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Things we've learned already in 2021 that we should write down and commit to memory NOW! (1 Viewer)

12 playoff appearances in 12 years, 6 titles in 12 years.  A lot of that success can definitely be attributed to skill, but also a lot to luck.  If you read the whole thing you’ll see some crazy luck.


What the hell did you do to get that kind of luck lol. 6 in 12 years wow, I'd love fantasy football if I won that often.  Were these all big money leagues?

I remember when I first started I thought FF was easy because I kept picking studs like Michael Turner / AP / Calvin Johnson / Andre Johnson and everyone of my guys would go off. Good times, I think I lost a bunch right after that because I kept chasing the perfect draft with studs at every position versus safe and reliable boring players lol.

 
Yeah, change in longstanding leagues is difficult to come by. 

We do a weekly payout for high score but I would love to adopt a season long high score payout too. If you've played long enough you have been or known someone who had the most dominant team by far but, in h2h leagues, end up facing the highest scoring team every week.

10th season of my league, 2005, I drafted Edgerrin, Steven Jackson & Lamont Jordan 1, 2, 3 it was a monster team. 7 times I ended up facing the top scoring team that week, finished as the top scoring team by something like 200 points, went 7-7 and missed the playoffs.

I was livid and I fought a months long campaign almost daily that off-season to switch to all play. I cajoled, badgered, nagged etc until I got the votes to change. 

Totally worth it. I don't take magic football so seriously anymore but we still have a couple owners who don't like it and want to switch back, but that always gets me fired up and I rail hard  to keep those voices quiet every time they pop up.
We have a payout for high score for each week and the total for the year. Plus there's an extra bonus for highest one week score for the regular season. Helps to give everyone a shot at something even if their team isn't getting it done in the W column. 

 
What the hell did you do to get that kind of luck lol. 6 in 12 years wow, I'd love fantasy football if I won that often.  Were these all big money leagues?

I remember when I first started I thought FF was easy because I kept picking studs like Michael Turner / AP / Calvin Johnson / Andre Johnson and everyone of my guys would go off. Good times, I think I lost a bunch right after that because I kept chasing the perfect draft with studs at every position versus safe and reliable boring players lol.
Not big money - $50 buy in, $600 total prizes.  $250 to champion, $170 to weekly high scores, second and third place get the rest.  6 out of 12 teams make the playoffs.

Early on I felt a lot of my league mates were just dumb.  (I was almost mad the year I picked up David Johnson.  I felt like Zod did in that Superman movie - is there no one in this league to even challenge me)?  They didn't play the waiver wire, drafts were goofy.  But it's definitely possible to luck into a great draft.  The second year, a truly awful fantasy player (rarely makes the playoffs) drafted Arian Foster the year he first went off.  Also drafted the Philadelphia QB, who got injured for the year, so he had to pick up Michael Vick the year he broke fantasy football.  Easy title for him there.

At least now a few of them actually started watching the kind of moves I made, asked themselves why did he do that, and started mimicking some of my moves.  Like dropping a guy, picking up somebody already on IR and sliding them into an empty IR spot, and then picking up the player you want for this week.  It's never paid off for me, but I look at it like a lottery ticket.  And I have the control of whether I keep or cut the guy once he's activated off IR.

Fantasy football is basically making a lot of 51%-49% decisions.  At bottom every choice is "Player A" or "Player B".  if you make 100 decisions a year, and you're winning 60% while everybody else is winning 50%, you're going to rise to the top.

Casinos lose a lot of money when somebody puts down 5 G's on 00 on the roulette wheel and they hit.  But they make a lot more money on all the many small dollar red and black bets and can afford to take that big hit once in a while.

 
At least now a few of them actually started watching the kind of moves I made, asked themselves why did he do that, and started mimicking some of my moves.  Like dropping a guy, picking up somebody already on IR and sliding them into an empty IR spot, and then picking up the player you want for this week.  It's never paid off for me, but I look at it like a lottery ticket.  And I have the control of whether I keep or cut the guy once he's activated off IR.


Honestly, after 10 years of same guys in league, even the worst players in my league started to get better. They picked all the players I wanted this year. Thankfully all those players got injured so they saved me lol.

 
Honestly, after 10 years of same guys in league, even the worst players in my league started to get better. They picked all the players I wanted this year. Thankfully all those players got injured so they saved me lol.
Yes, that's also some of the good luck I didn't mention.  Especially with trades - I've made a lot of offers over the years that get rejected.  I'd say at least 80% of the time it worked out better for me, cause that guy I was targeting would bust or get injured or the guy I wanted to dump but was forced to keep would blow up.  

