YOUR Perfect Fantasy Football League (1 Viewer)

[Mentos]

enjoy your FFL leagues when you're in high school/college or if you're in your 20's and work in a cubicle type environment where there's a lot of guys to have fun with it...

because it gets less fun as you get older and more disconnected.

Its all what you make time for as you get older.

i agree, and i make time for it.

but it's kind of buzzkill when you're trying and kind of the ultimate put-down is: "my life is too busy for these 'games' so of course you're going to have better results."

i work my butt off to make my league competitive... custom made to our scoring system cheatsheets printed ahead of time, give people clear and consise information when they ask questions mid-draft.. no B.S. to throw people off a scent or anything.... and they still make bad lineup choices and don't properly use the waiver wire... what more can i do?

I hear ya. It sucks.My cousin quit fantasy sports at age 16 because he got a girlfriend and couldn't be bothered with "baby games" anymore.

well too his credit if i had a 16 y.o. i could legally have relations with, i might quit "baby games" too

Well, I contend that true men can handle a female and a fantasy roster.

 

[DropKick]

I think more important than the rules when making a perfect league are the following:

1) live, in person draft

2) everyone knows each other to some extent

3) strippers at the draft

I couldn't care less about #1 and #2 but #3 is the key

Strippers lose some of their appeal if you don't have (1) an "in person" draft. Also, (2) NOT knowing each other has some advantage when you're being questioned after the police raid of said draft. This is always a good indication you're in for a good season.

 

[DropKick]

I have a feeling this is going to sound like a rant and I don’t want it to sound like a rant. I also don’t want to come off like a pompous fantasy football snob. (Like a jazz aficionado dismissing dubstep as non-music or the art house cinema buff railing against vacuous Hollywood blockbusters.) The great thing about fantasy football is that it is customizable; we can set up our leagues however we want to. I get that. I really do. I just think that fantasy football is either built upon an anachronism that needs to be discarded or is built upon a faulty paradigm that equates “more scoring” with “more enjoyment.” (An assumption that is hardly unique to fantasy football and is akin to suggesting that “more explosions” equals “better movie.”)

I think a basic question that needs to be asked is: What do people want out of fantasy football? Are we looking for a challenge grounded in realism or are we less concerned with realism so long as the challenge is fun? I have to believe that a sizable percentage of the people on this site, however, (during the off-season especially) prioritize realism and for us, when fantasy football weakly correlates with actual football, enjoyment decreases.

At the risk of

The multiple-RB starting lineup has got to go. And the RB-eligible flex is borderline embarrassing.

One theory might suggest that the 2-RB lineup is a remnant from the early days of fantasy football when touchdown-only leagues were prevalent. Wisely—in my opinion—yardage leagues were developed yet, unwisely, the 2-RB lineups remained. This allowed the initial imbalance to become more pronounced and, in fact, embedded as our default. A quick perusal of FBG’s 160 cheatsheets notes that not a single one is designed for any league with fewer than 2 starting RBs. The default presumption is for an uncorrected, vestigial distortion.

Artificial counterbalancing distortions have been developed (2-QB leagues, the god-awful PPR nonsense) to attempt to overcome the original imbalance and induce more equitable outcomes by creating a larger pool of potential contributors but the better answer, in my opinion, would be to remove all of the artificial constructs, including the foundational distortion that led to all of the rest. (Incidentally, the escalation of well-intentioned, artificial, counterbalancing distortions is also the problem with contemporary capitalism. But I’ll save that discussion for the FFA.)

3 questions for those who claim to want fantasy football to more accurately correlate with real football:

Question 1: How often do NFL teams line up with 2 fantasy-relevant tailbacks in the backfield at the same time?

Answer: Almost never. In 2012, looking at every offensive, non-kicking and non-punting formation and discounting all running backs with fewer than 40 total fantasy points, it occurred exactly 0.036% of the time.* Real NFL teams do not use 2 tailbacks at the same time unless one is a fantasy-unproductive blocking back. So why do fantasy teams use 2 RBs? NFL teams do not, as a rule, line up with more than 6 skill position players on offense. Fantasy teams shouldn’t either.

Question 2: At the NFL Draft each spring, how many RBs are drafted in the first round? Is the real NFL draft top-heavy with RBs?

Answer: No, the real draft is not about stockpiling RBs. In fact, due to expected shorter longevity and supply-driven replaceability, real NFL teams recognize that the value of RBs is relatively less than that of some other positions, which is why teams are waiting longer to draft a RB now.

Question 3: If the NFL had a dispersal draft for skill position players every spring, would those drafts be top-heavy with RBs? (And to me, this question is the real deal-breaker. This is where we see just how inaccurate and poorly correlative fantasy football is.)

Answer: No, those drafts would not be top-heavy with RBs. Of all the skill positions in today’s NFL, quarterbacks are the key to winning championships, not running backs. A real dispersal draft held annually would be somewhat QB top-heavy yet would quickly become very balanced, I would surmise.

