Leave the NFFC AS IS

HOLLYWOODJAMES · Post by **HOLLYWOODJAMES** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 2:08 am

It appears that as we near the end of the regular season that the number of whiners and crybabies is increasing because their teams are out of contention for the big prize.

Well too bad...so sad.

I myself have led my OC league all the way from week one and now, this final week, I'm in jeopardy of missing the playoffs because injuries have hit my studs. It sucks and it's disappointing if I have to play for the consolation prize after leading all the way, but that's the way it goes. I don't control injuries, but I do control my draft and my free agent acquisitions.

I'm glad that some people bought multiple teams, thus increasing the prize pool, but your idea that having more teams in the competition increases your chances of winning the top prize seems to have failed and now you're all crying about it, looking for expansion of the number of teams advancing to the playoffs.

This ain't a lottery ticket. This isn't about luck. You think you're going to put together a core of players, switching a couple here and there, and presto, you're going to win the whole thing.

How about this...how about you do your homework and do your due diligence in order to put together a championship team.

I think some people think they don't have to do any work, they just pick players and then end up dumbfounded because their team sucks...gee...did you study anything?

Draft better...and pay attention to what's happening over the course of the season so you can make educated decisions. You have to EARN the championship by doing some work.

All the whiners and crybabies out there need to look in the mirror and reevaluate the decisions you made over the course of the season and figure out why your team wasn't good enough, make corrections, and do things differently next year.

Yeah, it sucks to lose, but there's no reason to to revamp the NFFC because your fantasy football skills are deficient.

Sandman62 · Post by **Sandman62** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 4:03 am

Wow, that's a pretty bold post - assuming that anyone looking to add a team or two to the playoffs is a whining crybaby who lacks fantasy football skills. :rolleyes:

Injuries play a major part in success every year. Do without your top player or two for a month or two and your team is pretty much done when just 2 of 12 teams make the playoffs. And insinuating that it's easy to just replace that kind of production off the wire is a stretch too. Heck, even the teams who landed Cruz or Robinson this year probably also whiffed on another 5-10 WRs they acquired throughout the year; so yeah, I'm suggesting that it takes a lot of luck to hit off the wire too.

Here's just one example:

In one of our 3 Onlines, we are currently 3rd in points. There are 3 -8-4 and 3- 7-5 teams. The 1st and 2nd place scorers (both 8-4) are 143 and 105 points ahead of us (we're 7-5). We are 18 and 27 points ahead of the 4th and 5th place teams. Clearly, the top 2 teams have been better than the rest of us.

Yes, we knew going in that only 2 teams make the playoffs in 12-team formats. But with all the talk every year about deadbeat owners and keeping interest, it shouldn't be hard to understand why. I'd be in favor of seeing a 3rd and maybe even 4th team make the playoffs. But with so much of the entry fees going towards the national (lottery) playoff prizes, there apparently isn't room to let more than 2 teams in. So I'm in favor of the ongoing discussion about ways to balance this out.

My point is that there is often a lot more forces at work than just a bunch of whining incompetent crybabies. You might want to step down off your high horse a bit? :rolleyes:

joetreff · Post by **joetreff** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 4:18 am

First reply is a team in 3rd place wanting to restructure the format so that they would make the playoffs.

Good call Hollywood.

Sandman62 · Post by **Sandman62** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 4:34 am

I'm not sure how long the original poster has been here but I'm guessing first year. Hang around 4 or 5 years and not make the playoffs most years (but be close) and then maybe you'll have the experience to understand. And btw, two years ago we did win both our Classic and Primetime leagues. So I don't really think our lack of repeating is simply whining or incompetence, as is being suggested. We all know how competitive these leagues are and only letting 2 of 12 teams into the playoffs is a tough pill to swallow a couple/few years in a row.

The discussion taking place to consider adding more playoff teams is fueled by some very experienced and succesful players. If I'm not mistaken, KJ Duke won both of his main events two years ago also.
Feel free to report back in a few years.

[ December 04, 2011, 10:40 AM: Message edited by: Sandman62 ]

Glenneration X · Post by **Glenneration X** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 4:52 am

There have been many different opinions expressed on this topic. They've run the gamut from keeping the status quo to radically changing the playoff format to include more teams than any contest I can remember. We all have our preferences. Just because they differ doesn't make the others without merit or due to whining over the current state of our teams.

I agree that the NFFC's format does the best job at rewarding the best "seasons". I use the word seasons because way too many amongst us correlate a good season to a good player. There are many factors in this game that affect a season besides the skill of the player drafting & managing that team. H2H matchups, injuries, etc. all play a role in how we finish, none of which have anything to do with the skill of the team owner. Still and as stated earlier, the NFFC does reward the best seasons.

The problem is that even though the NFFC does the best job at rewarding the best seasons, they do a much worse job at allowing a team to recover from the factors I mentioned above, factors that again have nothing to do with the skill of the player. The NFFC playoffs are too exclusionary. Yes, for the two, three, four best "seasons" per league, it allows them a better chance at a just reward. However for the vast majority of the other teams, their seasons are over well too early. It can not be fun for teams to invest $1400 only to have no chance after only a few weeks of action. Life, yes. Fair, maybe. Fun, no. And I'm sorry, but lack of fun is bad business.

