Why Total Points is better than H2H (1 Viewer)

[Ghost Rider]

Yeah, I am fine with H2H leagues as well. Like I said before, they are more fun than total points leagues, but I simply prefer leagues that disperse the money somewhat evenly so that regular season success gets a big chunk of the cash instead of giving it all to only the teams that do well in the playoffs, which are mostly a total crapshoot anyway.

 

[Neil Beaufort Zod]

I've already said H2H provides fun factor, which is a good enough answer to all of your questions here. All I'm saying is that H2H does not give a good picture of how to rank fantasy teams. (I bolded fantasy to hopefully prevent you or another person from comparing fantasy teams to NFL teams yet again.)

That is not why fantasy football was created. You're playing a different game if you are only using total points as the metric. If your only defense against "real vs. fantasy" is that one team has some "control" over what the other team does, then the challenge is to find a way, implement it, and work with how one fantasy team can impact the opponent's team. Then, and only then, it would appear, would you be satisfied with fantasy football.

It sounds like you enjoy playing a game with the more accurate title of "facsimile football," where you're required to mimic the NFL no matter how inappropriate or impossible it is to implement. Fantasy football is a little different: You can play however you want (the "fantasy" part allows flexibility) and you don't have to pretend you can re-create the NFL on paper.We dole out points for catches and yards. We don't start 22 positions every week. We can't stop our opponent from scoring. Our players don't know or care about our team, or the playoffs, or anything else about our league. Pretending you can somehow mimic the NFL without a league, players, salaries or actual football is silly imo.

Play however you want, but understand what you're sacrificing in order to make it "look" like real football. In the NFL, the team that wins the SB is the best team. That's not necessarily the case in a h2h league, and there's nothing wrong with that if you enjoy playing that way.

 

[Hoss Style]

I would love for someone to show me examples of players who were 'more consistent' across multi-year periods than other players at the same position who score roughly the same number of total points.Better yet... let's look at players who were 'more consistent' than their peers in Year X and see what happened in Year X+1 and X+2.

Not sure how multi-year came into the equation since it seems everyone was talking about one season. Anyway, look at my Mathis and Cole example from above. Mathis was better for me in my points league and Cole was better for me in my match up league.Heck, even this year I could give you one off the top of my head. Jordy Nelson at WR. In the first half of the season he was up and down in my league with games of 20, 18 & 17 and also games of 5, 2 and 7. When I'd play him I was sure to pair him with a WR who got a lot of consistant points (it's a PPR) but maybe didn't have the high side. If I didn't have that with my other WR then I'd look at RBs to help - although it gets sticky when you start trying to cover for other positions.

Shouldn't consistent players be consistent across multiple years? If not, how do you know who to pick for consistency in the current year?

Again, see my post above about Mathis and Cole. Mathis has almost always been kind of feast or famine. But I don't use the previous years as the only guage. A lot depends on whether the offense in Indy is getting big leads so Mathis can rush the passer like he'd prefer to do. How many plays is he playing? A lot of times he was rotated in and out more frequently.I don't know how to explain it any better than with that example above. The previous year isn't really the primary factor in predicting boom-or-bust guys, but if things are the same as the year before you can take an educated guess. I guessed with Mathis that year and was right. If I had been wrong and Mathis had either started adding consistant TKs or had gone the other way and not gotten TKs or Sacks then I'd have traded/waiver accordingly.

 

[Hoss Style]

Look at my example and pretend it was H2H. After 5 weeks, Team A has a record of 1-4 even though it scored more points.

Thank you. You just summed up exactly what's wrong with H2H. They've scored the most points, hence they are the team with the best combination of fantasy performers, yet they have a horrible record.

Also, a team with the most points that has huge week and bad weeks is still the best team.

