason to hope for the next season. It gives the best teams a little extra challenge for the new year. Now each team can put their bragging rights to the test against last years best. I just hoping to get some of the opinions of those here. Good idea? or Bad idea? experience?

I say too bad for the non playoff teams. They should not get any benefits to losing, such as getting to be in a division with the other losers. If they want to make the playoffs they need to do a better job of managing. This is grossly unfair to the good owners.

 

[fsufan]

my main dynasty league of ten years went from a keeper(2) to a full dynasty league in the leagues 3rd year. I recommend you make sure you have 11 other owners who LOVE the dynasty format. I found, If owner's teams become weak from one year to the other they will get disinterested and quite. I find I am having to find replacement owner(s) about every 4 years.

 

[12thMan]

I play in a similar league, 12 teams and 3 divisions. Each year the league divisions get realigned based upon prior year finish.

I personally like the idea as it provides hope to even the worst team having a chance. To this point a team in the bottom division has not made the superbowl. THis format does keep it interesting as it provides a team that is rebuilding to gage their progress. As mentioned before, the key thing is to have owners who understand the dynasty format and will stick around. As for rivalries, we play each team in our division twice and all the other teams once. With the same owners every year, you know who your competition is and a rivalry does exist.

 

[sos32]

I play in a similar league, 12 teams and 3 divisions. Each year the league divisions get realigned based upon prior year finish.I personally like the idea as it provides hope to even the worst team having a chance. To this point a team in the bottom division has not made the superbowl. THis format does keep it interesting as it provides a team that is rebuilding to gage their progress. As mentioned before, the key thing is to have owners who understand the dynasty format and will stick around. As for rivalries, we play each team in our division twice and all the other teams once. With the same owners every year, you know who your competition is and a rivalry does exist.

12 teams, 3 divisions? How do you schedule playoffs? Wildcard teams? Please explain

 

[zed2283]

I think this is an ok idea for redraft but NOT for dynasty. It is very unfair to the better teams. As has been said, if you make sure you have the right owners, losing interest should not be an issue.

 

[Bob Henry]

In the dynasty league I've run for 15 years we changed our approach to this a few years ago. Instead of realigning the division by order of finish (which can vary drastically from the actual strength of the teams due to scheduling and whether a team gets hot/cold in the playoffs). We now realign our divisions each year based on total points.

The teams finishing 1, 4, 7 and 10 go in the first division. Teams 2, 5, 8 and 11 in the next one and so on. We also play a custom schedule with designated divisional weeks (the last three weeks of the season are divisional games, sort of like a divisional round robin prior to the playoffs). There are 5 divisional games and then each team plays every other non-divisional team once.

The team you play just once in your division depends on your finish in total points and team number. Team 1 plays teams 4 and 7 twice each, but team 10 just once. This is similar to how the NFL weighs their scheduling in that the better teams only face the worst team in their division once (helping the worst team at the same time).

It's worked well for us and we've used this scheduling technique for over 10 years now without any issues.

Good luck!

 

[easy like sunday morning]

I am in a 10 team dynasty league. We switch the divisions every 3 years. This allows for rivalries over the 3 year period. I wouldn't want to put the bottom 5 teams in one division though. The year we mix up the divisions we allow the 2 Super Bowl teams from the year before to pick the divisions. The Super Bowl winner gets the 1st pick. This seems to keep things even.

 

[Sleeper 43]

We are moving are re-draft league to a dynasty league this season. It will be 12 teams and three divisions. A new idea has been proposed.Instead of having our divisions selected and then "locked" for the course of the league, we could realign the division based upon record of the previous season after each season. 1-4 in one division, 5-8 in the next, and 9 - 12 in the last. So far it has been met with mixed reviews. One owner strongly opposes it. He believes it penalizes successful teams too much, and he likes the idea of creating rivalries via being "locked" in direct competition. The argument for is that rivalries are created by more then just being stuck in the same division. They have and will continue to develop on their own as a league progress with or without "locked" divisions. Six teams make the playoffs in our league, so regardless of the divisional draw if your team is good enough to make the playoffs it will make the playoffs. This realignment throws a bone to the bottom teams. One of the bottom four teams will now be guaranteed a playoff spot, although there seeding will be based on their record.It prevents the dynasty from becoming too much like baseball. Where the best team is not necessarily guaranteed anything but the bottom teams never can make the playoffs. If this gets to the point that these teams enter the season with no hope for the playoffs their interest will fade away. being realigned with other bottom teams will give every team a reason to hope for the next season. It gives the best teams a little extra challenge for the new year. Now each team can put their bragging rights to the test against last years best. I just hoping to get some of the opinions of those here. Good idea? or Bad idea? experience?

