DU Fantasy Football 2017: Updates

[getting old in mke]

I sent the the text below out as an email to the league as a whole. But in case you, like me, might rarely read whatever email address is registered to your yahoo account, I'll post here.
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Hey, folks.

Under-study commish here, known and feared as Mr Callahan. In life, a mild-mannered almost-retiree.

Anyway, since we've changed platforms, we thought we'd do a little polling about the league setup. Right now it is using the Yahoo defaults, which don't reflect previous years settings. Plus, maybe it's time to play a bit with some new options.

Please reply to this email, or send email to "PM me for email address" or post on the league message board with opinions on the following. Let's try to get the answers in by Sunday 8/27. We'll put the rules together after that based on favorite choices.

That will still leave a week to develop a draft strategy.

On the "previous years" rosters, I'm operating from memory, so feel free to correct me.

1) Roster construction:

a) Current default: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR, DST, K
b) Previous year 1: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR/T, WR/RB, WR/RB/T, DST, K
c) Previous year 2: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR, WR/RB, WR/RB/T, DST, K
d) Other?

2) Roster Options -- roster things that might be interesting to try that we haven't before:
a) Designated offensive player as Flex: essentially a QB/RB/WR/T flex. This means that all of a sudden the QBs in the back half of the league become interesting. Might still include a normal flex, too.
b) No kicker league -- pretty self explanatory.

3) Scoring options:
a) PPR (Point per reception): 0, 0.5, or 1 pt per reception. Traditionally, this league has been non-PPR, but my personal favorite leagues are 0.5, although I've enjoyed all three.
b) Bonus levels: Extra points based on total stats. I think we done this occasionally in the past. This is things like an extra point or two for a QB throwing for 300 or 400 yards, runner 100 or 200, receiver 100 or 200.
c) Return yards: Several years ago we had one return point per 25 yards. I don't think we've done that the last couple of years.
d) Points per passing touchdown: 4 points is standard. 6 (the old standard) leads to a very QB heavy league. There have been some proposals for 5 pts TD in PPR leagues to kind of balance out the extra boost that receivers and pass-catching RBs get in those formats.

4) League structure:
a) No divisions, top 6 in playoff.
b) Two divisions, top 6 in playoff. Winners get top seeds.
c) Two divisions, top 6 in playoff. Best records get top seeds.

Other?

Thanks.

[getting old in mke]

1. League settings

Hi, folks. Here are the initial league settings. Mostly I won't bother mentioning ones that remain standard.

1) QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR, TE, WR/TE/RB, K, DST, 6 bench, 2 IR
2) QB: 6 pt TD, -2 pt INT, -1 pt pick 6 thrown (so a total of -3)
3) Half-point PPR
4) 1 pt/25 yds on returns for the DST (not the player)
5) K: FG: 3/4/5 pts for 0-39/40-49/50+. -2/-1 for FG misses 0-19/20-29. -1 for failed PAT kick.

League: Two divisions, 14 teams.

Playoffs: Weeks 14, 15, 16. Six teams. Two division winners get byes. Four additional teams.

I'd like to propose that three of those teams be the next three by total record, but the fourth be either the top scorer in the league if they aren't in the top five, or the next time by record it they are. Gives a good reason for those eliminated to keep playing hard.

Also, I've set the waiver system to use a FAAB budget. It didn't tell me how much, so I guess it will be $100 for the season.

If you haven't played with FAAB before, it works like this: When you place your waiver claims before Tuesday night, you can also place a dollar amount, from $0 to your remaining balance. When waivers are resolved, the highest bid wins. If there is a tie, then regular waiver rotation wins. The winner has that amount deducted from from their FAAB balance.

Once your FAAB budget is consumed, then all your waivers are put in at $0.

This allows you to go out heavy, if you want, early in the season to pick up additional pieces when players emerge. But the downside is that players who conserve their budget have the advantage late in the season.

[getting old in mke]

2. DU Fantasy League at Mid-Season

Well, we just completed week 8 in the DU Fantasy Football League. Only three more weeks of trying to survive through the bye weeks, which in a 14 person league is challenging. Scrambling for playoff positioning has begun.

Currently the top three positions are held by two-time defending champion Callahan's Crew and their devastatingly handsome manager (see what you can do if you write your own summaries?), Dark Corner Dirtbags, and Homer's Isotopes, all at 6-2.

Fourth and fifth places are held by Lunar Landers and Fran 'N Journey, both at 5-3. There are then four teams at 4-4 and three at 3-5, all of which could fight into the playoffs.

The most interesting battle, though, is for the sixth place slot, this year, a wild-card slot.

The final playoff place will be determined not by team record, but by total points scored. Of those finishing the regular season in positions 6-14, the team with the highest Points For total gets the last slot.

