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Breathing new life into redraft (1 Viewer)

The Dude

Footballguy
For the masses, redraft has been pretty much the same over the years.  PPR and one roster spot Flex came along at some point and provided a lift.  Some other rules as well.

looking for thoughts on how to shake up redraft to be a little more fun and different.  Maybe in scoring system with more value or with changes to starting rosters.

 
I threw out an idea for a 69 yard touchdown bonus.  But it has to be exactly 69, no more no less.  My league actually loves it and may try it next year.  Make those plays from your own 39 a little more interesting 

ive also been kicking around doing a limited number of mulligan plays.  Maybe 1-2 a year you can swap a guy out.  The strategy of when to use it interests me

 
We do payouts for the highest scoring team each week and also payouts for the highest scoring QB, RB, WR, TE and K during the regular season.  Also a payout to the highest scoring non playoff team during the last 4 weeks of the regular season to keep the non playoff teams vested. 

 
I threw out an idea for a 69 yard touchdown bonus.  But it has to be exactly 69, no more no less.  My league actually loves it and may try it next year.  Make those plays from your own 39 a little more interesting 

ive also been kicking around doing a limited number of mulligan plays.  Maybe 1-2 a year you can swap a guy out.  The strategy of when to use it interests me
#math

 
I threw out an idea for a 69 yard touchdown bonus.  But it has to be exactly 69, no more no less.  My league actually loves it and may try it next year.  Make those plays from your own 39 a little more interesting 

ive also been kicking around doing a limited number of mulligan plays.  Maybe 1-2 a year you can swap a guy out.  The strategy of when to use it interests me
I have considered the same - but was going to limit the options to sub out for players in Sunday or Monday night games - I think the early results need a little time to settle in.  And allow one a year (regular season only).  I think it adds a good fun factor.

 
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It might be fun to have a different roster requirement on certain weeks but I wouldn't want to police it manually.  

Like if you normally run a 1-2-2-1-1-1-1 (q, rb, wr, flex, te, k, d) maybe in some weeks you could run a 1-1-1-3-1-1-1 (shifting a RB and WR requirement to flex options)

 
It would probably be more complicated than what is is worth, but I've always thought about having "home field advantage" where the home team gets to dictate the lineup of their home games, like this:

1. Ground and pound: QB, RB, RB, RB, WR, TE, TE, K, D

2. Spread: QB, RB, WR, WR, WR, WR, TE, K, D

3. Standard: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR, TE, K, D

So the home team AND the visitor have to set the same style of lineups, whichever one that the home team chose.  You could play to your team's advantages or play to your opponent's disadvantages.  Hell of a headache for the commish to manage, though.

 
Maybe also dump defense.  I know it's half the game but how often do you really track a defense in game on Sunday?

 
It would probably be more complicated than what is is worth, but I've always thought about having "home field advantage" where the home team gets to dictate the lineup of their home games, like this:

1. Ground and pound: QB, RB, RB, RB, WR, TE, TE, K, D

2. Spread: QB, RB, WR, WR, WR, WR, TE, K, D

3. Standard: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR, TE, K, D

So the home team AND the visitor have to set the same style of lineups, whichever one that the home team chose.  You could play to your team's advantages or play to your opponent's disadvantages.  Hell of a headache for the commish to manage, though.
I like this idea.  Similar to what I just posted.  I would leave it on the home team to police.  If the visiting team doesn't abide, they lose the player(s) that do not fit.  I think I might replace one RB in 1 and one WR in 2 with a flex - but that might not be far enough removed from 3.

 
It would probably be more complicated than what is is worth, but I've always thought about having "home field advantage" where the home team gets to dictate the lineup of their home games, like this:

1. Ground and pound: QB, RB, RB, RB, WR, TE, TE, K, D

2. Spread: QB, RB, WR, WR, WR, WR, TE, K, D

3. Standard: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR, TE, K, D

So the home team AND the visitor have to set the same style of lineups, whichever one that the home team chose.  You could play to your team's advantages or play to your opponent's disadvantages.  Hell of a headache for the commish to manage, though.
My thought on how you can police would be A) you’d need to have enough flex positions to compensate the 3 lineup options B) the two teams playing have to police each other’s lineups 

 
I like this idea.  Similar to what I just posted.  I would leave it on the home team to police.  If the visiting team doesn't abide, they lose the player(s) that do not fit.  I think I might replace one RB in 1 and one WR in 2 with a flex - but that might not be far enough removed from 3.
Jinx!