If anything new rules are brought in to balance play , not give the guppies a free ride to an easy schedule.I understand the rivalry thing but I think a good balance may be to mix up divisions every 3/5 years. I think this way you can experience the rivalry thing and at the same time develop new friends and foes after the mixup. Also coming from the other side of the coin, Im in a couple Dynasty's where my division is clearly the best and every year someone goes home that woulda moved on in another division,... its frustrating watching scrubs move on in the playoffs.

 

[Ketamine Dreams]

We have a ten team dynasty league and divisions stay the same. It makes a difference in trading. You play the teams in your own division two times a year, and from the other division once a year. THe worst team gets the 1st rookie/free agent pick, the next worst #2 etc. THe 1-4 picks are determined by power rankings (it's on CBS Sportsline), which combines total points, record, and breakdown record. Tanking is not allowed. The two teams who make the playoffs but lose in the first round play each other for the 5/6 picks, with the winner of a best of three matchup getting the higher pick. RIght now one division is stronger than the other, but if you win your division you get a week 1 playoff bye, so in-essence, only have to win two games to win it all. Seems pretty fair....

 

[CBower4545]

I play in a similar league, 12 teams and 3 divisions. Each year the league divisions get realigned based upon prior year finish.I personally like the idea as it provides hope to even the worst team having a chance. To this point a team in the bottom division has not made the superbowl. THis format does keep it interesting as it provides a team that is rebuilding to gage their progress. As mentioned before, the key thing is to have owners who understand the dynasty format and will stick around. As for rivalries, we play each team in our division twice and all the other teams once. With the same owners every year, you know who your competition is and a rivalry does exist.

12 teams, 3 divisions? How do you schedule playoffs? Wildcard teams? Please explain

The #1 and #2 teams get a bye. The other four teams play in the wildcard games. The winner's advance to play the top seeds in week 15.

 

[Lash]

here is what we do:

12 team 3 division

we random draw every year

top three seeds get put in separate divisions, then draw the rest

just like world cup soccer

this was actually brought up by some bottom dwellers ... for about 3 or 4 years in a row two of the top 3 kept getting in the same division randomly and with only 4 playoff teams the two other owners in that division were SOL which they said was not fair

but the FAIREST way to do it is NO DIVISONS

nothing sucks worse than headtohead being 9-5 in a division with two 10-4's and watch another division won by a 6-8 team (true story)

 

[jpeeters]

Our Keep 7 league (close enough) just changed to a 3-year realignment cycle ourselves. This after we had a team go 5-8 and win their division last year, plus one division had just dominated everybody else over the last two seasons. We have 12 teams, 4 divisions each, and we realign based upon the cumulative Power Rankings (what would happen if everybody played everybody every week) we get on Fanball. The divisions are equally mapped out (1, 6, 12 in one division, 2, 7, 10 in another, etc.) and set that way for 3 years. Made for some interesting new divisions, especially mine where last year's Super Bowl participants ended up in the same division (I won last year, but had a poor season the year before that dropped me down to 6th over the last three). Should be interesting going forward.

 

[UFFLCommish]

Our dynasty league realigns divisions every other year.

 

[mozzy84]

we just random redraw every year

I dont like the idea of putting all the good teams in one division myself.

 

[steinre1]

We started something in my dynasty league a couple of years ago. It is a 16 team league (2 conferences, 4 divisions of 4). We make our divisions based on geography (either north to south or east to west works). Get everyone's address and find our their longitude and latitude, then put all twelve of your teams in order and there you have your divisions. It has been a huge hit with all of our owners. We really like it for a couple of reasons:

- It mimics the NFL

- It creates semi-permanent divisions (we realign in the offseason each year when an owner moves - imagine the look on your wife's face when you tell her you want to move to get out of playerX's division!)

- It tends to group friends together

* We have two teams that are co-owned. In that case I just average their long and lat to get their location