Fantasy Football 2020

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 hours ago, Whiskeyjack said:

I don't get why somebody would want to draft 10 QBs if they were going to be forced to drop 7 of them.  Would just be a waste of part of their draft budget, assuming they couldn't pull off a bunch of trades.  And they'd have barely any leverage in those trades, given that everyone would know the players were going to be dropped. 

That said, I think you're right that its just an unnecessary complication.  Better to just say that extra QBs that are accidentally drafted need to be dropped within a day after the draft, without any trades.  Takes away any incentive to mess with things.

Quote

Yeah, this is something Jaime and I have talked about.  What happens if you've got a QB1 whose game is canceled due to a covid outbreak, a QB2 on bye, and a QB3 playing.  Being forced to drop the QB1 or QB2 for one of the scrubs on free agency would be rough.  Trading would be the main alternative - with the caveat that you'd have to include one of your own QBs to make it work.

I had more of an answer typed up here, but actually I need to think about it a bit before expanding on that.

Worse, what if six teams have to cancel a game? During a week with multiple other QBs on a bye? That super flex idea doesn't sound terrible if shit goes off the rails. 

[Whiskeyjack]

Okay so I spent some more time thinking about this, and feel like we have to take the safer option and go with the Superflex.

It didn't win the vote, and it wasn't my own top preference.  But I think Tywin brought up some good questions.  One in particular touched on a potential flaw that I had considered before and discussed with Jaime, but dismissed too quickly as something we could accept and work around.

Here's the issue.  What happens if you have a QB1 and QB2 who are both really good and who you like a lot.  And one week (or even multiple weeks) they are both out due to some combination of byes and/or their games being canceled due to a covid breakout.  If we have a cap of 3 QBs in place, you end up in a very difficult situation.  You can't move your QB3, because you have to start him.  You definitely don't want to drop a top QB for one of the scrubs available on free agency.  So your only option is to trade one of your QB - but what kind of value are you going to get for a guy who is on bye, or even worse a player who is on a team that is canceling games due to covid?  At the very least, you are probably forced into a decision of taking a 0 for the week vs downgrading your team long-term.

When I first thought about this a week ago, my answer was - yeah, that's true, but is it really any different than the situation we usually have in these leagues?  Reality is that QBs are always scarce in our setup.  But going over it more, I think the answer is actually yes, it is different.  Because the 3 QB cap removes one of the main solutions we usually have for QB issues - the option to trade for low end QBs who can help band-aid over a problem in the short term.  If we are in a world where you can't own more than 3 QB, then you always have to give up one in a trade.  And if you have the 2nd best QB and the 7th best QB both on bye, its not really an option to trade the 7th best QB for somebody's 26th best QB to fix that issue.  Whereas if we take away the cap, you might be able to find somebody who has a 4th QB to trade, or somebody who has 2 starting QBs who are past their bye weeks and is willing to deal away a low end backup.  Taking away that option seems like a mistake.

Yeah, maybe we could come up with other rules to fix the above.  But the bottom line is that this is already starting to get unwieldy, and if we have to write up 1000+ words about the rule, then its too complicated.  Like I said before, its best to keep things simple.

Superflex has its downside, but its the more elegant solution.  First of all, at the most basic philosophical level, the goal here is to provide more flexibility to adapt and respond to situations that arise this season due to covid.  The thought behind superflex is increased flexibility, which matches that objective (while option 1 was trying to fix the problem with less flexibility).  Second, its a much easier change - we just alter the roster requirements, and thats it.  No extra rules for the draft, no need to monitor things throughout the season, no unforeseen issues forcing people to trade good players for bad players. 

So....yeah.  We're going to go with Superflex instead.  I apologize to everyone for the confusion.  Hopefully you can all appreciate that we're aiming to do whats best for the leagues and everyone playing, and trying to think through everything ahead of time.  Led to a small change of direction here, but thankfully its before the season, so hopefully not too big of a deal.

Big thanks to Tywin and everyone else who posted thoughts about the various ideas we've been discussing. 

