Roster settings and attributes of skill vs luck (1 Viewer)

[Knowlt]

Obviously there are factors of both skill and luck no matter which form of ff you are involved in, but I want to focus on getting peoples opinions on what types of roster or league settings move the curve either towards more skill involved, or more luck involved.

Full disclosure here, I am co-running a long standing 10 team redraft league with the same group of owners for 10+ yrs. We are constantly looking to keep things fresh and interesting, while maintaining balance in the league. I think our tendancies go towards rewarding more skill vs luck, but still want to keep everyone intested and involved. I would say that 7-8 of the 10 owners are pretty savvy, and the other 2-3 are still competent, but not to the harder core level of the others.

For instance, over the years we have added IDP, reduced or enlarged bench sizes, scoring, etc.

What types of settings/parameters do you think provide the most interest and fun, given the rough foundation of a 10/12 team redraft league?

 

[gandalas]

10 team leagues and fewer, I see a lot more luck involved. EVERYONE's team should be pretty much stacked, as there is much less competition for great players. It all comes down to whose stud players perform better in a given week.

Generally, the higher the amount of people in the league, the more skill is involved, in my opinion. 16 and 32 team leagues take a LOT of drafting and waiver-wire manipulation to win.

 

[Sweet Love]

If you don't have one already, I would certainly add a flex position. Teams with better/deeper drafts get to start an extra player and often that is where the teams differ (especially in a 10 teamer). I am in one league that has two flex positions, and you certainly get more consistent results with the better teams winning. For example, without a flex if you drafted Gronk and Graham (which certainly could have happened), and you are stuck in a league that does few trades, should your research go to waste just because you can't play both?

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

This question is something I've tinkered with a lot for dyansty leagues... IMO these are some of the ways you can reduce the role of luck...

Deep rosters

No kickers

No team defense, or at least team defense scoring that rewards high quality defensive performances (I don't play IDP)

Positional scoring and starter options that ensure all positions are valuable (such as PPR, QB superflex, and bonus PPR scoring for TEs)

Highly flexible starting requirements (1 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE and 2 or 3 flex for example)

Total points or all-win record determine the standings, or are used to determine a significant portion of the payout

Playoffs aren't single elimination H2H

 

[FF Ninja]

This question is something I've tinkered with a lot for dyansty leagues... IMO these are some of the ways you can reduce the role of luck...Deep rostersNo kickersNo team defense, or at least team defense scoring that rewards high quality defensive performances (I don't play IDP)Positional scoring and starter options that ensure all positions are valuable (such as PPR, QB superflex, and bonus PPR scoring for TEs)Highly flexible starting requirements (1 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE and 2 or 3 flex for example)Total points or all-win record determine the standings, or are used to determine a significant portion of the payoutPlayoffs aren't single elimination H2H

I don't pay attention to names in this board, but I think I recall generally agreeing with your posts, but I've got to disagree with this one.PPR and other positional scoring is a socialist design to keep everyone even. If you fail to land quality RBs (0.5ppr), don't worry because you'll make it up with your WRs (1ppr) or TEs (1.5ppr). Not cool. If people drop the ball on a position then they should pay for it. The strong teams should be the well rounded teams without holes. Positional scoring allows for holes in lineups, as does my next point of contention:Highly flexible starting requirements. You can almost ignore positions when you only HAVE to start 1 RB or 0 TE. I quite enjoy a flex position or two, but not at the expense of a normal starting spot. I like adding more starters via flex, not substituting hard spots for flex. So I'd suggest 1QB/2RB/3WR/1TE/1RBWR/1WRTE or something like that. Especially if playing a 10-team league. 10-teams can employ 2QB as well. Not so well in 12-team, though, unless you do it via superflex.I completely agree about the total points, but few will agree to this. It tends to knock bad teams out early so they whine, but it does give you the best team in the end... but again this works best with large starting lineups.

 

[Herb]

This question is something I've tinkered with a lot for dyansty leagues... IMO these are some of the ways you can reduce the role of luck...

Deep rosters

No kickers

No team defense, or at least team defense scoring that rewards high quality defensive performances (I don't play IDP)

Positional scoring and starter options that ensure all positions are valuable (such as PPR, QB superflex, and bonus PPR scoring for TEs)

Highly flexible starting requirements (1 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE and 2 or 3 flex for example)

Total points or all-win record determine the standings, or are used to determine a significant portion of the payout

Playoffs aren't single elimination H2H

I don't pay attention to names in this board, but I think I recall generally agreeing with your posts, but I've got to disagree with this one.PPR and other positional scoring is a socialist design to keep everyone even. If you fail to land quality RBs (0.5ppr), don't worry because you'll make it up with your WRs (1ppr) or TEs (1.5ppr). Not cool. If people drop the ball on a position then they should pay for it. The strong teams should be the well rounded teams without holes. Positional scoring allows for holes in lineups, as does my next point of contention:

Highly flexible starting requirements. You can almost ignore positions when you only HAVE to start 1 RB or 0 TE. I quite enjoy a flex position or two, but not at the expense of a normal starting spot. I like adding more starters via flex, not substituting hard spots for flex. So I'd suggest 1QB/2RB/3WR/1TE/1RBWR/1WRTE or something like that. Especially if playing a 10-team league. 10-teams can employ 2QB as well. Not so well in 12-team, though, unless you do it via superflex.

I completely agree about the total points, but few will agree to this. It tends to knock bad teams out early so they whine, but it does give you the best team in the end... but again this works best with large starting lineups.

What is superflex?

 

[FF Ninja]

What is superflex?

To me it is QB/WR/RB/TE

 

[belljr]

This question is something I've tinkered with a lot for dyansty leagues... IMO these are some of the ways you can reduce the role of luck...

Deep rosters

No kickers

No team defense, or at least team defense scoring that rewards high quality defensive performances (I don't play IDP)

Positional scoring and starter options that ensure all positions are valuable (such as PPR, QB superflex, and bonus PPR scoring for TEs)

Highly flexible starting requirements (1 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE and 2 or 3 flex for example)

Total points or all-win record determine the standings, or are used to determine a significant portion of the payout

Playoffs aren't single elimination H2H

I don't pay attention to names in this board, but I think I recall generally agreeing with your posts, but I've got to disagree with this one.PPR and other positional scoring is a socialist design to keep everyone even. If you fail to land quality RBs (0.5ppr), don't worry because you'll make it up with your WRs (1ppr) or TEs (1.5ppr). Not cool. If people drop the ball on a position then they should pay for it. The strong teams should be the well rounded teams without holes. Positional scoring allows for holes in lineups, as does my next point of contention:

Highly flexible starting requirements. You can almost ignore positions when you only HAVE to start 1 RB or 0 TE. I quite enjoy a flex position or two, but not at the expense of a normal starting spot. I like adding more starters via flex, not substituting hard spots for flex. So I'd suggest 1QB/2RB/3WR/1TE/1RBWR/1WRTE or something like that. Especially if playing a 10-team league. 10-teams can employ 2QB as well. Not so well in 12-team, though, unless you do it via superflex.

I completely agree about the total points, but few will agree to this. It tends to knock bad teams out early so they whine, but it does give you the best team in the end... but again this works best with large starting lineups.

What is superflex?

