OT - ESPN Gridiron Challenge

[QuikSand]

Has anyone else been playing this ESPN fantasy football contest this year?

This is a market-style game, where you pick a roster each week based on "salary" numbers for each player, up to an overall cap. Once you buy a player at a certain price, he locks at that price until you replace him. Over the season, based on performance and/or demand, the player prices rise and fall.

I've always been a fan of this style of game, and I've been pretty impressed with this one (which I joined on a total whim). Regrettably I seem to have joined a monster league -- my team is in the 98th percentile overall, but i'm in 8th place out of 50 teams in my league (though still in striking position).

Anyway - I thought I'd point this out... my league has 50 teams, which certainly would be large enough to host a pretty big FOFC league for next year. I'd much rather compete with the lot of you than with 49 random people from Ohio. The game is free, also -- at least this year (though there seem to be options to pay each week to become eligible to win prizes of some sort).


Anyway - just tossing it out. Years ago, I used to play this style of game pretty aggressively. USA Today used to publis the list of player prices each Wednesday, and I'd scour over them to make my roster moves each week, then wait for my weekly fax to see how my team did in the rankings. With modern technology, it's become so easy that I think it's lost some of its charm... but regardless, I'd enjoy forming a league in a game like this for some FOFC types next football season. (Or maybe even this baseball season)

[FrogMan]

I played it last year, had lots of fun with it. For some reasons, I forgot about it at the start of this season, but yeah making an FOFC league would be a lot of fun next season... Count me in if you, or anybody else, start a league of this game next season.

FM

[Chubby]

yes, but I suck this year. My NBA Virtual GM team however is at 89.3% (usually higher but they haven't played much this week)

[QuikSand]

This year, I had to make a strategic call with my team, and I still am unsure whether I did the right thing. I'm pretty heavy with Chiefs (currently am carrying T Green, M Andersen, and the Chiefs D/ST) -- and when their bye week came up, replacing those players would have cost me a pretty sizable amount of cap adjustment. (I would have sacrificed my locked-in prices, especially at K and DST, that I earned by picking them early and sticking with them as their performance exceeded thir early market value) So, I decided to basiclaly "eat" one week, and accept a lousy score with zeroes at four total positions (someone else from myteam was on bye that week, IIRC). So, I have good scores most of the season, and one big turd right there in week ten (or wherever it was).

The result? I have a better team for the home stretch (I have almost $55m in players under the $50m cap, which is a pretty good stretch) but I lost around 50-60 points by making that move.

For people who argue that non-exclusive leagues (where anyone can have the same player) lack strategy, I feel that there's at least a pretty respectable degree of decision-making in these games... enough to get me to commit my requisite 10 minutes a week.

[cthomer5000]

I played one of these a few years ago and really enjoyed it, I'd certainly be interested in playing next year.

[Pyser]

ive played this game for about the last 5 years, and usually do very well. however, this year they seem to have done a MUCH better job with everyones salaries (generally higher salaries all around), and ive taken a beating. oh well, theres always next year.