Introducing new rule changes to established leagues (1 Viewer)

[u999spf]

I am always looking for new things to add into my leagues....So we added drafting/starting Head Coaches as a position. +5 for a win, -5 for a loss and 0 pts for a tie. Most people seemed to be "ok" with it last season, but there were some people grumbling about it. I thought it was pretty much a non-factor throughout the season. I was just a little surprised at how against trying it out some people are. Although these are usually the same people that hate any kind of change to the league rules.

Not sure why these guys are so against ever trying something new. I don't want the leagues I run to get stale and i would say that almost all the rules I push for have really improved things, but there are more than just head coaches I would like to add to my main league. (Auction, IDP, ,additional flex, etc) Auction drafting being the number #1 thing. In fact, I have 3 other auction leagues that I run and they are awesome and everyone loves them but some of the main stalwarts from my main league (20+ years) are so against it and won't even consider it any longer.

I find that whenever we vote on any possible changes I can almost predict each person's response. Some respond and are interested in trying something new and there are a handful of people that don't even bother to respond. I guess they don't care either way. Then there are those that say no, just to say no. They are so afraid of trying new things and I have no idea why - we can always change back the next season if it didn't work out. The ones that say no are the biggest loudmouths and cry babies and I think that is why I don't get a response from some guys, because they don't want to hear from these guys and their whining if they vote to try something new.

Not too much I can really do about it....Just a commish trying to fight the good fight...and keep my leagues entertaining for everyone.

PS - Oh and my pet peeve response on why they don't like something is....That's not what they do in real football. Well no #### sherlock. It's FANTASY football, not real football. Real football doesn't have yearly redraft, or snake drafts, or auction drafts, or awards 4 points for passing td's. Why aren't we drafting offensive lineman and punters and fullbacks and IDP's. It doesn't need to mirror real football exactly...you can make it however you want. Start 2QB's (which we do), start 3 RB's , whatever. If you want something to mirror real football, go play madden or real football yourself. It's a game to keep you interested in the real NFL games....Rant over

 

[Raider Nation]

-5 for a coaching loss seems excessive. That can be a 10-point swing based on guys who don't step on the field.

I'd keep just a +5 for a win.

 

[Agent575]

I am always looking for new things to add into my leagues....So we added drafting/starting Head Coaches as a position. +5 for a win, -5 for a loss and 0 pts for a tie. Most people seemed to be "ok" with it last season, but there were some people grumbling about it. I thought it was pretty much a non-factor throughout the season. I was just a little surprised at how against trying it out some people are. Although these are usually the same people that hate any kind of change to the league rules. Not sure why these guys are so against ever trying something new. I don't want the leagues I run to get stale and i would say that almost all the rules I push for have really improved things, but there are more than just head coaches I would like to add to my main league. (Auction, IDP, ,additional flex, etc) Auction drafting being the number #1 thing. In fact, I have 3 other auction leagues that I run and they are awesome and everyone loves them but some of the main stalwarts from my main league (20+ years) are so against it and won't even consider it any longer. I find that whenever we vote on any possible changes I can almost predict each person's response. Some respond and are interested in trying something new and there are a handful of people that don't even bother to respond. I guess they don't care either way. Then there are those that say no, just to say no. They are so afraid of trying new things and I have no idea why - we can always change back the next season if it didn't work out. The ones that say no are the biggest loudmouths and cry babies and I think that is why I don't get a response from some guys, because they don't want to hear from these guys and their whining if they vote to try something new.Not too much I can really do about it....Just a commish trying to fight the good fight...and keep my leagues entertaining for everyone.PS - Oh and my pet peeve response on why they don't like something is....That's not what they do in real football. Well no #### sherlock. It's FANTASY football, not real football. Real football doesn't have yearly redraft, or snake drafts, or auction drafts, or awards 4 points for passing td's. Why aren't we drafting offensive lineman and punters and fullbacks and IDP's. It doesn't need to mirror real football exactly...you can make it however you want. Start 2QB's (which we do), start 3 RB's , whatever. If you want something to mirror real football, go play madden or real football yourself. It's a game to keep you interested in the real NFL games....Rant over

Amen. Nice to see I am not the only person who feels this way. I stopped commishing my league for this very reason (plus a couple) and am much happier just co-commishing my two leagues and focusing on my work and my teams. I will do everything in my power to avoid playing with the change fearing grumpy bastards. Food for thought: If these folks didn't exist, CBS would be forced to lower their prices as the only reason anyone stays with em is that they don't want to "change" cuz they have been there for years etc etc etc. Cracks me up.Hit me up sometime, maybe we can get into a league together.Good luck.

