Crazy idea from a FFL commish

[ct]

I'm commish in a learning league, I started this league for several people who wanted to learn FF. I named our league Training Camp, and we're getting ready for year 3.

One of our teams dropped out yesterday, and our draft is Saturday. Not having any luck filling the spot, so an idea was discussed to leave the team empty, giving everyone a freebie win. This way I don't have to fiddle with the league settings that drastically so close to draft night. But this gave me another idea...

Here is a draft e-mail I'm thinking about sending out to the league. Special notes to ChiefsPlanet readers are in italics.
***
Team name possibilities:

The Replacements
Junk Yard Dogs
Mr. Irrelevants
WWF - Waiver Wire Fanatics

I propose we leave the 12th team open and active on the schedule, although excluded from the draft. Only the 11 existing teams will participate in the draft. Once the draft is complete, I will manually load each roster into the league site, as usual (note: we do a live draft, and I enter rosters manually). Then I will build the 12th team roster consisting entirely of undrafted players.

For scheduling purposes, when your team plays this 12th team, the scoring will occur as normal, until all the stats and scores are final. At that point, I will add/subtract enough points to/from this 12th team's final score, to ensure that everyone beats this team by 1 point. So any point differential tie-breakers at the end of the season will not be effected, and everybody gets 1 free win during the season. I will manually adjust the win/loss record for team 12, to reflect what the score WOULD have been, but at the end of the season, this team will be placed at the bottom of the standings, and will not be seeded for the post-season.

For waiver purposes, all players on this 12th team ARE AVAILABLE TO ALL TEAMS! Rather than submitting a waiver request for a player on that roster, just submit a one for one player trade, giving up the player you would have dropped, and gaining the player for whom you would have entered a waiver request. By rule, this trade offer MUST BE ACCEPTED. The only exception is if multiple teams request the same player, the lottery system is still in effect (note we resolve duplicate waivers by a lottery drawing). Any other waivers for players not on this team will process as usual(note: commish processes waivers nightly), and can be conditional on a trade with team 12 if you like, but this will have to be specified manually to me via e-mail, phone call, noted on the trade request, etc.(note: multiple waivers can be conditional on other waivers. i.e. waiver for player A, if I don't get player A, then waiver for player B)

Since this 12th team will slowly be robbed of players, I'll have to do some waivers of my own for that team. The 12th team's waivers will be processed manually, AFTER NORMAL WAIVER PROCESSING! In other words, team 12 cannot steal players already in another waiver request, and is excluded from lottery drawings. Basically, team 12 gets only the leftovers.

So why am I doing this? Cause I'm NUTS of course!! However, there is another point. I want to illustrate, mostly to the newer players, as a further progression for the Training Camp learning process, how important the waiver players can be for your team throughout the season. My hypothesis for this experiment is I think I can build a competitive team out of reject players, and I'm challenging each of you to beat my team of scrubs!

***
What do ya think? Stupid idea?

[Kyle401]

I say you let the results stand. If the scrubs come up big win some games so what? You're already leaving the team open to raiders anyway. If this is a training league anyway, no one should be upset. Besides learning to deal with losses to teams which are "not as good as yours" is part of FF. Everyone has had that experience.


Last year in one of my leagues I went 15-1, and won the league. My only loss on the season came when my opponent started 2 players (RB & WR) who were questionable because he didn't want to expose any of his players to waivers. Neither played but, he still won thanks to a down week on my team and some outstanding performances by a few of his players.

[BigRedChief]

WTF year 3 and your still in training camp?

[Phobia]

I agree. If somebody gets beat by the scrub team, they deserved the loss and it probably won't have changed anything in the final standings anyway.

[KCChiefsMan]

we had the same problem in baseball, we just had an empty dummie team and it is in first place by a lot

[ct]

Yep we've all had those weeks, from both ends of that stick too I'm sure. I ran it by 2 of our experienced players, and they like the idea, both from the FFL fanatic waiver scrounge angle that I am, to the pick up your game challenge to the noobs.

I'm thinking I might do this. Of course, if the replacements finish higher than my own team...I quit!!

[morphius]

Why not just fill the 12th team with people that are on IR, never get any playing time, etc, etc... Especially if you are going to make it a free win. And that way you don't have to worry about "his" players be wanted by another team.