Qb can be used

 

[GregR]

...PPR and other positional scoring is a socialist design to keep everyone even. If you fail to land quality RBs (0.5ppr), don't worry because you'll make it up with your WRs (1ppr) or TEs (1.5ppr). Not cool. If people drop the ball on a position then they should pay for it. The strong teams should be the well rounded teams without holes. Positional scoring allows for holes in lineups, as does my next point of contention:

It's possible to take equalizing positions too far to where it would hurt skill... but you have to go to extremes to reach that point and undo the gains that skilled owners have in systems like PPR.Skill has an opportunity to differentiate itself when there is an opportunity to make the right decision when the non-skilled would make the wrong decision. So the question becomes, which setup gives more such situations?If a league heavily values RB (such as the old standard setup does), then taking RB is the correct choice for a large number of picks in the first few rounds. So there are more picks where a less skilled person familiar with the stud-RB mantra will make the correct choice, despite not truly understanding player value. There will still be opportunities where a QB/WR/TE is the better choice... but they are few, which leads to the stud RB rule of thumb.Contrast that with a league that has a second QB, PPR, a second TE, etc... and someone following the stud-RB mantra will make more incorrect decisions because fewer of those picks in the first few rounds should be RBs. So yes, things like PPR can and do favor the skilled over the unskilled who go by rule of thumb and can't tell when the rule doesn't apply.I think it would be correct to say that complete equality amongst positions would hurt the skilled owner. That would happen if you use a rotisserie style system where players are rewarded a set number of points based on position rank, rather than awarded the fantasy points based on their stats.But just adding PPR, superflex or the like won't get you nearly so close. Since the positional scoring drops off at different rates and has different tiers, there is still ample opportunity throughout the draft to maximize your team. I don't believe it's correct to say that "paying for dropping the ball on a position" is skill, if everyone without skill can know the rule of thumb to take that position, follow it blindly, and probably be right. Better to put them to the test on every draft pick where it isn't clear which position is the best right now, without understanding value.

 

[footballnerd]

add two more owners, its a much better league number

 

[GregR]

And incidentally, I've put what I said to the test. I moved the leagues I run off of standard setups to start more QBs, WRs and TEs, and also to have staggered PPR that favors TE>WR>RB. While positions are not equal all the way down the positional curve, the system was actually designed so the top player at each skill position should be a valid 1st round pick most every year.

It became painfully obvious the first year that some of our previously successful owners had gotten there not by understanding value, but by blindly following the stud RB theory.

Put in a situation where it wasn't the right move to select so many RBs early, these owners continually made bad choices and the owners who understood how to draft for value got the dividends from it. Over the years since many of those owners have learned a concept of our league's value through experience, trial and error. But they still don't know how to walk into a setup they aren't intimately familiar with and make informed decisions.

 

[gandalas]

Also, I disagree on the 2-QB not being good for 12 team leagues. It adds a WHOLE lot of value to QBs, above and beyond anything I have ever played in before. Not to mention, planning bye weeks is essential to make sure you have enough QBs to make it through the season.

To put it another way, I drafted Brandon Freaking Weedon at 1.11 in our rookie draft this season, just to ensure that I had 3 starting QBs. What other league would you see that in? Another guy drafted Russell Wilson in the early 2nd.

It adds a fun dimension, and gives the QB position the importance that it deserves, relative to the actual league.

 

[GregR]

Ok, so general reply then...

1) Anything that changes value from what people are used to will test skill.

2) Setups where there is no good rule of thumb favor skill (so avoiding stud RB setups). Particularly PPR, a second QB (superflex is best due to bye weeks), additional WRs and/or TEs as well.

3) Any position that lends itself to prediction helps skill to win out. Kicker is a very hard to predict position. Punters, on the other hand, if scored based on yardage with no bonus for inside the 20, are very predictable if you can predict how good a team's offense will be. You can even play week to week just looking for a matchup that will go poorly for his offense. Similarly, something like a head coach position where you get points for NFL wins and margin of victory, lend themselves well to predictions. If you can predict who will win a game and who will win the most games, then you can predict head coaches. We use head coaches in both my current leagues, and punters in one. Great addition.

4) The more players deep into the NFL you go, the more people need to know about them so the more skill is favored. So bigger leagues, rosters, and starting lineups favor skill over smaller leagues, roster, and starting lineups.

5) Auctions favor skill over drafts. Auctions you have the ability to go after any player that others are undervaluing. In drafts you are constrained by the players still there at your pick. You can try to trade, but not nearly the ability to take advantage of value as you can in an auction.

6) Some waiver priority systems can enhance skill. For example, have a rolling waiver priority where whenever you get a player you go to the bottom of the list. Now there is an element of skill required to determine if drafting a back up so you can save that waiver priority outweighs the value of stashing a sleeper at a skill position. MFL you can have rolling waiver priority for queued up waivers, and also have FCFS waivers that do not change waiver priority. So in some cases you might want to let others have first pick, then choose from the leftovers in order to move yourself up the waiver priority list. Also, blind bidding of course adds whole new measures of strategy.

7) Contracts and salary caps adds a huge new component to FF. One of my leagues is a hard salary cap league and I love it, wish I could get the other league to add it. Lots of contract options... 3 year contracts with extensions possible that require a raise... or can franchise or transition tag players when their contracts are up. Whole new set of skills, being to not only predict future player worth, but being able to quantify beyond what a "regular" dynasty requires, and being able to manage your finances over years so you don't find yourself losing your entire core when their contracts end and you can't afford to tag them.

8) Small one, but allow teams to select where they want to draft from rather than just assign them picks. We do this and it's clear many owners don't agree that any earlier pick is better than any late one. So put their decision making to the test.

 

[FF Ninja]

Also, I disagree on the 2-QB not being good for 12 team leagues. It adds a WHOLE lot of value to QBs, above and beyond anything I have ever played in before. Not to mention, planning bye weeks is essential to make sure you have enough QBs to make it through the season.To put it another way, I drafted Brandon Freaking Weedon at 1.11 in our rookie draft this season, just to ensure that I had 3 starting QBs. What other league would you see that in? Another guy drafted Russell Wilson in the early 2nd. It adds a fun dimension, and gives the QB position the importance that it deserves, relative to the actual league.

IMO, it adds too much value IF you make them hard positions (non-flex) because you are going into it knowing that four teams will straight up have to start a non-starting QB during a bye week, thus it places an unprecedented onus on drafting 3 QBs before others do. With 10-team leagues, at least everyone will have a bye week filler. I mean, PPR people [cry] and whine about RB value, but QB value would be even higher than RB value ever was. Even in the prime of bellcow RBs there were still enough RBBCs that each team in a 12-team 2RB league could feasibly start someone respectable during their bye. But even now that there are a couple guys like Joe Webb and Tim Tebow who might see the field for a couple plays, there aren't 36 QBs to put into starting lineups.Granted this is only a problem for a few teams (some of the 4 teams might pick up a backup who is thrust into the starting lineup prior to bye weeks) for one week, but still enough of a problem that I say 2QB isn't optimal for 12-team leagues. It can be done, but not optimal. I think superflex is the way to go for 12-team leagues that want more QB emphasis because that essentially makes it a 2QB league, but then no one has a dead spot during bye weeks. Additionally, 2QB leagues make injuries even more crippling, so roster spots must be used for backup QBs. One could argue this is strategy, but the reality is that teams that gamble on health are in a better position to win (unless rosters are really deep). And gambling is where luck comes into play, so 2QB leagues are more luck based than non-2QB leagues.

