SDMB Dynasty Fantasy Football interest list

The Game Room
61

I’m interested in any of them. I am MOST interested in #2, but with the owners able to set the amount of the contract length with the maximum based on the round. So Round 1 picks can be signed for 1 or 2 years. Rounds 2 and 3 for 1 to 3 years. Rounds 4 and 5 for 1 to 4 years. And rounds 6-13 for 1 to 5 years. And any rounds after 13 for 1 to 8 years. When you draft a player, you set his contract length based on the rounds, and that is it. After the season ends, the length of contract goes down my one. Every player under a one year contract can be dropped for a free agent. Each owner gets one contract termination (if you drafted Cadillac Williams and wonder if he has a third knee to tear) and one contract extension (if you drafted DeAngelo Williams in the first round two years ago and want to keep him for one more year) per year.

It seem to me that this is the best way to make it like the NFL, where you can spend the time to develop players, but also you have to balance a roster and have a shot at staying in the game year to year.

62

I see where you’re going with that, but that becomes complicated to manage like we’ve been talking about. The elegance of the system I proposed is that it’s very easy to figure out who’s coming up for draft eligibility.

I guess what we can figure out is whether or not we have unlimited cutting of players, and whether that gets you a new pick at the end of that year’s draft. If you can cut a player at any time, then you may as well sign him for the max contract and cut him if you want to get rid of him.

63

I admit that the commish has a fair amount of work off the bat, but after that, it’s pretty simple, just subtract one each year. The only real problem is when players try to make an illegal move (like dropping a guy who is on a 4 year contract), but it really isn’t that much more work. Hell, I’ll even volunteer to handle all the contract stuff, as well as double check all the trades and add/drops for violations.

Yep. Which, in my scheme, if you sign everybody to a max contract not only do you not get to work the waiver wire, you only get to cut one person a year if they’re on contract for longer than one year. Just like NFL teams pay if they want to cut someone they gave a fat contract to the year before, an owner has to think twice about cutting someone. But they still have the flexibility to sign people to lower year contracts if they think they’ll be getting over the hill or want the flexibility to grab on the waiver wire.

64

Hmm, your system does sound interesting. It’s more complex than mine, but not so much more than it would be impractical.

I do wonder if the participants would want that level of work. As much as I’d love to find 12 SDMB FF junkies who would love to put in a ton of work for a complex, rewarding league I’m not sure we can. Asking people to put a contract length on every player they draft, and to restrict their ability to cut players and such may not be too hard, but I’m worried it might scare off some people as being too much work/too complicated and they may decline.

I may be wrong. I base this on my experience with the leagues I run, where I try to recruit the most active, best SDMB players - and often we go through seasons with less than 5 trades, with relatively few trade offers being passed back and forth. I can only think of 4 or 5 people offhand who are enthusiastic enough to for sure comply and thrive under any system that requires more work than usual.

I do think your system could be interesting, in the sense that you face a new problem like actual NFL teams do - you get stuck with contracts you don’t like any have to deal with it.

I have to figure out what we’d do under my system about cuts. If you cut someone in mid-season and pick someone out of FA, do they replace the contract of the person you dropped? Do they get a new 1 year contract? At the end of the year, in the offseason, can you cut players you don’t want and then get an extra draft pick at the end of the draft to replace them? Maybe a limited number of cuts like that? I haven’t worked that all out yet. Suggestions?

65

Me personally? None of them, though I’d probably join a simple lots-of-keepers league similar to the one I outlined.

The contract systems strike me as far too complex to manage unless it were automatic, much like I wouldn’t join a salary cap league if yahoo didn’t have all the bells and whistles already set up.

But I meant what I said about pitching in to help if it turned into a logistical nightmare. I don’t have to be part of a league to help manage it.

66

It’s actually not all that daunting. If people can figure out who is good, they can also figure out how young they are and how long they might want to hold onto them. I think it’s a better balance than a straight dynasty league where you’re kinda stuck with the same players you picked.

It’s a good balance between getting too involved (like the really intricate salary cap leagues) and simplistic (you get who you draft). It’s realistic without being too laborious.

