A different Type of Fantasy Football league

[Airhog]

Ive created a fantasy football league. But this league is like no other. This league is special. This league is Backwards. Thats right, in this league everything is up and down.

This is a 16 team Head to Head league. The big twist is instead of getting points for scoring TD' rushing the ball, or making long drives, you lose points. The key to winning the league is to have the worst group of players out on the field. You want a QB that throws 6 inteceptions a game. You need a defense that gives up 24 points a game. You want a kicker that misses PAT's

We will have a live draft, date to be determined. And then we will find out who the worst Fantasy football team really is!


If you want to join, the league is

FOFC Trout's (ID# 248088)
PW: colossal

[Airhog]

Here is what the stat categories look like

Max Teams: 16

Scoring Type: Head-to-Head

Start Scoring on: Week 1

Can't Cut List Provider: None

Max Moves: No maximum

Max Trades: No maximum

Trade Reject Time: 2

Trade End Date: November 25, 2005

Trade Review: Commissioner

Waiver Time: 3 days



Post Draft Players: Free Agents

Playoffs: Week 15, 16 and 17 (8 teams)


Roster Positions: QB, QB, RB, RB, W/T, W/T, K, K, DEF, DEF, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN

Stat Categories: Incomplete Passes (1)
Interceptions (6)
Sacks (2)
Fumbles (2)
Fumbles Lost (6)
Field Goals Missed 0-19 Yards (5)
Field Goals Missed 20-29 Yards (4)
Field Goals Missed 30-39 Yards (3)
Field Goals Missed 40-49 Yards (2)
Field Goals Missed 50+ Yards (1)
Point After Attempt Missed (6)
Points Allowed 0 points (0)
Points Allowed 1-6 points (0)
Points Allowed 7-13 points (1)
Points Allowed 14-20 points (3)
Points Allowed 21-27 points (5)
Points Allowed 28-34 points (7)
Points Allowed 35+ points (10)

Fractional Points: No

Negative Points: Yes

[QuikSand]

I don't plan to play... but it strikes me that with this scoring system, one could post a pretty decent score by fielding players who are inactive. Kicker seems like a no-brainer... skill positions seem possible, also. I'm not sure about defense, as the -5 for allowing zero points probably hurts enough to overcome the potential losses from turnovers, sacks, etc.

I don't recall how flexible the scoring system is in Yahoo! leagues, but this is worth considering. If half the league does well by starting guys who aren't even on NFL rosters, it might not be very fun.

[Airhog]

QS: how would you remidy the situation? The thought crossed my mind of course, but there is plenty of time to tweak the rules. Maybe doing good should just get you 0 points instead of negative points?

[QuikSand]

I'm not sure. The ideal thing would be a penalty for zero stats... but I don't recall having that ability in Yahoo! leagues.

[Barkeep49]

I would agree that for this to work you need to have an incentive to play active players... I'll have to ponder, however, the best way to do that with-in Yahoo before saying anything else constructive.

[kurtism]

Football Outsiders does something similar, perhaps a gander at their info will prove helpful: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/loser/loser_rules.php

[Airhog]

Kurtsim: Yeah, but there is no way you could do it like that on yahoo, since they have no penalty for playing someone that gets no yards. I think the only way to run it, is with 0 points given for playing well. and positive points for playing bad...

[Celeval]

What about a positive score for receptions, and negative for yardage? Ditto for rushing - somehow make it so that it's better to start inactive than a guy who goes 20 carries for 150 yards; but someone who goes 20 carries for 30 yards is even better.

[Airhog]

I would do that if they allowed you to change the points given out for yds. as it stands right now, you can only change the number of yards per 1 point, not the other way around

[Airhog]

Okay, I edited the categories. I increased the number of kickers on a team to 2. I also increased the number of Qb's on a team to 2. And finally, I increased the number of Defenses to 2.

I think this will have a good effect. All of the defenses in the league will be used, and it will be more important to choose the 2 you have to use. the same goes for Qb's and K's. I also decreased the number of WR's and RB's, since the only category they can take part in is the fumbles category. Hopefully some people will join up and we can play.


And if we dont get 16 particpants, we can modify the number of teams, etc.

[Airhog]

We are up to 3 teams now!

[Greyroofoo]

I dunno how feasible this is, but how bout we just set some house rules on who can be picked?

[Airhog]

Greyroofoo: that is certainly do-able. but what kind of house rules would we need?

[Peregrine]

I'm not sure about the rules on Yahoo, but you definitely shouldn't be able to play injured players. A lineup of people on IR would pretty much rock. Should be a house rule if nothing else.

[Ragone]

Think we should just use that as a house rule.. no real way to enforce it.. just let it be understood that its unacceptable...

I'm in btw.. Lexington Losers!

[Peregrine]

I'll join. I'm the Cary Terrors.

[Peregrine]

Airhog, can dropped passes be included in the scoring system? That would help WRs be more valuable. Also can rushing averages be used? Maybe in that case we could tweak it to reward low yards per carry.

[Ragone]

Also defensive points allowed should be looked at.. having a good day 0 points allowed.. etc should be worth negative points

[Surtt]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

I would agree that for this to work you need to have an incentive to play active players... I'll have to ponder, however, the best way to do that with-in Yahoo before saying anything else constructive.

I think I'm missing something here, if I understand this correctly inactive players would not work.
You have to have your kicker attempt a field goal for him to miss it.

[henry296]

I really don't see how a team with no active players wins a game. I could start Peyton Manning and beat that team because he would throw at least 1 incompletion.

Also, I think there should be some negative points for yards gained, etc. Right now I think most WR/RB wouldn't score many points.

[Airhog]

I have included points for everything that is allowed by yahoo. Here is a summary of everything that was asked for.