 

[Tyrion]

I am always looking for new things to add into my leagues....So we added drafting/starting Head Coaches as a position. +5 for a win, -5 for a loss and 0 pts for a tie. Most people seemed to be "ok" with it last season, but there were some people grumbling about it. I thought it was pretty much a non-factor throughout the season. I was just a little surprised at how against trying it out some people are. Although these are usually the same people that hate any kind of change to the league rules. Not sure why these guys are so against ever trying something new. I don't want the leagues I run to get stale and i would say that almost all the rules I push for have really improved things, but there are more than just head coaches I would like to add to my main league. (Auction, IDP, ,additional flex, etc) Auction drafting being the number #1 thing. In fact, I have 3 other auction leagues that I run and they are awesome and everyone loves them but some of the main stalwarts from my main league (20+ years) are so against it and won't even consider it any longer. I find that whenever we vote on any possible changes I can almost predict each person's response. Some respond and are interested in trying something new and there are a handful of people that don't even bother to respond. I guess they don't care either way. Then there are those that say no, just to say no. They are so afraid of trying new things and I have no idea why - we can always change back the next season if it didn't work out. The ones that say no are the biggest loudmouths and cry babies and I think that is why I don't get a response from some guys, because they don't want to hear from these guys and their whining if they vote to try something new.Not too much I can really do about it....Just a commish trying to fight the good fight...and keep my leagues entertaining for everyone.PS - Oh and my pet peeve response on why they don't like something is....That's not what they do in real football. Well no #### sherlock. It's FANTASY football, not real football. Real football doesn't have yearly redraft, or snake drafts, or auction drafts, or awards 4 points for passing td's. Why aren't we drafting offensive lineman and punters and fullbacks and IDP's. It doesn't need to mirror real football exactly...you can make it however you want. Start 2QB's (which we do), start 3 RB's , whatever. If you want something to mirror real football, go play madden or real football yourself. It's a game to keep you interested in the real NFL games....Rant over

I guess they like the league the way it is. When someone looks forward to something all offseason it is reasonable that they may not want to make a change that may or may not make it more enjoyable for them.It looks like you have some leagues that will try out the new things you find interesting so why not leave that one league alone?

 

[Hoart Petterson]

Play in a deeper league where you start 2 qb's/3 rb's/4 wr's and play for more money. Also, tweak your playoffs to a "pro bowling" style instead of head to head. When you start drafting coaches...well, I don't know what to say. Kind of like playing poker and if your shirt matches the suit of the river card you win and extra chip from everyone. That's not poker.

When in doubt, raise the stakes. That always fixes the boredom problem. Always.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

-5 for a coaching loss seems excessive. That can be a 10-point swing based on guys who don't step on the field.I'd keep just a +5 for a win.

I'm in a league with coaches, and it's +4 for a win, +2 for a tie, 0 for a loss. That seems to work.

 

[u999spf]

The head coach position isn't a huge deal, just used it as an example and a jumping off point. I feel like I need to pull these guys out of the dark ages, even if they are kicking and screaming. I think the 3-4 people are so loud and negative that the other owners just give in or don't want to rock the boat. If I didn't spend so much time working on getting votes we would still be using pen and paper, td only scoring, no flex players, first come first serve waivers...instead of superflex lineup, performance scoring, blind bid waivers, internet commissioner mgmt. Just about every rule change we have made everyone seems to like it once its put in. It just dumbfounds me that after all this time, there is still so much resistance to change.....It's not like I don't research this crap before I throw it out there. And no I'm not kicking out my long time friends because of it. It's really not that big a deal. Like I said, I am just trying to keep things fresh for everyone. I don't want to see any of the other guys drop out because they get bored either. Not that I think that would really happen but you never know.

 

[bulger2holt]

Drafting a coach sounds silly.

 

[GregR_2]

Play in a deeper league where you start 2 qb's/3 rb's/4 wr's and play for more money. Also, tweak your playoffs to a "pro bowling" style instead of head to head. When you start drafting coaches...well, I don't know what to say. Kind of like playing poker and if your shirt matches the suit of the river card you win and extra chip from everyone. That's not poker. When in doubt, raise the stakes. That always fixes the boredom problem. Always.

