Not that anyone asked me, but...

richieprimo · Post by **richieprimo** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 2:21 pm

Am I in the minority by thinking that the option of allowing the use of a single RB lineup in a 14 team league would make this league MUCH more competitive and eliminate some of the luck factor? I mean that with the current system you must either be forced to get buried from jump street with an early selection of a J.J. Arrington, Ronnie Brown etc., simply because the RB's get scooped up like a free buffet at a media gathering. If fantasy football wants to emulate the NFL, take a look at most teams lining up and you'll see 3 and 4 WR sets more than half of the time. And yadda-yadda-yadda injuries happen to every owner, but what happens to the poor sap if L.T. or Alexander go down early for the year? Most of the leagues that I'm in allow the option of a "run and shoot" offense, and most of them are 12 team leagues. I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this as I know that you guys are the hard-core players of fantasy sports. I simply think that the best player available should be drafted in the sequence that you have them ranked. Let's hear your pros and cons on it and, most importantly, I would love to hear what Greg and Tom think about this. I imagine you can guess my feelings on this.

King of Queens · Post by **King of Queens** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 2:35 pm

Richie, good to see you're still alive! I suppose business has been, well, BUSY. Your partner Tom and I are locked in a death match over in New York League 2 -- I'm sure he's keeping you up to date. More than one team is going to get screwed in this league, that's for sure.

As for your Run 'n Shoot idea, it was definitely proposed last year. I'll try to dig up the message board response that Greg/Tom had, but whoever proposed it (JerseyPaul?) mentioned the exact same things you did. If I remember correctly, several people shot this down last year based on purism and tradition ("you HAVE to have 2 running backs").

As for me, I'm all for anything that increases strategy implementation, and this would certainly achieve that. Worth a discussion, if nothing else...

TamuScarecrow · Post by **TamuScarecrow** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 3:43 pm

Richie, I like Al, your alter ego, as he doesn't give me as much of hard time on my politics as you do. As for the subject of this thread, I am all for it as I feel it would improve the game and certainly ease the bye week decisions and ultimately improve the competition.

richieprimo · Post by **richieprimo** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 3:51 pm

King...great to be back. The MB is sometimes an afterthought when one starts the season ONE and Four with 2 of the losses by single-digits. I kind of knew early on that my team wasn't headed for NFFC greatness. Watch out for my man Tommy. He's a sneaky-good fantasy player, but the two of you are both serious contenders. Nice to hear from you again and good luck - as long as it's not at the expense of Team Rossi (lol). I'm going to seriously lobby for the new format, and if the "purist" element disagree, that is their right. As long as they voice it with a rationale other than "you HAVE to have 2 RB"s" or it doesn't work. Greg and/or Tom should have a better reasoning behind it all. Hopefully these players will get behind it, or at least give a good reason why not.

richieprimo · Post by **richieprimo** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 4:04 pm

Originally posted by TamuScarecrow:
Richie, I like Al, your alter ego, as he doesn't give me as much of hard time on my politics as you do. As for the subject of this thread, I am all for it as I feel it would improve the game and certainly ease the bye week decisions and ultimately improve the competition. Rick - From Al AND Richie, thanks for putting it in perspective. Now if we can only get a majority of the league "staples" to agree and speak up, maybe Greg and Tom will give it consideration. Here's hoping that this thread grows into as many pages as the Gekko/Nag pissing contest. Also, to prove that I'm not above some old-fashioned South Philly bribery, with the right decision on this matter, Primo Hoagies could be the spread in NYC next September.

And you seem to have forgotten that Al and Richie BOTH agree with your political views.

JerseyPaul · Post by **JerseyPaul** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 4:50 pm

Discussed at length last year. For amusement value you can look here:

http://nffcboards.stats.com/cgi-bin/ult ... 000090;p=2

[ November 05, 2005, 10:50 PM: Message edited by: JerseyPaul ]

David Wooderson · Post by **David Wooderson** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 5:13 pm

With all due respect, I dont know how this increases strategy. If anything, it decreases strategy.