This just isn't true. See my post above. I and tons of other saavy match-up league players out there consistantly make moves to balance out our teams for consistancy as well as high point totals. We have this one guy in our league - a pretty good owner - who seems to always finish at the top in points - or near it - yet can't win the Super Bowl. He doesn't look at match ups later in the year (the playoff run), he only goes by "points at the end of the season" and has no idea why his teams score 220 one week and 150 the next. "Man, I get the worst luck!!" he screams on the message boards. Meanwhile the people winning the Super Bowl have balanced out their big-play guys with consistant guys and they stay in the 160-190 point range every week.

When the playoffs come around it adds even more intrigue. You see the other owner has a "better" team? You put in your guys that are feast-or-famine and hope you get the "feast" you need to beat the projected points of your opponent.

To be honest, we call the guys who whine about the fact that they "had the most points! I can't believe my bad luck" - well... we call them babies. Sure, there's bad luck, but it's not luck that most likely hurt your team when you only draft with the stratagy of having the most points at the end of the year.

Except consistency is one of the most difficult things to predict in fantasy and next to impossible to incorporate into your draft plan. When you draft Tom Brady, how do you know the storm of the century isn't going to hit New England in Week 14? Remember when Philly was the vaunted, unquestioned number one defense to draft? Yeah.Look at VBD. Value is assigned using total points, not incorporating weekly standard deviations or whatever other metric you use to predict consistency. Playing matchups are always part of the game no matter what kind of league you're in, but the bottom line is that if you go H2H, you can't control what the other guy scores and as such it introduces an extra element of luck into your overall result. You can have a team that consistently scores highly each week, but if the luck of the draw gives you each opponent right as they hit their peak, you're going to lose.

It's one thing to whine about it, but it doesn't change the fact that H2H has more luck involved in determining results. Of course, you have to balance that extra luck with the extra fun of H2H matchups, but that's for individual leagues to determine.

I just don't understand how you can say there's more luck involved when adding H2H to a league but not acknowledge that there's more skill involved as well. I used the Robert Mathis example above which was pretty much all research and a small amount of luck when drafting my team. He's a pretty obvious choice as a feast or famine guy - I'm not saying I'm the only one to see this. What I am saying is that many people miss this crucial aspect of H2H leagues many times. Who do you match up with your "consistant" guy? Who do you pair with your "boom or bust" guy? What does your opponent's team look like this week? Does he have favorable match ups? If so you put in a couple more guys who might blow up. A weak match up? You put in your guys who might have a bit less of a ceiling but get you consistant tackles/catches/yards each week.I don't see why this is being glossed over as "luck". I've been playing FF for 15+ years and see it far too often in H2H leagues - the guys who just look at year end points win less often. I'm sure many of the other H2H'ers out there see it too.

To save space I'm not going to type, literally, tons of players who are feast/famine and who I'd recommend to match them up with as far as more consistant players. I agree with you - when you add in more factors - in this case H2H - you inherently gain more luck. You also gain more skill involved to make your team a success.

I can't put it any more simply. Either you get it by this point or you don't. If you don't - I've got a spot in my league for you next year.

 

[Neil Beaufort Zod]

Factoring in consistency does add an extra wrinkle, so that offers more of a challenge. But h2h is still overwhelmed by luck. The single biggest factor in an h2h league is the schedule. No matter how well you draft or how much you work the waiver wire or how often you trade...it's all up to the random schedule.

That alone makes h2h more random and based on luck than total points. Whether that makes it better or worse is up to each league.

 

[Hoss Style]

Look at my example and pretend it was H2H. After 5 weeks, Team A has a record of 1-4 even though it scored more points.

Thank you. You just summed up exactly what's wrong with H2H. They've scored the most points, hence they are the team with the best combination of fantasy performers, yet they have a horrible record.

Also, a team with the most points that has huge week and bad weeks is still the best team.

