NFFC Rules Changes Proposed For 2019; Let's Discuss

[Greg Ambrosius]

Good luck this weekend everyone as we compete for national and league titles in Week 16. We have another $2.5 million to be awarded after Monday's games, so good luck to everyone.

We have planned for this final week of the NFFC season for quite some time now and we believe that we will be able to get prize money on your Player Accounts by Thursday night, or Friday at the latest. All of those winnings will be listed as 2018 earnings as you will see on your 1099 Tracker. If you'd like to offset some of those winnings, you definitely can sign up and pay for future contests from those winnings on your Player Account. Registration is open for the NFFC Post-Season Contest right now and Registration is also open for 2019 NFFC with the Early Bird bonus in place. You can just select TBD for location, date and time for any 2019 entry and change those to exact locations, dates and times later. Enjoy.

We are so excited about the upcoming 2019 season that we are proposing rules changes now before the 2018 season is over. Let's use this thread to debate these proposals and any other rules proposals you want to discuss. Let's begin.

Our first goal this off-season is to get the NFFC site on a new platform that will allow us to roll over the contests much more easily in future years. If we can do that, then we are confident that the MFL10s and the NFFC Draft Champions leagues can launch in early February. We'll have an update on that next month, but that's the goal. Play the Post-Season Contest and with any luck we'll transition right into the 2019 NFFC season shortly after the Super Bowl. That's the goal.

We will announce our Rules and Prizes at that time and I can tell you that you'll LOVE the prizes announcements. We are taking an aggressive approach to 2019 and will have record grand prizes in many of our national contests. We feel strongly that the technology is where we want it and that we have some great new promotional partners in line who can help us bring in new NFFC players. Stay tuned, but I think you'll love what we have to offer in 2019. The NFFC Primetime and the Rotowire Online Championship, especially, are heading to new prize levels in 2019.

But before announcing the Prizes, let's talk about the Rules. We added a couple of new rules last year, including adding FAAB before Week 1 and I think that was a good move. We changed our Draft Champions leagues from 8 and 4 hour times to 4 and 2 hours, and that was DEFINITELY a good move. The NFFC Cutline Championship changed to a best ball scoring format for Weeks 1-9 before then having all owners set their starting lineups in Weeks 10-16, which led to a record number of teams. So we did some good things last year.

We also added a new online draft room that now allows you to set separate queues for every single round and draft on mobile devices much more easily. The new FAAB setup also is set up to save you time as you can now look for any free agent or player and find out if he's available or not in all of your leagues with one click. We still have some design changes to make with Live Scoring and other areas of the site, but we feel we are very close to where we want to be from a tech standpoint.

So what Rules changes could we agree to that would make the NFFC even better in 2019? Let me propose a few and see what you think:

Possible Rules Changes In 2019:
1. Thursday Night Players: The NFFC currently does not allow players in the Thursday Night Game to be cut or picked up during the Friday FAAB period. Our reasoning through the years is that it's not fair for a team to get a free look at a players' performance on Thursday and then decide to cut him on Friday in order to pick up another player who could actually start for them on Sunday. It would be like expanding that roster from 20 to 21 or more players for that week. Now, we aren't married to this reasoning and can be convinced otherwise, but I'd like to see discussion on the Thursday Night Game players and whether they should be allowed to be cut during Friday's FAAB period. Begin.

2. Online Championship Seeks Expansion: This one is a little more drastic, so let's discuss. In the NFFC Primetime, we pay the Top 3 finishers and allow the Top 3 finishers to reach the Championship Round. In the Rotowire Online Championship we pay the Top 2 finishers and allow the Top 2 finishers to reach the Championship Round. We have 563 Online Championship teams in the Championship Round right now, which is a lot. But my idea is to add ONE MORE team from each league into the Championship Round, without paying that team a league prize. So in other words, we would put 3 teams from each league into the Championship Round while still paying $1500 and $700 in each league, thus giving that third place team a chance to still win the big grand prize. We think that's a fair tradeoff as many third place teams are so very close to earning that Championship Round spot anyways, and with the new grand prize, having a 1 in 4 shot at the Championship Round really makes this contest more appealing. Thoughts?

