Talk Fantasy Football

Posted: **Wed Jun 10, 2009 10:51 pm**

8 teams, 5 months, plus one-month tournament. We all have real lives, and several of us really like fixed formats. We want a 6-month season that gives us some flexibility around Christmas and finals. Some of our veterans aren't keen on the new rules for fouls, inducements or winnings, so I have alternative inducement rules which are a little weaker but allow inducements to be turned into development. There's a little more blood, a little more SPP, a little more money. There is a good mix of newbies and veterans, but nobody's totally raw. One person is at a different level from the others, and will be running two teams, one in each division (when he plays himself, he'll pick another coach to play either team; the coach he selects chooses which team to play).

So here's my rough draft of a league schedule. How's it sound? Objectives are:
1) Keep everybody alive as long as possible, so Week 12 or 13 is always suspenseful for everybody.
2) Get it in the 15-17 match range.
3) Keep low AV teams from drawing several pounders in a row.
4) Everybody plays everybody.
5) The better you play, the harder your schedule.

3 games per month: game day is Sunday (don't worry, Chargers fans, we'll find a place with a TV) but anybody can play anytime. You must play game 1 by the 10th, game 2 by the 21st and game 3 on or after the 15th.

Each team is split into a conference of four teams by subjective bashiness. The 4 heaviest teams (by 3/4 agreement, using ST, AV, lower AG and MA, more Block, fewer P skills, more S access, less A as general guides) constitute the Nasty Football Conference, and the 4 lightest are the Agile Football Conference. Each team will play its conference twice and the other conference once. There is a home-field mechanic, and each coach will play home-and-home with their conference rivals, and two each with the cross-conference. The challenge and bowl rounds will be played on neutral territory.

The schedule will be designed as follows:
July
Week 1: Conference match 1
Week 2: Cross-conference 1
Week 3: Conference 2

August
Week 4: Conference 3 -- 1st conference round robin complete.
Week 5: Cross conference 2
Preliminary ranking, by tiebreakers (see below)
Week 6: Challenge round; conference match. 1 vs. 2, 3 vs. 4

September
Week 7: Conference 1 vs. 3,1 2 vs. 4
Week 8: Cross Conference 3
Week 9: Conference 1 vs. 4, 2 vs. 3

October
Week 10: Cross Conference 4 -- league round robin complete.
Week 11: Conference 1 vs. 2, 3 vs. 4
Final conference ranking (see below)
Week 12: Bowl Game: Cross Conference 1 vs. 1 (Golden Bowl), 2 vs. 2 (Silver Bowl), 3 vs. 3 (Copper Bowl), 4 vs. 4 (Leaden Bowl), neutral ground.

Beginning in Week 12, there are no ties, and at the end of OT there is another half of OT, or both teams may agree to go to a coin toss.

Tiebreakers for conference ranking after Week 5, 11 (strength of victory will come in only if we get at least 12 coaches)
1: most wins
2: head-to-head
3: most ties
4: TD+Cas differential
5: Fan Factor
6: Team Value
7: coin toss

After the Bowl in Week 12, there are no more conferences. Ranking is per Bowl game outcome.
1: Golden winner
2: Silver winner
3: Golden loser
4: Copper winner
5: Silver winner
6: Leaden winner
7: Copper loser
8: Leaden loser

Rankings will change throughout the postseason.

Teams will be re-ranked throughout the postseason. When re-ranking teams in November, here is the tiebreaker structure:
1: Won last game
2: Previous ranking

November -- postseason
Week 13:
* Qualifier -- 4@1, 3@2, 7@6, 8@5. Re-rank teams.
Week 14:
* Bye/Comp -- 1@7, 2@8. No stakes for higher-ranked team. If lower-ranked team wins, that team is ranked above losers of Wildcard.
* Wildcard -- 3@6, 4@5. Re-rank teams 3-4, 5-8 (winners 3-4, losers 5-8, depending on how Bye/Comp round worked out).
Week 15:
* NIT Tourney -- 8@5, 7@6. Re-rank teams 5-8.
* Semifinal -- 4@1, 3@2. Re-rank teams 1-4.

December -- Final. 1 game. Neutral ground.
Week 16:
Dust Bowl -- 8 vs. 7.
Brass Bowl -- 6 vs. 5.
Bronze Bowl -- 3 vs. 4.
Championship -- 1 vs. 2.

Posted: **Thu Jun 11, 2009 1:06 am**

The best scheduling I've used, so far, is to take the teams with lowest TV and pair them against each other, wash, rinse, repeat all the way through the team lists.... The only proviso was: a team couldn't play another team a second time till all others were played once.... A bit o' the challenge, scheduling, at times... but the best shake out of team play so far....

Posted: **Thu Jun 11, 2009 1:47 am**

There's a reason why TV is my last tiebreaker before the coin toss. I think pure wins, SOS and head-to-head rankings are the best gauge of relative ability, with win % being acceptable but not preferable (owing to the number of ties in BB). TV is driven in part by factors such as team race economics and coaches' tolerance for opposing inducements, as well as situational conditions like missing players. I also think my league is too small for SOS to have any indicative value in a fixed season.

Additionally, it's really important to me that everybody plays everybody, and nobody plays any team twice in a 4-5 game span (except in the playoffs; my playoff structure is actually very ladder-like). Ladders tend to involve teams that never see each other, which when you have only 8 teams is a real bummer. If you do as you have there, Digger, where each team has to play each team once, then using TV as a mechanism becomes either non-viable or unrecognizable after you're about halfway through.

The conferences are built around a fixed league: this way, the heavy teams will play more heavy teams and the light teams will play more light teams. I don't mind some teams settling to the bottom: when the postseason comes around, everyone has a shot (at least until Week 13).

Talk Fantasy Football

Fixed Season Schedule -- WDYT?

Fixed Season Schedule -- WDYT?