This just isn't true. See my post above. I and tons of other saavy match-up league players out there consistantly make moves to balance out our teams for consistancy as well as high point totals. We have this one guy in our league - a pretty good owner - who seems to always finish at the top in points - or near it - yet can't win the Super Bowl. He doesn't look at match ups later in the year (the playoff run), he only goes by "points at the end of the season" and has no idea why his teams score 220 one week and 150 the next. "Man, I get the worst luck!!" he screams on the message boards. Meanwhile the people winning the Super Bowl have balanced out their big-play guys with consistant guys and they stay in the 160-190 point range every week.

When the playoffs come around it adds even more intrigue. You see the other owner has a "better" team? You put in your guys that are feast-or-famine and hope you get the "feast" you need to beat the projected points of your opponent.

To be honest, we call the guys who whine about the fact that they "had the most points! I can't believe my bad luck" - well... we call them babies. Sure, there's bad luck, but it's not luck that most likely hurt your team when you only draft with the stratagy of having the most points at the end of the year.

You can call them whatever you want. Most years I can take your league champion, play with the schedule and hand them a losing record. When the single biggest factor that determines your success is the randomness of a generated schedule...your league champ is based mostly on something that nobody controls. Even babies know there's something disconcerting about that.

Again, sorry to keep quoting posts here (a Hipple fit?) but I can't believe people can't see the skill in consistancy. Ask some of the best H2H players in top league and how they match their players and how important it is. Looking at each individual week - guaging your opponents team and tweaking your starting lineup accordingly. I can't count, literally, how many times I've won games or seen other's win games by doing this.To those saying there is no exact science - well... no s##t. I kind of assumed that was understood in this whole coversation. I bet that if you give your your recent "high points" team that you "didn't make the playoffs with" from a past year - and let me look at it without knowing what points they scored per game - that I could probably snag you one or two more wins that season by pairing certain players together, looking at the opponent's lineup and their match ups and looking at what I think your team needs to win that week. This is assuming you haven't already done this and think that "high points wins!" at the end of the year.

A points only league loses all of this great (imo) detail. And if you aren't paying attention to this at all and you're in a H2H league - well, I see why you're angry.

 

[butcher boy]

I just don't understand how you can say there's more luck involved when adding H2H to a league but not acknowledge that there's more skill involved as well.

I'd argue that you introduce a hell of a lot more luck than you do skill. Look at the points allowed column of the example I posted on the last page. How much skill is needed to affect that stat? None, because you cant control it, and it has just as much of an effect on your record as does the amount of points your team scores.

You put in your guys who might have a bit less of a ceiling but get you consistant tackles/catches/yards each week.

Consistency still won't matter when you get a few weeks of bad luck and face a guy who is peaking that week. This results in a few extra losses for this amazingly consistent team and could mean missing the playoffs. So while I agree that consistency is a good thing in general, it doesn't get rewarded in this case because of... wait for it... bad luck.

 

[Leroy Hoard]

Factoring in consistency does add an extra wrinkle, so that offers more of a challenge. But h2h is still overwhelmed by luck. The single biggest factor in an h2h league is the schedule. No matter how well you draft or how much you work the waiver wire or how often you trade...it's all up to the random schedule. That alone makes h2h more random and based on luck than total points. Whether that makes it better or worse is up to each league.

 

[butcher boy]

Looking at each individual week - guaging your opponents team and tweaking your starting lineup accordingly.

Why would you ever use your opponent's lineup in determining who you play on your team? Why are you ever not playing the guys you think are going to score the most points for you that week?

 

[kd1]

Looking at each individual week - guaging your opponents team and tweaking your starting lineup accordingly.

Why would you ever use your opponent's lineup in determining who you play on your team? Why are you ever not playing the guys you think are going to score the most points for you that week?

lol. Was going to post pretty much this exact thing.

 

[Ghost Rider]

Looking at each individual week - guaging your opponents team and tweaking your starting lineup accordingly.

Why would you ever use your opponent's lineup in determining who you play on your team? Why are you ever not playing the guys you think are going to score the most points for you that week?

