When setting up your league’s playoff format (assuming the typical single elimination tournament that most leagues use) the first thing you’ll want to establish is the number of teams involved. Most leagues involve six teams in their playoffs. This creates a simple three-week bracket where the top two teams get byes into the second round. While this is a very standard format, (it’s what I use in my 14-team league), is it the best format for identifying your league champion?

There are a couple of things you may want to consider before adopting this format. The majority of fantasy football leagues are either 10 or 12 team leagues. If you use this format in these size leagues you are allowing 50% – 60% of your league to qualify for the playoffs. Kind of NBA/NHL-ish as far as playoff participation goes. The NFL allows just over a third (12 of its 32) of its teams into the playoffs. Even in 12 team leagues you could easily be looking at teams with .500 records or worse, qualifying for your post season. Certainly the playoffs are exciting and having a majority of your owners qualify keeps interest high throughout the regular season. However you have to offset that with the fact that in a single elimination format, one bad week can take out the best of teams.

Do you really want to give owners of mediocre teams a shot at your league title? This comes down to personal preference and I think six teams in a 14-team league give you a quality post season. I think the number for 10-team leagues should be four teams. Any more than that guarantees you to have a below average team in your playoffs. 12-team leagues fall in the middle, you could make the argument for either, though I lean toward the six-team size because it makes your regular season more interesting and keeps more teams alive for the playoffs until the last weeks of the season.

Now that we’ve determined how many teams will participate in your post season, how do we determine who they’ll be? Typically, overall record is used to determine your playoff teams, however many leagues are reserving a playoff spot based on total points. This makes sense when you consider that a team’s won/loss record often has as much to do with luck in scheduling as it does with the actual team’s performance. How many times have you been that team that scored the second highest amount of points in your league for the week and lost the game? Adding a playoff position for a total points champion is a good way to ensure the best teams qualify for the playoffs. My league reserves the final wildcard for the highest scoring team that hasn’t qualified on overall record.

Regardless of whether you use a total-points position or not, you’ll still need a way to seed the other teams in your playoffs. This is done by establishing a series of tiebreakers to determine your division winners and wildcard teams. As noted above, the first tiebreaker will typically be overall won/loss record. Other tiebreakers that can be applied in any order include division record, head-to-head record of tied teams, total points scored, coin flip, etc. What tiebreakers you choose to use are a matter of personal preference, though its typically accepted that total points is the best indicator of how good a team is. What is critical regarding tiebreakers is how you apply them and that you CLEARLY indicate this in your rules.

When writing your rules it’s important to state what tiebreakers you are using and in what order they will be applied. In addition, special consideration needs to be given to how multiple team tiebreakers are handled. In the NFL, when three or more teams are tied for a playoff spot, tiebreakers are applied until one team is eliminated. Once one team is eliminated, the process is REPEATED from the beginning with the remaining teams. This iterative process is performed until one team emerges. If you model your leagues tiebreaking process after the NFL, it’s important to note this in your rules. Many owners will be confused regarding the application of multi-team tiebreakers, especially if it’s not made clear to them.

Finally, there are a couple of rules changes you may need to address during playoff time. The primary concern here is a tiebreak system. My league uses decimal scoring and doesn’t have regular season tiebreak process. This does become necessary in the post-season. I’ve seen several options for a tiebreak system. These include total bench points, use of a single player, or even just the higher seeded team advancing in event of a tie. I actually have a system that I modeled off the NFL sudden death system. Each team names a tiebreak player. In the event of a tie, the higher seeded team gets the first opportunity to break the tie. If his tiebreak player scores a touchdown or field goal, that team wins. If not, the lower seeded team’s player gets the same opportunity. Again, just be sure your tiebreak process is in your rules document and is understood by all owners.

Transactions during the post season are another issue you may want to address. Some leagues freeze rosters going into the post season. This keeps eliminated teams from dumping productive players that playoff teams may utilize.

If you’ve seen a theme throughout these playoff issues, it’s to have a clear and consistent rules document. Nothing frustrates an owner more than to think he’s made the playoffs when he actually hasn’t (I’ve been that owner). Without clearly written rules you will have a difficult time convincing an owner that his interpretation of the rules is incorrect or inaccurate. In a few weeks we’ll see dozens of posts on these message boards regarding playoff tiebreakers because commissioners don’t anticipate the scenarios that can arise when seeding playoff teams.

Time for your questions…

Q) In this week’s games, Jacksonville kicked off to Cincinnati. The returner fumbled the ball and Jacksonville returned this for a touchdown. Why wasn’t this credited as a touchdown for Jacksonville’s defense/special teams unit?

A) The answer in this case turned out to be fairly simple. The live scoring system on many commissioner services is often slow to deal with defensive scores. But this is something you have to be aware of as a commissioner as you’ll get several of these questions each season. It also brings up a bigger issue. Be sure your scoring system is setup to accommodate your league rules. Some leagues draft only a defensive unit and have individual special team’s players. In this case, the fumble occurred during special teams play and would not be scored as a fumble recovery and return for the defensive unit.

Q) In your column you’ve discussed how to run a good league. Can you give owners advice on how to avoid playing in bad ones?

A) As I started to respond to this question I realized it was a much more complex answer than I anticipated. It will be a great topic for the next session of the commissioner’s court. Check back in a couple of weeks for the answer.

Thanks again for your questions and comments. Please continue to send them in.