Didn't draft day seem like yesterday? "Who is going in the
first round?" and "How bad is his injury?" are questions
that were answered long ago. As the season enters its final month,
commissioners and leagues alike, can start looking forward to next
year for ways to improve.
While I like to think I run a perfect league, year in and year out
I am proved wrong. There are always changes to be made. It is much
better to identify flaws and/or changes needed within a league during
the football season, rather than during the summer when the mind
is filled with baseball and the beach. From experience, running
league votes on a bunch of suggestions can greatly increase the
fun and excitement of a new year of Fantasy Football. The following
topics may be some things your league might want to look at to improve,
add, remove or modify, from your current format.
Draft and Roster
What is better than draft day? To a fantasy sports participant,
there isn't much. It took some convincing within my league, but
for the last few years the use of deep draft and roster, has proved
to reward the best drafted teams. Trading throughout the season
always has an impact, but there is nothing worse than a team that
wins due mainly to pick-up during the season. We spend numerous
hours preparing, another 4 or 5 hours drafting. For that, I believe
a person's draft should have value. Years back, this wasn't the
case. Our draft was complete and Kurt Warner's excellence was still
unknown to the rest of the football world. Under the rules of my
league back then, pick-ups were weekly and done in reverse order
of standings. In week 3, there was a team that was 0-3. His team
wasn't that bad, but still it wasn't looking good for him. Mr. Warner
had just thrown 5 TD's in a game and he was looking like the real
deal. This guy picked him up and won 11 of the next 13 games including
our playoffs and championship. Was Warner the only reason for his
winning ways? No, but it was a major cause. A suggestion for your
league may be to increase your bench to cover for injuries early
in the season, and hold set supplemental drafts throughout the schedule
(2 or 3). This way there are still chances to pick up some of the
players that may produce, but are not on a roster at the start or
midway through the season. You will find that, when it comes to
picking up a player, there won't be much left, therefore rewarding
the people who drafted better. A recommendation for the supplemental
pick is to determine the orders at the beginning of the season.
This gives all teams the chance at the first pick and doesn't reward
just the teams that are in last. Secondly, this also gives teams
another thing to trade.
Keeper
Having admired the aspect of keeping players from year-to-year,
I finally have implemented this feature to my own league. After
a majority vote to implement it, I faced many owners that still
were against the fact that they would never be able to see some
players on their roster. That is why a modified keeper league may
be an option for some leagues wavering on this decision. Drafting
the top guys in a league is always incredible fun, so I did my best
to maintain this while still having keepers. We have 14 teams in
our league and 18 rounds of drafting. We use team quarterbacks instead
of individual. In order to keep the known stars in the draft each
year, the first 5 rounds of picks cannot be kept. Anything "team"
cannot be kept which means quarterbacks and defenses. From the remaining
players, each team can keep three. In the first year after deciding
to keep three players, the team does not draft in the 16th, 17th,
and 18th rounds. His keepers take the place of those rounds. If
that team wants to keep those players, the following year, he then
does not draft in the 4th, 5th and 6th rounds. If he then wants
to keep those same players an additional year, it will cost him
the 3rd, 4th, and 5th rounds. This will continue until the team
gives up his 1st, 2nd and 3rd round picks. While sounding, somewhat
complicated, it is fairly simple. In essence to keep a player for
a year, the team doesn't give up much, but if that team would like
to keep that player after that, the player better be worth a high
draft pick in order to protect him. For further info on my system,
e-mail me.
Schedules and Expansion
Due to the length of the NFL schedule, your league's schedule could
be limited due to the amount of teams competing. I, as most commissioners,
recommend the championship or final game of any fantasy football
league to end after the week 16 games of the NFL season. Since many
teams who have clinched a playoff berth rest their stars, true representation
of a fantasy team is not displayed in week 17. There are many places
to get schedule formats, just choose one that mathematically fits
your league proportions. Expansion is always fun. Bringing in new
blood doesn't necessarily mean bringing in a rookie. There are many
skilled owners out there just looking to join a league. Don't be
too overconfident when facing this person during the season. With
expansion, usually comes more trading and competition, which is
good for the whole league. The more diluted the player pool, the
more fun I find it to be. When your team is filled with "All-Stars"
and so are the rosters of everyone else in your league, nothing
is proved. It is when you have to play an NFL team's 3rd and 4th
wide receiver, that a fantasy team owner shows his ability.
Scoring
Don't be afraid to propose scoring changes in your league. For instance,
this year my league penalized all players for losing a fumble. It
was the first time. In the past, the QB was the only person penalized
on offense, and that was for interceptions thrown. Next year, I
am proposing to penalize players that turn the ball over and that
play results in an opponents touchdown. There are many scoring categories
out there to consider, such as completions, passing percentage,
etc. It doesn't hurt to try. If it is passed in your league, you
just have more to look at in the box score each week. If it isn't
passed, nothing is lost. For head-to-head money leagues, you may
want to consider rewarding the team with the most points at the
end of the fantasy regular season. Head-to-head has proven to have
a lot of luck involved, which is mostly due to scheduling. The best
team in the league point-wise, may very well not make the playoffs.
This can happen if a team randomly plays other teams that end up
scoring higher each week. Most points shows whose line-up over the
course of a year produced the greatest.
Anything that a participant in your league may propose that could
make it more competitive, exciting, and most of all, fun, should
be considered before next years rules are executed. Use these last
couple of weeks to identify any problems or inaccuracies that your
league currently faces. Have there been arguments this year regarding
trades, playoff format, scoring? Look into solving these disputes
in order to prevent them from occurring again next year. Fantasy
sports leagues are always evolving and changing. There is no right
or wrong way to do it, as long as all that are participating agree
for the most part. The main thing is to have fun and for those in
cash leagues, "show me the money."