 
Perhaps move to a keeper format- allow for each player to keep 3 or 4 players from a 15 round draft. Makes potential trades attractive, too.

Another option is to move to an auction. 

 
I'm really looking forward to the day that I can suggest .25 PPR + .25 PP First Down to my league and not get destroyed.   I get that the (.5) PPR adds to the fun for a lot of people and I'm probably overthinking fantasy football, but I will never understand how a RB catching a ball that gets snuffed out for a 3 yard loss is worth more than a RB bruising his way for a 1-yard gain and a first down on a 4th & 1.   How is a routine 15 yard reception by a WR worth the same as a 20 yard burst by a RB?   I think .5 PPFD or a .25 hybrid would be a welcomed change, but in general people don't like having to do math and research to see how they should adjust their preferred expert rankings in a .5 PPR. 

 
Used to do a live redraft snake draft with random draw for draft order.

Started introducing an auction element to the snake by allowing owners to bid FAAB to establish 1st round draft order, subtracting that bid from their starting FAAB budget and slotting in all subsequent rounds like a normal snake based on that first round position.   It was a really popular change, allowing everyone to make a run at their prized 1st round stud or preferred sweet spot.  For commissioners wanting to move their league from a snake towards an auction format, this is one way to plant the seed. 

 
Way back when we did a hybrid auction-snake.  Everybody buys 10 players in auction and the rest of the roster is filled out snake style - rather than going through the painful dollar bids.

 
Auction is the play but if you are doing redraft I have and always will be a proponent of td bonuses.  A 50 yard td is +2 a 70 +4.

I've used that since buying my first fantasy index magazine. 

 
Way back when we did a hybrid auction-snake.  Everybody buys 10 players in auction and the rest of the roster is filled out snake style - rather than going through the painful dollar bids.
Funny you say this,  one owner is pushing to expand our 1st round auction to a 9 player auction, finishing rounds 10-16 in a snake.    Would love to do this or just a regular full auction draft for a change.   Unfortunately, we always have a couple of remote auto-drafters that make a live auction draft more trouble than it's worth.

 
For the masses, redraft has been pretty much the same over the years.  PPR and one roster spot Flex came along at some point and provided a lift.  Some other rules as well.

looking for thoughts on how to shake up redraft to be a little more fun and different.  Maybe in scoring system with more value or with changes to starting rosters.
Hybrid Re drafts definitely makes the draft portion more interesting.  We always do live drafts with $100 per team for the first 3 rounds then snake.  Must take 3 players and teams nominate.  This takes more strategy, allows you to draft players you really want and makes for a more entertaining night especially when someone gets struck bidding up a player. 

 
Way back when we did a hybrid auction-snake.  Everybody buys 10 players in auction and the rest of the roster is filled out snake style - rather than going through the painful dollar bids.
The painful dollar bids were fun. End game strategy that adds an intriguing layer. When you have $12 and the next highest owner has $8, it can really help you control the last quartile of player allocation. I did this a few years back hoping for Michael Thomas as a rookie. That decision really helped me build a great team. Going back even further, it landed me Clinton Portis as a rookie for low teens. Now, it hasn’t always worked, but if you can have the most cash left towards the back 15-20% of an auction, it can be really exciting. 

in addition, having $2 at the end, when everyone else has $1 can net you the player of your choosing.

finally, when everyone is down to their last $1, it is subversively fun to hope you can nominate the player you like before the next owner does.

Endgames in auction formats are fantastic. 

