The Future Is Now

This post has been a few months in the making. I've reached the point where I just haven't been enjoying the league very much. Lots of things factor in here. For one I spend more time than I should tweaking and fidgeting with 'stuff'. I think I've gotten away from my own rule of  'Strive to keep things simple.' Split drafts, Draft Values, etc. make things interesting I suppose, but they are also more work and I'm just not sure it's really needed.  And I certainly need to spend less time sitting in front of a computer screen or staring into my smartphone. 

A big factor is also that I continue feeling the long-term effects of my bout with COVID in August. I'm still struggling at times with breathing, stamina, and equilibrium issues. 

I've been considering what to do going forward since early in the season. We've had a nice run over the last 4+ decades. I'd like to continue but not under the current circumstances. We can move forward towards 45 seasons but it would either be with changes or without me. Here's what I'm thinking.....

1) No Keepers...we'll be a complete redraft league. This is 180* from what I think of as 'optimum fun' in fantasy football but I don't want to deal with Values, trade-based changes to values, Cook Rules etc. etc. This is as good a place as any to mention that if we continue on and you traded for 2021 draft picks you'll still be entitled to them. If you traded away a 2021 pick you got the player value for the remainder of the season. I might add a compensatory pick at or near the end of the draft. 

2) Simple serpentine draft... I'll put everyone's info in the same draft order generator site we've used before and whatever happens, happens. I think I'll generate the order just before we draft like the old days of pulling names from a hat at the intramural offices. There won't be any trading of future picks as of this date going forward.

3) No IR... We can set the roster limit at something reasonable, 16ish sounds right, and let it go at that. No need to 'stash' injured guys for next season. We did 15 man rosters without an IR for years but with COVID possibly (god forbid) still a factor we can go a spot higher. No more getting caught in the Thursday Night/Sunday Morning IR 'trap'. If you have a guy out with an injury you decide if he's got 'same-year value' to you and keep him. 16 slots are more than enough to run a team. 

Plus the IR can complicate trades needlessly and confuse everyone involved, including me. Right, Mr. Strawmann?  😇

Things I'm thinking about but haven't decided on yet...

4) The scoring system is overdue for a re-evaluation. By that I mean I'll look at the PPR we currently use and if either receivers or runningbacks are 'out of balance', I'll rework it. I'd like to go with either a full PPR or a half-PPR for everyone instead of the current setup. It makes using online cheat sheets less useful since they are almost always based on one standard for all positions. 

5) Simpler playoff qualifiers...three division winners, two next best records, one next best points. Over and done. The top two division winners by record get the byes. Seeding for teams 3 thru 6 (that includes the third division winner) would be based on PPG.

6) No more attempts at a weekly Hughes News. I've enjoyed doing it and it occasionally has some good stuff but I can't get to it every week and on some weeks I don't have much to say. I think that shows. But mostly it doesn't get looked at. Blogger's stats show that it gets an average of under three viewers a week. And this damn Blogger interface is a bear to jack with. It's just not worth the time and effort if it's not being read. I can put essential news on the page or the message board.

7) I might just move the league over to ESPN, NFL.com, CBS Fantasy, or one of the other sites. I love customizing our MFL pages but that feels more and more like a waste of time as well. If we move I'll try to figure out which site has the ability to duplicate our scoring and such. I'm guessing we may have to bend a few things to fit somewhere else. This leads me directly to...

8) The cost of another site would probably be $0. MFL if I recall correctly is $75. Trophy plus shipping and whatever else I send out to the champ usually runs $100 or so. That's where I get the $15 fee I ask for. Obviously, that would change depending on what site we use. 

9) Waivers...see above paragraph #7. If we stay with MFL we can keep our system in place with a few tweaks to make it less work. If we move it'll be a whole new world. Most of the other sites have take-it-or-leave-it waiver systems that don't give us many options.

All of this is tentative. I'll continue to think about it over the course of the '21 season. If some owners decide that this wouldn't be of interest I'll understand. I can probably replace an owner. If several of you decide to drop out I decide what to do at that point. I'm not up for a big recruiting campaign. I'm going to put a poll up to test the waters. 

Thoughts and suggestions are always welcome. Good luck to those in the playoff chase. 

Week 8 of a Roller Coaster (of love) Season

Up and down, 'round and 'round, fantasy football has taken a lot of twists and turns so far in 2021. We're dealing with significant injuries to significant players (Hi, Derek Henry!), COVID losses (Hi! Packers), and everything in between.

Some random shit.. the Bombers are 5-3 and in first place in the Lombardi despite the second-lowest number of points scored in the league! Eight teams scored 96+ points this week while four teams scored in the 70s or worse. Those four teams played each other in two games so two of them won. I think it was the Orioles' Dave McNally who first said "I'd rather be lucky than good."

I've added more goodies to the Historical Data module. It now shows not only a bunch of highs and lows and team records but the new tabs give you Historical Standings, Top Players, Playoff Brackets, and Draft Results. All going back to 2003. Complete historical data (back to 1980) can be found through my spreadsheets, etc. that are available via the Link module near the bottom of that right column on the home page. 

Cook Rule Update... had a few questions this past week as to who might qualify. I was actually in the middle of doing some checking when one of those emails arrived. Below is the latest update. Players in black text are already ineligible due to having played in six games (or more). Players in red or green text qualify at this point as far as the number of games played but the green names indicate not having appeared on the NFL IR list with Chris Carson (in red) qualifying in both needed categories. 

McCaffrey and That Man himself, Dalvin Cook, are not eligible for reasons shown in the Notes.

In looking at Saquon Barkley I saw that MFL sometimes has a 'zero' for weekly points, and sometimes a 'blank'. The zero could indicate that the player was on the field and simply didn't do enough to earn a fantasy point. Barley had a zero for Week 5 when he played briefly and gained nine yards and a zero for Week 6 when he was never on the field. But he has a blank for Week 7 when he was 'inactive'. To avoid confusion I'm making a Commish Decision and declaring that I will use the official NFL snap counts to determine cases like this. In figuring Games Played for the purposes of the Cook Rule I'll look at any games that MFL has marked with a zero and check the NFL for his snap counts. If he's listed with any I'll consider that as a game 'played'. 

Or you can do it yourself.....