 
Stop playing regular fantasy football and play Guillotine leagues.

But how does it work? Let's say you get "guillotined" week 1. What is your role the rest of the season?

 
What the hell did you do to get that kind of luck lol. 6 in 12 years wow, I'd love fantasy football if I won that often.  Were these all big money leagues?

I remember when I first started I thought FF was easy because I kept picking studs like Michael


Turner


/ AP / Calvin


Johnson


/ Andre


Johnson


and everyone of my guys would go off. Good times, I think I lost a bunch right after that because I kept chasing the perfect draft with studs at every position versus safe and reliable boring players lol.


We had a guy in our VERY competitive league win 5 times in a row. Yes, he's a really good player, but he's finished last twice in the past 6 years, so no system works forever.

 
Season long Fantasy football has become all about injuries.  Through week 7 this year I lost all 10 of my top 10 picks to injury, with most of them on IR.  Wilson, Kittle, McCaffrey, Myles Sanders, Gallup, Jeudy, Antonio Brown, Lutz…. Ridiculous.

 
Season long Fantasy football has become all about injuries.  Through week 7 this year I lost all 10 of my top 10 picks to injury, with most of them on IR.  Wilson, Kittle, McCaffrey, Myles Sanders, Gallup, Jeudy, Antonio Brown, Lutz…. Ridiculous.
That's only eight, c'mon man, I gotta know who the other two are!

 
Stop playing regular fantasy football and play Guillotine leagues.

But how does it work? Let's say you get "guillotined" week 1. What is your role the rest of the season?
it’s really not likely for most to lose week 1. 1/18 chance of losing. If you have skill you know how to pick guys based on schedule for week 1, 1 week sleeper rb plays, pick safe players, and pick quality depth. There’s always people out of 18 teams that play sub optimally. Like drafting rookies who take time to develop, injured players like Barkley who don’t play week 1, etc. Therefore you can get yourself an advantage early on and as soon as it’s week 2 you steal their players and become stronger.
 

That aspect is really fun… you can really build out your ideal roster over 17 weeks and your final team for playoffs will be stacked with Henry cook Kamara hill kupp jackson and Mahomes. Then you got to decide who to sit and start among your studs. even if your draft busts or your player gets injured it doesn’t matter. Final teams usually only have 3 or 4 that you drafted at most. So it’s not like normal fantasy where if your draft goes bust your season is over anyway so in a sense its safer.

and potential of getting cut makes every week a rush. Requires a lot more skill than regular ff and because of the amount of effort and newness, you can quickly gain an advantage over the competition. 

if you do get cut week 1, you can join a 30 Dollar public league that starts week 2, or you can just join multiple leagues week 1 in case you get chopped in one. 

honestly, many of the teams that get chopped kind of deserve it. They were indeed constructed weaker. But even if you get cut it’s no big deal If you have another standard league. But chances are you will probably favor this over that.

 
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tigerz said:
it’s really not likely for most to lose week 1. 1/18 chance of losing. If you have skill you know how to pick guys based on schedule for week 1, 1 week sleeper rb plays, pick safe players, and pick quality depth. There’s always people out of 18 teams that play sub optimally. Like drafting rookies who take time to develop, injured players like


Barkley


who don’t play week 1, etc. Therefore you can get yourself an advantage early on and as soon as it’s week 2 you steal their players and become stronger.
 

That aspect is really fun… you can really build out your ideal roster over 17 weeks and your final team for playoffs will be stacked with


Henry


cook


Kamara


hill kupp jackson and


Mahomes


. Then you got to decide who to sit and start among your studs. even if your draft busts or your player gets injured it doesn’t matter. Final teams usually only have 3 or 4 that you drafted at most. So it’s not like normal fantasy where if your draft goes bust your season is over anyway so in a sense its safer.

and potential of getting cut makes every week a rush. Requires a lot more skill than regular ff and because of the amount of effort and newness, you can quickly gain an advantage over the competition. 

if you do get cut week 1, you can join a 30 Dollar public league that starts week 2, or you can just join multiple leagues week 1 in case you get chopped in one. 

honestly, many of the teams that get chopped kind of deserve it. They were indeed constructed weaker. But even if you get cut it’s no big deal If you have another standard league. But chances are you will probably favor this over that.


Hmmm, sounds interesting, but I doubt I could sell that idea to the weaker players in our league. They would hate being out after 1-2 weeks.  Are there online sites that host and match you up with others?