I honestly don’t know. You could have a no cut but allot like 25 roster spots, and let the owners decide if they want to draft 20 and have 5 waiver pickups or draft 25 and no pickups. But there does have to be some mechanism (either at the end of the season or by limited cuts) to eliminate players or the rosters will get outlandish.

67

Could we have the people who posted being interested earlier in the thread chime in on what system appeals to them most? At this point it seems like whichever direction we go, we’re going to alienate some people, and for this to work we’ll need 12 dedicated people.

68

A really deep keeper league without contracts interests me the most. Whether this is straight-up dynasty or just a large number of set keepers doesn’t matter much to me.

69

This. I would play under any of the options though.

70

First I’ll say that whatever we wind up doing, I’m enthusiastic about it, and I hope this is pretty much everyone’s stance, since most people are going to have their preferred system left unused.

  1. My preference is still, I think, for a full-roster retention dynasty league. It’s extremely simple to understand and to run. It strongly encourages trading activity, and with such deep rosters it facilitates a kind of trading that’s so rich as to constitute a qualitative difference from trading in a traditional league. There are just endless possibilities for teams that are looking to buy or to sell. Because the free agent well is so dry, players who would be considered nothing but filler in other leagues (because someone almost as good could be picked up as a free agent at no cost) could suddenly have actual trade value (because how else are you going to upgrade your WR3 platoon?). Likewise, teams will have all manor of different prospects, from the top tier guys with talent and an apparently imminent starting job in their near future, to the middling and/or longshot prospects who can serve as throw-ins to other trades, or who can be packaged together to get that WR3 I just mentioned. Seriously, it would be awesome.

And as **Beef **points out, team quality really wouldn’t be as static as some people are worried about, but even to the extent there will be good teams and bad teams, running a bad team in a dynasty league is nothing like running a bad team in a regular league, or even (to a lesser extent) in a He Hate Me-type keeper league. In a non-dynasty league, when you start the season 0-6, the next 8 weeks are simply boring because there’s nothing for you to accomplish – you’re just playing out the string, updating your roster every week out of consideration for the rest of the league. Start the season 0-6 in a dynasty league, however, and your experience for the next 8 weeks is different, but not necessarily worse. You’ve now got, say, 6 weeks to position yourself better for the future (btw, there should be a very late trade deadline). You’ve got all those trading options I just talked about, and you have a (presumably) high 1st Round draft pick to look forward to (which is another valuable trade commodity). If your team sucks because of a couple Tom Brady-like injuries, a lost season could even be a blessing in disguise if it gives you the freedom to mortgage Season X to the benefit of Seasons X+1, X+2, and X+3.
2) The allegedly complex system I detailed in Post #42 would be a close second for me. I really think I could organize that without too much trouble, but it doesn’t seem to have a lot of support for one reason or another, and I don’t expect to be able to convince anyone, so I’m happy to drop it if there’s no one to second the motion.
3) I like Beef’s idea about draft round determining contract length, though I’d prefer somewhat longer contract lengths than those used in post #53, something close to: R1 = 1 year, R2-3 = 2 years, R4-6= 3 years, R7-10 = 4 years, R11+ = indefinite.
4) If we do a league that’s essentially a deep keeper league, I’d emphasize that it either has to be really deep (like 12-15 keepers), or it has to have a redshirt/practice squad group of more than a few guys.
– I’m generally not a fan of the idea of contracts that are binding on the owner, as it mostly seems like a real-world frustration that we, unlike actual General Managers, have the option to decline. I think it would also serve on balance to limit player mobility, if that’s one of the concerns we’re addressing.

– I’m also not wild about the idea of poor teams being able to lift players from the good teams. If it were a bottom 4 / top 4 setup in a 12 team legue, for example, it would definitely provide an incentive for the teams ranked 7th-10th in the last few weeks to tank it.

However, if it were more like a real Rule 5 draft I’d be more into it: worst teams pick first, but everyone has the opportunity to draft. And you could (i.e., should) have somewhat analogous eligibility criteria, with any players who fail to start X games in the previous Y seasons being eligible (probably with teams being able to protect one or two additional players). *Perhaps *teams which select a player in the Rule 5 draft would be required to start that player (barring injury) in Z games the next season, or they forfeit him (and/or suffer some other penalty). It wouldn’t have to be just one round, either.