3. Team Kicker for NFFC Draft Champions Leagues?: We debated this one at length last year for the Draft Champions leagues and there was no strong consensus to change this. But I'll put it here for discussion anyway. If we do allow Team Kicker JUST FOR DC LEAGUES, it would be safer for owners who draft earlier before teams cut individual kickers or before there are injuries to individual kickers. It also might allow us to reduce DC drafts by a round or two because owners feel safer about backing up Kickers with 1 or 2 backup Team Kickers rather than back up their first kicker with 3-4 "names of kickers". This would be a drastic change for the DCs, but let's see if anyone has changed their mind in the past year.

4. Could Someone From Consolation Round Reach The Championship Round?: This is extremely drastic and even Tom and Darik weren't sure about this one. But here it is: In the Cutline Championship, teams in the Wild Card Tier always have a shot at making it back into the Championship Round. It's not easy, but the hope is there. What would you think of allowing JUST ONE TEAM from the Consolation Round in Week 14 and then again in Week 15 to jump back into the Championship Round from the Consolation Round? It would be the highest scoring Consolation Round team for those two weeks in the NFFC Classic, NFFC Primetime and Rotowire Online Championship. It's drastic, but again it gives everyone hope to still win those great overall grand prizes and gives reason for every single team to NEVER give up during the regular season. It's also just TWO extra teams moving to the Championship Round. You never know what can happen in Weeks 14 and 15. We always want to figure out how we can keep owners trying every single week and this year we added Weekly Prizes to the three contests, so maybe this is just one added incentive to dangle out there for everyone. Thoughts?

Anything else? Let's hear from you.

Thanks all and Happy New Year!! Let's make 2019 the best it can be, starting with the NFFC Post-Season Contest that this year has a record $125,000 grand prize. Enjoy!!

[eliasond]

Here are my thoughts on the 4 topics posted plus a few others.

1. Thursday night - no opinion on cutting or picking up Thursday Game players during Friday FAAB. Works for me either way. I do think that a starting lineup position should be able to be left blank on Thursday in anticipation of picking up a new starter during Friday FAAB.

2. OC qualifiers - I would lean against having 3 qualifiers per league. The championship round is pretty huge already.

3. Team kicker for DC - strongly in favor but would not cut any draft spots.

4. Moving 1 or more teams up from the Consolation round to Championship round in the middle of the playoffs - not sure on this one. Do you realize if you did this in the Classic this year that teams from the consolation round would currently be in 1st AND 2nd place if moved to the Championship bracket? Do we really want to reward a team from the middle or the bottom half of their league with $80,000 because they got hot for 3 weeks?

5. I like the optimum lineup format for the Cutline regular season. Is there any consideration in using that format for the playoff rounds as well? It's frustrating to get to the penultimate Cutline round and then get eliminated by a couple pts due to 1 wrong lineup decision that was a toss-up going into the weekend. Also, continuing with the optimal scoring lineup in the playoffs would reward teams with deep rosters which is beneficial IMO.

6. DST points - with the proliferation of scoring these days has any thought been given to expanding the points allowed ranges and/or increasing the point levels? For instance 15 points for a shutout, expand the 2 pt range up to 20 or 21 pts allowed, along with other applicable tweaks to the ranges in between.

That's all I have for now, hopefully this is useful input.

[Coltsfan]

1. I don't really care either way. But sides have good reasons.

2. I think it would be great for the contest to expand the teams in the playoffs. It will keep it more interesting for more players and there isn't honestly much difference between a 2nd and 3rd place team. It's often a single sit/start decision. The more who have a chance, the more who play the next year.