Maybe he thinks that if you bench one of your studs because you are playing a team with a poor lineup that the stud will know it and take the week off and save those points for the week when you will really need them.

 

[Neil Beaufort Zod]

Look at my example and pretend it was H2H. After 5 weeks, Team A has a record of 1-4 even though it scored more points.

Thank you. You just summed up exactly what's wrong with H2H. They've scored the most points, hence they are the team with the best combination of fantasy performers, yet they have a horrible record.

Also, a team with the most points that has huge week and bad weeks is still the best team.

This just isn't true. See my post above. I and tons of other saavy match-up league players out there consistantly make moves to balance out our teams for consistancy as well as high point totals. We have this one guy in our league - a pretty good owner - who seems to always finish at the top in points - or near it - yet can't win the Super Bowl. He doesn't look at match ups later in the year (the playoff run), he only goes by "points at the end of the season" and has no idea why his teams score 220 one week and 150 the next. "Man, I get the worst luck!!" he screams on the message boards. Meanwhile the people winning the Super Bowl have balanced out their big-play guys with consistant guys and they stay in the 160-190 point range every week.

When the playoffs come around it adds even more intrigue. You see the other owner has a "better" team? You put in your guys that are feast-or-famine and hope you get the "feast" you need to beat the projected points of your opponent.

To be honest, we call the guys who whine about the fact that they "had the most points! I can't believe my bad luck" - well... we call them babies. Sure, there's bad luck, but it's not luck that most likely hurt your team when you only draft with the stratagy of having the most points at the end of the year.

You can call them whatever you want. Most years I can take your league champion, play with the schedule and hand them a losing record. When the single biggest factor that determines your success is the randomness of a generated schedule...your league champ is based mostly on something that nobody controls. Even babies know there's something disconcerting about that.

Again, sorry to keep quoting posts here (a Hipple fit?) but I can't believe people can't see the skill in consistancy. Ask some of the best H2H players in top league and how they match their players and how important it is. Looking at each individual week - guaging your opponents team and tweaking your starting lineup accordingly. I can't count, literally, how many times I've won games or seen other's win games by doing this.To those saying there is no exact science - well... no s##t. I kind of assumed that was understood in this whole coversation. I bet that if you give your your recent "high points" team that you "didn't make the playoffs with" from a past year - and let me look at it without knowing what points they scored per game - that I could probably snag you one or two more wins that season by pairing certain players together, looking at the opponent's lineup and their match ups and looking at what I think your team needs to win that week. This is assuming you haven't already done this and think that "high points wins!" at the end of the year.

A points only league loses all of this great (imo) detail. And if you aren't paying attention to this at all and you're in a H2H league - well, I see why you're angry.

Maybe you could, but I KNOW I could take the team with the best record in your league, play with the schedule and make them look very different-- even if they're a consistency guru. If the schedule is the difference between an 11-3 team and a 6-8 team...isn't the schedule the biggest factor? Can the consistency model overcome such an overwhelming random factor controling who wins and loses in your league? Let me ask you something: Would you play in a league where I give you my first five draft picks...but I get to tinker with the schedule however I want? Could I start my draft in the 6th round and make myself a playoff team? Could I make your stacked team a bottom feeder? If you think I could, then the schedule means more than your first five draft picks combined, and when you let a random factor have that much control over your league...you're not choosing the best team and the overall winner.

 

[Hoss Style]

I just don't understand how you can say there's more luck involved when adding H2H to a league but not acknowledge that there's more skill involved as well.

I'd argue that you introduce a hell of a lot more luck than you do skill. Look at the points allowed column of the example I posted on the last page. How much skill is needed to affect that stat? None, because you cant control it, and it has just as much of an effect on your record as does the amount of points your team scores.

You put in your guys who might have a bit less of a ceiling but get you consistant tackles/catches/yards each week.