This would serve the purposes of preventing teams from stockpiling too much talent and contributing to long-term parity, without imparting the onerous feeling that we’re punishing success and and rewarding failure. And the relative benefit it provides to bad teams would, in my opinion, be too small to encourage tanking. The more I consider it, the cooler I think this system would be. It’s another layer, and one not too difficult to implement (the only hassle would be in figuring out who’s eligible to be drafted, and even if the commissioner had to that with no help from other players whatsoever it wouldn’t take more than a couple of hours per season). It would also give us something else to do during the offseason, and be short enough that we could run it on the message board.

Of course, this really fits best with the straight up dynasty league (hint, hint).

– Whatever method we choose, we should be sure to have a very late trading deadline, for obvious reasons.

I’m leaving for a weekend in Connecticut in a few hours, so although I should be able to check in occasionally, I probably won’t be available for any extended discussion (hence the marathon post). If the league somehow gets started while I’m away, be sure to save me a spot.

71

My interest in just doing a straight up dynasty draft hasn’t waned, but I want to just flesh out a proposed set of rules for my idea to see how it looks. This isn’t set in stone, just a proposal to see if anyone likes a fully realized set of rules.

We would have deep rosters, just like a dynasty league. Maybe 10 starting spots and 15 bench spots.

For the first draft:
1st and 2nd round picks would be yours for one year. They would re-enter the next year’s draft.
3rd through 6th round rounders are yours for two years.
7th through 11th rounders are yours for three years.
12th rounders and lower are yours indefinitely.

In subsequent years, the amount of players available to be drafted will be lower and variable. So we need different contract lengths per round every year. In year 2, we will have rookies (I’m estimating 4 rounds of the draft will be adequate for this, but it can be adjusted). We will also have 1st and 2 rounders for from year 1 entering the draft again. So under these settings, it will be a 6 round draft.

Year 2
Round 1-2 kept for 1 year
Round 3-4 kept for 2 years
Round 5-6 kept for 3 years

Year 3
We’ll have rookies (4 rounds) + 2nd year 1st and 2nd rounders (2 rounds) + year 1 3rd through 6 rounders (4 rounds) meaning a 10 round draft.
Rounds 1-2 kept for 1 year
Rounds 3-4 kept for 2 years
Rounds 6-8 kept 3 years
Rounds 9-10 kept indefinitely

Year 4
We’ll have rookies (4 rounds) + year 3’s 1st and 2 rounders (2 rounds), year 2’s 3-4 rounders (2 rounds) and year 1’s 7th-11th rounders (5 rounds) = 13 round draft.
Rounds 1-2 kept 1 year
Rounds 3-5 kept 2 years
Rounds 6-10 kept 3 years
Rounds 11-13 kept indefinitely

Drafts wouldn’t serpentine - you’d draft worst to first in every round.

Players with expiring contracts, players that were undrafted in previous years, players who were picked up as free agent last year, and rookies would all be available as part of the same pool. You could draft any sort with any of your picks.

It may sound a little complicated, but I just outlined 4 years worth of drafts/contracts, so not it’s not, really. There may be some inconsistencies out there, as I’m just plugging in whatever numbers feel right rather than using a set heuristic.

Now, everything is even - people lose players at the same rate and have the same number of draft picks.

Here’s where it gets tricky.

First - do we grow our rosters every year by the size of the rookie pool, or do the rosters stay the same size? With the former, we could potentially get some pretty huge rosters over the years. With the latter, you’d potentially have to cut someone to fit rookies on your team.

Losing players to contracts expiring is irrelevant to this point, since you’re getting the same number of draft rounds back for each contract that’s expiring. IE losing your round 1 and 2 picks from last year frees up the roster space for this year’s round 1 and 2 picks. It’s the rookie pool that adds total numbers to the system.

every year, if no one cut anyone, players would have 4 more draft picks than roster slots. The solution to this seems simple - if you want all of your draft picks, you have to cut 4 players a year (which could include picking up free agents in mid-season which are then lost at the end of the year). You can choose to forego draft picks, starting at your lowest one and working your way up, if you if before the draft you don’t have at 4 open spots on your roster and you do not elect to cut anyone. This cutting could occur over the offseason.

And then how do we handle trades, waiver, and free agent pickups?