 
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This isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, but here's the homefield advantage that we do:

*one bonus pick to the 4 (vs 5)

*two bonus picks to the 3 (vs 6)

*three bonus picks to the 2 (vs 7)

*four bonus picks to the 1 (vs 8 )

Each bonus pick is worth two points.    With each pick the home team selects an NFL team to win that either has a losing record or plays a team with a winning record.   So if the 1-seed goes 4-for-4 on their picks, they get 8 bonus points to their score.   The intent is for this to be a probability boost for the home team that's somewhat commensurate with the benefit of homefield advantage in the actual NFL games.   There are several advantages.   First, every team has a tangible incentive to finish the regular season with the best seed possible, since it directly impacts how many bonus points you could have working for or against you.    In a typical league, the 3 plays the 6 in the first round.   No consideration is given to how much more success the 3-seed had over the course of a 13-week season.   In week 14, they play straight up and the winner advances.    It's kind of nice to give the 3 a reward for their excellent regular season, and a barrier to the worst seed sneaking into the next round.   Along those lines, the "smart" play for the 3 seed sometimes might entail tanking their final regular season game to get a first round playoff matchup that they deem more favorable against the 5-seed.   The incremental potential bonus points means that we don't have to worry about someone being the "smartest owner in the room" week 13, and tanking a game for playoff position.   

Also, even though we're putting the 7 and 8 seed at a big disadvantage in their opening round game against the top seeds, I feel like this system gives us justification to allow 8 teams into the playoff field in the first place.   The 7 and 8s would still rather have a shot at the championship by knocking off the top teams with points to spare, rather than duking it out in a Toilet Bowl bracket.   As for the top seeds, I always thought a 6-team playoff field with bye weeks awarded in fantasy football was kind of dumb concept.   The free playoff pass is nice, but everyone is playing fantasy to have actual games to watch.    The 1 and 2 play in the first round this way, but they get a giant advantage over the inferior 7 and 8 seeds.     

The downside.   If your league has been around for a while, you're going to have a hard time explaining to the bottom seed why they lost their first round playoff game when they scored more "regular" fantasy points than the top seed.   If you make a change like this, you absolutely have to drive the point home at the draft and throughout the season to make sure every owner recognizes how important it is to earn homefield in the playoffs.   This has been around for a decade in my league.   Pretty much everyone has been victimized or has benefitted from our homefield system.   Nobody gripes when it goes against them.   It's like a road playoff team going into a hostile environment, playing the better game and then getting jobbed by some home cooking on a bs pass interference call.   The other thing I don't love is that the incremental bonus points is kind of counter intuitive to the concept of "homefield".   Shouldn't every game either be home or away with the same advantage to every home team.   I think this is a valid objection, it's also really advantageous to have a tangible benefit for earning the best playoff seed possible.

 
Can you elaborate? 
Sure. “Redrafting” on a weekly basis eliminates the majority of the injury and other unpredictable “luck” that plagues a one year redraft league. If you truly want to test your skills at this hobby do it on a level playing field week to week. DraftKings has created that platform. I can’t imagine guys playing for high stakes in a traditional redraft league anymore. It’s asinine. 

 
Sure. “Redrafting” on a weekly basis eliminates the majority of the injury and other unpredictable “luck” that plagues a one year redraft league. If you truly want to test your skills at this hobby do it on a level playing field week to week. DraftKings has created that platform. I can’t imagine guys playing for high stakes in a traditional redraft league anymore. It’s asinine. 
Our league is not high stakes.  
 

i understand what you see in the dk leagues but you are missing out on the roster management and trading.  I think those combined with the fun of the draft provide a fun alternative to dk.

 
Our league is not high stakes.  
 

i understand what you see in the dk leagues but you are missing out on the roster management and trading.  I think those combined with the fun of the draft provide a fun alternative to dk.
If those are the important things I don’t know why you’d need to change it up to make it more fun. 

 
For the masses, redraft has been pretty much the same over the years.  PPR and one roster spot Flex came along at some point and provided a lift.  Some other rules as well.

looking for thoughts on how to shake up redraft to be a little more fun and different.  Maybe in scoring system with more value or with changes to starting rosters.
Some suggestions : instead or PPR, do points per first down; SuperFlex; get rid of Defense and Kicker positions; TE premium (e.g. 2 points per first down); auction (I feel this is a must, exactly no one I know goes back to redraft once they’ve tried an auction); insert rules that make your league quirky / interesting (e.g. coach position, Rookie position (yes, in redraft); add competitions on top of the normal routine (survivor, best ball, play-off fantasy, etc).