3. I don't like team kickers. But I do believe that kickers scoring is too highly weighted. It is one of the more random ways to score on a weekly basis. The bonus per yard over 50 sounds good but ultimately it can lead to some outlandish advantages for teams on any given week. I would be fine with 3 points per field goal and 1 per extra point. It just seems like dimishing the kicker scoring would be a positive. (I tend to take kickers earlier than most so I don't get caught so often without a kicker due to performance. And I normally take 3. So I like the strategy involved in deciding if you want a 3rd kicker or early kicker.)

4. I don't think I like this very much.

The last item is another scoring item. The NFFC has always had the 6 points per passing TD. The problem is that in a h2h format, you are looking at possibly 40% of your scoring coming from a single position. I don't think it's a problem with DC's but I sure do think that 4 points per passing TD makes so much more sense. (Obviously if it would ever be changed then it's changed for all leagues) I know that you tried to balance it out with -2 for interceptions. But it many cases it made the discrepency even worst. I always felt like WCOFF had the best scoring system and I would welcome a change in QB scoring to 4 points per passing TD and -1 per interception. I know it isn't great to be changing large components of your scoring system but I think it's worth considering. This is the one thing that I have heard from multiple NFFC players and I promise I don't even bring it up.

The last thing woud be going to 28-30 rounds for draftmasters for live drafts. I know you have time constraints but these could be planned for without too much trouble.


Wayne

[TR]

Good luck this weekend everyone as we compete for national and league titles in Week 16. We have another $2.5 million to be awarded after Monday's games, so good luck to everyone.

We have planned for this final week of the NFFC season for quite some time now and we believe that we will be able to get prize money on your Player Accounts by Thursday night, or Friday at the latest. All of those winnings will be listed as 2018 earnings as you will see on your 1099 Tracker. If you'd like to offset some of those winnings, you definitely can sign up and pay for future contests from those winnings on your Player Account. Registration is open for the NFFC Post-Season Contest right now and Registration is also open for 2019 NFFC with the Early Bird bonus in place. You can just select TBD for location, date and time for any 2019 entry and change those to exact locations, dates and times later. Enjoy.

We are so excited about the upcoming 2019 season that we are proposing rules changes now before the 2018 season is over. Let's use this thread to debate these proposals and any other rules proposals you want to discuss. Let's begin.

Our first goal this off-season is to get the NFFC site on a new platform that will allow us to roll over the contests much more easily in future years. If we can do that, then we are confident that the MFL10s and the NFFC Draft Champions leagues can launch in early February. We'll have an update on that next month, but that's the goal. Play the Post-Season Contest and with any luck we'll transition right into the 2019 NFFC season shortly after the Super Bowl. That's the goal.

We will announce our Rules and Prizes at that time and I can tell you that you'll LOVE the prizes announcements. We are taking an aggressive approach to 2019 and will have record grand prizes in many of our national contests. We feel strongly that the technology is where we want it and that we have some great new promotional partners in line who can help us bring in new NFFC players. Stay tuned, but I think you'll love what we have to offer in 2019. The NFFC Primetime and the Rotowire Online Championship, especially, are heading to new prize levels in 2019.

But before announcing the Prizes, let's talk about the Rules. We added a couple of new rules last year, including adding FAAB before Week 1 and I think that was a good move. We changed our Draft Champions leagues from 8 and 4 hour times to 4 and 2 hours, and that was DEFINITELY a good move. The NFFC Cutline Championship changed to a best ball scoring format for Weeks 1-9 before then having all owners set their starting lineups in Weeks 10-16, which led to a record number of teams. So we did some good things last year.

We also added a new online draft room that now allows you to set separate queues for every single round and draft on mobile devices much more easily. The new FAAB setup also is set up to save you time as you can now look for any free agent or player and find out if he's available or not in all of your leagues with one click. We still have some design changes to make with Live Scoring and other areas of the site, but we feel we are very close to where we want to be from a tech standpoint.