Current top three contenders: Turf Burns, The Greenmans, and the Bonecrushers. Turfburns, although only 3-5, has the third highest points scored season to date. They have been snake-bitten in their schedule. Their points against is almost 100 points more than anyone in the league. Heck, if their opponents were one team, it would easily be the highest scoring in the league.

Still, a lot can happen in five weeks. And remember:
1) With the byes running out, think out what your team construction will be in Week 12.
2) Running up the score is encouraged--not that there is any choice in it

[getting old in mke]

3. Wildcard Race!

It's coming down to the wire in the DU fantasy football league.

There are only two weeks of the regular season left and twelve of the fourteen teams are still in the playoff hunt. Eight have a realistic shot, but four are hoping for a late season miracle.

Callahan's Crew (9-2) has locked up one of the playoff positions. The Dark Corner Dirbags and Homer's Isotopes (both 8-3) have all but locked up their positions. Yahoo shows them as in, but if one lost both final games and were outscored a ton by a ton of teams, they could theoretically be vulnerable in the last best-points-for position. Very unlikely, though.

Lunar Landers is looking good for the fourth spot at 7-4. However, they do face two teams in the scramble for the total points position, Fran'n'Journey and the War Pigs.

At 6-5, are the Turtles and the Greenmans. If each wins out, one will be guaranteed a playoff space, the higher scoring team. If both lose both final games, then there is an good chance that one of the five 5-6 teams might slip into fifth position.

Though that takes up the top six spaces, as we know the last one will be wildcard determined by PF. (I was looking at the commish tools earlier: I think and hope this will be possible.) The following is the list of contenders for that last two places, by PF. The number following in parentheses, is the number of points they would have to out-score Turfburns per week to take the scoring spot.

1235.38 (00) TurfBurns (5-6)
1234.25 (01) Greenmans (6-5)
1191.94 (22) Turtles (6-5)
1173.14 (32) Bonecrushers (5-6)
1112.54 (62) Fran 'N Journey (5-6)
1095.50 (70) War Pigs (5-6)
1080.20 (78) Benny's Total Eclipse (2-9)
1078.50 (79) Daniel's Team. (5-6)

So that's it for this update. Folks in the Wildcard hunt, swing for the fences! (Yes, I know that's a baseball metaphor. Hail Mary time?)

[getting old in mke]

4. Playoff time!

And we're off to the playoffs.

It was a hard-fought regular season, with teams scrambling for position until the last week.

Dark Corner Dirtbags in the Truth Division and Callahan's Crew in the Justice Division, both at 10-3, earned byes for the first week of the playoffs. Homer's Isotopes (9-4) had already clinched, and The Lunar Landers (8-5) took care of business in week 13 and kept their lead into the playoffs.

There was a mad rush for the last two places, though. Four teams finished 7-6. Turfburns, The Greenmans, and Bonecrushers all won, catching up in the win/loss standings with The Turtles. But by reason of Points For totals, Turfburns and The Greenmans come out on top. For Turfburns, hottest team in the league with four consecutive wins. it represented a blazing comeback after a rough start where they hit the top-scoring teams week after week. The Turtles were edged out of the sixth position by only 16 points out of 1,456.

Folks, I'm wondering if we should offer a prize, like draft position selection for next year, to the winner of the consolation bracket? Winner of the championship bracket gets glory, of course, and eternal fame, but it might be nice to provide something to give those in places 7-12 a reason to get excited (and set line-ups) each week. What do you think?

[hughee99]

5. As someone without a dog in the fight, if yahoo will allow for IDP, you might enjoy that.

Picking individual defensive players and getting stats based on tackles, pass deflects, sacks, forced/recovered fumbles, etc... It widens the pool for defense and allows savvy players to be more flexible on match-ups. Since defensive players accumulate stats, (and those stats are now easily track-able unlike 20 years ago) much in the same way offensive players do, it's never really made sense (to me) why they just lump them all together into "DST".

Good luck to everyone in the playoffs.

[getting old in mke]

6. It does allow IDP, much, much IDP if you want

It strikes me that using IDP is a different level of difficulty, though, and would be mostly attractive to hard-core fans. Many people know lots of offensive players, even if they don't play fantasy--they get most of the press in general. Most people don't know too many defensive players beyond their home team + JJ Watt + maybe Patrick Peterson. (I exaggerate, but you get the idea.)

Also more hard-core because discussion of defensive stats is less wide-spread: the most popular sites and podcasts don't spend much, if any, time on them. That is, until you start looking at FantasyPros instead of ESPN, you'll be pretty much hit and miss.

Definitely worth asking before the start of the next season for the DU league. See how much madness these folks are interested in

[Iggo]

7. I played IDP once.

The draft was...interesting.

I think we had three IDP: 1 D-line, 1 LB, and 1 DB.

No one really knew when to draft the top defensive guys. So one guy would go, and then there'd be a run. and then nothing, and then another guy would go, and then there'd be another run...