I'm surprised you're making coaches sound like some exotic, random thing.Predicting wins and losses for NFL teams is about as basic of a demonstration of football acumen as you can get. It lends itself very well to a fantasy football league that wants to emphasis skill over luck. It gives a great opportunity for people to show skill in fantasy when it comes to things like finding coaches with complimentary schedules you can draft late, or watching for easy stretches or teams who are turning it around after a bad start.It's easily one of the simplest changes with the most bang for the buck I can see a league making. In ours, coaches are one of the first non-offensive skill positions to go, easily ranking up there with the top IDP players.Incidentally for the OP, we go with 3 points for a win, 0 for a loss, and then an additional 1/3 of a point for each point in the margin of victory. So correctly predicting a blowout win over a close win will be worth more.

 

[Godsbrother]

Drafting a coach sounds silly.

We tried it one year and it added zero excitement so we eliminated it the next season.

 

[TWP]

Sorry to continue the tangent (but there's really no way to help pull sticks in the mud out of the mud) but what happens if the coach you drafted gets fired mid-season if you drafted a coach? Are you basically drafting the team and continue to get points for the team's wins? Or are you literally drafting the coach and you stop getting any pluses or minuses? Or do all games that he doesnt book a win count as a loss? Or a tie?

 

[GregR_2]

Sorry to continue the tangent (but there's really no way to help pull sticks in the mud out of the mud) but what happens if the coach you drafted gets fired mid-season if you drafted a coach? Are you basically drafting the team and continue to get points for the team's wins? Or are you literally drafting the coach and you stop getting any pluses or minuses? Or do all games that he doesnt book a win count as a loss? Or a tie?

When we first tried it, we used the coach category from MFL, which actually ties it to the specific person rather than to the team. Then some coach missed a game while he was in the hospital and we had a discussion and decided there was no good reason not to use a "Team Head Coach" concept instead of specific individuals.So we switched the MFL category to Team Offense, which still let us use the margin of NFL victory, but allows it to work like a team coach.

 

[TWP]

Sorry to continue the tangent (but there's really no way to help pull sticks in the mud out of the mud) but what happens if the coach you drafted gets fired mid-season if you drafted a coach? Are you basically drafting the team and continue to get points for the team's wins? Or are you literally drafting the coach and you stop getting any pluses or minuses? Or do all games that he doesnt book a win count as a loss? Or a tie?

When we first tried it, we used the coach category from MFL, which actually ties it to the specific person rather than to the team. Then some coach missed a game while he was in the hospital and we had a discussion and decided there was no good reason not to use a "Team Head Coach" concept instead of specific individuals.So we switched the MFL category to Team Offense, which still let us use the margin of NFL victory, but allows it to work like a team coach.

Yeah, this makes sense. I would much rather draft a team than a coach.

 

[shredhead]

The head coach position isn't a huge deal, just used it as an example and a jumping off point. I feel like I need to pull these guys out of the dark ages, even if they are kicking and screaming. I think the 3-4 people are so loud and negative that the other owners just give in or don't want to rock the boat. If I didn't spend so much time working on getting votes we would still be using pen and paper, td only scoring, no flex players, first come first serve waivers...instead of superflex lineup, performance scoring, blind bid waivers, internet commissioner mgmt. Just about every rule change we have made everyone seems to like it once its put in. It just dumbfounds me that after all this time, there is still so much resistance to change.....It's not like I don't research this crap before I throw it out there. And no I'm not kicking out my long time friends because of it. It's really not that big a deal. Like I said, I am just trying to keep things fresh for everyone. I don't want to see any of the other guys drop out because they get bored either. Not that I think that would really happen but you never know.

Sounds like one of my leagues (not the pen and paper part, but the rest) It's really hard to get the league to change when the commish is one of the ones resistant to change. All the guys in my league say they have other leagues for all the high performance rules and want to leave ours like it is because that's the way it's always been. WTF kind of reason is that? Oh well, it's a league with friends, so I'll keep playing for now, but if they decide they want to raise league fees, I am gone. TD only leagues are to much luck for high stakes (oh yeah forgot to mention the week 17 championship, even more reason to leave if they ever raise the ante) I'm actually kind of excited for this years draft in that league. Goal line vultures are money in TD only leagues, and there seems to be plenty of them this year. I plan to have 2 or 3 of the Marion Barber, Willis McGahee, Tim Hightower, Thomas Jones, type players this season

 

[GregR_2]

Another thing leagues can try that are looking to mix it up.

Punter. I know some people are skeptical at first mention of it, but from the standpoint of wanting positions where skill in predicting NFL outcome can differentiate itself, punters are excellent. Just eyeballing end of season rankings there seems to be a great correlation between gross punting yards and having a poor offense, which is something that a good FF owner should be able to predict. We do not give extra points for punts inside the 20 in the (still untested) belief it would make results more random, as I imagine they would favor teams who are better at moving the sticks.