Another indicator of value would be player salaries. A quick check of the top 10 salaries at each skill position suggests that RBs are valued slightly less than QBs and WRs. Yet in fantasy football, RBs are the cornerstones. Why? From our real-world discussions about Hall of Fame qualifications and the NFL draft to our dismissive fantasy mindset toward quarterbacks, our player valuations have become corrupted.

Fantasy innovations like IDP leagues, dynasty leagues, salary caps, contract leagues, and injured reserve designations all add enormously to this hobby precisely because they are not merely creative but also correlative or potentially correlative.

It’s hard for me to imagine a draft more fun and more challenging to prepare for than a 16-team, 6-skill-position (QB, RB, WR, WR, TE, WR/TE) draft. Who goes first overall? Players at 3 different positions legitimately qualify. How many various QBs, RBs, TEs, and WRs get picked in the first 2 rounds? I love this kind of start-to-finish balance and I think the dilemmas created by very difficult early-round apples-to-oranges evaluations could add so much to this game. Also, the back-end of the first round might very well be the best place to draft from rather than the worst place to draft from.

“But if the rules are equally distorted for all participants, what’s the harm?”

The complex answer to that question varies depending upon if we are discussing unchallenging 10- or 12- team leagues or unsustainable (3- or 4-RB lineup) 14- or 16-team leagues. Generally speaking, smaller leagues are a joke and larger leagues cannot handle the presumptive lineup distortion. Can a sweet spot be found? Sure. It’s tricky but it’s doable. A 14-team auction league with a non-RB-eligible flex might (sort of) work. But there is a simpler and more scalable solution; one that works regardless of league size or scoring permutations: follow the NFL’s lead and utilize lineups featuring 6 skill position players, with 1 QB and 1 RB.

The bottom line is: if the predominant multiple-RB structure is enjoyable for people, then stick with it. But for some of us, realism is synonymous with and integral to fun and unrealism is neither fun nor constructively challenging. If being adept at fantasy football today is like being able to see well through a skewed lens, it suggests that the endeavor might be of questionable value at identifying good vision.

I realize that if I want to be in a league with only 6 skill position starters, I theoretically can be—assuming that I can find enough participants and enough good fantasy information that I can translate or filter through the tainted, RB-heavy presumptive bias. I just question the underlying assumptions we have adopted and wonder if we can’t do better than this. These RB-top-heavy shark drafts are becoming tiresome and unimaginative.

*[SIZE=8pt]=completely made-up statistic[/SIZE]

I've seen two different arguments from you on moving to a single RB. One is that you would like to discourage RB hoarding. The other is the deviation of fantasy from real football.

The first issue is behavioral. Some people hoard RBs (or QBs) because they do it instinctively or they've been brain washed by FF boards. "Stud RB theory" was the rage for years. Sure, you could start fewer RBs but, in the end, that has ramifications on positional value, strategy and may even reduce motivation for trades. I like a challenging supply/demand ratio. I prefer roster and position limits. These should be liberal yet prevent true "hoarding" behavior.

I like a correlation between real football and fantasy but I accept certain things. For example, real football doesn't award points for yardage (obviously) but the fact that fantasy often does does not diminish the game for me. I don't like the 2 QB line-up (seems very unnatural) but I have no problem with 2 RBs. Teams may not line-up two on the same play but they often rotate two, or use a different back at the goal line.

There is almost an infinite combination of roster sizes, starting requirements and scoring systems possible. The acid test for me is that no position should dominate the league and the free agent pool has a limited amount of talent so that waivers are exciting/challenging. This is a hobby and a game. It should be fun.

 

[Backside Pursuit]

I've seen two different arguments from you on moving to a single RB. One is that you would like to discourage RB hoarding. The other is the deviation of fantasy from real football.

The first issue is behavioral. Some people hoard RBs (or QBs) because they do it instinctively or they've been brain washed by FF boards. "Stud RB theory" was the rage for years. Sure, you could start fewer RBs but, in the end, that has ramifications on positional value, strategy and may even reduce motivation for trades. I like a challenging supply/demand ratio. I prefer roster and position limits. These should be liberal yet prevent true "hoarding" behavior.

There is almost an infinite combination of roster sizes, starting requirements and scoring systems possible. The acid test for me is that no position should dominate the league and the free agent pool has a limited amount of talent so that waivers are exciting/challenging. This is a hobby and a game. It should be fun.

It’s not really two different arguments I’m making. RB-hoarding is not primarily behavioral or psychological. It has nothing at all (in my opinion) to do with “brainwashing.” Markets react predictably to scarcity. RB-hoarding is proper and intelligent market behavior. Given these parameters, it’s exactly what people ought to do.

I, too, like a “challenging supply/demand ratio” and find the 2-RB (or 3 with a Flex) system to badly distort this ratio.

I like your acid test. When 11 out of the first 12 picks and 16 out of the first 25 in a fantasy draft are from the same position (and not even the most important offensive position), the situation fails that acid test.

Agree 100% on the last two sentences. I’m not proselytizing or preaching; just disagreeing with the consensus. To each his own, of course.