 
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Sure. “Redrafting” on a weekly basis eliminates the majority of the injury and other unpredictable “luck” that plagues a one year redraft league. If you truly want to test your skills at this hobby do it on a level playing field week to week. DraftKings has created that platform. I can’t imagine guys playing for high stakes in a traditional redraft league anymore. It’s asinine. 
I'm much more likely to win vs 11 others than to try and shoot the moon in daily, even though I keep trying. I've sort of come close a few times but I like my odds better in season long leagues. 

Also, choosing the backup QB for cheap and then winning $500k because the starter got hurt isn't "testing one's skill", it is using one's wallet as a tool. It's a legitimate tactic, but not sure that was what you meant by "level playing field" when it really isn't. 

 
I’ve never played in draft that uses auction.

I have to ask how is the order of players that are auctioned determined?

 
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I’ve never played in draft that uses auction.

I have to ask how is the order of players that are auctioned determined?
In my auction league, the defending champ throws out the first bid and then we go around the room clockwise. The order of nominations doesn't really matter except at the very beginning and the very end. 

 
My idea to beef up auctions.....a progressive auction.  Much easier in person.  
 

team 1 brings up a player with opening bid

team 2 either ups the bid or passes.  Will not get a second chance to bid

team 3 to 12 have the same option.  Up the bid or pass

highest bid wins.  One opportunity to bid.  So you bid your value not just high bid plus 1

diffcult to administer but ups the ante on bidding

 
Funny you say this,  one owner is pushing to expand our 1st round auction to a 9 player auction, finishing rounds 10-16 in a snake.    Would love to do this or just a regular full auction draft for a change.   Unfortunately, we always have a couple of remote auto-drafters that make a live auction draft more trouble than it's worth.
We have done this in some baseball and basketball leagues.  It works really well.  The only thing I will add is that we then had the draft that the order is set based on the auction money you had left.  Most money gets first pick and so on down the line.  Then it goes to a snake.  

 
Per my last post above you could do the same with a closed bid.  Every one writes down bid on a piece of paper, submit bids, high bid wins

great humor when one guy bid way too high on Curtis Enid’s one year

 
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The Dude said:
My idea to beef up auctions.....a progressive auction.  Much easier in person.  
 

team 1 brings up a player with opening bid

team 2 either ups the bid or passes.  Will not get a second chance to bid

team 3 to 12 have the same option.  Up the bid or pass

highest bid wins.  One opportunity to bid.  So you bid your value not just high bid plus 1

diffcult to administer but ups the ante on bidding
Interesting. I've never heard of this before but can see how it would be fun.

 
Also, my number one input on this to add fun / strategy is to go with Auction. 

The key in my experience is to have a person running the auction that will move it along quickly. It can drag on if not. But it's not hard to get it moving if you have a person intentionally doing that. 

 
Our league is SuperFlex with 1.5 PPR for TE, we have 2 flex spots with one of them being the SF spot. We also start 2 DL, 2LB, 2DB and one Defensive flex as well. There is also an extra W or L based on your weekly points ranking, top 6 get a W and bottom 6 get a L. All of this wrapped up in a 3-4 hr auction. We also have a 3 week points shootout for our playoffs, 4 out of 12 make the playoffs. 

It's not boring at all!

 
Grahamburn said:
Sure. “Redrafting” on a weekly basis eliminates the majority of the injury and other unpredictable “luck” that plagues a one year redraft league. If you truly want to test your skills at this hobby do it on a level playing field week to week. DraftKings has created that platform. I can’t imagine guys playing for high stakes in a traditional redraft league anymore. It’s asinine. 
You're saying play DFS contests or a set league among friends that DK or FanDuel offers with their "friends" type league?

 
Our league is SuperFlex with 1.5 PPR for TE, we have 2 flex spots with one of them being the SF spot. We also start 2 DL, 2LB, 2DB and one Defensive flex as well. There is also an extra W or L based on your weekly points ranking, top 6 get a W and bottom 6 get a L. All of this wrapped up in a 3-4 hr auction. We also have a 3 week points shootout for our playoffs, 4 out of 12 make the playoffs. 

