With the end of the current fantasy football season in sight, I am working on a new dynasty league for next year. Among the aspects I am considering for it:
Superflex
PPR
My own kicker scoring (explained in other threads) which makes good kickers competitive with other positions, but still not above the best players
IDP or DST? I am leaning towards a simplified IDP, with only 3 starting defensive players (one DL, one LB, and one secondary player). But I’m willing to consider alternatives.
Should QB’s be penalized for sacks? Since it is rare that a QB isn’t responsible for his own sacks, this seems reasonable.
Feel free to add any other ideas you have here, and comment on my own suggestions above.
With most leagues having about 10-16 teams, superflex ensures most or all NFL starters are accounted for. You can’t just stream QB’s at your leisure. How many NFL teams switch QB’s every week? Only really bad ones do that.
What about receiving backs? If anything, those kinds of RB’s benefit greatly from PPR, since most receiving backs don’t get as many receiving yards as WR’s or even TE’s.
Scoring: half PPR w/ TE premium (+0.5 PPR, so essentially full PPR for TEs).
That is the format from that tournament I played this year. I found the balancing perfect, as it puts an equal emphasis on all positions.
As for the rest:
No problems with your K scoring.
Strong preference for SFLEX.
I prefer half PPR, though full PPR doesn’t make a huge difference, so no problem with that, either.
Don’t like the idea of penalizing QBs for sacks.
Questions:
How many teams? (I prefer 12)
How many roster spots? IR? TAXI?
How many keepers?
How many rookie draft rounds? Draft rookies only, or rookies + free agents?
Draft mode? (Would prefer slow draft, but also don’t mind a live draft, as long as it doesn’t start at 4am German time)
How about 2 WR’s and 2 Flex? As for the number of bench spots, I will let the league size determine that. If the league is larger, I’d go with a smaller bench, and vice versa. I am trying to take the waiver wire effect out of dynasty. It should be rare to be able to grab an elite player off of waivers.
How about PPR, but with +1.5 PPR for TE’s? Or we could test another TE bonus, such as increased TD points? I don’t know if it’s possible, but I’ve always been curious about 1st down points. I’d have to see what is possible in Sleeper.
I’m on the fence for that.
I prefer 16, but I will settle for as few as 10. I can adjust the bench size to compensate for the variations.
This kind of runs along with the bench size. With large league/smaller benches, I would lean towards 2 IR and maybe 3 taxi. Small league/large bench, I would lean towards 5 IR and 5 taxi.
It’s dynasty. You can keep your entire roster, but you don’t get any draft picks. I will give you this hint: You won’t likely be drafting beyond the 4th round, unless it’s a really small league. Adjust your draft picks/players released accordingly.
It will include rookies and free agents, but I will warn you: Free agents available will be guys nobody wanted before the draft, and the bottom of the barrel left over from last year. So the draft will be mainly for rookies.
As for number of rounds, it goes until all rosters are full. By the end, you’ll only see a few teams drafting.
All that said, our very first draft will of course be all-inclusive: Every veteran and rookie. Until I decide the roster size, and i won’t know that until I have an idea of who’s joining.
I prefer the slow draft too. We might have to draft a little sooner, perhaps July or early August, but I prefer making a pick over auto-drafting, even if that means I have to wait awhile between picks. We will do a snaking draft for the first year, with win-based drafting order in upcoming years.
I haven’t decided on using consolation brackets during playoffs to determine draft orders the following year.
I should add a league fee of $10/year, with $20 due the first year to pay for 2 years. All winnings go to the championship team.
Question: 2 week championship game? Or do we give top 2 playoff teams a bye week in week 15? I lean towards the latter.
No problem with that. But being forced to start 3 WRs actually puts some pressure on the WR position in the mid rounds of the startup draft.
In our 12 team, 30 roster league, it still happens. I don’t mind it. Waiver strategy is part of the fun. Which reminds me - FAAB or Waiver Priority is another decision to be made. FAAB is more strategic, WP makes turnarounds easier.
I would definitely not recommend to kill the waiver wire, as that will make it very tough to turn a team around further down the road.