 

[FF Ninja]

...PPR and other positional scoring is a socialist design to keep everyone even. If you fail to land quality RBs (0.5ppr), don't worry because you'll make it up with your WRs (1ppr) or TEs (1.5ppr). Not cool. If people drop the ball on a position then they should pay for it. The strong teams should be the well rounded teams without holes. Positional scoring allows for holes in lineups, as does my next point of contention:

It's possible to take equalizing positions too far to where it would hurt skill... but you have to go to extremes to reach that point and undo the gains that skilled owners have in systems like PPR.Skill has an opportunity to differentiate itself when there is an opportunity to make the right decision when the non-skilled would make the wrong decision. So the question becomes, which setup gives more such situations?If a league heavily values RB (such as the old standard setup does), then taking RB is the correct choice for a large number of picks in the first few rounds. So there are more picks where a less skilled person familiar with the stud-RB mantra will make the correct choice, despite not truly understanding player value. There will still be opportunities where a QB/WR/TE is the better choice... but they are few, which leads to the stud RB rule of thumb.Contrast that with a league that has a second QB, PPR, a second TE, etc... and someone following the stud-RB mantra will make more incorrect decisions because fewer of those picks in the first few rounds should be RBs. So yes, things like PPR can and do favor the skilled over the unskilled who go by rule of thumb and can't tell when the rule doesn't apply.I think it would be correct to say that complete equality amongst positions would hurt the skilled owner. That would happen if you use a rotisserie style system where players are rewarded a set number of points based on position rank, rather than awarded the fantasy points based on their stats.But just adding PPR, superflex or the like won't get you nearly so close. Since the positional scoring drops off at different rates and has different tiers, there is still ample opportunity throughout the draft to maximize your team. I don't believe it's correct to say that "paying for dropping the ball on a position" is skill, if everyone without skill can know the rule of thumb to take that position, follow it blindly, and probably be right. Better to put them to the test on every draft pick where it isn't clear which position is the best right now, without understanding value.

I just don't agree. If scoring were a normal distribution curve, then adding PPR would spread the curve a bit deeper towards the tail, meaning that more players are scoring fringe starter worthy points. Players like Danny Amendola become startable which is a criminal offense. People can focus on WR and TE and just fill in their RB spots with 3rd down backs who have a chance each week to outscore guys like Michael Turner if Turner doesn't score a TD. But when you take away PPR then these guys are suddenly worthless, as they should be. That's why I say PPR is socialist. Most everyone's value is skewed towards the mean. But you are right that the top guys at each position become 1st round worthy, but is there skill in hitting a homerun in the first round? Skill to me comes later on. On a similar line of thought, I disagree about the stud RB idea making it easy for novices to win. Given the turnover at RB, it is hardly a given that you can blindly draft off a cheatsheet and do well so long as you go RB-RB in the first two rounds. Almost all of my leagues are standard scoring where RB is supposedly way overvalued and I don't plan to take my RB2 until the 6th round this year.And when I say someone "dropped the ball" when drafting a position, I don't mean they didn't end up with the preseason RB1, RB13, WR5, WR14, WR27, QB4, TE6 in their lineup. I mean maybe they did end up with that, but they drafted on a cheatsheet thinking they were well rounded, but the cheatsheet was wrong. In PPR they could just throw someone like Jaquizz in for their bust RB13 and move along. But not in standard scoring. You pay for a lack of depth, thus less luck.I agree that throwing in an extra wrinkle will throw off people who are totally lazy and don't look at the league settings and they might go RB-RB but if everyone is at least halfway intelligent then things like PPR do nothing but add parity. And people love to feel like they are in it at all times so it is very popular. But by definition, parity mechanisms hurt the best teams, thus they decrease the importance of skill.

 

[FF Ninja]

4) The more players deep into the NFL you go, the more people need to know about them so the more skill is favored. So bigger leagues, rosters, and starting lineups favor skill over smaller leagues, roster, and starting lineups.6) Some waiver priority systems can enhance skill. For example, have a rolling waiver priority where whenever you get a player you go to the bottom of the list. Now there is an element of skill required to determine if drafting a back up so you can save that waiver priority outweighs the value of stashing a sleeper at a skill position. MFL you can have rolling waiver priority for queued up waivers, and also have FCFS waivers that do not change waiver priority. So in some cases you might want to let others have first pick, then choose from the leftovers in order to move yourself up the waiver priority list. Also, blind bidding of course adds whole new measures of strategy.

Great points here. I mentioned increasing the size of the starting lineup, but I should've mentioned increaseing bench size, too. I won't even play in 5 player bench leagues. Way too easy to pick up good players off the free agent pool/waiver wire. I once blindly agreed to play in a league that turned out to not only have 5-man benches, but also had a resetting waiver priority. Each week the waiver priority was set so that the worst team had #1 waiver priority (and best team had 12th, etc) and, given the shallow benches, this was huge. IIRC, at one point all the teams were either 6-5 or 5-6. Totally ridiculous. (they even played with integer scoring instead of decimals)

 

[Kool-Aid Larry]

injuries are the definition of luck, and if you arbitrarily overemphasis the 'stud' rb then all you're doing is putting more emphasis on luck and random health of a top 5 pick.

edit: I'm a little biased against teh rb position, though, because my teams last year were like the '08 broncos.

 

[Ilov80s]

The # of teams that make the playoffs is the biggest determining factor in how much luck can play in a team winning the title.

Also, waiver wires should be done in some sort of auction to reduce luck.

 

[beaux]

Doesn't matter what you do, it is all luck...

 

[GregR]

Also, the more games that you play in a week, the less of an impact that random luck in schedule will play.

If you want a schedule with luck removed as much as possible you go All Play where you play every team every week. Some people like that, others think it is too big of a break from the structure of real football. I'm not opposed to All Play, especially for a contest league, but I'm more of a fan of regular head to head games.

But you can still take a big bite out of scheduling luck just by going with double or triple headers every week. The only real issue I've had is getting the schedule to work out right. I like symmetry... play out of division teams the same number of times, play division teams the same number of times and more than you played out of division... and finish the super bowl before NFL teams start sitting players.

What I've ended up liking best for a 12 team league is to have triple-headers. 3 divisions of 4 teams. A 12 week regular season, with a 3 week playoff ending week 15, consisting of 6 teams with the top 2 teams getting byes, so 3 division winners and 3 wildcards. We have a triple header every week where you play 1 team from each division. So you play your 3 division opponents 4 times each and play your out of division opponents 3 times each. Schedule is really easy to set up, set up a schedule for your own division for 3 weeks and then repeat it four times... do the same for out of division schedule for 4 weeks and repeat it 3 times.

 

[Kool-Aid Larry]

Doesn't matter what you do, it is all luck...

no - only when you lose.

 

[ConnSKINS26]

Doesn't matter what you do, it is all luck...

This is not true, and if it were, we'd all be wasting our time entirely.

 

[beaux]

Doesn't matter what you do, it is all luck...

This is not true, and if it were, we'd all be wasting our time entirely.

We are...

 

[ConnSKINS26]

Doesn't matter what you do, it is all luck...

This is not true, and if it were, we'd all be wasting our time entirely.

We are...

From a certain point of view. Some would argue that as long as you're doing something you enjoy, its impossible to be wasting your time. There is a large element of luck, as no one can see the future. There is also a large element of skill. Anyone who thinks otherwise is most likely a poor fantasy owner who plays with more skilled owners, and doesn't understand why he loses.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Doesn't matter what you do, it is all luck...

I know this is schtick, but only a really bad player would think this.

