SDMB Dynasty Fantasy Football League (recruiting)

The Game Room
201

So what’s the problem? You make it sound as if we’re bickering condescendingly over irrelevant stuff, but no one here is hostile. We’re proposing ideas, trying to come to a consensus, gathering opinions.

This league is substantially different from anything any of us have done before, so we want to work out the details. I don’t see how this is a bad thing - it seems good that we’ve got a lot of knowledgable people looking to work the kinks out now.

As for whether you need to know about Seattle’s third tight end - no, that’s an exaggeration. But this is indeed deeper than any draft you’ve taken place in. Players will be drafted who you’ve never heard of before. But this was clear from the start, so I don’t understand why you signed up.

I just don’t understand why you’re pissed. This league is shaping up to be pretty good, about what I invisioned. No one is being hostile (“arguing over minutia”) except you. You don’t have to be involved in every part of this process, but it’d be nice if you expressed some preference since we want to make this appealing to everyone.

202

I’m not pissed. Maybe I didn’t express myself clearly. Let’s drop it and pretend I didn’t say anything.

203

On another note, I’d be up for doing a fantasy Calvinball league if anyone wants to start it.

204

I doubt we’ll even be using anyone’s second string TE, much less third, but your point is well taken that esoteric knowledge would be a help in this kind of league. RB3 and WR4 for every NFL team would absolutely be useful knowledge. I know I personally will be relying heavily on yahoo rankings once we get past round 20 or so.

I agree with you on kickers. I’ve had the same philosophical debate with VarlosZ for years, but on fumbles lost. Football Outsiders has made a pretty convincing case that recovering fumbles isn’t predictable, meaning from a fantasy perspective they’re just pure luck random noise. Kickers are much the same way.

I have never considered that a compelling reason to downplay them in fantasy football. They are extremely meaningful to the outcome of games, so I figure they should be part of fantasy football as well.

Reasonable people can disagree on this point, which is why the discussion and vote.

205

Don’t suppose there’s any chance we can drop touchdowns to three points instead of six? Seems totally wrong that Owen Daniels’ 900 receiving yards and 1 score last year were worth about the same as Anthony Fasano’s 454/7.

206

I think that’s probably too radical a change this late in the game.

207

I thought you were threatning or indicating your intentions to drop out of the league without giving us enough time to find a replacement, which is why I was irritated. I still don’t really understand where you’re coming from but hopefully everything is alright in regards to you playing in the league.

208

I actually feel pretty much the same way, and would like to try a very yardage-intensive league. But this probably isn’t the league or the year to try it.

Actually, I don’t know why that never occurred to me as far the efficiency leagues go. Myself and others spent a lot of time figuring out how to reward players for being efficient instead of merely prolific, and how to more accurately reward players for their contributions. The simplest way to do that would be to reduce the importance touchdowns. Duh. I think that’s a neat idea for a league next year (or this year, I suppose, but I personally am probably at my limit for this season).

209

Also, I should note that, with **RNATB **switching his vote and **Petey **weighing in, we now have 6 votes for keeping Kickers. Barring any surprise defections, I think that settles it. Plan to draft a Kicker.

210

Bah, this adds at least 4 hours to my prep time.

211

Well, no one has really rang in on Ellis Dee’s roster proposal:

QB
RB
RB
RB/WR
WR
WR
WR/TE
TE
K
DEF
15 bench spots

But I know Varlos wants the settings finalized soon, so I wanted to reiterate that that roster seems like a reasonable compromise between people’s desires - deeper than standard, not as deep as my proposal, and includes flex spots which most people are high on. Factoring in the .5 PPR, and the degree to which talent is spread around, I don’t think we’ll see an RB dominated league with those settings - teams with different strengths will be viable.

212

That roster would be fine with me. So far most people have spoken in favor of having one or more additional roster spots, and I think almost everyone seems to like flex spots.

I’m going to bed – will hopefully have everything set in stone around 12 hours from now. I think I have a pretty good idea where the line of compromise/consensus is on most of the issues, but I’ll hold off on talking about potential results until the morning so as not to skew any further discussion.
Settings, research, pre-ranking, draft, maybe some write-ups . . . tomorrow’s another big day.

213

Didn’t notice we were doing PPR. In that case, I like Ellis’ format.

214

These results are virtually locked in.