So what Rules changes could we agree to that would make the NFFC even better in 2019? Let me propose a few and see what you think:

Possible Rules Changes In 2019:
1. Thursday Night Players: The NFFC currently does not allow players in the Thursday Night Game to be cut or picked up during the Friday FAAB period. Our reasoning through the years is that it's not fair for a team to get a free look at a players' performance on Thursday and then decide to cut him on Friday in order to pick up another player who could actually start for them on Sunday. It would be like expanding that roster from 20 to 21 or more players for that week. Now, we aren't married to this reasoning and can be convinced otherwise, but I'd like to see discussion on the Thursday Night Game players and whether they should be allowed to be cut during Friday's FAAB period. Begin.

2. Online Championship Seeks Expansion: This one is a little more drastic, so let's discuss. In the NFFC Primetime, we pay the Top 3 finishers and allow the Top 3 finishers to reach the Championship Round. In the Rotowire Online Championship we pay the Top 2 finishers and allow the Top 2 finishers to reach the Championship Round. We have 563 Online Championship teams in the Championship Round right now, which is a lot. But my idea is to add ONE MORE team from each league into the Championship Round, without paying that team a league prize. So in other words, we would put 3 teams from each league into the Championship Round while still paying $1500 and $700 in each league, thus giving that third place team a chance to still win the big grand prize. We think that's a fair tradeoff as many third place teams are so very close to earning that Championship Round spot anyways, and with the new grand prize, having a 1 in 4 shot at the Championship Round really makes this contest more appealing. Thoughts?

3. Team Kicker for NFFC Draft Champions Leagues?: We debated this one at length last year for the Draft Champions leagues and there was no strong consensus to change this. But I'll put it here for discussion anyway. If we do allow Team Kicker JUST FOR DC LEAGUES, it would be safer for owners who draft earlier before teams cut individual kickers or before there are injuries to individual kickers. It also might allow us to reduce DC drafts by a round or two because owners feel safer about backing up Kickers with 1 or 2 backup Team Kickers rather than back up their first kicker with 3-4 "names of kickers". This would be a drastic change for the DCs, but let's see if anyone has changed their mind in the past year.

4. Could Someone From Consolation Round Reach The Championship Round?: This is extremely drastic and even Tom and Darik weren't sure about this one. But here it is: In the Cutline Championship, teams in the Wild Card Tier always have a shot at making it back into the Championship Round. It's not easy, but the hope is there. What would you think of allowing JUST ONE TEAM from the Consolation Round in Week 14 and then again in Week 15 to jump back into the Championship Round from the Consolation Round? It would be the highest scoring Consolation Round team for those two weeks in the NFFC Classic, NFFC Primetime and Rotowire Online Championship. It's drastic, but again it gives everyone hope to still win those great overall grand prizes and gives reason for every single team to NEVER give up during the regular season. It's also just TWO extra teams moving to the Championship Round. You never know what can happen in Weeks 14 and 15. We always want to figure out how we can keep owners trying every single week and this year we added Weekly Prizes to the three contests, so maybe this is just one added incentive to dangle out there for everyone. Thoughts?

Anything else? Let's hear from you.

Thanks all and Happy New Year!! Let's make 2019 the best it can be, starting with the NFFC Post-Season Contest that this year has a record $125,000 grand prize. Enjoy!!

I'd vote NO to cutting players after thursday nite.

I'd like to see defense scoring system expanded in some way like the other poster mentioned...

I think if QBs gonna remain at 6 points per passing TD, INTs should be increased to -3...it's pretty ridiculous when a QB throws like 3+ INTs but still manages to finish as a QB1 because of garbage yardage and TDs. Could also increase fumbles to -2 to even it out for the running QBs like Lamar Jackson.

I'd REALLY like to see RB go back to 1/2 PPR as it was initially years ago. Workhorse RBs like Derrick Henry should not be at such a disadvantage if they don't score TDs because a third down RB type can easily be had in later rounds to automatically have a much higher floor. A rb who loses yards on a catch should not be rewarded so greatly. Can't say this scoring is archaic or hard for the mainstream to grasp either as fanduel has had 1/2 point PPR since their inception.