 

[az_prof]

...PPR and other positional scoring is a socialist design to keep everyone even. If you fail to land quality RBs (0.5ppr), don't worry because you'll make it up with your WRs (1ppr) or TEs (1.5ppr). Not cool. If people drop the ball on a position then they should pay for it. The strong teams should be the well rounded teams without holes. Positional scoring allows for holes in lineups, as does my next point of contention:

It's possible to take equalizing positions too far to where it would hurt skill... but you have to go to extremes to reach that point and undo the gains that skilled owners have in systems like PPR.Skill has an opportunity to differentiate itself when there is an opportunity to make the right decision when the non-skilled would make the wrong decision. So the question becomes, which setup gives more such situations?If a league heavily values RB (such as the old standard setup does), then taking RB is the correct choice for a large number of picks in the first few rounds. So there are more picks where a less skilled person familiar with the stud-RB mantra will make the correct choice, despite not truly understanding player value. There will still be opportunities where a QB/WR/TE is the better choice... but they are few, which leads to the stud RB rule of thumb.Contrast that with a league that has a second QB, PPR, a second TE, etc... and someone following the stud-RB mantra will make more incorrect decisions because fewer of those picks in the first few rounds should be RBs. So yes, things like PPR can and do favor the skilled over the unskilled who go by rule of thumb and can't tell when the rule doesn't apply.I think it would be correct to say that complete equality amongst positions would hurt the skilled owner. That would happen if you use a rotisserie style system where players are rewarded a set number of points based on position rank, rather than awarded the fantasy points based on their stats.But just adding PPR, superflex or the like won't get you nearly so close. Since the positional scoring drops off at different rates and has different tiers, there is still ample opportunity throughout the draft to maximize your team. I don't believe it's correct to say that "paying for dropping the ball on a position" is skill, if everyone without skill can know the rule of thumb to take that position, follow it blindly, and probably be right. Better to put them to the test on every draft pick where it isn't clear which position is the best right now, without understanding value.

I just don't agree. If scoring were a normal distribution curve, then adding PPR would spread the curve a bit deeper towards the tail, meaning that more players are scoring fringe starter worthy points. Players like Danny Amendola become startable which is a criminal offense. People can focus on WR and TE and just fill in their RB spots with 3rd down backs who have a chance each week to outscore guys like Michael Turner if Turner doesn't score a TD. But when you take away PPR then these guys are suddenly worthless, as they should be. That's why I say PPR is socialist. Most everyone's value is skewed towards the mean. But you are right that the top guys at each position become 1st round worthy, but is there skill in hitting a homerun in the first round? Skill to me comes later on. On a similar line of thought, I disagree about the stud RB idea making it easy for novices to win. Given the turnover at RB, it is hardly a given that you can blindly draft off a cheatsheet and do well so long as you go RB-RB in the first two rounds. Almost all of my leagues are standard scoring where RB is supposedly way overvalued and I don't plan to take my RB2 until the 6th round this year.And when I say someone "dropped the ball" when drafting a position, I don't mean they didn't end up with the preseason RB1, RB13, WR5, WR14, WR27, QB4, TE6 in their lineup. I mean maybe they did end up with that, but they drafted on a cheatsheet thinking they were well rounded, but the cheatsheet was wrong. In PPR they could just throw someone like Jaquizz in for their bust RB13 and move along. But not in standard scoring. You pay for a lack of depth, thus less luck.I agree that throwing in an extra wrinkle will throw off people who are totally lazy and don't look at the league settings and they might go RB-RB but if everyone is at least halfway intelligent then things like PPR do nothing but add parity. And people love to feel like they are in it at all times so it is very popular. But by definition, parity mechanisms hurt the best teams, thus they decrease the importance of skill.

I think PPR adds skill. First, not all RBs are equally valuable--you have to be able to project their role as a receiver. Don't forget, in PPR receivers get points for catches too. It means a guy like Ray Rice or Reggie Bush is worth more than they would normally, and a guy like Michael Turner less. YOu have to know about player usage more, and that's skill. Plus, TDs are THE most variable and unpredictable stat, year to year. In traditional scoring formats, a great deal of RB scoring is TDs--yet they are very unpredictable. And it makes the relative value of WRs and TEs closer to that of RBs. And, again, not all receivers benefit the same. You need to figure out which receivers will be targeted alot. In normal scoring you could have some random WR catch 2 long passes, and go 2 for 120 yards and 1 TD, and his points are 18. Roddy White, Mr. Consistent, might catch 7 passes for 80 yards and 1 TD, and only garner 14 fantasy points. Is his day really worse? In PPR, it would 21 for White and 20 for the other guy. That's fairer.

 

[Bobby Guano]

...

PPR and other positional scoring is a socialist design to keep everyone even. If you fail to land quality RBs (0.5ppr), don't worry because you'll make it up with your WRs (1ppr) or TEs (1.5ppr). Not cool. If people drop the ball on a position then they should pay for it. The strong teams should be the well rounded teams without holes. Positional scoring allows for holes in lineups, as does my next point of contention:

It's possible to take equalizing positions too far to where it would hurt skill... but you have to go to extremes to reach that point and undo the gains that skilled owners have in systems like PPR.Skill has an opportunity to differentiate itself when there is an opportunity to make the right decision when the non-skilled would make the wrong decision. So the question becomes, which setup gives more such situations?

If a league heavily values RB (such as the old standard setup does), then taking RB is the correct choice for a large number of picks in the first few rounds. So there are more picks where a less skilled person familiar with the stud-RB mantra will make the correct choice, despite not truly understanding player value. There will still be opportunities where a QB/WR/TE is the better choice... but they are few, which leads to the stud RB rule of thumb.

Contrast that with a league that has a second QB, PPR, a second TE, etc... and someone following the stud-RB mantra will make more incorrect decisions because fewer of those picks in the first few rounds should be RBs. So yes, things like PPR can and do favor the skilled over the unskilled who go by rule of thumb and can't tell when the rule doesn't apply.

I think it would be correct to say that complete equality amongst positions would hurt the skilled owner. That would happen if you use a rotisserie style system where players are rewarded a set number of points based on position rank, rather than awarded the fantasy points based on their stats.

But just adding PPR, superflex or the like won't get you nearly so close. Since the positional scoring drops off at different rates and has different tiers, there is still ample opportunity throughout the draft to maximize your team.

I don't believe it's correct to say that "paying for dropping the ball on a position" is skill, if everyone without skill can know the rule of thumb to take that position, follow it blindly, and probably be right. Better to put them to the test on every draft pick where it isn't clear which position is the best right now, without understanding value.

I just don't agree. If scoring were a normal distribution curve, then adding PPR would spread the curve a bit deeper towards the tail, meaning that more players are scoring fringe starter worthy points. Players like Danny Amendola become startable which is a criminal offense. People can focus on WR and TE and just fill in their RB spots with 3rd down backs who have a chance each week to outscore guys like Michael Turner if Turner doesn't score a TD. But when you take away PPR then these guys are suddenly worthless, as they should be. That's why I say PPR is socialist. Most everyone's value is skewed towards the mean. But you are right that the top guys at each position become 1st round worthy, but is there skill in hitting a homerun in the first round? Skill to me comes later on. On a similar line of thought, I disagree about the stud RB idea making it easy for novices to win. Given the turnover at RB, it is hardly a given that you can blindly draft off a cheatsheet and do well so long as you go RB-RB in the first two rounds. Almost all of my leagues are standard scoring where RB is supposedly way overvalued and I don't plan to take my RB2 until the 6th round this year.

And when I say someone "dropped the ball" when drafting a position, I don't mean they didn't end up with the preseason RB1, RB13, WR5, WR14, WR27, QB4, TE6 in their lineup. I mean maybe they did end up with that, but they drafted on a cheatsheet thinking they were well rounded, but the cheatsheet was wrong. In PPR they could just throw someone like Jaquizz in for their bust RB13 and move along. But not in standard scoring. You pay for a lack of depth, thus less luck.

I agree that throwing in an extra wrinkle will throw off people who are totally lazy and don't look at the league settings and they might go RB-RB but if everyone is at least halfway intelligent then things like PPR do nothing but add parity. And people love to feel like they are in it at all times so it is very popular. But by definition, parity mechanisms hurt the best teams, thus they decrease the importance of skill.

