Official 2008 Fantasy Football Thread

[briman]

yeah...the only proxy that i can get to work for most places wont work for the draft prog...sorry guys. i've tried for the last 2 hours

reinstalled java, flash, rebooted, everything. it just refuses to load.

hopefully i ended up with a decent team! 

[Mnementh]

So I see that the max amount of moves remains at 30.  I must say that I'm very disappointed about this.  Last year I reached that with still a couple of weeks to go, as that is simply the way I enjoy playing the game.  We instituted the max moves cap to make sure that people aren't picking up players simply to deny them to another manager.  With the increased awareness of this, I really don't see how having the cap is necessary anymore....especially at 30.  Not only do I think it isn't very necessary, it also hurts people who have teams that suffer from a lot of injuries, which happened to at least a couple of teams last season.

This is a stat category that can be changed, and I think that it should be.  Also, anyone who says that they'd have drafted differently without the cap is full of shit (ZERA)....you've already said you didn't do a lot of prep, so just keep quiet with your whining.   

Other thoughts?  I thought we'd agreed to at least raise it, having it as it is has seriously dampened my enthusiasm for this season.

[-Spectre-]

So I see that the max amount of moves remains at 30.  I must say that I'm very disappointed about this.  Last year I reached that with still a couple of weeks to go, as that is simply the way I enjoy playing the game.  We instituted the max moves cap to make sure that people aren't picking up players simply to deny them to another manager.  With the increased awareness of this, I really don't see how having the cap is necessary anymore....especially at 30.  Not only do I think it isn't very necessary, it also hurts people who have teams that suffer from a lot of injuries, which happened to at least a couple of teams last season.

This is a stat category that can be changed, and I think that it should be.  Also, anyone who says that they'd have drafted differently without the cap is full of shit (ZERA)....you've already said you didn't do a lot of prep, so just keep quiet with your whining.   

Other thoughts?  I thought we'd agreed to at least raise it, having it as it is has seriously dampened my enthusiasm for this season.

Agreed. It still can be changed and I think that maybe a limit of 40-50 should be ok.

[Zeradul]

So I see that the max amount of moves remains at 30.  I must say that I'm very disappointed about this.  Last year I reached that with still a couple of weeks to go

I just checked and last year it was limited to 20 total moves, so 30 is a significant increase.

it also hurts people who have teams that suffer from a lot of injuries, which happened to at least a couple of teams last season.

Yes, it really does hurt those teams --whoever has multiple injuries to their starters-- and once they run out of moves they are toast.  The three players who ran out of moves last year ended up finishing with a combined 4-17 record the second HALF of their season.  These were managers (Mnem, Chew, Briman) who had combined record of 11-7 through week 6.  Clearly, moves are important.  It should be noted that I also used all my moves, but I went 0.500 through the regular season, and used my last move in the playoffs to replace an injured kicker (I THINK) but I can't find that in the Yahoo summary.

It's easy to say "well then don't use all your moves" BUT if you are that team that is struggling to find the player who may be on the field only two weeks that season because a #1 WR is out with an injury, then that is a move you might make just to get that guy on your lineup one week.  You can really burn through the moves if you have 2-3 or more key players go down by mid-season.  And that WILL happen, players get injured.  Filling those gaps can be a rest-of-the-season task.

This is a stat category that can be changed, and I think that it should be.  Also, anyone who says that they'd have drafted differently without the cap is full of shit (ZERA)....

Wait what?  No, I'm all in favor of a higher cap, because I think it is good to let everyone do anything they can do to stay in the game.  The POINT of Fantasy is to have fun, and it sucks if you run out of moves and you're just a spectator the last 3-4 weeks.  You're really not even playing anymore.

Other thoughts?  I thought we'd agreed to at least raise it, having it as it is has seriously dampened my enthusiasm for this season.