It's not boring at all!
What kind of weighting do you give defensive player scoring?  So a top defensive player scores similar to what RB?  Or what level RB?

 
Similar to above, we used to have an auction and let teams keep a player at last years cost.

but those guys were available for closed bidding

so if you felt another team had a keeper that is undervalued by at least $15, that player would go up for closed bid

all owners write down their bid and submit

high bid is determined

original owner with the keeper designation on the player chooses to match high bid or let high bidder have player

lots of fun,  sometimes the high bid is $30 more than second highest bid - which leads to mockery

 
What kind of weighting do you give defensive player scoring?  So a top defensive player scores similar to what RB?  Or what level RB?
Tackles and passes defended are 1 point, Sacks are 4 and turnovers are 5 points. So a pick 6 or a fumble recovery for a TD is a pretty nice 11 points! Strip, sack and fumble recovery TD's are king. 

The top 3 DL avg 110pts and it drops off significantly afterwards. 

Top 3 LB'ers avg 150, with a top 15 avg of 130 or so. This is the money position. 

Top 3 DB's avg 130 and all of top 20 in the 100's. 

I wish I had more leagues like this!

 
We also do 2 keepers at the original auction cost, so a FA pick up cannot be "kept". Every 3 years, we do a "reset" year with no keepers and usually a significant rule change to keep things fresh. This year was our 3rd reset and we added the SF rule with some slightly watered down QB stats. 1pt per 25 yards and -2 for turnovers along with 4pt per pass TD. 

 
We did what we called a Vulture League.  12 team PPR redraft with whatever starting lineup you want.  Everyone drafts like normal, then after each week's matchups, the winning team gets to steal a player from the loser's team.  The rules: 

  1. You can only steal a player from their starting lineup (no swiping Mahomes while he's on bye)
  2. You have to give back a player from your starting lineup (no stealing Tyreek and giving back Watkins off your bench)
  3. You have to give back the same position as you stole so as not to hoard or cripple the loser
  4. If a player gets injured mid-game, they can be stolen if the winner chooses, but you cannot steal an RB and give back the guy who just blew his ACL mid-game
  5. No limit on # of times a player can be stolen
It made for some very interesting decisions, as you'd sometimes see two strong teams facing each other opt to sit Davante or Dalvin so that if you lose they can't be stolen from the bench, but you risk losing anyway not being at 100% strength so it led to lots of lineup games, benching mid-week, lineup baiting of opponents, etc.  Also the rules above kept anyone that started 0-3 from just getting buried and never recovering. 

 
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We did what we called a Vulture League.  12 team PPR redraft with whatever starting lineup you want.  Everyone drafts like normal, then after each week's matchups, the winning team gets to steal a player from the loser's team.  The rules: 

  1. You can only steal a player from their starting lineup (no swiping Mahomes while he's on bye)
  2. You have to give back a player from your starting lineup (no stealing Tyreek and giving back Watkins off your bench)
  3. You have to give back the same position as you stole so as not to hoard or cripple the loser
  4. If a player gets injured mid-game, they can be stolen if the winner chooses, but you cannot steal an RB and give back the guy who just blew his ACL mid-game
  5. No limit on # of times a player can be stolen
It made for some very interesting decisions, as you'd sometimes see two strong teams facing each other opt to sit Davante or Dalvin so that if you lose they can't be stolen from the bench, but you risk losing anyway not being at 100% strength so it led to lots of lineup games, benching mid-week, lineup baiting of opponents, etc.  Also the rules above kept anyone that started 0-3 from just getting buried and never recovering. 
What was the level of complaints, belly aching, and whining?  
 

I can only imagine the level of crying one of my leagues. 😁

 
Lots of great ideas here....My idea is about the playoffs....  We have 8 teams that make the playoffs which means  we have had more than a few champs over he ears come from he 7th and 8th spots...so short of cutting back on plaoff spots  (ive tried,  ive tried)  Im going to try again  to get them to agree to letting the teams actually pick their  opponent each week of the playoffs.... That will ensure 2 things...1  that the top teams get to play who THEY THINK  is the weakest  team  left to be picked and 2 and even more importanly...if they pick poorly there will be plenty of trash talking and egg on the face of the person who made the choice.  😆 

 

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