PPR and 1.5 PPR for TEs works as well. I wouldn’t make the scoring too exotic, though.
In both my dynasties, the number of keepers is slightly smaller than the roster size. 27 keepers for 30-man rosters in my SFLEX, 20 keepers for a 24-man roster in the 1QB league. Being forced to cut a few players is painful, but part of the fun, and keeps the waiver wire alive.
In my SFLEX dynasty, we cut the non-keepers after the Super Bowl, before the new season starts, to make sure all teams start into the new season with the same number of players. I actually like that better than the standard to only make roster cuts right before the draft.
In my 1QB league, we increase the rosters by 5 during the offseason, and cut them back down before week 1. Also an interesting option.
Not if you make the roster cuts right at the beginning of a season. Players will find a new landing spot, or move up the depth chart, and suddenly become interesting.
In my SFLEX, we changed the rule this year. Earlier, we determined the entire top draft order via consolation bracket. That led to the weakest teams who really needed top picks to only draft out of the #5 or #6 spot.
This year, we only determine the 1.01 via consolation bracket. The 1.02 to 1.06 are determined via seeding.
In my 1QB dynasty, the consolation bracket isn’t taken into consideration at all. The 1.01 to 1.06 are determined via seeding, the 1.07 to 1.12 via playoff results.
Speaking of playoff results: I have established in both my leagues that the winner of the #3 match (the one in week 17, played by the 2 semifinal losers) will the 1.09, and the loser the 1.10. Otherwise, teams have zero incentive to try and win the #3 match.
I hate 2 week games. Regular season in weeks 1-14, wild card in week 15, semifinals in week 16, championship game in week 17. Everything else does not make sense, IMHO. As then, you either have to skip wild card week, or start the playoffs in week 14 already (which is still a BYE week), or extend the championship into week 18, when many stud players are being rested.
Keep in mind, the PPR scoring does that for you. A lot of mid-round WR’s suddenly look as good as RB’s, making flex options lean towards WR’s.
I like both, actually. FAAB first, with waiver priority second.
To me, waivers should be primarily a prospecting tool with occasional “gold rushes”. I expect all NFL starters to be sitting on somebody’s roster. But the backup QB’s, RB’s, WR’s, etc. who are still out there with a strong potential to move into a starting lineup are what people need to be looking at acquiring. You’ll have enough bench spots to stash a few of those, but there will always be an unexpected injury that has everyone scrambling to get an unexpected player who is suddenly starting because the regular starter blew a knee out.
My dynasty leagues have a “cut deadline” prior to the draft. But I will admit I’m intrigued by the temporary increased roster size. Is that in a Sleeper league?
I’m kind of averse to going against seeding with consolation playoffs. yes, there is a risk of tanking, but this is dynasty after all. As long as owners aren’t dropping good players during the playoffs, or trading them for garbage before the trade deadline, I at least know they are trying to remain competitive going forward. This is one of my big beefs with redraft.
The last time I did the two week playoff games was before they instituted bye weeks, and they worked great. But nowadays, it just isn’t feasible with byes.
In my PPR league, I will still often start RBs on the FLEX. I can’t scientifically prove it, but I think a 3rd dedicated WR slot puts more pressure on your draft choices than going full instead of half PPR does.
No, Fleaflicker. But it should be no problem to do it in Sleeper as well.
From first hand experience, I can tell you that neither approach will ever fully eliminate tanking. If you determine the draft order by seeding only, bottom teams may conveniently forget to set a lineup in the last 1-2 weeks. If you determine the draft order by consolation playoffs, mid-range teams may do the same if they feel they don’t have a chance in the playoffs, but could win the Toilet Bowl and claim the 1.01 as a grand prize.
Personally, I prefer to determine the draft ranking of the non-playoff teams by seeding. If you want to make the consolation playoffs more interesting, you can always offer extra FAAB $ as a prize for the Toilet Bowl winner.
Another option I’d like to try one day is to determine the draft order by the league power ranking here on FantasyPros (in the My Playbook section). That is something you cannot manipulate by losing games. But none of my leagues was ready to consider that option so far.