Yes, maybe we can "reward" the players who do not use all their moves somehow.  Something simple and little that the commissioner can change is Waiver Wire rank, for example.  Maybe next year's waiver wire rank could be determined by whoever uses the least moves?  So if I have noone on my team get injured and I never need to pick anyone up, then I would get the first Waiver priority.

Also, clearly, any en-masse attempt to pick up the 5 good WR options and drop them all just so that an opponent who needs a WR can't sign one for that weekend's match should be punished heavily.

[joel]

Would 40 be fair for everyone?  Part of fantasy football is strategy. That's also part of the fun imo.  That why I'd prefer to keep it at 30. I understand how injuries can fuck you, I had a shitty season last year because of it.

[chew]

Im fine with 30 but if we go to 40 thats fine too, im not gonna complain, I will just do my best and have fun. Last year I got fucked with injuries, and not that you can tell but I actually used my 20 moves as wisely as I could and I still ended up screwed lol.

[briman]

it is still in preseason and i've had to use 2 already. hahaha.

had to pick up a decent 3rd WR because the 3 options I have arn't very good. Especially if someone takes me up on the chad johnson offer for a RB.

[-Spectre-]

I just saw that the limit was never changed and it's still 30 

[joel]

Because it was never agreed upon?

I asked if it was OK and I only got feedback from 3 people.

[-Spectre-]

Because it was never agreed upon?

I asked if it was OK and I only got feedback from 3 people.

I'm sure every one was ok with it. Oh well.

[QB3RT]

what limit are we talking about?

[-Spectre-]

what limit are we talking about?

Max amount of moves allowed.

[rue]

How can anyone complain about 2 moves per week?  If you're making more than two moves a week that's not injuries, that's FF ADD.

[Mnementh]

I disagree, DD.  Some people who were not present for the draft got pretty shitty picks, and it takes a fair amount of moves to counter that.  Especially since our league is so big, the number of quality players available is very slim, which means that people have to play matchups.  I'm in that position now, with one of my receivers gone for the season, another one still suspended for one more week, and one of my RBs playing second fiddle.  So now I have to pick up week to week, playing the matchups and hoping that a second or third string player may make in impact...and this may be where I'm at for the rest of the season.  So 2 moves per week sucks ass, and would seriously impact my ability to be at all competitive.

[Zeradul]

So far:
--------
In Favor of 40 moves: Mnem, Bri, Spec, chew, Zera
Not In Favor: Joel, DD

-----------------

I think that we all have the same number of roster spots, and that if someone can improve their team with players none of us wanted, they should be able to.  I don't see a purpose to dooming someone who loses a few stud players.

However, if we do raise it to 40 moves, we could also make the max moves per week set to 3.  That would add some strategy to it, because you'd never want to make more than two moves per week so that you could always quick pick someone up if they are injured in practice, or are benched on Sunday morning for some reason.  2 moves per week is only 32 moves total, always leaving yourself an emergency move.

So if you want to add in some strategy, I'd say put moves at 40, and limit moves per week to 3.  I think this is a good compromise.

[joel]

How about exactly 2 moves per week + 1.  35.

If you weren't present for the draft or have a shitty team, then work with it and try and improve it.  Chew is behind the cue ball right now, but has a good shot at improving.

[-Spectre-]

I agree with Mnem and think 40 is fine. Last season I lost my QB's and was scrambling all over the place. Lucky for me Kurt Warner stepped up until he busted his arm .

What Z says is good, but limiting the moves per week might mess up a team that has multiple injuries in a given week.

[Mnementh]

If you weren't present for the draft or have a shitty team, then work with it and try and improve it.  Chew is behind the cue ball right now, but has a good shot at improving.

That is exactly what we're talking about here and limiting it to 2 moves per week severely hampers our ability to do that!  I understand the motive behind putting a move cap into place, heck, I was one of the loudest proponents of a move cap.  But awareness in our league has now increased and people are hip to the fact that some managers were adding players for no other reason than to deny them to other managers.  With this increased vigilance and an apparent understanding amongst us that this is not acceptable, I really see no reason why we should have a move cap at all anymore....but I'm willing to go with one simply because it seems to be what most people want, for some reason.