[COZ]

Possible Rules Changes In 2019:

1. Thursday Night Players: I'd like to see more discussion on this, but right now I lean towards allowing Thursday night players on your bench to be dropped. Whatever minimal advantage may be gained by a "free look," is outweighed by the fact that this is a BENCHED player who must then be held for another full week to reap any benefit. Furthermore, with all the injuries & byes, this advantage is further outweighed by the roster flexibility this provides for late breaking injuries to your roster. The fact is most starting line-up decisions are likely made on Sunday and locking a benched Thursday player can really hamstring a team, thereby having the opposite effect of restricting the number of roster spots available to a team. The more roster flexibility the better.

2. Online Championship Seeks Expansion: No opinion as I don't play the OLC contest.

3. Team Kicker for NFFC Draft Champions Leagues?: YES! YES! YES to Team Kicker for DC's. Absolutely NO to shortening the rounds for the DC. There are too many injuries and 35 rounds is an absolute necessity. Please do not reduce the rounds.

4. Could Someone From Consolation Round Reach The Championship Round?: No Opinion as I don't play the Cutline contest.

[BigBlueNation]

I'll comment on the "Team Kicker" point.

I'M AGAINST IT

This concept is good for those that wait on drafting kickers and run the chance of putting up a zero for that scoring spot at sometime during the season. I've always been one to take them early and leave the draft with three. I don't believe in changing the rules to accommodate those that refuse to protect a position. I think I agree with Wayne to devalue Kickers a little. Let's say all FGs are 3 Pts., but anything 50yds and more are 4 Pts.

If the Team Kicker concept is an option, we might as well throw it in with the D/ST, and really simplify it.

[King of Queens]

RE: Online Championship

At first glance, it seems like only 1-in-6 (16.7%) teams make the championship round. However, looking at the numbers, 563 teams made the championship round out of 2,760 total. That's a little more than 1-in-5 teams (20.4%). This is due to the following two rules:

"The 2 league prize winners automatically qualify for the overall championship round. A 3rd league qualifier only if H2H league champion had fewer points than this team. Teams will carry their weekly scoring average from the first 13 weeks of competition (i.e. 130.15 points) into the playoffs and then add their point totals from Weeks 14, 15 and 16 to that initial total to determine the overall champion."

and

"Any team outside of the top two in each league that finishes in the top 15 percent of the total number of teams (Top 360 if we finish with 2,400 total teams) also can earn a Wild Card spot in the Championship Round if they didn’t earn a spot through their league finish. In that scenario, the top 360 teams in Total Points after Week 13 are guaranteed a spot in the Championship Round."

I have no idea how many of the 103 "additional" championship rounds came via one or both of the above rules. However, of the 230 leagues, 103 teams that were not H2H or points champs moved on. If you had a good team in 2018, there's a significant chance that you made the championship round.

What is the goal here? To have 25% of all teams make the championship round? In a contest this large, I'm not sure that makes sense.

I think you need to market that roughly 20% of all teams have a shot of playing in Weeks 14-16 for six figures. Take a look at 2017 and 2016 to see if these figures hold. To me, it's a much better message than "2 out of 12, plus see fine print for details on how it's really much better odds than that"

[Sabretooth]

I have a suggestion...What about a single entry main event separate from the Classic and primetime? Maybe something like a $1500 entry and the ability to compete for a big $75,000 prize for example. Obviously the league payouts would have to be a lot smaller than the the classic and primetime since I imagine the contest its self would be smaller. But it would give players a chance to compete for big money prize in a SINGLE entry tournament.