[Kyle401]

Why not just fill the 12th team with people that are on IR, never get any playing time, etc, etc... Especially if you are going to make it a free win. And that way you don't have to worry about "his" players be wanted by another team.
Assuming a 16 week schedule and a 2-3 week playoff period, every team will play 13-14 games to determine playoff seeding. In a round-robin format, 2-3 teams will have an advantage by playing the dummy (non-competitive) team twice. They would have been "given" 2 free wins. Obviously this is unfair to teams who only recieved 1 free win.

[Valiant]

I'm commish in a learning league, I started this league for several people who wanted to learn FF. I named our league Training Camp, and we're getting ready for year 3.

One of our teams dropped out yesterday, and our draft is Saturday. Not having any luck filling the spot, so an idea was discussed to leave the team empty, giving everyone a freebie win. This way I don't have to fiddle with the league settings that drastically so close to draft night. But this gave me another idea...

Here is a draft e-mail I'm thinking about sending out to the league. Special notes to ChiefsPlanet readers are in italics.
***
Team name possibilities:

The Replacements
Junk Yard Dogs
Mr. Irrelevants
WWF - Waiver Wire Fanatics

I propose we leave the 12th team open and active on the schedule, although excluded from the draft. Only the 11 existing teams will participate in the draft. Once the draft is complete, I will manually load each roster into the league site, as usual (note: we do a live draft, and I enter rosters manually). Then I will build the 12th team roster consisting entirely of undrafted players.

For scheduling purposes, when your team plays this 12th team, the scoring will occur as normal, until all the stats and scores are final. At that point, I will add/subtract enough points to/from this 12th team's final score, to ensure that everyone beats this team by 1 point. So any point differential tie-breakers at the end of the season will not be effected, and everybody gets 1 free win during the season. I will manually adjust the win/loss record for team 12, to reflect what the score WOULD have been, but at the end of the season, this team will be placed at the bottom of the standings, and will not be seeded for the post-season.

For waiver purposes, all players on this 12th team ARE AVAILABLE TO ALL TEAMS! Rather than submitting a waiver request for a player on that roster, just submit a one for one player trade, giving up the player you would have dropped, and gaining the player for whom you would have entered a waiver request. By rule, this trade offer MUST BE ACCEPTED. The only exception is if multiple teams request the same player, the lottery system is still in effect (note we resolve duplicate waivers by a lottery drawing). Any other waivers for players not on this team will process as usual(note: commish processes waivers nightly), and can be conditional on a trade with team 12 if you like, but this will have to be specified manually to me via e-mail, phone call, noted on the trade request, etc.(note: multiple waivers can be conditional on other waivers. i.e. waiver for player A, if I don't get player A, then waiver for player B)

Since this 12th team will slowly be robbed of players, I'll have to do some waivers of my own for that team. The 12th team's waivers will be processed manually, AFTER NORMAL WAIVER PROCESSING! In other words, team 12 cannot steal players already in another waiver request, and is excluded from lottery drawings. Basically, team 12 gets only the leftovers.

So why am I doing this? Cause I'm NUTS of course!! However, there is another point. I want to illustrate, mostly to the newer players, as a further progression for the Training Camp learning process, how important the waiver players can be for your team throughout the season. My hypothesis for this experiment is I think I can build a competitive team out of reject players, and I'm challenging each of you to beat my team of scrubs!

***
What do ya think? Stupid idea?


How many years do you need for a trainers league??? You are in year 3, right???

Just have everybody draft for that team, and you run it as alt team under another email...

The way you are proposing is just too much work and still trying to beat some team... Not going to happen...

[ct]

WTF year 3 and your still in training camp?

Year 1 my wife and I held some FFL 101 meetings with 3 of the noobs(there were 5 total). The other 2 noobs were knowledgeable football fans, just never played FF. These 3 were somewhat marginal football fans, and honestly were not ready for FF.

Year 2 we did some more advanced meetings and a couple mock drafts, call this FFL 201.

Year 3 we've done several mocks, with different draft strategies and ranking discussions.

Our 5 original noobs have progressed as follows:

Noob1 - knowledgeable football fan(except the Cowboy fan thing). He's been awarded his honorary degree, he knows what he's doin.
Noob2 - somewhat knowledgeable football fan, won the league last year, although it was a bit of a fluke. Earned extra credit for taking the title, but still learning.
Noob3 - longtime football fan, marginal knowledge. Still learning, but the latest mock proves this noob is gettin it.
Noob4 - oi...may have a flunk out here. But there is a little $ involved, so it's cool by me to have 1 player who may not EVER get it. This is the team I think I will really screw up with my crazy Replacements idea.
Noob5 - dropout, flippin burgers in the parking lot concession stand, so to speak.

