Thinking of adding a flex position... (1 Viewer)

[Bartguy]

So for the past 10 years, I've been commish of a non-flex league (1QB,2RB,3WR,1TE,1PK,1DST). Only the TE gets a pt/rec to help make that position as valuable as RBs and WRs. We have 9 player lineups and 16 player rosters.

I'm thinking of going to a flex lineup for a couple of reasons: 1. I've always tried to take as much luck out of the game as possible, and a flex would seem to help teams get their best players into the lineup instead of leaving their best depth on the bench and going with a wing and a prayer at the “crapshoot” positions like WR3. 2. Our small rosters seem to penalize teams with good depth who either have to drop that depth to cover byes or field weak lineups. A flex would give those teams more flexibility to field lineups during byes instead of dropping that good bench player to pickup a bum who just fills a roster spot for a week. 3. It seems like it would add an additional layer of strategy both in the draft and during the season, so it'd be more fun. Agree or disagree?

If you agree that a flex slot is a good idea, the next question is how should I tweak my lineup to add the flex slot? I like the idea of the flex being RB/WR/TE because it gives a lot of flexibility. But if I just added that slot, it would allow teams to play 3 RBs, which would seem to make RBs too valuable. The obvious answer is to only have one RB slot in the base lineup. Thus, 1QB, 1RB, 3WR, 1TE, 1PK, 1DST, 1 RB/WR/TE FLEX. Any criticisms/comments/ advice on whether that would make for a balanced lineup or whether it will cause a big shift in the value of the different positions? Would love to hear from people who saw what adding a flex did to their league play.

Thanks.

 

[Reagan]

So for the past 10 years, I've been commish of a non-flex league (1QB,2RB,3WR,1TE,1PK,1DST). Only the TE gets a pt/rec to help make that position as valuable as RBs and WRs. We have 9 player lineups and 16 player rosters.I'm thinking of going to a flex lineup for a couple of reasons: 1. I've always tried to take as much luck out of the game as possible, and a flex would seem to help teams get their best players into the lineup instead of leaving their best depth on the bench and going with a wing and a prayer at the “crapshoot” positions like WR3. 2. Our small rosters seem to penalize teams with good depth who either have to drop that depth to cover byes or field weak lineups. A flex would give those teams more flexibility to field lineups during byes instead of dropping that good bench player to pickup a bum who just fills a roster spot for a week. 3. It seems like it would add an additional layer of strategy both in the draft and during the season, so it'd be more fun. Agree or disagree?If you agree that a flex slot is a good idea, the next question is how should I tweak my lineup to add the flex slot? I like the idea of the flex being RB/WR/TE because it gives a lot of flexibility. But if I just added that slot, it would allow teams to play 3 RBs, which would seem to make RBs too valuable. The obvious answer is to only have one RB slot in the base lineup. Thus, 1QB, 1RB, 3WR, 1TE, 1PK, 1DST, 1 RB/WR/TE FLEX. Any criticisms/comments/ advice on whether that would make for a balanced lineup or whether it will cause a big shift in the value of the different positions? Would love to hear from people who saw what adding a flex did to their league play.Thanks.

I'll give you my thoughts. How large is your league? We play in a 10 team, PPR league. I like our format of 1QB, 2RB, 2WR, Flex, TE, K, DST. Our flex can be a RB/WR/TE though I'm not sure I've ever seen anybody in our league use two TEs. More often than not folks use 3RB (maybe 60% of the time) and 3 WRs about 40% of the time. Seems to work out. I wouldn't be opposed to starting one RB in your base, simply because the RB depth peters fairly quickly, unlike WR depth. If you play in a 12 team league, I'd go with 1 RB because with 2RBs and guys adding more for flex position, you'd have zero FA market, I'd imagine.

 

[Neil Beaufort Zod]

I'd consider merging the K and Def spots into one. They're throwaway positions and combining them adds a little strategy to picking them. Plus it's easier on bye weeks. Then you just add in the flex and everything else is the same.

