Packer Rats FF League

[K-town]

I'm in, if there's an opening.

[jack's smirking revenge]

Here's my current structure:

Two different conferences.
Three divisions per conference.
Four teams per division.
24 players.
One Packer Rats crown.

It will be challenging enough to juggle the administration of two PR conferences at once (let alone the two other leagues that I run/am involved in). Here's what I'll do: I'll open it up so it mirrors the NFL structure, adding 8 more teams (1 more division per conference). Right away, that sounds crazy to me (from a league management perspective), but if the interest is there, then so be it.

tyler

[jack's smirking revenge]

That's a good point. We could have more than one with the second forming now and if we have enough, we could break it up into a beginner league for those who haven't done this before and another for more advanced players...

Ok. Here's the deal. I'm not trying at all to be elitist, but there should be only one true Packer Rats FF league. It will create crazy demand and solidify the base. People will race to be part of it in coming years. Fragment it and have a bunch of leagues, then we might as well all separate and do our own things. I don't have to run it in future years, but we should establish a baseline.

I proposed the Packer Rats FF League with that point in mind. I run a couple other leagues and don't really need this one. I was doing it to bring this place closer together.

Quite honestly, if we're having mulitple leagues, then I'm really not intersted in running one at all. Yes, all or nothing. Head honcho. Top rat. Big cheese. Whatever. There should be one victor and people, for years to come, jonesing and competing like mad to be the Packer Rat champion.

Trust me, having run and participated in leagues for almost a decade, its hard enough to keep people interested year in and year out.

So, whatever you guys decide, let me know. As I said, I'm not trying to be elitist, but I'm pretty sure I proposed the idea as having one true Packer Rats champion. Can't do that if you have multiple leagues. I'm not trying to erase competition, but it seems like every time I propose an idea and run with it, I have to backpedal. I feel like I'm backpedalling now and having to compromise on an idea and vision that I came up with.

Otherwise, you'll have sigs like...

2006 Packer Rats Supplemental Div II Beginner Fantasy Football League Champion.

Or how about?

2006 Packer Rats Sewer Bowl Champion

The fewer champions we have, the more important they are.

tyler

[MadtownPacker]

We are going to wait until we see how many posters actually join before setting anything up. There is still plenty of time.

[SkinBasket]

I agree with Zig. (or at least I did until her post was vaporized!)


I would be interested, but I have no effen idea what this whole fantasy league thing actually entails. If you don't want a "beginner" league for idiots like me, then I would propose making the instructions and guidelines or whateverthefuck you use in these things clear and simple. Of course that may be more work than have a novice and an advanced league, but I think that's what'll take to get more people involved. I'm not saying I want hand-holding, but I don't want to worry about fucking up everyone else's experience because I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

jack, maybe you could give me a quick three sentence explaination about how these things work? I assume there some kind of draft, then you score points based on your team's performance, and the team with the most points wins? Are there trades? Can one player be on more than one team? Should I read the rest of this damn thread to figure this shit out on my own?

[jack's smirking revenge]

We are going to wait until we see how many posters actually join before setting anything up. There is still plenty of time.

Ummm....who is "we"? I agreed to run the league. I proposed this idea as part of the content items. I've researched this idea. I've structured this idea. The beginning of this thread laid out a specific number of slots for the Packer Rats Fantasy Football league, based on years of experience with fantasy football.

Plenty of time? Mad, have you ever run a league before? I haven't run a league with 32 teams. 16, 20 at most, but all within the same conference. Believe it or not, it is a very complicated process and will be especially so with that many teams in the league. We'll have to have multiple draft days. We'll probably have to figure out how to have interconference matchups on the Yahoo site. There is a helluva a lot of planning that will have to be put into this because of the complexity of having two conferences that complete for a single crown.

Just some thoughts.

tyler

[jack's smirking revenge]

I agree with Zig. (or at least I did until her post was vaporized!)


I would be interested, but I have no effen idea what this whole fantasy league thing actually entails. If you don't want a "beginner" league for idiots like me, then I would propose making the instructions and guidelines or whateverthefuck you use in these things clear and simple. Of course that may be more work than have a novice and an advanced league, but I think that's what'll take to get more people involved. I'm not saying I want hand-holding, but I don't want to worry about fucking up everyone else's experience because I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

jack, maybe you could give me a quick three sentence explaination about how these things work? I assume there some kind of draft, then you score points based on your team's performance, and the team with the most points wins? Are there trades? Can one player be on more than one team? Should I read the rest of this damn thread to figure this shit out on my own?