[Whiskeyjack]

Shorter post to make sure everyone sees this -

We are changing the QB2 slot to a Superflex.

Only for this year, to give greater flexibility in response to problems that might arise due to covid.

If you want to read more about the reasoning behind the decision, please read the post above this one.  Superflex was 2nd place in the voting, but after questions were raised about Option 1, it became clear that Option 1 could lead to too many unforeseen problems during the year. 

Thanks everyone.

@Jaime L @Tywin et al. @Jace, Basilissa @Prince of the North @Bronn Stone @Lord Dracarys @fuentez1138 @BLU-RAY @JJ Lannister @Dunknegg @Jaxom 1974 @Mudguard @aceluby @mcbigski @boiled leather @RaceBannon42 @grozeng

[Dunknegg]

I was going to vote 3, 2, 1, but I’m happy with the Super flex option as well for this year.  Is this effective only in leagues A-C?  I know JamieL have been involved in this discussion, but unsure if he is planning on doing something similar in Experts or keeping the status quo.  I would be ok suspending the relegation for this year due to the circumstances. Perhaps we require some type of penalty, either game/league related or just for fun for those who fair the worst in lieu of relegation.

[Whiskeyjack]

3 minutes ago, Dunknegg said:

I was going to vote 3, 2, 1, but I’m happy with the Super flex option as well for this year.  Is this effective only in leagues A-C?  I know JamieL have been involved in this discussion, but unsure if he is planning on doing something similar in Experts or keeping the status quo.  I would be ok suspending the relegation for this year due to the circumstances. Perhaps we require some type of penalty, either game/league related or just for fun for those who fair the worst in lieu of relegation.

I think its for Experts too.  This is the option Jaime favored and he's on board with it.

I'm pretty sure most people are good with suspending relegation, but will leave it to Jaime to respond on that one.

[Jaime L]

6 minutes ago, Dunknegg said:

I was going to vote 3, 2, 1, but I’m happy with the Super flex option as well for this year.  Is this effective only in leagues A-C?  I know JamieL have been involved in this discussion, but unsure if he is planning on doing something similar in Experts or keeping the status quo.  I would be ok suspending the relegation for this year due to the circumstances. Perhaps we require some type of penalty, either game/league related or just for fun for those who fair the worst in lieu of relegation.

I was in favor of superflex even above the QB rule because want to guarantee people are able to avoid a 0 out of such an important position. Planning to incorporate the same rule changes in Experts, just for this year, unless someone can make a convincing case why it would be bad. 

And yes, we're leaning towards suspending relegation on the assumption it's just gonna be batshit out there and some teams are just gonna get decimated for reasons outside their control. But winning WA-WC this year will still matter. Next year is setting up so that Experts will have 2 years worth of league winners to choose from. It's likely to result in more qualified people than spots available so likely going to have to be a full resume appraisal though I'm seeing some ideas posted on how we handle this --think Mcbigski was proposing a new league for one -- and I'm open to any great idea. 

[aceluby]

Keeps it simple with minimal impact on the draft and leaves a lot of room for wheelin and dealin.  Well done guys!

[mcbigski]

So we're doing:

Superflex

Individual QBs as per usual with no roster limits

No Jaxoming.

Is that correct?  Too much headache with the team QB approach?

[Whiskeyjack]

All correct, I think.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Wait, so no limit on QBs now?

And I just checked A-C and all dates work for me. So that's the 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 8th for me. Still not sure where Dynasty is at, and I'm guessing Survivor is probably not happening since I haven't heard much about it. Frankly it could be a disaster if COVID wrecks some teams. 

I will get Pick'em up and going this weekend. I can't believe college football starts this weekend, even if it's a lame game. Sadly no season for the good guys in Maroon and Gold.

On 8/26/2020 at 10:38 AM, Jaime L said:

And yes, we're leaning towards suspending relegation on the assumption it's just gonna be batshit out there and some teams are just gonna get decimated for reasons outside their control. 