 
Hmmm, sounds interesting, but I doubt I could sell that idea to the weaker players in our league. They would hate being out after 1-2 weeks.  Are there online sites that host and match you up with others?
 Yup. guillotineleagues.com runs public $30 leagues. You can actually sign up for it midseason right now to give it a trial run. Usually have quite a few drafts going friday/saturday/sundays every week. Each successive week starts with less and less starting teams. Week 1 18, week 2 17, etc.

 
Also a huge fan of all play.....it IMO truly shows who the best owners are over the course  of the year...

we used to do 6 out of 12 make playoffs based solely on the three division winners and then the next three best records.....HTH tiebreakers often came into play.....

but..........we made probably the best switch EVER.....by now taking the three division winners and then the next three best “all play” records that were not division winners.....it lets us keep the importance/fun of the HTH matchups.....but then also truly rewards the best owners.....is especially helpful for those guys that run into a bunch of tough matchups where they may have had a really high score but got beat by THE high score several weeks....had a guy two years ago that finished 5-9 but had like the 2nd best all play record.....it was crazy how many times he lost to the highest score several weeks....he got into the playoffs because of our switch and ended p winning the whole thing and it was well deserved....he had a great team and made solid moves throughout....normally he wouldn’t have made the playoffs....

 
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Also a huge fan of all play.....it IMO truly shows who the best owners are over the course  of the year...
My money redraft awards $ to the top 3 in H2H, the top 3 in total points and the top 3 in all-play. One year I won all-play despite missing the playoffs and finishing 5th in total points. That was ... interesting. 

 
There are 1,000s of experts, pouring over every ounce of data, and making rankings. Then those ranking are normalized for consensus. Unless you know more or have more data than those guys, there is no sense going too far from those lists. If you do, you’re relying on luck. 
 

What wins leagues is three fold. 
 

1.  Finding the pockets of value in your draft based on your draft position and drafting accordingly to maximize points on your roster. 
2.  Being active on the waiver wire. 
3.  Most importantly, luck. 

 
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Wondering if the Henry injury changes draft strategies regarding going stud RB or stud WR first. He was as durable as they come until he wasn't.  For obvious reasons, big RB injuries tend to happen more frequently with RBs than with WRs.

 
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Wondering if the Henry injury changes draft strategies regarding going stud RB or stud WR first. He was as durable as they come until he wasn't.  For obvious reasons, big RB injuries tend to happen more frequently with RBs than with WRs.
Or does it have people pay attention to heavy workloads. Based on history there is no way Henry should have made it through the season. 

 
Wondering if the Henry injury changes draft strategies regarding going stud RB or stud WR first. He was as durable as they come until he wasn't.  For obvious reasons, big RB injuries tend to happen more frequently with RBs than with WRs.


Even if RB injuries are a factor against drafting RB first, there are factors against drafting WR first that people don't mention. WR play is much more dependent on QB play (Allen Robinson), much more inconsistent (i.e. Lockett / Hill have very huge games and very bust games whereas RBs usually have higher floors or easier to tell bad weeks vs tough D), dependent on scheme OC / HC (Allen Robinson), and targets can can change from PYs (i.e. difficulty choosing WRs from TB and Arizona).

So injuries is one part of it, but to be fair, you can bust at WR without getting injuries so you really should factor it all. 

 
Or does it have people pay attention to heavy workloads. Based on history there is no way Henry should have made it through the season. 
Workload is why I avoided him (he was taken before me but I wasn't going to draft him at my pick). Was looking like a fool for most of the season. Injuries just happen but when you get that many more carries, that's a lot more times for it to happen. 

 
I mean you got 7 elite weeks out of the guy. Hopefully you won majority of those weeks because of Henry. I know the Henry team in my league was undefeated until last week and most of it was due to Henry. That's pretty much enough to get you to playoffs. I think I'd rather take something like that when its certain without injury that he will WIN you games than a middling WR15-20 that won't lose me games.

 
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I mean you got 7 elite weeks out of the guy. Hopefully you won majority of those weeks because of Henry. I know the Henry team in my league was undefeated until last week and most of it was due to Henry. That's pretty much enough to get you to playoffs. I think I'd rather take something like that when its certain without injury that he will WIN you games than a middling WR15-20 that won't lose me games.
It seems odd to compare those two.  It's not like if you avoided Henry over workload concerns that your 2nd best option is a WR 15-20.  You could have avoided him and still taken a top RB or WR.  I'm not arguing RB vs WR.  The point I made was prior year workload should be a factor in your draft ranks.

And Henry could have won you 6 weeks this year and lost you 2.  And now you are trying to replace your first round pick for the next 9 weeks.  The goal isn't to just get to the playoffs.  