I think PPR adds skill. First, not all RBs are equally valuable--you have to be able to project their role as a receiver. Don't forget, in PPR receivers get points for catches too. It means a guy like Ray Rice or Reggie Bush is worth more than they would normally, and a guy like Michael Turner less. YOu have to know about player usage more, and that's skill. Plus, TDs are THE most variable and unpredictable stat, year to year. In traditional scoring formats, a great deal of RB scoring is TDs--yet they are very unpredictable. And it makes the relative value of WRs and TEs closer to that of RBs. And, again, not all receivers benefit the same. You need to figure out which receivers will be targeted alot. In normal scoring you could have some random WR catch 2 long passes, and go 2 for 120 yards and 1 TD, and his points are 18. Roddy White, Mr. Consistent, might catch 7 passes for 80 yards and 1 TD, and only garner 14 fantasy points. Is his day really worse? In PPR, it would 21 for White and 20 for the other guy. That's fairer.

I'm sorry Mr. Ninja but a lot of your arguments for why PPR takes less skill than SS have no factual basis and are filled with personal biased. I'd like to see some data that backs up your opinions.I'm confused by what you are saying in the bolded part. Are you trying to say that because of PPR if you lost your RB2 who was the 13 highest scoring RB( or supposed to be) that you could replace him with any RB who was in the 55-65 highest scoring range and not suffer for it? I can tell you this is not the case. Every situation is different but for a perfect example last year in my PPR league that gives .5 PPR to RB's I lost Ahmad Bradshaw who ended up finnishing as RB13 halfway through the season. Beleive me my team was not the same and I did suffer for lack of depth when I had to use Jakie Battle RB56/Lance Ball RB60(who both finnished with the same pts as Jaquizz RB58 BTW). My team didn't start to pick up steam again until I added Toby Gerhart RB37. I knew I would be in this situation at some point in the season though since it was part of my strategy to load up on blue chip RB's late in the draft ( only hit on one Sproles) and work the WW all year hoping to hit on a big injury fill in which I did with Gerhart. This is a valid strategy for todays NFL, I'm sure it works well enough no matter the scoring system and does not require any more skill in one than another.

Seriously join a PPR league with semi competant owners and try to run with production like Jaquizz's numbers from last year(RB60 ish) at your RB2 spot and see how that works out for you. Your logic is severly flawed, you need every bit of depth in PPR that you would need in SS to stay competetive. You can't just replace 2'nd/3'rd teir production with teir 7/8 production and expect to be competetive in any scoring format. Maybe you just picked a bad example without doing any research.

Also whats wrong with Danny Amendola? The guy went 85/689/3 in 2010 good for WR29 in my league. Sure his yards per reception was pretty bad but he was a valuable contributer to his team that year. Explain to me why a guy who catches everything thrown his way and is grinding his heart and soul out for his team helping them move the chains should not be startable in fantasy football.

What about all the goal-line backs throughout the years that vultured TD's? Would you say it's criminal that players like John Kuhn/Mark Ingram become startable or add depth simply because they have a pretty good chance of scoring a TD every week? Take away TD's and players like these two become worthless, as they should be but nobody is going to remove TD scoring from their league are they...where's the line here?

I don't believe PPR has the effect you describe. It does not swing the curve to the tail, it just streaches out the middle a little bit. PPR does not suddenly make crappy players startable as you're trying to imply. The top is the top, the middle is the middle and the bottom is the bottom just like any other scoring format.

I honestly don't think any one scoring system require's more skill than another. I think understanding your leagues scoring and rosters and devloping strategies on how to get the most out of the rules is what takes skill. Like others have said the best way to increase skill and weed out the luck are minimal Flex positions increasing the sample of games and having a larger pool of teams.

Good debate though and I have never played in a true SS league so maybe I should try it sometime to compare. Although my main league has been around for awhile and evolved quite a bit over the years. A while back we were very similar to standard scoring before switching to PPR. The interesting thing about this though is that a hanfull of owners have remained sucessfull throughout the years by adopting new strategies and prcatices while a handfull of guys who were pretty good back in the standard scoring days have not faired so well since PPR was added. Another funny thing is these owners who've had trouble adapting to PPR are also the ones that make arguments like FF Ninja every year to try and get it removed.

 

[massraider]

You want to reward skill?

Run an auction instead of a draft.

 

[Bobby Guano]

You want to reward skill? Run an auction instead of a draft.

I've never played in an auction league so I have no basis for comparison and I seem to hear this a lot but how exactly does it require more skill than a draft? Correct me if I'm wrong but here's my impression of auctions. You have a budget and you have to maximaize it by not overpaying for the bad top teir players while trying to find the cheaper players who will well outperform their intial value. So to use last year as an example you were probably able to land guys like Fred Jackson/Sproles/Jimmy Graham/Gronkowski/Stafford/Cam/Steve Smith(car) etc. fairly cheep. The skill is targeting these guys and estimating whats the cheapest you can get them so you can maximize whats left of your budget after you've blow a good chunk of it on the higher teir players. If this is correct than I just don't see how it take's anymore or less skill than a draft which is the more or less the exact same thing just in a different format.

 

[Agent575]

Deeper rosters with larger lineups with flexible lineup structure and scoring even across positions. You average league where you roster 20 or less players and start 10 or less players really have little skill involved. You need to give owners flexibility in lineups and rosters go as deep as your group is willing to go. Two of my leagues start 22 weekly and it is very noticeable the difference between them and my start 9 league.

 

[Agent575]

You want to reward skill? Run an auction instead of a draft.

I've never played in an auction league so I have no basis for comparison and I seem to hear this a lot but how exactly does it require more skill than a draft? Correct me if I'm wrong but here's my impression of auctions. You have a budget and you have to maximaize it by not overpaying for the bad top teir players while trying to find the cheaper players who will well outperform their intial value. So to use last year as an example you were probably able to land guys like Fred Jackson/Sproles/Jimmy Graham/Gronkowski/Stafford/Cam/Steve Smith(car) etc. fairly cheep. The skill is targeting these guys and estimating whats the cheapest you can get them so you can maximize whats left of your budget after you've blow a good chunk of it on the higher teir players. If this is correct than I just don't see how it take's anymore or less skill than a draft which is the more or less the exact same thing just in a different format.

Auction takes more skill simply because the lucky draw of a number does not dictate who is available to you. Everyone has the ability to get any player and thats how it should be. Sure there is strategy within a snake draft but its still not the same.

 

[Bobby Guano]

You want to reward skill? Run an auction instead of a draft.

I've never played in an auction league so I have no basis for comparison and I seem to hear this a lot but how exactly does it require more skill than a draft? Correct me if I'm wrong but here's my impression of auctions. You have a budget and you have to maximaize it by not overpaying for the bad top teir players while trying to find the cheaper players who will well outperform their intial value. So to use last year as an example you were probably able to land guys like Fred Jackson/Sproles/Jimmy Graham/Gronkowski/Stafford/Cam/Steve Smith(car) etc. fairly cheep. The skill is targeting these guys and estimating whats the cheapest you can get them so you can maximize whats left of your budget after you've blow a good chunk of it on the higher teir players. If this is correct than I just don't see how it take's anymore or less skill than a draft which is the more or less the exact same thing just in a different format.

Auction takes more skill simply because the lucky draw of a number does not dictate who is available to you. Everyone has the ability to get any player and thats how it should be. Sure there is strategy within a snake draft but its still not the same.

I agree with your other post about larger rosters and adding more positions to staring line ups requireing more skill but this one not so much.If I have the 12th pick in a 12 teamer then theoretically the 11 best players are off the board already. So what, if I'm skilled I can still field a competetive team regardless of the fact that I was at perceived disadvangate from the start. Just like if I was in an auction and I was out bid on the all the players from the top 11 that I wanted. If I'm a skilled owner I can overcome this and still be competetive. If anything then wouldn't a setup that put some people at a disadvantage from the start require more skill than one where everyone starts equally? If this is your argumment then I still don't see where one takes more skill than the other.