But keeping it too low basically performs the same function as the reason why it was instituted in the first place...don't you see that?  If we're tying to keep people from impinging upon another player's ability to compete at the highest level possible, then why would we put into effect a policy that in turns does the exact same thing?  If a manager is not able to make the moves he needs to make due to injuries or a bad draft, then you've only served to do the exact thing that the move cap was put into place to keep from happening.

[rue]

  I'm in that position now, with one of my receivers gone for the season, another one still suspended for one more week, and one of my RBs playing second fiddle.  So now I have to pick up week to week, playing the matchups and hoping that a second or third string player may make in impact...and this may be where I'm at for the rest of the season. 

And everyone else around you has just as many picks as you do.  The difference being that with a large move cap someone like myself, with no injury woes, can blow a few picks on the same second and third stringers hoping they make an impact.  They can sit on my bench for a week, maybe two, while I wait for them to make a difference.  If they don't, I have a lot picks to give switching them out and trying someone else.  FF is not Fantasy Fishing.

[Mnementh]

It IS Fantasy Fishing.  I mean, last time I checked you didn't possess some kind of all-knowing power that let you see exactly what each player is going to do and how they're going to perform for the entire season.  The whole concept of FF is taking a risk, betting on the couple of players you know are going to make an impact while hoping that others will come from nowhere.  Increasing the amount of moves not only helps those people with injury woes and bad drafts, it also helps those with solid teams go ahead and take those risks on 2nd or 3rd string players to see if they can better their teams.  Increasing the move cap does not hurt players with good teams....so if you have one, please just shut the fuck up.



KIDDING!!!!!!

[joel]

If I switch it to 35, which is almost double what we had last year, can we please shutup up about this topic ;/

[Mnementh]

No.






























ok......i'll shut up then.  Sheesh.  Just trying to have a conversation....didn't know you were so against open and free expression.  Fucking Canadian.

[Zeradul]

someone like myself, with no injury woes, can blow a few picks on the same second and third stringers hoping they make an impact.  They can sit on my bench for a week, maybe two, while I wait for them to make a difference.  If they don't, I have a lot picks to give switching them out and trying someone else.  FF is not Fantasy Fishing.

So you're saying that people who do have injury woes should be punished further by forcing them to only spend their waiver moves on replacement players?  So, people in Mnem's and Chew's shoes should not be allowed the chance to pick up second and third stringers with the potential to play them a few weeks later?

That doesn't seem fair to me, because they're already hurting from losing a top player, so no need to limit their ability to overcome that further.  Maybe I'm not understanding your view of this subject.

Apart from our league last year and this year, I've never been in a FF league that had a moves limit of any kind.  The only leagues where moves are restricted (in my experience) are Keeper Leagues, or Dynasty Leagues, but in each of those cases, everyone has 18 or 20 roster spots, and so the draft goes SO DEEP that moves are most unnecessary.  Even in those leagues they'll still have 15 or 20 moves allowed.

Yahoo Public Leagues
NFL.com Fantasy Leagues
CBS Fantasy

None of those have move limits.  I think it's because it's the point of the game to improve your team.

I've scoured ESPN's Fantasy Football Rules page: http://games.espn.go.com/ffl/content?page=fflrulesindex2008
I can't find any mention of waiver moves.  So that's the big four.  Noone uses Move Limits as far as I can tell.

[-Spectre-]

Last season I lost Alexander, Bulger and Westbrook and I had to shuffle every week and scavenge what was out there. In the end I could not make any moves cause I had 1-2 left and saved them for the end. Hell I finished with a 1 armed QB. No one seemed to give a fuck either way

40 seems like a reasonable number allowing  you to:

1. Account for injuries.
2. Account for player not producing.
3. Get that rookie or sleeper no one knows about.

and so forth.