 
It seems odd to compare those two.  It's not like if you avoided Henry over workload concerns that your 2nd best option is a WR 15-20.  You could have avoided him and still taken a top RB or WR.  I'm not arguing RB vs WR.  The point I made was prior year workload should be a factor in your draft ranks.

And Henry could have won you 6 weeks this year and lost you 2.  And now you are trying to replace your first round pick for the next 9 weeks.  The goal isn't to just get to the playoffs.  
I'm not talking about your comment, I don't even think I quoted you? I'm talking about the people who purposely pass on RBs because RBs get injured and thinking that Henry's injury supports never taking a RB in first round. Saying that WRs in first round aren't necessarily top 5 WRs at end of year and if they end up WR15-20 rather than top 5, I'd rather take my shot at an elite top 3 and get 7 weeks of elite production. The goal is to win the playoffs obviously, and if Henry didn't get injured he'd really help you win. You can't take the injury as a given just because it happened. Hindsight 20/20. 

 
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I don't have a policy of avoiding RBs early, I passed on Henry at 1.4 for Josh Allen (super-flex), but when I look at the top 24 RBs taken in my redraft and the top 24 WRs taken in my redraft the contrast is stark. The RB list reads like the series finale of M*A*S*H

It seems that more WRs emerge from the bottom ranks nowadays than RBs, which decreases WR value overall but I haven't really seen a deep dive into that subject so I am not sure how stark that value difference is.

 
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To me I think this kind of thread should be less about individual players, and more about more general lessons we constantly screw up and need to write down while they're fresh.

Notably in my mind is that, yet again, there was absolutely zero correlation to how rookies looked in the preseason or in camp and how that translated to the regular season.  By far the best two rookies were either awful in the preseason (Chase) or didn't play at all (Pitts).  The guys who looked good (Fields) have been mostly terrible in the regular season.

Who were the guys overall that rose a ton due to great reports in training camp?  I remember the biggest camp standout was Elijah more with some pretty notable vets like OBJ saying he was the next big thing.  Who were the other guys that were the big training camp winners this year and how did it translate to the regular season for them?

 
Also a huge fan of all play.....it IMO truly shows who the best owners are over the course  of the year...

we used to do 6 out of 12 make playoffs based solely on the three division winners and then the next three best records.....HTH tiebreakers often came into play.....

but..........we made probably the best switch EVER.....by now taking the three division winners and then the next three best “all play” records that were not division winners.....it lets us keep the importance/fun of the HTH matchups.....but then also truly rewards the best owners.....is especially helpful for those guys that run into a bunch of tough matchups where they may have had a really high score but got beat by THE high score several weeks....had a guy two years ago that finished 5-9 but had like the 2nd best all play record.....it was crazy how many times he lost to the highest score several weeks....he got into the playoffs because of our switch and ended p winning the whole thing and it was well deserved....he had a great team and made solid moves throughout....normally he wouldn’t have made the playoffs....
I can't stand all play.  It kind of takes away the fun of playing against your buddy.  You play against everyone so you essentially play against nobody.  It just has a totally different feel and isn't what I like.  I just think it makes it a different game to some degree.  Makes it like roto style baseball (which i don't like either).  

I do understand it lessens the luck to some degree but i don't mind luck being involved.  I would rather have the head to head component and keep the luck.  

 
I can't stand all play.  It kind of takes away the fun of playing against your buddy.  You play against everyone so you essentially play against nobody.  It just has a totally different feel and isn't what I like.  I just think it makes it a different game to some degree.  Makes it like roto style baseball (which i don't like either).  

I do understand it lessens the luck to some degree but i don't mind luck being involved.  I would rather have the head to head component and keep the luck.  
if you read the whole post you will see that we kept the importance of the HTH (buddy) thing by continuing with the three conference winners making the playoffs and those HTH matchups meaning something....while also incorporating the all play aspect with the last three playoff spots.....best of both worlds..... and gets the truly best teams in the playoffs....

 
if you read the whole post you will see that we kept the importance of the HTH (buddy) thing by continuing with the three conference winners making the playoffs and those HTH matchups meaning something....while also incorporating the all play aspect with the last three playoff spots.....best of both worlds..... and gets the truly best teams in the playoffs....
I did and maybe I shouldn't have used your post to respond regarding all play.  You are only using All Play as a "tiebreaker" for who makes the playoffs.  We use points scored which is very close to the same thing.  I once did a comparison over a few years to see if all play and total point rankings were different.  In the years I looked at it there were two or three places (all in the middle of the pack) that didn't match.  I find using total points does the same thing as all play record and is much easier to track and monitor at quick glance.  