 

[stickboy]

So for the past 10 years, I've been commish of a non-flex league (1QB,2RB,3WR,1TE,1PK,1DST). Only the TE gets a pt/rec to help make that position as valuable as RBs and WRs. We have 9 player lineups and 16 player rosters.I'm thinking of going to a flex lineup for a couple of reasons: 1. I've always tried to take as much luck out of the game as possible, and a flex would seem to help teams get their best players into the lineup instead of leaving their best depth on the bench and going with a wing and a prayer at the “crapshoot” positions like WR3. 2. Our small rosters seem to penalize teams with good depth who either have to drop that depth to cover byes or field weak lineups. A flex would give those teams more flexibility to field lineups during byes instead of dropping that good bench player to pickup a bum who just fills a roster spot for a week. 3. It seems like it would add an additional layer of strategy both in the draft and during the season, so it'd be more fun. Agree or disagree?If you agree that a flex slot is a good idea, the next question is how should I tweak my lineup to add the flex slot? I like the idea of the flex being RB/WR/TE because it gives a lot of flexibility. But if I just added that slot, it would allow teams to play 3 RBs, which would seem to make RBs too valuable. The obvious answer is to only have one RB slot in the base lineup. Thus, 1QB, 1RB, 3WR, 1TE, 1PK, 1DST, 1 RB/WR/TE FLEX. Any criticisms/comments/ advice on whether that would make for a balanced lineup or whether it will cause a big shift in the value of the different positions? Would love to hear from people who saw what adding a flex did to their league play.Thanks.

Why not have any position as a flex? Is there any reason to exclude QB or even DST? You want to balance the scoring potential of each position as closely as possible so that teams can go stud WR, stud RB, stud QB, etc. and thus provide other options that are close to as good as 3 RB. Typical approaches are to give QB's 6 pts per TD rather than 4, to go PPR or 1 pt per 8 yards for receiving, and to give bonus points for long FG or minimal defensive points/yards. Take last year's top N scorers at each position, put them in a spreadsheet with scoring rule options, and see how close the curves get with various scoring alternatives.

 

[Uruk-Hai]

We have a 12-teamer that flexes two players at any position, with the flexes having to be at 2 different spots excepting WRs. Our base lineup is 1QB, 1RB, 2WR, 1TE, 1PK, 1D/ST. When we went to this, we actually decreased the QB scoring - otherwise, one of the flex spots would have been a de facto 2nd QB. QBs get 1/30 yds passing & 4 pts per TD. 1/10 rushing/receiving with a ppr for WRs & TEs only. PK & D/ST are too detailed to copy here, but we've had weeks where one of the flexes were used at these positions.

It mixes things up well for us (Andre Johnson & DeAngelo Williams finished 1/2 within 2 pts of each other; Drew Brees was 4th in total points). Our drafts would look whacky to outsiders, I guess, as we've got guys going QB/QB with their first two picks & every other combo of QB/RB/WR possible.

 

[mjr]

An additional flex spot is definately more fun for everyone. In fact, in my league we have 3 flex spots and none of us want to go back to just 1. Ever. It helps keep things a lot more competitive through the season.

If you go to flex, I would drop the starting requirements from 3 WRs to 2 WRs, then consider adding a little more value to the passing/receiving positions somehow. In my leagues we give all players 6 points for a TD inside the 10 yard line, 9 points from between the 10 and 20 and 12 points from anywhere outside the 20. This helps make the QB and WR spots more attractive to owners even when the additional RB spot becomes available through flex play.

 

[GregR_2]

I played for many years with a flex RB/WR/TE, and as you say it just ends up making the RB position even more valuable as teams who can field more top RBs do better.

When I put together my contract dynasty league, I instead went with a flex QB/RB and a flex WR/TE. The first flex gets used as a QB most of the time and brings QBs into some parity with RB in value. Since you can start a RB if you need to, it avoids the downside of not having enough QBs to go around to cover bye weeks. And the WR/TE flex brings those a little closer in value to RB then, and it actually does become possible to start 2 TEs especially if you have uneven PPR favoring TE.

 

[Trent]

I'm in a 16 team keeper league. We also have tweaked the Te scoring to make them more valuable. we have multiple starting lineup options:

Standard 2 rb 3 wrs 1 te

Run n shoot 1 rb 4 wrs 1 te

Power 3 rbs 2 wrs 1 te

Double te 2 rbs 2 wrs 2 tes

Jumbo te 1 rb 2 wrs 3 tes

These lineup options provide everyone to get their best players in the game and make bye weeks alot easier to manage.