 

[GregR]

If anything then wouldn't a setup that put some people at a disadvantage from the start require more skill than one where everyone starts equally?

The point of the thread is to help craft rules where skill has the most opportunity to differentiate itself over luck.If your skill has to overcome bad luck before it is even pitted against the other owner's skill, then clearly luck is playing a big role which is the opposite of our intent.

 

[GregR]

Yes, Auctions favor skill. If you are drafting 10th, and there are two good values that happen in the first 9 picks, you have virtually no ability to take advantage of them because of luck of draft position. If you are in an auction you can take advantage of the lack of skill in the other owners that had them underpaying for those players.

A good rule of thumb, if a system provides more opportunities where a skilled owner will do the right thing and an unskilled owner will do the wrong thing, then it tends to favor skill more than luck.

 

[GregR]

Another thing... keeper rules. There's three major ways, I believe, to do keeper compensation.

Spend a pick equal to where he was drafted. Spend a pick X rounds better than where he was drafted. Or spend your 1st round pick on your first keeper, 2nd on your second, and draft normally if you don't keep a player with it.

Amongst the three, I believe the third favors skill the most, particularly if you're keeping more than just 1 or 2 players.

For the first two, the decision you're put to is basically "which players do I have that will most outperform their required raft pick." Seldom will the players being kept by other teams be something that impacts your decision.

But in the third system there is an added element because of the structure involved. You can mock what should happen if every team decides perfectly and see what your draft picks would be if you throw players back. The high profile rookies often figure more prominently in this than they do in the other two formats.

 

[FF Ninja]

Another thing... keeper rules. There's three major ways, I believe, to do keeper compensation.Spend a pick equal to where he was drafted. Spend a pick X rounds better than where he was drafted. Or spend your 1st round pick on your first keeper, 2nd on your second, and draft normally if you don't keep a player with it.Amongst the three, I believe the third favors skill the most, particularly if you're keeping more than just 1 or 2 players. For the first two, the decision you're put to is basically "which players do I have that will most outperform their required raft pick." Seldom will the players being kept by other teams be something that impacts your decision.But in the third system there is an added element because of the structure involved. You can mock what should happen if every team decides perfectly and see what your draft picks would be if you throw players back. The high profile rookies often figure more prominently in this than they do in the other two formats.

I'll reply to some earlier posts later, but I'd like to mention a 4th option for keeper leagues which is what I'd have thought was the simplest/most common:Each team straight up keeps X number of players. It is much like the third option, but if an unskilled player has a team full of borderline keepers then he can't just throw them back into the mix (like the third option) and draft higher than the other players. You are forced to sleep in the bed you've made. I play in a 3 keeper league. Everybody keeps 3 guys and everybody drafts where they draft, which essentially starts like the 4th round of a redraft. Teams that are loaded with talent can trade their extra players in the offseason for draft picks or maybe a 2-for-1 trade or 3-for-1 (if a poor team has 1 elite stud and no one else worth keeping and another team that has 5 keeper worthy players, but not quite elite).

 

[Bobby Guano]

If anything then wouldn't a setup that put some people at a disadvantage from the start require more skill than one where everyone starts equally?

The point of the thread is to help craft rules where skill has the most opportunity to differentiate itself over luck.If your skill has to overcome bad luck before it is even pitted against the other owner's skill, then clearly luck is playing a big role which is the opposite of our intent.

Okay now that makes sense. I'll buy it thanks for laying it out like that Mr. Russell!

 

[GregR]

Another thing... keeper rules. There's three major ways, I believe, to do keeper compensation.Spend a pick equal to where he was drafted. Spend a pick X rounds better than where he was drafted. Or spend your 1st round pick on your first keeper, 2nd on your second, and draft normally if you don't keep a player with it.Amongst the three, I believe the third favors skill the most, particularly if you're keeping more than just 1 or 2 players. For the first two, the decision you're put to is basically "which players do I have that will most outperform their required raft pick." Seldom will the players being kept by other teams be something that impacts your decision.But in the third system there is an added element because of the structure involved. You can mock what should happen if every team decides perfectly and see what your draft picks would be if you throw players back. The high profile rookies often figure more prominently in this than they do in the other two formats.

I'll reply to some earlier posts later, but I'd like to mention a 4th option for keeper leagues which is what I'd have thought was the simplest/most common:Each team straight up keeps X number of players. It is much like the third option, but if an unskilled player has a team full of borderline keepers then he can't just throw them back into the mix (like the third option) and draft higher than the other players. You are forced to sleep in the bed you've made. I play in a 3 keeper league. Everybody keeps 3 guys and everybody drafts where they draft, which essentially starts like the 4th round of a redraft. Teams that are loaded with talent can trade their extra players in the offseason for draft picks or maybe a 2-for-1 trade or 3-for-1 (if a poor team has 1 elite stud and no one else worth keeping and another team that has 5 keeper worthy players, but not quite elite).

You're right, that's an option I negelected to mention, and a common one.And you're probably right that ultimately it will help the more skilled owner since he probably has the better roster to keep from (though any keeper method will). But I'm very "eh" on it as a method for other reasons. I think it's a big enough advantage being able to keep players for less compensation than they should cost, without giving them the players essentially for free. I think the loss in league competitiveness versus other methods makes it the least attractive of the four.But, that's my personal preference. You're right it should be mentioned. Really, any system that allows a few players to be kept would help the skilled owner in the long term.Edit to add: I also like think the other methods require more thinking than does a simple "keep the best 2 players on your roster", so I'd probably rank it last in terms of how much skill it adds.

 

[FF Ninja]

I think the loss in league competitiveness versus other methods makes it the least attractive of the four.

Well, isn't the point to reward skill instead of luck? When you say loss of league competitiveness that implies a shift away from parity towards skill. So by definition, the "everyone keeps their best 3 (or whatever number chosen by the league) players" gives the advantage to the better fantasy football players (skill over luck).As for your edit, I think you are confusing strategy in one aspect with skill overall. I totally agree there is less strategy in simply picking your best 3 players vs. deciding if you keep a guy and forfeit a round or let him go back to the FA pool and take the early draft pick. But overall, the extra round(s) in the draft allows teams that have bungled the previous year's draft to have a chance to make up for it this year. Thus, aiding poor players to increase parity.

 

[FF Ninja]

I think PPR adds skill. First, not all RBs are equally valuable--you have to be able to project their role as a receiver. Don't forget, in PPR receivers get points for catches too. It means a guy like Ray Rice or Reggie Bush is worth more than they would normally, and a guy like Michael Turner less. YOu have to know about player usage more, and that's skill. Plus, TDs are THE most variable and unpredictable stat, year to year. In traditional scoring formats, a great deal of RB scoring is TDs--yet they are very unpredictable. And it makes the relative value of WRs and TEs closer to that of RBs. And, again, not all receivers benefit the same. You need to figure out which receivers will be targeted alot. In normal scoring you could have some random WR catch 2 long passes, and go 2 for 120 yards and 1 TD, and his points are 18. Roddy White, Mr. Consistent, might catch 7 passes for 80 yards and 1 TD, and only garner 14 fantasy points. Is his day really worse? In PPR, it would 21 for White and 20 for the other guy. That's fairer.

Seriously, you don't need to explain how PPR works to me. I fully get it. I will reluctantly play it from time to time. I know all the ins and outs, but it doesn't change the fact that more players are putting up fringe starter points, which means all the people who frown at 10-team leagues but play PPR are semi-hypocrites. Why does we not like 10-team leagues? Too much talent for just 10 teams, right? Well, PPR makes the talent pool bigger. So in terms of ease of play 10-team is easier than 12-team while PPR is easier than non-PPR.