I just don't like using all play as the sole way to rank teams.   

 
I did and maybe I shouldn't have used your post to respond regarding all play.  You are only using All Play as a "tiebreaker" for who makes the playoffs.  We use points scored which is very close to the same thing.  I once did a comparison over a few years to see if all play and total point rankings were different.  In the years I looked at it there were two or three places (all in the middle of the pack) that didn't match.  I find using total points does the same thing as all play record and is much easier to track and monitor at quick glance.  

I just don't like using all play as the sole way to rank teams.   
no....the last three playoff spots go to the three all play teams that didn't win one of the three divisions....so the three division winners and then the next three best all play records make the playoffs.....we are not using all play as just a tiebreaker....

and as far as tracking and monitoring.....the website does it for you....it looks just like any other standings report...

to be honest....straight "all play" every week is the best way to see who has the best team/roster management/starters overall each and every week....

to put it another way.....in straight HTH leagues.....you could realistically score the second highest amount of points in each of the 14 weeks of the regular season and go 0-14....if you lose to the first highest score every week....and that would also probably have you leading the league in "total points"..... but you wouldn't sniff the playoffs cause you lost every week.....

our hybrid format (HTH and all play).....is almost the perfect compromise....

 
to put it another way.....in straight HTH leagues.....you could realistically score the second highest amount of points in each of the 14 weeks of the regular season and go 0-14....if you lose to the first highest score every week....and that would also probably have you leading the league in "total points"..... but you wouldn't sniff the playoffs cause you lost every week.....

our hybrid format (HTH and all play).....is almost the perfect compromise....
But in your format where the best three all play records that didn't win the divisions make the playoffs this theoretical 0-14 team that has the most points would make the playoffs.  As they would if you just use total points in the same manner.  Using all play or total points is essentially the same thing as I stated earlier.  

When I said all play was used as a "playoff tie breaker" I was meaning you used it to find the remaining playoff teams regardless of H2H record.  Once the three division winners are identified using H2H the all play is used to "break the tie" of the remaining teams to see who gets in the playoffs.  I was meaning the same thing as you.  Sorry for the confusion.  

 
But in your format where the best three all play records that didn't win the divisions make the playoffs this theoretical 0-14 team that has the most points would make the playoffs.  As they would if you just use total points in the same manner.  Using all play or total points is essentially the same thing as I stated earlier.  

When I said all play was used as a "playoff tie breaker" I was meaning you used it to find the remaining playoff teams regardless of H2H record.  Once the three division winners are identified using H2H the all play is used to "break the tie" of the remaining teams to see who gets in the playoffs.  I was meaning the same thing as you.  Sorry for the confusion.  
no worries....and yeah that was my point about the 0-14 team.....in a straight HTH league where all your worry about is your matchup with your buddies....that 0-14 team wouldn't sniff the playoffs....this way that team that deserves to be in the playoffs makes it in...

 
Focus on RB quality in the first 2 rounds but only pick 3. Round 4+RBs are more than likely a waste of a pick. you'll be able to find ww RBs from week 7 on for your RB2 spot if your guys get hurt. Elite RBs are almost universally first 2 rounds. WW for RB depth baby!! FWIW, lots of backup RBs also get hurt, just about as quickly as your stud RBs. 

Focus on getting a ton of WR volume in the draft. backup running backs just get dropped (in my league) before week 4 and then it's a race to the ww when guys get hurt. But more than 50% of backup RB production is from guys not drafted. Who had D'ernest Johnson killing me in week 10? Nobody. Kupp, Pittman, Chase, Deebo, Marquise Brown, Mike Williams. Sure wish I had 'em on my team.

Drafting QB early is not good. TE is linear to RB/WR in rounds 1-4, awful rounds 5-10. Lots of ww TEs will outproduce round 5-10 TEs. Lots of WRs here will outproduce your round 4 WR. focus on drafting volume at WR. 

Streaming QB also not great, get a solid QB but wait for the last of the good ones to land in your lap.

 
Reading through this thread, there's a lot of talk about going RB early and often, but then also talk about how RBs are more injury prone than other positions so maybe don't do that. Surely a huge part of the value in a stud RB is that they are large volume plays, and as a result you would naturally expect that they will get injured more than most? If you're taking CMC or Henry, then you're buying into the former getting low-mid 200s in carries and high double figure targets, if not more, and then the latter averaging 20 carries a game. You know the risks

 

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