Dropped Passes - Yahoo doesnt have a category for this.
Defensive Points - I'd need to strike a careful balance here, but if everyone agree's to play their defense every week, this would be manageable.
Inactive Players - No point in playing them as someone mentioned, since you cannot lose points for playing well, only gain points for playing poorly.
WR/RB - There just isnt any other categories that we could use for these. If there was I would have set them up already.


If anyone that has more knowledge about setting the points up, feel free to chime in. Im a relative newbie to playing fantasy football, and would welcome all help to make the scoring better...

[Surtt]

How about giving a running back a point for every time he is tackled for no gain or something to that effect?

[henry296]

I see that yahoo only allows you to change the yards for each point. How about - points for a 100 yard game and minus points for touchdowns.

[Airhog]

Im not sure why we would give points for a 100 yd game. We could give minus points for a touchdown, but if you hand out the negative points to much, then people will use inactive players, or players that don't get much playing time, and I dont really want that to happen.

[Airhog]

Bump

We need 3 more members to have 8 members Doesnt look like we will reach 16, so some modifications to the players will be needed...

[Airhog]

Still need 3 more players...

[Raven Hawk]

The Plight of the Dodo has entered.

[Airhog]

We need to setup a good time to do the draft guys. Are weekend nights good for you guys or what?


Still room for 2 guys

[PackerFanatic]

Sounds really awesome, I am in (I am The Brat Pack)

And weekends will work best for me, yes. Preferably Sunday nights.

[Airhog]

Okay. Feel free to read through this thread and take a look at the league scoring, If there is anything you think might work better, let me know..

[Airhog]

we need 1 more player to have an even 8. Just a reminder, that the draft is in two weeks folks

[Airhog]

The draft is tomorrow night guys. Good luck. I think we need 1 more player still to reach 8.

[Airhog]

For some reason, the live draft didnt work. I could only set us up with an autodraft. Pleaseset your draft order asap or you risk getting a bunch of good players...

[Airhog]

Okay, the draft should happen in 72 hours. It sucks that we were not able to do a live draft. But I figured out why. Apparently you cannot have a head to head league if you don't have an even number of teams. Make sure you set your draft order ASAP if you havent done so already...

[Peregrine]

Airhog, I checked the site and all of us have a full set of players on our teams, and good players to boot! Are you sure the draft didn't happen?

[Ramzavail]

I tried to join...

There was a problem:
• The league is not in pre-draft mode. (Error #209)

Did I miss the boat?

[Airhog]

Peregrine: It got all screwed up due to having an odd number of teams. The only way I could remedy the situation was to allow an Autodraft. I am sorry if this caused problems for everyone, but it was the only choice I had...

[Airhog]

Ramzavil: yes, you missed the boat here.

[Peregrine]

So are we going to start up a new league then? All of us basically have no shot since all but maybe 1 of our teams has good players instead of bad ones.

[tucker342]

damn I missed it!

[Ragone]

bleh lets just play it out with the people we got stuck with.. no releasing unless player is hurt

[Airhog]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

So are we going to start up a new league then? All of us basically have no shot since all but maybe 1 of our teams has good players instead of bad ones.

You can always pick up players from the Free agent pool...

[kingfc22]

Doh! My team is GOOD and that is a BAD thing. So are we going to allow releases?

[QuikSand]

Well, an interesting idea that seems to have already met its undoing.

-The revised scoring rules (without scoring based on lack of performance, but rather just negative events) now seem to make QB the only position that matters. A spectacularly bad day from your running back might result in three fumbles, or six points. Your defense could yield 50 points, and that scores only 10 points for you. Meanwhile, every incomplete pass for your QB is worth a point -- so that quickly becomes the only position that means much of anything. Lousy kicer performances could be valuable, but are just not very predictable at all.

-The managers in the league have prety clearly not bothered to follow up and make any effort to stock their rosters - the transaction list is pretty bare, considering that the teams were selected based on being "good" and that's really not what we want for this league.


Maybe it's worth speculating how to set this up for a future league... or perhaps a league that starts with week two or three of the season this year? I still think the concept is intriguing - not something I'm interested in making a huge investment of time into, but still somewhat interesting.

[QuikSand]

Bump... any merit to an idea like this going forward? If Yahoo! isn't flexible enough to make this work, would some other free service do better?

The toughest thing seems to be getting RBs and WRs to be worth something -- everything else seems scale-able to me. Maybe you coudl make individual carries and receptions worth something... but then give negative points for yardage? (Dunno if Yahoo can handle that, but I suspect not) Not sure... but just rewarding the occasional fumble renders the positions pointless, and the game pretty empty if it's just about picking two QBs who will throw the most incomplete passes.

Anyway... interesting idea... wonder if there's a way to set it up to work out in a more balanced way.

[Airhog]

I have to agree Quiksand. This league was met with many challenges. For starters, we had an odd number of teams. Yahoo wouldnt allow our draft to start, so that screwed everything up. I created a second team to fill the gap, and even though it had some of the best players, it still did very well.

One problem is see, is that WR and RB don't have any stats that are bad stats, other than fumbles. I guess WR have dropped passes, but I am not sure if they record that stat. Another problem, that is pass specific, is that there is very little skill in how many yards a WR picks up, unless they are YAC. Obviously, the routes chosen are based on the offense of the team he plays for. You might be able to do some sort of formula that takes his number of recptions, and yards into account. RB's could probably use the same sort of formula. I would think the best kind of back or WR would be someone that gets alot of touches, but very little performance.

I think the defense, and kickers could have been awarded many more points for bad performance, that would help. At least 10-15X the number of points for a kicker, and 4-5x the points for defense.

WR and RB will probably be very difficult to do with the limited tools that Yahoo provides. I think running a fantasy league with an excel file would be quite a bit of work, something I am not sure is worth the effort involved.