I don't want to ruin this experience for anybody and I have no problem with hand-holding. I want ANYONE--beginner, novice, advanced, whatever--who is interested to be part of this. Much more explanation will be given as to how to play fantasy football in the months to come. Right now, I was really just trying to slot people for participation (in the league I'm putting together).

Fantasy football is a pretty simple game to play. In essence, it's like playing the stock market. You research stocks and buy and sell based on value. Your stocks perform for you or they tank for you. We will have a fantasy football draft where you draft a team of 16 players. 8 players will start for you every week (a combination of QB, RB, WR, TE, DEF/ST, Kicker); 8 players will sit on your bench. All players will score points for you based on their performance. You will have an opportunity every week to add or drop players. Trades between teams are also a definite possibility, though have to be approved by the Commish (so there's no fleecing of inexperienced players going on). In my system, there are a few ways to win:

Sewer Bowl Champion (earned through besting all competition)
Coach of the Year (Most Starter Points)
GM of the Year (Most Overall Points)

In this scenario, every person who starts and every person who is on your bench counts. Makes for a more exciting process because you have to decide on a weekly basis if you want to keep that oft-injured RB or pick up that potential WR who's a sleeper for the week.

Let me know if you have any further questions. I'd be happy to answer.

tyler

[MJZiggy]

Sorry, Skin. Thought I made myself sound like an idiot so I yanked the post. I just said that I think it's better at this point to be welcoming to everyone and having them participating rather than being pissed because they come on wanting to join in and are shut out. If they're in, they come back and check their teams progress. If they're not, they go over to packerchatters.

[TennesseePackerBacker]

I agree with everything Tyler said. I've done FFL leagues for years now(used to be pay leagues on espn) and there really isn't plenty of time, you have to have the draft planned, scoring, make sure there are no "dead" teams in the league, etc. 24 teams sounds like a lot to me, 12 teams in each division really shrinks up the talent pool. I've never done a 12 team league, always 10, but there really was never too much talent left after 10 teams, which makes it extremely hard to have 32. I ran a league last year and to me it just wasn't worth it, so now i just play in them because of the hassle it causes. If Tyler is wanting to be the Commish then people should just let him, because i assure you it's a job not many people want.

[jack's smirking revenge]

I'm not sure what Zig posted, but I'm going to guess it had to do with experience level. No matter what league you play in, you're going to deal with a varying level of experience. I play with beginners every year. In fact, a novice won the Siege Bowl Trophy for my league this year. It was his first year playing and he dived into understanding the rules, paying attention to what's going on in the NFL. His strength was drafting. Here's who he drafted last year:

Gus Frerotte
Tom Brady
Cedric Benson
Kevan Barlow
Carnell Williams
Jamal Lewis
Priest Holmes
Steve Smith
Plaxico Burress
Nate Burleson
Drew Bennett
Doug Jolley
Todd Heap
Mike Vandyjagdt
Paul Edinger
Pittsburgh Def/ST

He made one or two add/drops throughout the year, but he won based on the strength of his draft. Some of it comes down to luck. I have a flexible starting system that allows you to start players based on the strength of your team. His obvious strength was RB and shrwedly played to that strength throughout the year.

The bottom line is education. The more educated you are on what's up with the NFL, the better off you will be. Understanding what RBs will benefit due to a strong OL. What QB's will thrive based on the offensive system. What defense is the most efficient. If you're an NFL-nerd, fantasy football is the ultimate game.

tyler

[jack's smirking revenge]

Sorry, Skin. Thought I made myself sound like an idiot so I yanked the post. I just said that I think it's better at this point to be welcoming to everyone and having them participating rather than being pissed because they come on wanting to join in and are shut out. If they're in, they come back and check their teams progress. If they're not, they go over to packerchatters.

I definitely don't want to sound elitist, but we do have to have a little bit of focus. We can't be all things to all people. Maybe, as someone else suggested, we could start up a "Pick'em" Yahoo league for those people who just want to pick teams. That's very general and doesn't take the level of knowledge that pure FF does. It also can accomodate a large number of participants.