I believe I was the first to bring this up, but I forgot to add a caveat. I think the season is going to be a disaster, but on the off chance it isn't, would relegation occur, or is a flat out no relegation regardless of what happens? I'm good either way, just would like to know.

[Whiskeyjack]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Wait, so no limit on QBs now?

Yeah.  I wrote 2 posts about it above, and tagged everyone in 1 of them.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 minute ago, Whiskeyjack said:

Yeah.  I wrote 2 posts about it above, and tagged everyone in 1 of them.

Sounds good.

[Jaime L]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

I believe I was the first to bring this up, but I forgot to add a caveat. I think the season is going to be a disaster, but on the off chance it isn't, would relegation occur, or is a flat out no relegation regardless of what happens? I'm good either way, just would like to know.

Think we need to decide before the season whether there will be relegation or not because there's all kinds of grey areas of shit show that could potentially occur that'll have us debating whether it was normal enough to be representative or so abnormal it's not fair to those getting relegated for reasons totally outside of their control. Could see a lot of scenarios where we just don't agree. I'm leaning towards no relegation from the outset though open to being convinced otherwise. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

30 minutes ago, Jaime L said:

Think we need to decide before the season whether there will be relegation or not because there's all kinds of grey areas of shit show that could potentially occur that'll have us debating whether it was normal enough to be representative or so abnormal it's not fair to those getting relegated for reasons totally outside of their control. Could see a lot of scenarios where we just don't agree. I'm leaning towards no relegation from the outset though open to being convinced otherwise. 

Despite my desire to get into Experts, I think the year should largely be seen as more for fun, but with a narrow exception.

1). If nothing goes wrong, outside of a minor thing here or there, with the new flex spot and without restrictions on the amount of QBs, maybe relegation should exist.

2). Following on the above, if relegation is determined to be a no go for this season, but we still have a relatively normal year, do Championships count towards next year's season to get into Experts, again, assuming things are normalish then?

3). If this season is not normal, we must all agree on a point in which it is valid, and because that could mean no playoffs, best regular season team is the asterisk Champion, and if and how it works as a tie break following next year.

4). Or fuck it and we just say, "Damn you 2020!" and play for fun.

5). Side note, though it's already decided, the legislative nerd in me requires it, I call for unanimous consent to the above rules WJ laid out, and that since all drafts seem to be in September so far, everything should be decided by the end of August. 

[Bronn Stone]

I still prefer Slut QB to Superflex, but it isn't by a lot and I'm fine going with the flow here.

I think that 2020 victories in A-C  should count as half a win towards getting into Experts in 2022.

[BLU-RAY]

12 team offboard money league - snakedraft, start QB, 3 WR, 2 RB, TE, Flex, DST, K; 0.5 PPR. Had the 6th overall pick. Interested in thoughts... I think I botched one or two picks but looking at the rest of the rosters I don't totally hate mine. I felt like I got badly sniped a couple of times, where the top two guys on my shortlist would go in the four picks before mine, and so I'd have to adjust a lot on the fly (which is every snakedraft to some extent, but it seemed more pronouced this time)

 

QB - Ben Roethlisberger

WR - Robert Woods, Keenan Allen, Marquiese Brown (Sterling Shepard, Curtis Samuel)

RB - Dalvin Cook, Austin Ekeler, Chris Carson (Alexander Mattison, Damien Harris, Antonio Gibson, Bryce Love)

TE - Chris Herndon

DST - Min

K - Matt Prater

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Not sure how much faith I'd have in Ben at this point, and I'm worried about Minny's D. The front 7 is solid, and we have the best safety tandem in the league, but who knows what our CB situation will be like. The two starters are alright, but it's all rookies after that, even if we got a first and a third round pick as their backups. 

[BLU-RAY]

I view defenses in FF as about one step away from fungible, honestly. I think Min's group is quite good, though.

 

Ben was the last on my list of QBs to take, but he is on the list.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Contact with ME has been made. Will report back later.

[Whiskeyjack]

17 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Contact with ME has been made. Will report back later.

Sucks that its so late.  Wish he had responded to the message I sent him through the yahoo league.