Separate Team Kick return unit. I can see including kick/punt return points with individual players, especially with IDP in use. Though I think there is merit to separating them to add another position for people to have to strategize in their draft plans. But I do not understand why anyone would want to include them in with Team Defense. There is no particular reason to combine those two other than "we didn't want to leave a phase of the game out so we just threw everything else into a bucket". Most yardage kick return points come from kickoff returns, not punt returns. And you get lots of kick return points when you have a bad defense, not a good defense. So in the long run, combining returns and defense lessen how much a good D and a bad D are differentiated.

And kick return units are also something that I think lend themselves well to prediction and so allow skill to differentiate itself. You can go two ways there... you can go for teams who have poor defenses and give up a lot of scores... or you can go for teams who have very talented return men (Hester, Cribbs, etc) even if they don't get as many opportunities. I have one league that combines kick return points in the individual player, and one that uses a separate team unit. I think the separate team unit is probably the better of the two. I think having it as a separate position adds enough I would even go for a separate team unit plus still give points to the individual, over only giving them to the individual. I don't really care if it doubles up the points (hello QBs and WRs getting passing TD points)... if it makes the fantasy game better and isn't completely unconnected to football, I'm generally for it.

 

[GregR_2]

So sorry for the hijack and back to the OP's topic. I have had similar problems in my older leagues. There are a few owners who always seem to shoot down any idea no matter what it is.

After years of pulling teeth, I finally found a happy solution. I started a new league. I found 11 owners who were hungry to try out new rules. 11 owners who had been in my leagues and trusted me enough to give me the power to set the rules as I wished. Yes, that's right, no league votes required. Everyone said they were fine with that going into it, and I've made an effort to include people's feedback so their faith in me was rewarded.

That said up front, the owners also all know me from a half dozen years or more in my leagues... they know I wouldn't just arbitrarily change the rules even if I can. They know any rule change will have enough lead time they can prepare for it before it is in effect. They know when I have an idea for something new I talk about it exhaustively with the league, and that if something doesn't work I'll fix it or get rid of it.

We tried allowing backup players, but never did come up with a system for them that we were happy with so it was nixed. We tried punters, loved them, kept them. Head coaches, kept. Kick return unit, kept. Contracts, extensions, tags, kept. Found that punters points were too high, adjusted. Tried staggered PPR (.25 RB, .5 RB, 1.0 TE), loved how it helped give TE some value. Tried 2nd QB via a flex, loved it. Added another WR and another TE plus a flex WR/TE... and now there is some parity across the top of the offensive positions. Double headers so final results tend to be a little more reflective of how a team really did has worked pretty well. Full 4-3 defense, a lot of the owners love that defense isn't a throw in now... teams can actually excel by devoting some cap towards having an above average defense. (Though I still debate if IDP is predictable enough to make that a wise strategy).

I found having a league we could try things in really helped me deal with the frustration of the other leagues that wouldn't consider any changes. And the new league was made up of mostly of the owners from the other two leagues (one of which we eventually ended) who were also frustrated with not being able to change things. Since then, as the other league still going has heard about how much fun we've had in the new league, they've agreed to incorporate some of our changes including the new scoring system and offensive starting lineup.

I think I'm pretty close to done with the experimenting at this point. In the next year or so I plan to go to a normal leaguewide vote on any rule changes going forward.

Not everyone may be in a position to start up a league where you have that much latitude. I know I'd be hesitant about joining such a league, and would definitely want to have some history with the commish if I was going to give him that much power. But it might be enough to just make sure you have 11 other owners who are all gung ho about trying out new things. If nothing else, if you're making a new league you can have a lot of control over the initial framing of the rules and finding initial owners who are happy to play under them.

Hope that is of some use.

 

[GroveDiesel]

Yeah, I'm in a league like that. What's really frustrating is that rules to benefit weaker teams and owners that don't care as much not only have been passed, but passed in violation of league rules on when they take effect. But within 5 minutes of me proposing moving to an auction format, 2 of the owners had shot off emails saying they'd immediately quit if we went to an auction format and crying about the fact it was even proposed. I've finally just realized that despite all claiming to be huge football fans and good fantasy owners, it's just not that type of league. It's a league of guys that I'm friends with that I enjoy the trash talking with during the season, but just isn't a competitive or adventurous league.