Consistency still won't matter when you get a few weeks of bad luck and face a guy who is peaking that week. This results in a few extra losses for this amazingly consistent team and could mean missing the playoffs. So while I agree that consistency is a good thing in general, it doesn't get rewarded in this case because of... wait for it... bad luck.

I see what you're saying - and it's actually a great example for me to use. The guy I spoke of in an earlier post - the guy who always cries about his bad luck - well he missed the playoffs again this year (injuries hit him a bit as well - to be honest). But even with injuries he still scored 3rd highest in our league in points. "How can that be?!?" some might decree. "That's not fair!!" other's might pine. Well, let's look at his scoring as compared to mine - I finished 2nd in the league in scoring but had the #1 overall H2H record (where your record is listed as if you played every team - every week). The guy who was third in points had the 6th best overall H2H record.Here's his weekly point totals:11018616713417613017713415718173109123This, above, is a great answer to your question above of "how is it fair" for a high scoring guy to not be the winner?Let's look at a team in my league that is the #2 seed in the playoffs and someone that I know uses similar stratagies to me. What do you think his scoring will look like? I bet you already know that answer:178191176173155178150168144195116164144159Now, as you see above, he built his roster for consistancy. I know this as we talk frequently. I did the same and am the #3 seed on our playoffs just a hair behind him. Can we control it all? Heck no. Did the above team still have a bad week here and there? Yes. But the "bad" week was not as bad. He drafted, made trades and waiver wire moves to balance his team. He played his boom-or-bust guys according to what the other team had and sometimes it paid off and sometimes it didn't.Luck is always a huge part of FF. I think that adding H2H adds a similar amount of skill as well. I could take the first team that I listed, with his up and down scoring, and could have won him probably two more games - and that's just by picking up WW adds (based on weekly match ups). that would add some consistancy to his team on a weekly basis. This same guy - who struggles to get to the Super Bowl for the last ump-teen years - would be one of the top owners in a Points Only leauge with similarly skilled players. He's not in ours.I understand your point and respect what you're saying. I just disagree.Good discussion, though.

 

[Hoss Style]

Looking at each individual week - guaging your opponents team and tweaking your starting lineup accordingly.

Why would you ever use your opponent's lineup in determining who you play on your team? Why are you ever not playing the guys you think are going to score the most points for you that week?

Maybe he thinks that if you bench one of your studs because you are playing a team with a poor lineup that the stud will know it and take the week off and save those points for the week when you will really need them.

If you really think that's a laughable point - I probably shouldn't respond because you didn't understand it before and probably won't. But I'll give it a shot...

First, we were talking about "year end" points versus "H2H" match up leagues. But I'll bite on your question for a weekly game plan. For maybe the 5th (?) time in this thread. Robert Mathis that I used earlier is a great example. I keep going back to it because I don't want to spend time finding another one when this one works so well.

A couple years ago Mathis' points were looking a lot like this for a five week stretch: 21, 3, 19, 5, 2.

Another comparable lineman who I picked up was scoring less points per game but more consistant because he gathered tackles: 12, 8, 10, 9, 10.

Let's say I'd had room for both on my roster (at the time I didn't because of injuries). My opponents team is looking strong. The match ups for my two linemen are similar (if you play IDP you know matchups for D linemen are incredibly hard to predict for anything outside the most obvious matchups). I need points this week. I think my team is weaker and should lose. Who do I play?

I play Mathis this week. I play most of my boom-or-bust guys. I pop in Mathis and hope that he gives me a "21" instead of a "2". I bench the other guy because I just don't think a "9" is really going to help me this week.

If I'm the stronger team? I go the other way. I fear the "2" Mathis might give me. If I can get a "9" from my steady guy I feel I'll probably snag an easy win.