It strikes me that waivers and trades should retain the contract status of the original draft position, and that free agent pickups should only be good for the current year, after which they re-enter the draft.

As with above, if we have a set number of draft picks for everyone (6 in year 2, 10 in year 3 using my figures above) - then the person drafts that many players. If they end up below a full roster because they’ve cut so many players and replaced them with free agents (that are entered into next year’s draft)- so be it. They’ll finish the draft with some empty roster slots which they can fill their roster up after the draft with what’s left of the free agent pool.

To summarize that section: Every player would get 1 draft pick in every round of that year’s draft. The length of that draft will vary every year outlined above. Since we will have 4 more rounds than draft slots every year, you will either have to reduce your roster by 4 (either through cutting, midseason replacement with a free agent who goes back into the pool next year, trading away multiple players for fewer players, etc.) or you will forego as many of your lowest draft picks (up to 4) that you don’t have room to accomodate on your roster.

Trades and waiver claims would result in the player keeping his original drafted contract. Free agents would go back into the draft pool at the end of the year. Cut players (that aren’t picked up in waivers) become free agents, and re-enter the pool next year. Trading future draft picks is possible but would be subject to peer review for abuses just like any other trade.
There we have it. Any rules are up for discussion/changing, I just wanted to lay down a full proposal so we could see how it might really work. If there’s anything I’ve forgotten or holes in my plan please point them out. I actually like that proposal a good bit.

72

It sounds more complicated than it is. I’ve got a pretty good model in my head of how it could smoothly work, and I was probably excessively verbose when explaining it. I’ll volunteer to run it should we decide to go with that system.

73

Same size. Is there a way to forfeit draft picks on Yahoo? I don’t think there is, unfortunately, so players would need to be cut to make room.

I would think so as well.
What do we think about the waiver rules? Do we want to stick with the rotative waiver priority, or should the worst team keep the #1 priority? With a dynasty league, the latter actually makes some sense (though for the first part of the season, you’d have to include the previous year’s results in some way when determining the worst teams). Or, if such a system would actually be too much of an advantage to one specific bad team, we could have waiver priority rotate among the bottom teams, separate from the rest of the league (so, e.g., the worst team picks up someone off waivers, then moves down to 4th waiver priority while 2-4 each move up 1).

Especially if we run a straight up dynasty league, giving the worst teams perpetual waiver priorities would be a fairly powerful way to help them get out of the basement.

74

Agreed.

75

I’m also fine with the deep keeper league proposal.

76

This is a great point regardless of it’s a contract system or a deep keeper league. I love your thoughts on it; agreed completely. (Setting up a system where the cellar dwellars pass around the highest waiver priority.)

I don’t understand why the contract league suggestions all have you unable to keep your first round picks. It seems to me the one thing that sets a dynasty league apart from a keeper league is that you can hold onto your top picks. That’s kind of the appeal of it, at least to me.

77

I tried to explain it when contrasting our systems in post 53

Specifically

There’s nothing inherently right about it, but if we’re concerned about turnover, I’d rather Adrian Peterson/Drew Brees/etc be available every year. Shuffling around the stars allows greater parity, quicker turnarounds, and more exciting drafts. And it allows you to keep your long term prospects more than when you’re pressured to cut your unproductive players with potential.

The appeal of the dynasty league for me is greater in finding your future starters and gems than keeping a player from year to year that everyone expects to be good and is a no-brainer to draft. It’s just my opinion on what would make for a more fun partial turnover league.

78

Can we have 2-3 proposals summarized and then vote? I’d honestly play any of the proposals in this thread.

I also don’t think it matters much if the top picks are kept, there is SO much turnover in these rounds from year to year. These duds were all first and second round picks just two years ago:

Larry Johnson
Willie Parker
Rudi Johnson
Shaun Alexander
Carson Palmer
Reggie Bush
Marvin Harrison
Chad Johnson
Chester Taylor
Joseph Addai
Laurence Maroney
Cedric Benson
Willis McGahee
Torry Holt

79

I tried to get that going in post #53 but not many people chimed in.

Ultimately it may be best just to go with the dynasty league originally proposed - most of the people who expressed interest (but didn’t participate in the thread further) seemed cool with that. It’s also very simple.

80

Sorry, I vote #1 then.