Something Borrowed, Something Blue

Same Old, Same Old

Well, as promised, Myfantasyleague has made the 2023 home pages available. I have updated our site for the fall season. This is the link. You can also just change the year in any bookmarks/links you have on your browser and that will get you there. I know I mentioned switching sites at some point but as I noted in the last post we will stick with MFL through 2023.

Back a few weeks ago when I posted the yearly wrapup here I mentioned several changes that I was thinking of implementing. Many of these have been addressed and put into play on the new site. Others are still up in the air or I just haven't tackled them yet. Let's look at them one at a time:

These were the changes that I was certain about:

1) We will go to a dedicated tight-end lineup spot for 2023... That's been configured. We will go with what I call the industry standard lineup requirements: I QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 K, plus a Flex player from among your RBs, WRs, and TEs. I considered going with a one-player minimum at RB and WR but in my discussions with a few owners, it didn't seem very popular.  In the chart, the red number shows how you can use your flex player.

2) I will decide on a Wild Card qualification setup... There was some discussion of this at the owners' gathering last weekend. The general consensus was that the wildcard spots should be based primarily on records. At least that's the impression I got. So that's the route we will take. I've been a strong proponent of the sixth spot going to a points leader but it's not something I want to go to the mat over. Of course, points will be involved in any tiebreaks for division standings, postseason slots, and seeding. 

I will also drop the provision that automatically seeded the 4, 5, and 6 teams according to PPG. Those seeds will be based on records with standard tiebreaks.

3) I'm going to add a rule or guideline that addresses the situation that occurred this year in our title week...  The more I think about this, the more I think it is impossible to make a rule to cover every possible scenario. Using player average points for the two guys involved worked out fine this time. But what if a player in the starting lineup of one of our Hughes Bowl teams was coming back from a two-month injury and had only played a couple of times early in the season?  Or not at all? Or he'd been a waiver claim that week...could I use his average points for what he'd done while not on a Hughes roster? What if the canceled game occurred on the first Monday night of the season? I suppose I'd have to do something like use the following week's scores for any involved players. 

The bottom line if there is no way to legislate a solution to everything that could occur in the NFL. I'm just going to have to use my best judgment in these situations with some help from trusted owners. Hopefully, we never have to deal with a player going through what Damar Hamlin had to go through ever again. He was very lucky. The next player might not be so fortunate. 

4) Added Jan 20... I am going to adjust the price structure to include the cost of the League trophy and other swag that goes to the champion... Done. I paid for the 2023 league as soon as I updated. The cost including an 'early bird' discount was $80 (Okay, $79 but let's not quibble). The trophy with shipping ran me right at $75.  The folks that provide the custom scripts that make the league site work like it does don't charge for their efforts. But I usually kick them a small tip via PayPal. They go above and beyond and do it for the MFL community without asking for anything. They will have extra work this year as MFL has re-done the league site menus (you'll notice that when you get there) and some of the scripts will require updating. They've already started this process!.

I think asking $15 per owner is not unreasonable. I will send everyone an email 'invoice' later this spring. 

That's all for the changes I considered 'locks' for 2023. The following are some things I mentioned in the year-ender that were possibilities. I've decided on some but others are still up in the air or needed to be resolved...

1) The tight-end addition will have an effect on how we select a lineup...  See above

2) I've considered moving on from Myfantasyleague... Again, see above. Changing sites just isn't worth the possible hassle.

3) I'm leaning toward changing both rushing/receiving yards and passing yards to fractional scoring... This is happening. See the chart below for a full scoring rule list. The changes are to QB passing (.04 points per yard rather than one point per twenty) and rushing and receiving yards (.01 per yard instead of one per ten). 

One byproduct of the above is that scores will now go to two decimal points. I'll learn to live with that.

4) I may go in and revise (and streamline) the tiebreaks...  I'll look at this later in the summer.

5) This blog may go away... I'll look at this later in the year.

6) ... I've played around some with the possibility of carrying over unused waiver cash from one year to the next...  I've thought about this some. It's a feature that I've come across in a few leagues. I dunno what the point would be but I thought it was something worth considering. Probably not worth the effort.

A couple of other things worth noting... 

I will put a schedule in place using Random.org to mix up the non-division weeks. I've played around with it and it works. 

I have not touched the new season calendar. There's no point in adjusting draft dates, etc. until I know the NFL schedule which gets released this spring. IOW...don't postpone your trip to Rome based on the date of the draft on the calendar right now.

Finally, the website, as noted above, has a new menu system implemented by Myfantasyleague. Not terribly different from what we are used to. But the options for submitting lineups, looking at rosters, and things like that have been rearranged. They are all still there, just in a different drop-down menu order.

A new addition I noticed just today is the 'All Reports' link under the 'Help' drop-down. It provides you with just what it says, all the reports in one place, broken down into categories.

#ellissayshello