Do this for your other positions on the team. It's not fool proof (of course). You often guess wrong (especially with DLs and DBs). But it works more often than it doesn't (barring bad luck that happens with any stratagy you might use). Another factor is very rarely do you have enough room on your team to have this nice balance with all your positions. For example the year that I'm referring to - I think I had good pairing at DL, WR & DB. The other positions I normally had to just roll with my studs.

I hope this makes sense. I'm beginning to think I should give up trying to explain this more.

 

[Hoss Style]

Look at my example and pretend it was H2H. After 5 weeks, Team A has a record of 1-4 even though it scored more points.

Thank you. You just summed up exactly what's wrong with H2H. They've scored the most points, hence they are the team with the best combination of fantasy performers, yet they have a horrible record.

Also, a team with the most points that has huge week and bad weeks is still the best team.

This just isn't true. See my post above. I and tons of other saavy match-up league players out there consistantly make moves to balance out our teams for consistancy as well as high point totals. We have this one guy in our league - a pretty good owner - who seems to always finish at the top in points - or near it - yet can't win the Super Bowl. He doesn't look at match ups later in the year (the playoff run), he only goes by "points at the end of the season" and has no idea why his teams score 220 one week and 150 the next. "Man, I get the worst luck!!" he screams on the message boards. Meanwhile the people winning the Super Bowl have balanced out their big-play guys with consistant guys and they stay in the 160-190 point range every week.

When the playoffs come around it adds even more intrigue. You see the other owner has a "better" team? You put in your guys that are feast-or-famine and hope you get the "feast" you need to beat the projected points of your opponent.

To be honest, we call the guys who whine about the fact that they "had the most points! I can't believe my bad luck" - well... we call them babies. Sure, there's bad luck, but it's not luck that most likely hurt your team when you only draft with the stratagy of having the most points at the end of the year.

You can call them whatever you want. Most years I can take your league champion, play with the schedule and hand them a losing record. When the single biggest factor that determines your success is the randomness of a generated schedule...your league champ is based mostly on something that nobody controls. Even babies know there's something disconcerting about that.

Again, sorry to keep quoting posts here (a Hipple fit?) but I can't believe people can't see the skill in consistancy. Ask some of the best H2H players in top league and how they match their players and how important it is. Looking at each individual week - guaging your opponents team and tweaking your starting lineup accordingly. I can't count, literally, how many times I've won games or seen other's win games by doing this.To those saying there is no exact science - well... no s##t. I kind of assumed that was understood in this whole coversation. I bet that if you give your your recent "high points" team that you "didn't make the playoffs with" from a past year - and let me look at it without knowing what points they scored per game - that I could probably snag you one or two more wins that season by pairing certain players together, looking at the opponent's lineup and their match ups and looking at what I think your team needs to win that week. This is assuming you haven't already done this and think that "high points wins!" at the end of the year.

A points only league loses all of this great (imo) detail. And if you aren't paying attention to this at all and you're in a H2H league - well, I see why you're angry.

Maybe you could, but I KNOW I could take the team with the best record in your league, play with the schedule and make them look very different-- even if they're a consistency guru. If the schedule is the difference between an 11-3 team and a 6-8 team...isn't the schedule the biggest factor? Can the consistency model overcome such an overwhelming random factor controling who wins and loses in your league? Let me ask you something: Would you play in a league where I give you my first five draft picks...but I get to tinker with the schedule however I want? Could I start my draft in the 6th round and make myself a playoff team? Could I make your stacked team a bottom feeder? If you think I could, then the schedule means more than your first five draft picks combined, and when you let a random factor have that much control over your league...you're not choosing the best team and the overall winner.

Ok. I think maybe I see the disconnect here. I now see what you're saying - and I agree. If you tinkered with the schedule after the fact you could probably make the high points leader lose almost every game. And just knowing that fact could be very aggravating to someone looking at it that way.The way I'm looking at it is - you don't tinker with the schedule, though. It doesn't happen (or I'd be outta there!). That's why consistancy is such a big factor in H2H leagues. The law of averages say that if you can keep your team consistant throughout the year with an above average score for your league then you're probably going to win more games than not. And how far above the average you can get, while keeping as much consistancy as possible, gives you a bettter chance to increase your wins.