[packman527]

1. Thursday Night Players
I agree with Greg's logic on this one. If the player is bad enough to be benched and potentially dropped on Friday, why is he not just dropped on Wednesday? The most logical reason is because you want to get one more look at them in the TNF game before deciding to drop them, and I don't agree with that. I do think, however, that it should be allowed to not have a "legal" lineup going into that TNF game so that if you only have 1 TE, K or D/St, and you don't want to drop them, but don't want to use them, that you can bench them and leave the spot open and give yourself until the Friday FAAB period to let the injury news play out and fill the required position on Friday. If you choose to carry only 1 TE, K or D/St you should not be forced to drop them on Wednesday or use them on Thursday!

2. Online Championship Seeks Expansion
I don't think I would be in favor of this expansion. I totally agree with what King of Queens posted a couple posts earlier. There are enough teams making the playoffs as a Wild Card or a 3rd team by being the 2nd high league scorer or being top 15% overall. Having to beat out over 500 teams is hard enough. If you aren't looking to throw some money at this 3rd place team (like you do in the Primetime), then I think enough of the good teams that didn't finish 1st or 2nd in their league are making it through with the Wild Card team rules (which I was definitely in favor of a few years ago when you added that the 2nd highest scoring league team made playoffs, even if they didn't finish 1st or 2nd or win any money).

3. Team Kicker in DC
I don't do enough DCs to really care, but my gut reaction would be 'No'

4. Could someone from Consolation Round reach Championship Round
I definitely DO NOT like this idea! By necessity, because that team put up a massive score to move up, they are automatically going to be one of the top scoring teams going forward in the Championship Round. ABSOLUTELY NO WAY. In the cutline, when you put up a massive score to move up, the next week that score gets lumped back into the playoff average; that full score isn't being used, so that massive score only has a limited effect going forward. But in the Classic, Primetime and OC, that massive score would constitute 25% of the total playoff score (and really would have more weight than that because while the regular season scoring average constitutes 25% of the playoff score, it is an average, and doesn't have the same weight and scoring disparity that a one week score does). I am totally opposed to having a consolation team move up in the Classic, Primetime and OC formats.

Other ideas:
1. Defensive Scoring
As a couple people already mentioned, I would also be in favor of bumping the defensive scoring in some way. Maybe implementing a yardage allowed element. I kind of like the points allowed ranges as is, though. Giving up more than 17 points doesn't seem like it should be rewarded with anything. But having yardage allowed ranges could boost the scoring and would be directly associated to the strength of the actual defense. Another issue related to defensive scoring would be not having opposing defensive TD's count against the defense. I know DraftKings and ESPN have implemented this. The extra point (or 2-pt conversion) still counts against the defense, but the 6 points allowed by the pick-6 or fumble-6 would not count. I think that would be a big upgrade. These are the rules from DraftKings:
Points Allowed (PA) only includes points surrendered while DST is on the field - doesn't include points given up by team's offense (e.g. points off offensive turnovers).
I would definitely be in favor of implementing this rule.

2. Starting Roster Flexibility
Would you ever consider going to 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE and 2 Flex, exchanging the 3rd WR slot for a 2nd flex slot? This would give the ability to start 4 RBs and 2 WRs if needed. I'm pretty sure another national contest does this (not sure which one because I only play NFFC, but I know I've heard that one does). Just a thought. Flexibility is good. I know I had a few teams late in the year where I definitely would have been playing 4 RBs and 2 WRs given the chance. Not a deal breaker for me either way, just an idea.

[Don Draper]

1. Thursday Night Players: I don’t care either way.

2. Online Championship Seeks Expansion: Agree with KoQ reasoning. Do not add additional teams to champion round. It’s close to a lottery situation as it is.

3. Team Kicker for NFFC Draft Champions Leagues? Keep individual kickers. What’s next team QB? Also, keep DC leagues at 35 rounds no matter what is decided with kickers. Too many injuries throughout the year.

4. Could Someone From Consolation Round Reach The Championship Round? Please don’t move forward with this. That would be a slap in the face to owners who rightly deserve to be in the championship round.

Ideas 2, 3 and 4 would “water down” the NFFC and making it easier for less qualified owners to win prize money.

PS - Someone else posted about this, but having a dual flex might be something to consider.