 

[FF Ninja]

And when I say someone "dropped the ball" when drafting a position, I don't mean they didn't end up with the preseason RB1, RB13, WR5, WR14, WR27, QB4, TE6 in their lineup. I mean maybe they did end up with that, but they drafted on a cheatsheet thinking they were well rounded, but the cheatsheet was wrong. In PPR they could just throw someone like Jaquizz in for their bust RB13 and move along. But not in standard scoring. You pay for a lack of depth, thus less luck.

I'm sorry Mr. Ninja but a lot of your arguments for why PPR takes less skill than SS have no factual basis and are filled with personal biased. I'd like to see some data that backs up your opinions.I'm confused by what you are saying in the bolded part. Are you trying to say that because of PPR if you lost your RB2 who was the 13 highest scoring RB( or supposed to be) that you could replace him with any RB who was in the 55-65 highest scoring range and not suffer for it? I can tell you this is not the case. Every situation is different but for a perfect example last year in my PPR league that gives .5 PPR to RB's I lost Ahmad Bradshaw who ended up finnishing as RB13 halfway through the season. Beleive me my team was not the same and I did suffer for lack of depth when I had to use Jakie Battle RB56/Lance Ball RB60(who both finnished with the same pts as Jaquizz RB58 BTW). My team didn't start to pick up steam again until I added Toby Gerhart RB37. I knew I would be in this situation at some point in the season though since it was part of my strategy to load up on blue chip RB's late in the draft ( only hit on one Sproles) and work the WW all year hoping to hit on a big injury fill in which I did with Gerhart. This is a valid strategy for todays NFL, I'm sure it works well enough no matter the scoring system and does not require any more skill in one than another.

No, I'm saying if the guy screwed up with his RB13 draft pick, he could just throw a guy (likely a FA) into his lineup that gets maybe 5 carries a game and a chance at 2-5 catches. Because in this silly system, 1 rec for 1 yard is worth more than 2 rushes for 10 yards. So if 2012 Rodgers gets put into a lineup, it may not work every week, but if you are playing against a guy that had to put him in because his preseason RB13 is a bust and Rodgers happens to have 4 rushes for 13 yards and 5 catches for 27 yards then he just put up 9 points on you with a total scrub effort. In non-PPR, that guy got what he deserved for drafting poorly. In PPR, he just squeaked by at RB2 because there are a ton of guys with potential to put up decent numbers every week. It may or may not happen, but at least everyone has a chance and that's why PPR is so popular.I'm sorry, but I don't think discussing your team last year is pertinent to this discussion so I'm going to move on. You might be a fan of anecdotal evidence, but I don't think it proves a point.

Seriously join a PPR league with semi competant owners and try to run with production like Jaquizz's numbers from last year(RB60 ish) at your RB2 spot and see how that works out for you. Your logic is severly flawed, you need every bit of depth in PPR that you would need in SS to stay competetive. You can't just replace 2'nd/3'rd teir production with teir 7/8 production and expect to be competetive in any scoring format. Maybe you just picked a bad example without doing any research.

Also whats wrong with Danny Amendola? The guy went 85/689/3 in 2010 good for WR29 in my league. Sure his yards per reception was pretty bad but he was a valuable contributer to his team that year. Explain to me why a guy who catches everything thrown his way and is grinding his heart and soul out for his team helping them move the chains should not be startable in fantasy football.

I've played PPR leagues with competitive owners. A 12-team PPR league with good owners reminds me of my 10-team work league with just 2RB and 2WR and no flex. Just too much talent available unless you have huge rosters. I think PPR would be better for 16-team leagues.I don't doubt that Amendola is a gutty player, but 689/3 is worthless. This isn't peewee basketball where everybody gets to play and award for "most effort" are handed out at the end of the season. 689/3 may have been accomplished by lots of effort and grit, but it isn't much of an accomplishment. He finished WR46 in normal leagues, yet was WR29 in PPR. This highlights how marginal producers are brought into relevance with PPR. That's why I say PPR widens the talent pool. It really can't be disputed. Bigger talent pools = more luck. See my previous reply to az_prof.

What about all the goal-line backs throughout the years that vultured TD's? Would you say it's criminal that players like John Kuhn/Mark Ingram become startable or add depth simply because they have a pretty good chance of scoring a TD every week? Take away TD's and players like these two become worthless, as they should be but nobody is going to remove TD scoring from their league are they...where's the line here?

I don't believe PPR has the effect you describe. It does not swing the curve to the tail, it just streaches out the middle a little bit. PPR does not suddenly make crappy players startable as you're trying to imply. The top is the top, the middle is the middle and the bottom is the bottom just like any other scoring format.

Stretching the middle expands the tail. You just agreed with me without knowing it.Kuhn is not ever startable in a 12-team non-PPR. Even when he gets his TD, he usually has almost no yardage to go with it. But even then, I think rushing for a 3 yard TD is more valuable than catching 6 passes for 1 yard each.

I honestly don't think any one scoring system require's more skill than another. I think understanding your leagues scoring and rosters and devloping strategies on how to get the most out of the rules is what takes skill. Like others have said the best way to increase skill and weed out the luck are minimal Flex positions increasing the sample of games and having a larger pool of teams.

Any time scoring is changed in a major way, the strategy/skill required to succeed is either increased or decreased, so I have to completely disagree. That would be like saying, I honestly don't think changing the number of teams affects the skill needed to win.I've played in PPR and non-PPR and it is substantially easier to fill holes in your lineup in PPR than non-PPR. Thus, I think it is easy to discern which setting favors skill and which setting favors parity.

Good debate though and I have never played in a true SS league so maybe I should try it sometime to compare. Although my main league has been around for awhile and evolved quite a bit over the years. A while back we were very similar to standard scoring before switching to PPR. The interesting thing about this though is that a hanfull of owners have remained sucessfull throughout the years by adopting new strategies and prcatices while a handfull of guys who were pretty good back in the standard scoring days have not faired so well since PPR was added. Another funny thing is these owners who've had trouble adapting to PPR are also the ones that make arguments like FF Ninja every year to try and get it removed.

Please do try it. I think you'll find it frustrating at first, but if you are better than your peers then you'll find it easier to distance yourself. If you aren't as good as you think then you'll hate it and blame it for being a bad system.And I'll reiterate one more time that I have no trouble adapting to a PPR system. It is just funny playing both PPR and non-PPR, when you see guys that are borderline unrosterable in non-PPR in people's starting lineups in PPR. It is times like that when I know that PPR is a joke and it is only popular because everyone feels like they are in it every week. Same reason why people hate total points leagues. People always say they want to see the best team win, but if that were the case then we wouldn't even be playing H2H with playoffs. We'd either do all play (I think Greg mentioned this, it is where your weekly record vs. all the other teams is added up, so you could go 7-4 one week and 11-0 the next and your record after two weeks would be 18-4 instead of 1-1, it is pretty awesome) or straight up total points.

 

[beaux]

Doesn't matter what you do, it is all luck...

I know this is schtick, but only a really bad player would think this.

Not schtick when you speak the truth...

 

[ConnSKINS26]

Doesn't matter what you do, it is all luck...

I know this is schtick, but only a really bad player would think this.

Not schtick when you speak the truth...

Maybe if you brought anything but one-liners and hit-and-run posts to the table, someone would give your thoughts merit.

 

[beaux]

Doesn't matter what you do, it is all luck...

I know this is schtick, but only a really bad player would think this.

Not schtick when you speak the truth...

Maybe if you brought anything but one-liners and hit-and-run posts to the table, someone would give your thoughts merit.

Whatever... There is nothing that one can say to prove to me that fantasy sports is not luck... Doing research and becoming informed is not "skill"...

 

[ConnSKINS26]

Doesn't matter what you do, it is all luck...