Then again - averages don't always work. You could have a great average and just hit evey team when they have huge games and lose every week yet still finish with high points. I know luck's involved. And sometimes it sucks. All I'm saying is that I believe a skilled player can minimize the amount of "luck" gained in a H2H league with skill in managing his players, WW, draft, schedule and trades.

And if there are a lot of other guys who just look at year end points in your H2H leauge then you can turn the odds mightily in your favor on a consistant basis. Not always - but enough to come out with some cool cash at the end of most years.

 

[Neil Beaufort Zod]

I agree that your consistency model can help manage the random luck of the schedule...but only to a point. I can still take the very best consistency person and get them out of the playoffs. Even if it evens out...7-7 doesn't make the playoffs in most leagues. Can you manage your way to an extra couple of wins? Sure, but you're fighting against the current just to get the scales back in balance.

And no matter how good you are at it, you'll never eliminate the random luck of the schedule-- you can only do a little better job of managing it than your opponents. And when compared to total points, which has ZERO luck of a schedule infused into the game...you're still running behind in the "determining the most worthy champion" race imo.

I'll grant that consistency strategy is the best way to fight against the random luck of the schedule, but you never win that battle. You just lose less than your 11 leaguemates. The only way to get ahead of it is to eliminate it and not let luck play a bigger role in determining your champion. In h2h, it does because consistency cannot completely overcome the randomness of the schedule.

 

[Hoss Style]

I agree that your consistency model can help manage the random luck of the schedule...but only to a point. I can still take the very best consistency person and get them out of the playoffs. Even if it evens out...7-7 doesn't make the playoffs in most leagues. Can you manage your way to an extra couple of wins? Sure, but you're fighting against the current just to get the scales back in balance.And no matter how good you are at it, you'll never eliminate the random luck of the schedule-- you can only do a little better job of managing it than your opponents. And when compared to total points, which has ZERO luck of a schedule infused into the game...you're still running behind in the "determining the most worthy champion" race imo. I'll grant that consistency strategy is the best way to fight against the random luck of the schedule, but you never win that battle. You just lose less than your 11 leaguemates. The only way to get ahead of it is to eliminate it and not let luck play a bigger role in determining your champion. In h2h, it does because consistency cannot completely overcome the randomness of the schedule.

Fair enough. I think we've both made our points here. I at least understand what you're saying, now. I think the tipping point is how much luck we think is added as compared to skill when you go to a H2H league.We still disagree a bit but it's been good debating it with you. Good luck in the playoffs if you're in!

 

[Neil Beaufort Zod]

I agree that your consistency model can help manage the random luck of the schedule...but only to a point. I can still take the very best consistency person and get them out of the playoffs. Even if it evens out...7-7 doesn't make the playoffs in most leagues. Can you manage your way to an extra couple of wins? Sure, but you're fighting against the current just to get the scales back in balance.And no matter how good you are at it, you'll never eliminate the random luck of the schedule-- you can only do a little better job of managing it than your opponents. And when compared to total points, which has ZERO luck of a schedule infused into the game...you're still running behind in the "determining the most worthy champion" race imo. I'll grant that consistency strategy is the best way to fight against the random luck of the schedule, but you never win that battle. You just lose less than your 11 leaguemates. The only way to get ahead of it is to eliminate it and not let luck play a bigger role in determining your champion. In h2h, it does because consistency cannot completely overcome the randomness of the schedule.

Fair enough. I think we've both made our points here. I at least understand what you're saying, now. I think the tipping point is how much luck we think is added as compared to skill when you go to a H2H league. We still disagree a bit but it's been good debating it with you. Good luck in the playoffs if you're in!