Basically, this league is modeled after our real league. I started this one as a training camp feeder for the real league, if/when we need some fresh meat. So far we've got 3 solid prospects, but it's time to elevate out game, hence my challenge...

[ct]

Why not just fill the 12th team with people that are on IR, never get any playing time, etc, etc... Especially if you are going to make it a free win. And that way you don't have to worry about "his" players be wanted by another team.

If that's what I wanted, I'd just leave it blank. BTW, I placed a team helmet logo for this open team with a Cannibus leaf, and in the even Ricky Williams isn't drafted, I was gonna assign him and him only to this Team Cannibus. That's kinda what led to this idea.

[ct]

Assuming a 16 week schedule and a 2-3 week playoff period, every team will play 13-14 games to determine playoff seeding. In a round-robin format, 2-3 teams will have an advantage by playing the dummy (non-competitive) team twice. They would have been "given" 2 free wins. Obviously this is unfair to teams who only recieved 1 free win.

I had the schedule worked out perfect with 12 teams. A 12 week regular season, play the other 11 once, with 1 BYE. Then a 4-week playoff with every team qualifying. Our host site did not offer very good packaged schedules, I did this manually, which was a pain in the arse. A big reason why I do NOT want to go thru all the league changes.

[ct]

By the way, part of this idea is to quit screwin around with the Training Camp, and get serious. Time for the noobs to step it up or get spanked! I'm trying to point this out by beating them with my scrub team.

[Big Slick]

Year 1 my wife and I held some FFL 101 meetings with 3 of the noobs(there were 5 total). The other 2 noobs were knowledgeable football fans, just never played FF. These 3 were somewhat marginal football fans, and honestly were not ready for FF.

Year 2 we did some more advanced meetings and a couple mock drafts, call this FFL 201.

Year 3 we've done several mocks, with different draft strategies and ranking discussions

I didn't realize fantasy football required a Bachelor's degree! :)

Seriously tho, I think you're overcomplicating things just a bit, it is just a game. I've commished several leagues over the years and have tried different ways to encourcage deadbeat owners to actively manage their team. End result, not much you can do about it. Either they give a sh!t or they don't.

If you're stuck with an odd number of teams, just draft with the 11 teams you've got. Then the ghost team's weekly score is the weekly average of the 11 real teams. So somebody is playing against the league average every week. This worked decent for me one year, and some sites support this automatically. And this is actually better for the owners who are active, because that leaves more talent to acquire.

Just my 2 cents...

[jspchief]

If you really want to get serious, then have the dummy team draft like a normal team. Make it draft strictly according to a predetermined cheat sheet and make it a real opponent.

No way I would give out freebies.

[ct]

We had our draft Saturday, everyone is all in favor of The Replacements. I also floated the idea for discussion in the next week, so we can have an official vote on it, to make any loss to The Replacements an official loss. Most are in favor of this as well.

So we went with 11 teams in the draft, I was 8th. It's a performance type scoring system, with all TDs 6pts, 1 pt/25 yds passing, 1 pt/10 yds rushing or receiving, and 1 pt/reception. Kickers don't score much, small yardage bonus, defense/st combo is fairly typical with 2 pts/turnover, 1 pt sacks, 6pt TDs, 4 pt safeties and blocked kicks, some bonus for low pts allowed. Here's my team, whatcha think?

QB - Hasselbeck, Delhomme
RB - D.Davis, Westbrook, Jordan, Foster, W.Green
WR - Horn, Coles, Chambers, Kennison, Heap(TE=WR in our league)
K - Lindell
D - Tampa, KC

[ct]

So, tentatively, The Replacements week 1 lineup might look like this...


QB(1) - Steve McNair, TEN
RB(1) - Willie Parker, PIT
WR(1) - Travis Taylor, MIN
FLEX(3 RB/WR/TE) - WR Ronald Curry, OAK; WR Bobby Engram, SEA; WR Terry Glenn, DAL
K(1) - Kris Brown, HOU
D(1) - Detroit Lions

I've not yet looked at matchups, so very good chance I just play the matchup game with this lineup week to week.