Fantasy Football is not meant to be won in the draft by getting a good pick. It's meant to see what manager can react to unforseen circumstances (see the reasons above), gamble with sleepers, know when to play whom, etc.

I'm not too excited about this league as I've been in years past. With all the drama, bitching, and this kind of crap it's taken the fun a little bit.

I could care less about the limit right now but since I've been in Mnem's and Chew's shoes I totally agree with setting a higher cap.

The only reason the cap was put up is cause when I won the league I picked a WR "to block" the other person from not getting the player (which made no difference). At the time I did not know that was against the rules and I specifically said that you guys should have reported me to Yahoo if that was the case. Now we all know better, we know the rules and we have played long enough to know what's ok and what's not.

I believe the mayority agrees with uping the cap, get it done, move on, STFU and let's have some fun.


H8 the fucking drama about bullshit.

[Zeradul]

Did the moves cap really stem from that incident?

Well, I think that is an easily solved problem.  Clearly, any en masse attempt to add/drop players for that purpose should not be allowed.  I think an easy solution is automatic loss that week for anyone who has added or dropped players (without improving his team!) to limit the ability of another manager to improve his team.

But even with the lowest number of moves you STILL have that problem.  Even with 20 moves, you still could have someone using their last 5 moves to snatch up all the players his opponent needs to win in the playoffs.  So limiting moves does not stop this problem if that was the intent behind limiting the number of moves.... (was it?)

[rue]

There are many reasons for the move cap.  The best reason is as so:

Let's pretend for a moment that Brady had a backup QB that was a proven stud who could walk into that offense and give 75% of the production that Brady gave.  If there was no move cap, the moment that Brady rolled on the turf on Sunday, someone would have picked up said backup QB.  Their expediency would have then been rewarded because of their twitchy ability to scour the games for potential blockbuster pickups.  No one knew the extent of Brady's injury until the results of the MRI were released after the game, but with no penalty the risk of picking up Brady's backup is zero. 

Now with a move cap the situation plays out differently.  There was the potential that Brady had something like a contusion, severe sprain, hyperextension, etc etc rather than a season ending ACL tear.  If Brady wasn't going on IR or even missing any games, with the move cap our twitchy injury scourer is punished a move.  The cumulative effect is that twitchers cannot easily prey on the injuries of other FF teams to both improve their team and leave the injury plagued teams SOL.  This happened before.  Not once, twice or three times, but an entire season.  Any increase to the moves cap that extends beyond an uncountable perfect medium allows leeway to injury scouring.  I happen to think 20 is a good guess.  Joel believes (or had compromised) that 30 is a good guess.  40, in this humble man's opinion, is ridiculous.  At 40 moves I will not feel pressured one bit out of making any move.  Hell at 30 I already picked up Morris just because he's one shot to Maroney's ribs away from being the Patriots' offense.  I could have made this move anyway with a more stringent move cap, the point is if my gamble fails I will lose something more valuable.

The move cap does not prevent vulturing, it punishes it.  An ineffective cap might as well not be a cap at all.

[joel]

I'm setting it to 35 and that's final.  I don't want this to turn into a retarded extended fight over something so trivial.  I got your points and I understand them, but I have to draw the line somewhere.   I appreciate everything you guys have brought up, but let's put this to bed.  We're at the point where we're typing retardedly long posts no one cares to read that really are unlikely to convince anyone on either side. I didn't want the discussion to get to this point ;/

I also setup the playoffs to be 3 weeks and 8 teams rather than 2 weeks with 4 teams.

[Zeradul]

Ok, well explained DD.  To counter that problem ideally Yahoo would have a "waiver period" option from the start of each player's game each week to say, Tuesday night at midnight.  In that time, anyone can make a waiver claim on any player they like, (and multiple players in the case they don't get their #1  choice) but they have to use their waiver rank to get that player.  As it stands now, waiver rank is almost completely useless, except for big news right after a fantasy draft, or if someone drops a good player.