No playoffs, but I'm in 2nd with three weeks to go. Good discussion. Good luck to you, too.

 

[butcher boy]

I just don't understand how you can say there's more luck involved when adding H2H to a league but not acknowledge that there's more skill involved as well.

I'd argue that you introduce a hell of a lot more luck than you do skill. Look at the points allowed column of the example I posted on the last page. How much skill is needed to affect that stat? None, because you cant control it, and it has just as much of an effect on your record as does the amount of points your team scores.

You put in your guys who might have a bit less of a ceiling but get you consistant tackles/catches/yards each week.

Consistency still won't matter when you get a few weeks of bad luck and face a guy who is peaking that week. This results in a few extra losses for this amazingly consistent team and could mean missing the playoffs. So while I agree that consistency is a good thing in general, it doesn't get rewarded in this case because of... wait for it... bad luck.

I see what you're saying - and it's actually a great example for me to use. The guy I spoke of in an earlier post - the guy who always cries about his bad luck - well he missed the playoffs again this year (injuries hit him a bit as well - to be honest). But even with injuries he still scored 3rd highest in our league in points. "How can that be?!?" some might decree. "That's not fair!!" other's might pine. Well, let's look at his scoring as compared to mine - I finished 2nd in the league in scoring but had the #1 overall H2H record (where your record is listed as if you played every team - every week). The guy who was third in points had the 6th best overall H2H record.Here's his weekly point totals:11018616713417613017713415718173109123This, above, is a great answer to your question above of "how is it fair" for a high scoring guy to not be the winner?Let's look at a team in my league that is the #2 seed in the playoffs and someone that I know uses similar stratagies to me. What do you think his scoring will look like? I bet you already know that answer:178191176173155178150168144195116164144159Now, as you see above, he built his roster for consistancy. I know this as we talk frequently. I did the same and am the #3 seed on our playoffs just a hair behind him. Can we control it all? Heck no. Did the above team still have a bad week here and there? Yes. But the "bad" week was not as bad. He drafted, made trades and waiver wire moves to balance his team. He played his boom-or-bust guys according to what the other team had and sometimes it paid off and sometimes it didn't.Luck is always a huge part of FF. I think that adding H2H adds a similar amount of skill as well. I could take the first team that I listed, with his up and down scoring, and could have won him probably two more games - and that's just by picking up WW adds (based on weekly match ups). that would add some consistancy to his team on a weekly basis. This same guy - who struggles to get to the Super Bowl for the last ump-teen years - would be one of the top owners in a Points Only leauge with similarly skilled players. He's not in ours.I understand your point and respect what you're saying. I just disagree.Good discussion, though.

[Going for the record of longest quoted post with this one]The first guy you posted wasnt really any more or less consistent than the other save for the last few weeks which makes me wonder if he had D. Murray, Matt Schaub or some other recently injured guy. I mean if Team 2 played Team 1 in weeks 5, 7, and 9 they'd all be losses. Get another random draw of matchups and they'd be turned into wins. That's the point when we say H2H has a luck fallacy and it can cause a huge swing in the standings. I see what you're saying how consistency can help avoid the 73 point and 109 point weeks the first team had, but I still say consistency is too hard to predict reliably and even if you do predict when a player will scroe a certain amount of points, it's not always good enough to avoid the bad luck situations that H2H matchups cause. Consistency is just one factor of what makes a player good, and if you're starting your best players each week, more often than not, they're the most consistent too.Good luck in the playoffs too. I ended up 2nd in record and 2nd in total points, so I really shouldn't be complaining at all I guess.

 

[coolnerd]

Not to mention side bets and trash talking w h2h scoring. Don't be such a nerd

That's what it is too, it's the ### #### nerds hahahaha. They don't wanna watch football they just wanna watch numbers grow.

Some "real" football fans laugh at you just as much for playing ANY type of "magic" football instead of just watching the games for themselves.In other words, you are also a nerd.

mark