I know this is schtick, but only a really bad player would think this.

Not schtick when you speak the truth...

Maybe if you brought anything but one-liners and hit-and-run posts to the table, someone would give your thoughts merit.

Whatever... There is nothing that one can say to prove to me that fantasy sports is not luck... Doing research and becoming informed is not "skill"...

That not being skill is a completely separate opinion than saying "fantasy is all luck". It might not be skill in your opinion, but that doesn't make it all luck, which is what you said--which is what we disagreed with.

 

[beaux]

Doesn't matter what you do, it is all luck...

I know this is schtick, but only a really bad player would think this.

Not schtick when you speak the truth...

Maybe if you brought anything but one-liners and hit-and-run posts to the table, someone would give your thoughts merit.

Whatever... There is nothing that one can say to prove to me that fantasy sports is not luck... Doing research and becoming informed is not "skill"...

That not being skill is a completely separate opinion than saying "fantasy is all luck". It might not be skill in your opinion, but that doesn't make it all luck, which is what you said--which is what we disagreed with.

So where is the "skill" then?

 

[ConnSKINS26]

Doesn't matter what you do, it is all luck...

I know this is schtick, but only a really bad player would think this.

Not schtick when you speak the truth...

Maybe if you brought anything but one-liners and hit-and-run posts to the table, someone would give your thoughts merit.

Whatever... There is nothing that one can say to prove to me that fantasy sports is not luck... Doing research and becoming informed is not "skill"...

That not being skill is a completely separate opinion than saying "fantasy is all luck". It might not be skill in your opinion, but that doesn't make it all luck, which is what you said--which is what we disagreed with.

So where is the "skill" then?

I don't play re-draft, so I can only speak from a dynasty perspective. The skill is in trading, manipulating the start-up draft and rookie draft, knowing your leaguemates' tendencies, etc. There is a lot of skill involved in building, maintaining, and competing with a roster from year-to-year, and part of that is also scouting rookies. Some have a better eye for talent than others. Some have a better feel for "selling high" and "buying low", getting value in trades, and flipping that into an improved roster.The who-do-I-start-every-week-and-how-will-they-perform aspect of fantasy football has always been more lucky. But that's the more minor part of the equation for me personally, as the majority of my time is spent on every other aspect of being in dynasty leagues. A very small portion of my time, proportionally, is spent actually setting a lineup every week, which is ironic considering that the games are what decide the outcome. But it is a time-consuming hobby that requires lots of skill. You do the best you can with your skill and talent-evaluation to actually build a roster, right up until the moment the games start. And then, yes, luck takes over to a large degree. But the skillful building of a dynasty roster has a very large effect on how much luck takes over.

 

[GregR]

I think the loss in league competitiveness versus other methods makes it the least attractive of the four.

Well, isn't the point to reward skill instead of luck? When you say loss of league competitiveness that implies a shift away from parity towards skill. So by definition, the "everyone keeps their best 3 (or whatever number chosen by the league) players" gives the advantage to the better fantasy football players (skill over luck).As for your edit, I think you are confusing strategy in one aspect with skill overall. I totally agree there is less strategy in simply picking your best 3 players vs. deciding if you keep a guy and forfeit a round or let him go back to the FA pool and take the early draft pick. But overall, the extra round(s) in the draft allows teams that have bungled the previous year's draft to have a chance to make up for it this year. Thus, aiding poor players to increase parity.

There is a difference between "rewarding skill" and creating situations where skill has an opportunity to differentiate itself.We could give last year's total points winner an extra 40 extra fantasy points in every game this year, and that would tend to reward skill more than it rewarded luck. But it wouldn't make FF any better of a game. I don't see a reason to start other teams potentially so far behind the curve as no compensation for keepers rules can create. Not unless I'm going full on dynasty (and even then my preference is to have something like salary caps and contracts that requires more decision making than just "should I cut him or not").If I'm going to have keepers, I'd rather include an element of decision making and let the skill of their decision this year be felt rather than "rewarding" last year's skill. That said, I'm stating my preference, and how much room I think it gives skill to work. Not telling you that you shouldn't use whatever system you want. If a set of owners prefers to have no-compensation keepers, then as always, make the league how the league wants.

 

[WisWolvrns]

I've toyed with some revolutionary FF ideas. Mostly along this line with lessening the impact of luck and injuries.

One of the off the wall changes is breaking each week's scoring into Offense, Defense and Special Teams. You can also work in the multiple HTH games per week or victory points type thing to make it even better.

How it works, you have your starters, point system, etc... using what makes the most sense for trying to have skill over luck. But then each week it is your team's starting offensive points vs your opponents offensive points, defense vs defense and special teams vs special teams. The person who 'wins' 2 or 3 of those comparisons gets the win.

That eliminates the 'blow out' game by one player, or scrub 3rd string WR who goes off in one week of the year and it happened to be against you. Those will still happen, but that just 'wins' one of the 3 factors. What happens in the other 2 in that week will still make or break a team.

As an added skill bonus, have the special teams be the PK, could throw in something for Punters, but also add in NFL picks. So each week owners have to pick the winners of the NFL games to score 'pts' toward their special teams. Make sure the correct pickem actually scores well enough to make it worth while when compared to punters/PKs and that opens up another skill level and weekly decision tree. To go real crazy, use the point spreads...

Needless to say this is a different way of doing things and I have taken it to even more extremes with respect to no waivers and best starters for those who don't have the time to spend each week and team positions and such, but even with out going way out there, just breaking out offense, defense and special teams+pick'ems could be something to experiment with...

(assuming IDP for defenses)

 

[DropKick]

Another thing... keeper rules. There's three major ways, I believe, to do keeper compensation.Spend a pick equal to where he was drafted. Spend a pick X rounds better than where he was drafted. Or spend your 1st round pick on your first keeper, 2nd on your second, and draft normally if you don't keep a player with it.Amongst the three, I believe the third favors skill the most, particularly if you're keeping more than just 1 or 2 players. For the first two, the decision you're put to is basically "which players do I have that will most outperform their required raft pick." Seldom will the players being kept by other teams be something that impacts your decision.But in the third system there is an added element because of the structure involved. You can mock what should happen if every team decides perfectly and see what your draft picks would be if you throw players back. The high profile rookies often figure more prominently in this than they do in the other two formats.

I'll reply to some earlier posts later, but I'd like to mention a 4th option for keeper leagues which is what I'd have thought was the simplest/most common:Each team straight up keeps X number of players. It is much like the third option, but if an unskilled player has a team full of borderline keepers then he can't just throw them back into the mix (like the third option) and draft higher than the other players. You are forced to sleep in the bed you've made. I play in a 3 keeper league. Everybody keeps 3 guys and everybody drafts where they draft, which essentially starts like the 4th round of a redraft. Teams that are loaded with talent can trade their extra players in the offseason for draft picks or maybe a 2-for-1 trade or 3-for-1 (if a poor team has 1 elite stud and no one else worth keeping and another team that has 5 keeper worthy players, but not quite elite).

Every player keeps "X" players is the simplest and, I believe, the best keeper format. I am always puzzled by posts like "I'm keeping "Justin Otherguy" because he only costs me a 15th round pick". Why bother having keepers? You can also get extreme discrepancies such as ADP being drafted in the first but Arian Foster going as a free agent.As far as reducing luck? Play keeper or dynasty rather than redraft. Play with no fewer than 12 teams. Play total points or "All-Play" as H2H is the most random thing going. Avoid pin-ball type scoring systems such as those with large bonuses for long plays. These can double/triple count as a single play results in a score, yardage, distance bonus, yards per carry, etc.ETA: Also, swings in kicker points can be dramatic in some scoring systems. I've seen difference between 3 extra points and 3 field goals offset the performance of a solid RB day.