What makes your league unique? (1 Viewer)

[jeter23]

I was thinking about starting a new league this offseason and wanted to hear what some of you do that might be different from a typical league. In one of my leagues, we draft college players in a developmental draft and keep them until they get to the NFL. I know other leagues do this as well, but I like it and it adds a different aspect to the season. What makes your league special?

 

[weisguy0831]

We don't use the internet.

We use two drafts - one at the start of the season, then another after week 8. It's a keeper league. You keep 7-10 of 15 in the offseason and then 10 after week 8.

We start 13 of 15 rostered players each week.

We play the full 17-week season, just a total points league. No head to head.

 

[lborges]

In one of my leagues started in the early 70's we made a few changes to liven up the party.. Since 5 of the original players are still in the league we decided to make it more interesting by doing a couple of things. The first is simple.. We draft 2 rookies and activate one. The second and the one that makes the initial draft very interesting is that we can activate a Sunday night and Monday night player. (drafting consists of 2 QB, 2 K, 4 RB, 6 RC, 2 Def, & 2 Rookies, activation is 1 QB, 1 K, 2 RB, 3 RC, 1 D, 1 RK, 1 Sun & 1 Mon). Because we cannot substitute players until mid-season this makes drafting a bit harder. You draft for quality during the first half or so then draft for players that you can play on Sunday/Monday nights. If you draft correctly you can activate 3 QB's during the same week.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

In one (TD-heavy) league, we draft coaches and must start one. If his team wins, you get 4 points, ties you get 2, losses you get 0.

In another, to make QB scoring more important, we give points for completions -- just as receivers get points for receptions.

 

[baronson]

i think you have to think outside the box on this one. what makes a league more enjoyable or just "better" is not the rules or the format. it's the "extras." things like weekly trash-talking rankings, requirements for good, funny (emphasis on good and funny) team names, with applicable icons, etc.

in terms of how to run the thing, one thing we do in both my leagues (one started doing it after it worked so well in my other league) is in week 13, we call it "rivalry week." this is not only the week that most often is crucial as to who makes the fantasy playoffs, but you schedule all the nemeses against one another. for example, every week 13, two twin brothers match up. i face my old roommate because i love hating that guy, two other guys face off who dated the same girl awhile back, etc. so, not only is your playoff berth on the line, but also bragging rights against your nemesis for the whole off-season.

one thing i do personally with my nemesis is we've just somehow managed to have several disputes over marty booker over the course of the past 8 years. totally random. but now, our rivalry week "trophy" is the right to wear the coveted marty booker jersey to the draft the following year. we also call it the "marty booker bowl.'

anyway, my point is, THAT is the stuff that makes a league unique and fun. not the format or scoring system.

 

[redman]

Because we're just like everyone else.

 

[Beaumont]

One of my leagues has a weekly prize/penalty where the worse you do each week the more you pay.

1st place = $75 win

2nd place - 0 net

3rd place - ($3)

4th place - ($4)

... and so on ...

Couple this with $10 transactions and it keeps the place lively all season long ...

It does, however, require honest owners that are willing to pony up their negative accounts at the end of the season on top of the $500 buy in ...

 

[Crusaderfan]

In one league I'm in, we have no playoffs. Best record after 17 weeks wins. We have a fee of $25 for each loss so this tends to keep everyone active even when they have been eliminated. I'm one of the guys playing to try to save $25 each week since my 4 RB's drafted were : Jordan, Caddy, KJ and J. Lewis.

Willie

 

[ydub]

We're in the seventh year of a 14 team Dynasty/Salary cap/IDP/Auction/blah blah blah league and we typically add a new feature to the league during each offseason to keep it fresh. For example, our max contract length is 5 years and over the last few years, we've added a franchise tag (top 5 avg. salary) and a transition tag (top 15 avg. salary) so the owners can retain (at a cost) some of their better draft picks. Our salary cap goes up each season based on a dice roll (2% -10%) and we pay a 25% penalty for players cut while under contract. We've also increased our roster limit over the years to 45. However, one really needs to be creative and frugal to employ that many players.

At the end of the day, the owners determine whether a league really takes off and the key is retention. We still have the original 14 GM's. If you can keep the guys together, each year should be just a bit more entertaining than the last.

 

[Captain Spaulding]

Our league has no head to head. We play 16 weeks. Cumulative points on season wins money. Also to keep everyone interested the whole duration we play 4 quarters of the season and each qtr points leader wins money.

On top of that you have a locked lineup (with backups selected for injury coverage) for 4 straight weeks (each quarter). Once you use those players you selected (all owners have access to all NFL players) you can't select them for remainder of season. So its kinda FFTOC format but instead of weekly lineups where you can't use players ever again, its quarterly so you have a trend performance of 4 weeks instead of the luck factor of trying to pick the "one hot week" of a player over 16 week option.

I really like the trash talker award bonus someone previously mentioned. That would really make things fun. I might encorporate that next season... maybe a small $10 payout or something. Perhaps let the league vote at end of season on who the best trash talker was for the year to see who gets the prizeI guess "quality" of the smack has to be considered in voting more than "quantity" of the smack talk though. Otherwise it just goes to the biggest slacker with the most free time to post emails.

 

[RUN HARD]

Progressive Jackpot

Owners 1st Championship = 10% of PURSE

2nd = 15%

3rd = 25%

4th = 50%

5th = 100% and end of Dynasty League

Only prize money to Champ. All the rest is a rollover.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

In a league with 2 unique aspects:

1) We can wild card a position each week. So if I'm unsure of which QB to start, I can wild card that position, start both and get to take the score of the highest player.

2) In the first two rounds of the playoffs we give bonus points to the higher seeds. We had read that home field advantage is worth about 3 points, so the higher seeded team gets 3 bonus points up to the Super Bowl, which is played on a neutral field with no bonus points. The idea is to try to take a little bit of the luck of the playoffs out of it and reward the regular season performances.