I agree with you Zig. I don't want to shut anyone out and I want to be inclusive, but I don't think the simple fact that they weren't able to get into the Packer Rats FF League will exclude anyone. Most FF players play in multiple leagues as it stands (one is just never enough!). If someone's moving over to Packerchatters because they couldn't get into a PR League, then I think there are greater problems than feeling "jilted" by us.

Maybe that person who didn't make it will be excited about being part of it next year. And, at that time, maybe we can figure out how to expand this thing to accomodate the larger number of participants.

tyler

[jack's smirking revenge]

I agree with everything Tyler said. I've done FFL leagues for years now(used to be pay leagues on espn) and there really isn't plenty of time, you have to have the draft planned, scoring, make sure there are no "dead" teams in the league, etc. 24 teams sounds like a lot to me, 12 teams in each division really shrinks up the talent pool. I've never done a 12 team league, always 10, but there really was never too much talent left after 10 teams, which makes it extremely hard to have 32. I ran a league last year and to me it just wasn't worth it, so now i just play in them because of the hassle it causes. If Tyler is wanting to be the Commish then people should just let him, because i assure you it's a job not many people want.

Thanks Tennessee. Your point about the talent pool is something that I too am worried about. Like you said, even with a 10-team league, the talent starts to get very shallow. Especially when you're drafting 16 players! If we expand it to mirror the NFL, opening up 8 more slots so there's 16 teams in a conference, then that means someone will probably be drafting Noah Herron. We'll do two separate drafts so there's similar players in each conference, but 16-team leagues suffer because the talent pool does shallow out. Think about it...

16 teams * 16 players/franchise = 256 players drafted. Your talent really starts to dip after the top 100 players.

Just trying to come up with solutions...

tyler

[MadtownPacker]

We are going to wait until we see how many posters actually join before setting anything up. There is still plenty of time.

Ummm....who is "we"? I agreed to run the league. I proposed this idea as part of the content items. I've researched this idea. I've structured this idea. The beginning of this thread laid out a specific number of slots for the Packer Rats Fantasy Football league, based on years of experience with fantasy football.

Plenty of time? Mad, have you ever run a league before? I haven't run a league with 32 teams. 16, 20 at most, but all within the same conference. Believe it or not, it is a very complicated process and will be especially so with that many teams in the league. We'll have to have multiple draft days. We'll probably have to figure out how to have interconference matchups on the Yahoo site. There is a helluva a lot of planning that will have to be put into this because of the complexity of having two conferences that complete for a single crown.

WE is PR and PR is what the majority wants. If you dont have the time or your not gonna do it cuz it aint done your way, then dont. Simple as that.

[jack's smirking revenge]

Ok...so watch me backpedal a bit.

Like Zig, I don't want to cut anyone out of participation. And Tennesse got me to thinking. A 16-team league is insane. The talent will be total shite once we get into the later rounds of the draft. But I still want there to be only one true Packer Rats Champion. Here's what I propose:

4 Conferences, 12 teams per conference.

Conference 1: 3 Divisions (4 teams per division)
Conference 2: 3 Divisions (4 teams per division)
Conference 3: 3 Divisions (4 teams per division)
Conference 4: 3 Divisions (4 teams per division)

Shorten the regular season to accomodate an ultimate face-off between the two Conferences that make it to the Sewer Bowl. I think it'd work like this:

Weeks 1-12--Regular Season
Weeks 13--Wild Card Playoff
Week 14--Divisional Playoff
Week 15--Conference Playoff
Week 16-InterConference Playoff
Week 17 Sewer Bowl (matchup of two victorious conference teams)

We could open this up to 48 teams then.

tyler

[jack's smirking revenge]

WE is PR and PR is what the majority wants. If you dont have the time or your not gonna do it cuz it aint done your way, then dont. Simple as that.

Here's the contradiction Mad: fantasy football ONLY HAS ONE Commish. It's not a team sport at the top of fantasy football administration. You DO have to do it my way, or don't do it all. That's how FF works. You play with my system or you don't. I can be flexible with some of the scoring rules, but, as with a HC, OC or DC, you implement the system you bring to the team.

So....it's ultimately PR's call. I'm not on a power trip. It just cannot be done effectively any other way. Ask anyone that's Commished a league.

Let me know your thoughts. I volunteered to manage this, but it is my scoring system and fantasy football system that'd we'd be implementing. As I said, i don't have a problem not doing it. I have enough fantasy football outlets to satisfy my fix.

Perhaps its time for a poll?

tyler