I'll use one of my teams as an example. My NYC Primetime team lost Jamaal Charles for the season week 2 and Kenny Britt for the season week 3. That team also lost Peyton Hillis, Jacoby Ford, & Aaron Hernandez for significant stretches of the early season. For all intents & purposes, with only 2 teams per league making the playoffs in the Primetime format, that team was dead in the water by the end of week 3. Fair, again maybe. Life, absolutely. Fun, not a chance. If there was an opportunity that if I could fix the team, there was a semi-realistic chance of making some sort of playoff, at least the season would be fun. There should be some recourse to fix a team with early season troubles and have a potential reward at the end. Tough breaks is tough to swallow after a 4-figure investment.

Now I never gave up on that team and today stand 83 points outside of the 2nd playoff spot and am hopeful of an historic week to get me in. Still, not realistic, never was that I'd recover. Never really was a fun team after Charles & Britt went down. That's the problem. No team should ever be out week 3 in any format. It's not fun, it's not good for business, it can't be good for the growth of this contest.

I'll be back no matter what. I'm addicted and I understand those are the breaks of the game. However, not everyone does. I think if this contest is going to grow, it's going to have to make it easier for all teams to continue feeling it has a chance and having fun through at least a good portion of the season. Not everyone deserves to make the playoffs. However, everyone does deserve to have the fun continue a bit longer than it often does after such a large investment. The fantasy football season is well too short as it is.

I think this is a tough decision for Greg, Tom, and STATS, much tougher than many make it out to be. Does the NFFC continue being a tight contest where only the best of the best play to determine who is the best that season. Or does it try to obtain and retain new and more casual players with discretionary income to help the contest grow to greater heights.

I'm cool with either direction, I just don't think it's as cut and dry as some make it out.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 5:09 am

I think the post to Leave the NFFC As Is is very worthy and I don't think anyone should take personal shots at the poster or guess whether he's a first-year player or not. EVERY opinion is welcome and I am getting tired of folks taking shots at posters who aren't NFFC veterans. EVERY opinion counts.

I don't think this will be that tough a call for me and Tom. Our goal is still to reward the best teams with the most money, while also keeping as many teams fighting as long as possible. I can't just create prizes to keep the 10th team fighting 'til the end; everyone should be man or woman enough to have enough pride to do that. But I think we can improve the system, just like we did with the Classic when we added a third team there making the Championship Round. Remember, only two teams made the Championship Round in the Classic the first 6 years; now three teams from each league make it and Wild Cards increased from the top 10% to top 15%.

Change is never easy. But this post is as relevant to me as the posts that asked for changes. I just don't think it's that tough to tweak our contest so that we make it better and more appealing for folks who want to play for big, big prizes next year. We'll get it done thanks to all the input from you folks.

Glenneration X · Post by **Glenneration X** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 5:19 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:
I think the post to Leave the NFFC As Is is very worthy and I don't think anyone should take personal shots at the poster or guess whether he's a first-year player or not. EVERY opinion is welcome and I am getting tired of folks taking shots at posters who aren't NFFC veterans. EVERY opinion counts.
Agreed that every opinion should be welcome. However I believe a poster personally welcomes "shots" as you put it when his opening line indicates all that take an opposing view to his argument is either a "whiner" or "crybaby". Shots come from both directions, well too often in my opinion from what appears to be both sides of almost every argument here.

Again, I don't believe this to be a cut and dry decision and many of the opinions and ideas I've read have merit, even those that insisted on being inflammatory in their tone, such as that of the original poster here.

I'm personally done with this argument today and am off to put up some Christmas lights followed by just sitting back and hoping for that historic gameday I need for my Primetime team.
A few other of my teams could use a good day as well.

Good luck to everyone else in their playoffs or playoff chases. Should be fun today.

Sandman62 · Post by **Sandman62** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 5:21 am

Are you kidding me Greg?!

The original post was a complete insult to any player who would like to see one or two more teams make the playoffs. "Whiners... crybabies... deficient"???

Hey, I realize you're trying to grow your business by bringing in new players, but please don't tell me not to question whether they've been on the wrong side of the coin enough to make such harsh judgments, while allowing them to make ridiculous and insulting assumptions about WHY some people are suggesting improvements. Unreal! :rolleyes:

[ December 04, 2011, 11:22 AM: Message edited by: Sandman62 ]

kjduke · Post by **kjduke** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 5:24 am

If he thinks me recommending changes makes me a crybaby with a bunch of out of contention teams, whoever this guy is a first class idiot. Ditto for the many others who have weighed in on the issue of improving the game.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 5:27 am

Originally posted by Sandman62:
Are you kidding me Greg?!

The original post was a complete insult to any player who would like to see one or two more teams make the playoffs. "Whiners... crybabies... deficient"???

Hey, I realize you're trying to grow your business by bringing in new players, but please don't tell me not to question whether they've been on the wrong side of the coin enough to make such harsh judgments, while allowing them to make ridiculous and insulting assumptions about WHY some people are suggesting improvements. Unreal! :rolleyes: No I'm not kidding Mike. Whether he's a first-year member or long-term member, question his use of whiners and crybabies rather than whether he's been part of the gang long enough or not. That's not hard to understand.