So, Yahoo has continued to add features, (like moves limit per week) so hopefully a "waiver period" will be added as an option next year.

No one knew the extent of Brady's injury until the results of the MRI were released after the game, but with no penalty the risk of picking up Brady's backup is zero.

Well, kind of...... We all had to weigh dropping a player we previously thought deserved a roster spot, in order to gain this potential benefit.  So the risk is not at all zero, it could cost you a pretty decent player.  In my case, Garrard.  I pondered that decision for quite a few hours, and we even discussed it in IRC at length.  I could care less about a move, it's having to drop a decent player that cost me the most.

Yes, I see what you're saying about someone could snap Cassel up the instant Brady is laying on the field, but that forces you to drop someone valuable on your roster, there's no guarantee, and maybe if you can afford to be dropping your bench players on such whims than I suggest that person's team is hurting and needs that player the most.  Right?  I see the "expense" of any waiver move directly tied to how good a person's team is.  If your team is good then any waiver move better be a pretty sure bet if it's going to improve your team, and warrant dropping a good player.  If your team is riddled with injuries, then you can afford to make risky moves, and many will bust but some will hit, but most of all you're playing the game, doing whatever you can to improve.

I do see what you're saying, and I think by far the fairest solution is "waiver period" that forces everyone to not only use a roster spot, but also sacrifice your waiver rank, AND forces you to wait in line to get him, and therefore adds strategy of saving your waiver rank for when you need it most.  I don't know why Yahoo has not implemented this yet, but I'm pretty sure all Fantasy Football will have this soon (many already have it)

------

I guess most of all I'm glad to see that THAT was your reason, and not some reservation about actually making moves.  Like the following spot play: E.G. Saints play the worst passing D in the NFL, and so all of a sudden the #3 and #4 WR's have legitimate chances (and are available on waivers) of scoring, and so grabbing that guy in a week where one of your top WR's is injured and another is on BYE, I don't think a moves limit should "punish" that move at all!  That should be encouraged as much as possible, as far as I'm concerned.  Clever ways to find one week producers, making the most of every roster spot every week is what the game is about IMO. 

[Zeradul]

Thanks for listening Joel.  Being Commish is not easy.

I also setup the playoffs to be 3 weeks and 8 teams rather than 2 weeks with 4 teams.

1.) Did you intend to make Week 17 the championship week?  Personally week 16 is tough enough as it is to keep your roster full of players not benched awaiting their postseason.  Week 17 and you're looking at as many as the top 6 teams in the NFL benching many if not all their top players for much/most of the game. (or at least not playing tooth and nail to win)   Week 17 in fantasy is a total coin flip.

2.) 8 teams to the playoffs?  So that's 66% of the league?  Last year the top two teams (as decided by the playoff brackets) were Ruck and I and we both went roughly 0.500 through the regular season.  Arguably, neither of us deserved to make the playoffs, much less win.  8 teams to the playoffs kind of makes the regular season irrelevant, and places all the importance on week 15.  The #8 ranked team can jump into the top four with nothing but a single win in week 15.

[mystic]

Thanks for listening Joel.  Being Commish is not easy.

I also setup the playoffs to be 3 weeks and 8 teams rather than 2 weeks with 4 teams.

2.) 8 teams to the playoffs?  So that's 66% of the league?  Last year the top two teams (as decided by the playoff brackets) were Ruck and I and we both went roughly 0.500 through the regular season.  Arguably, neither of us deserved to make the playoffs, much less win.  8 teams to the playoffs kind of makes the regular season irrelevant, and places all the importance on week 15.  The #8 ranked team can jump into the top four with nothing but a single win in week 15.

I would have to agree 8 is to many, this is not the pathetic NBA or Hockey where sub .500 teams make the playoffs.