Rosters

Kickers held on, but just. Everyone who weighed in expressed a desire for one or more flex spots of one kind or another, and almost everyone who weighed in liked the idea of having more than the standard 9 starters. Ellis’ proposal seems like the closest we’re going to get to a consensus, and since it was posted 24 hours ago and there have been no objections to it, I think we’ll go with that:

QB
RB
RB
RB/WR
WR
WR
WR/TE
TE
K
DEF
15 bench spots
Scoring

The only objections to the scoring system I proposed (other than RNATB’s suggestion to reduce TD values) was about the increased points allowed scoring. So we’ll reign that in a little bit:

Passing Yards 20 yards per point
Passing Touchdowns 4
Interceptions -2
Sacks -0.5
Rushing Yards 10 yards per point
Rushing Touchdowns 6
Receptions 0.5
Reception Yards 10 yards per point
Reception Touchdowns 6
Return Yards 25 yards per point
Return Touchdowns 6
2-Point Conversions 2
Fumbles -1
Fumbles Lost -1
Offensive Fumble Return TD 6

Field Goals 0-19 Yards 3
Field Goals 20-29 Yards 3
Field Goals 30-39 Yards 3
Field Goals 40-49 Yards 4
Field Goals 50+ Yards 5
Field Goals Missed 0-19 Yards -3
Field Goals Missed 20-29 Yards -2
Field Goals Missed 30-39 Yards -1
Point After Attempt Made 1
Point After Attempt Missed -3

Sack 1
Interception 2
Fumble Recovery 2
Touchdown 6
Safety 4
Block Kick 2
Kickoff and Punt Return Touchdowns 0
Points Allowed 0 points 16
Points Allowed 1-6 points 12
Points Allowed 7-13 points 8
Points Allowed 14-20 points 4
Points Allowed 21-27 points 0
Points Allowed 28-34 points -4
Points Allowed 35+ points -8
Draft Order

Option #2 received the most support, so that’s what we’ll go with. We’ll reverse the draft order after the first 2 Rounds, then continue with a standard serpentine from there. After this year, remember, the draft will not be serpentine, but rather worst-to-first in every round, as in the NFL.
Waivers

Would’ve liked to see more people express an opinion, but as it is we have three (including myself) in favor Free Agent Acquisition Budgets, one for the dual-tiered standings-based waivers, and one declared abstention. Acquisition budgets it is.
Divisions

We’ll use the following regional set-up:
Northeast Corridor
VarlosZ – New York, NY
Justin_Bailey – Upstate New York
Ellis Dee – SW Connecticut
furt – Orlando/DC

Midwest
Stringer – Chicago
Hamlet – St. Louis
RetroVertigo – St. Louis
The Mad Hermit – Pittsburgh

Sun Belt
RNATB – Florida
Petey – Ft. Lauderdale, FL
SenorBeef – Las Vegas NV
dalej42 – Phoenix, AZ

215

Ok, a few loose ends.
To start, it would appear that **RNATB **and **SenorBeef **have agreed to swap all of their draft picks before the draft. That’s a little unusual, and I’m not sure what the protocol is here. So, first, were you two serious? Second, does anyone object?
Next, with the Free Agent Budgets, do we want to start giving aid to the cellar-dwelling teams this season? We could start next season, and do it by simply giving the weaker teams a larger lump sum at the beginning of the year. This is much simpler to implement, and would also let us avoid having another rules discussion today (which, I get the impression, some of us are a little wary of).
Finally, there are two issues that are a ways off: divisional realignment to aid in parity, and subsequent drafts. The draft question is whether to have all-rookie drafts after this year, or just general drafts including everyone not already on a roster. Something I don’t think we’ve considered: as far as I know, there’s no mechanism on Yahoo to restrict our drafts to only a certain subset of players, so getting everyone to abide by the rookie-only rule might be difficult.

But, again, these are a ways off, and I think we’d do well to put off discussion of them until at least towards the end of the season.

216

Apparently, Yahoo does not automatically schedule us for two games against our division rivals, so I’ll be partially rebuilding the schedule myself. If there are no objections, I’ll make the last week all intra-division games, and probably throw in somewhat more of those games in the second of the season on in general, when they’ll have more meaning.

217

Nah, I won’t hold him seriously to his offer, it wouldn’t be fair to other people just because I was the first one to jump on and call dibs.

218

I have a whole new respect for schedule makers. I basically tried to build ours from scratch, and it turned into some crazy goddamn puzzle. Trying again with pencil and paper in a minute.

219

It all looks good by me, but then again, I’m pretty flexible. The only thing to stick in my craw is:

Return Yards 25 yards per point
Return Touchdowns 6

I hate return yards. I think including them is a waste and overvalues some WR’s RB’s simply because they return kicks. But, once again, it’s no big thang.

See you Wednesday!

220

I was quite serious. However, since we’re not using the standard serpentine order, it doesn’t look like I’d be doing SB any favors. However, if he still wants to switch, I’m game.