This idea is almost as ridiculous as the guy who wanted to be able to use bye week players average points for weeks in which they had their bye.

The NFFC is just fine. It doesnt need mass overhauls like many suggest. The players you pick count people, its not the freaking system or what draft slot you picked from!!! If you picked JJ Arrington, then you should have picked someone else. I mean that wasnt a tough one to figure out. Halfway through training camp he was already taking a beating because he was so small, combined with their terrible O-Line, and the fact that Dennis Green was praising Marcell Shipp during August should have been signals. That was all public knowledge if you looked hard enough.

Everyone wants to dummy down the game so they can make it easier. Hell, why dont we just all pick our favorite player each week. People pick a bad team and all of the sudden, we should change the rules. Its not the rules fault if someone projected some player to be a star and he turns out to be a bust.

And since you asked for a reason why there should be a required 2 RBs, and not just some gay stock answer like "its tradition" or you just "have to have it", here is why I think you should require 2 RBs.

There are 32 NFL teams, so you can start with the assumption that each NFL team has 1 RB. Now there are some teams that use a couple backs that are worth palying (Kansas City) and then there are some teams who's backs arent worth using, so you are looking at around 32 backs that are in play, give or take a few.

With 14 team leagues, you assume that every team tries to get 2 backs, meaning 28 of the 32 starters are gone, which is a number that fits the amount of teams in the NFL, hence the requirement of 2 RBs.

So while yes, it is a mad dash and RB's do fly off the board, it is very strategic on which 2 you actually DRAFT, and that is a big part of the challenge of this game. For example, you could have probably taken Wille Parker over Arrington, or if you picked a WR or QB in the 2nd round, maybe you could have gotten a better 2nd RB by selecting one in the 2nd round instead of that WR or QB, or on the flipside maybe you went with 2 solid WRs 1-2 because you knew you could come back in 3-4 with a formidable RB duo such as a S Davis- M Moore combo. You've got a lot of diffucult decisions to make not only on your team's format, but also on evaluating players, whoch once again is the most important thing. That is part of the challenge of this game and why there are 2 RBs required in this format.

And as good as someone might be at evaluating players or making their projections, there is still luck involved. It's not like the guys who drafted Deuce McCallister are idiots and lesser players than ones who drafted Monty Jordan. It was terrible luck that he got hurt, and that happens unfortunately, but that's a part of the contest. It shouldnt be, oh well Deuce just snapped his ACL but its all good, Ive got Steven Jackson and Tiki Barber on my team too and I only need to start 1 RB.

Now if you require 1 RB, immediately teams who take LT, Alexander, Edge, etc... arent going to bother drafting another back until later on, because they only need him for insurance or for 1 bye week. So those teams can start mainlining the top WRs or the top shelf TEs and QBs up their noses for the next 3 rounds, in which the message board would be filled with threads of "All the tight ends and WRs are going early, Greg, I think we should count TE points double", which would then turn into, "Greg, this isnt fair, I think we should pick individual offensive lines and make them more valuable than the running backs themselves"....which would then turn into "Greg, I think we need to start an Arena player at flex".

Rquiring only 1 RB would also allow people who miscalculate on their player evaluations to get off the hook by being able to acquire another back a lot easier. That's the exact opposite of strategic, that's letting people who don't do their homework as much or make the right decisions on players back into the game.

And in addition, head to head is how you win your league since there isnt a league championship game, so thats kind of important. Did you ever think that some teams take 3 RBs early so they can always have 2 starting backs during their bye weeks, thus giving them a better chance in their head to head games. That just might be a strategy that some teams use because of 2 running backs being required.

All of these suggestions and rules changes all lean toward equalizing all 300 people by bailing them out on bad decisions they make. That's why the draft is such a big deal and there's a reason why it's important to prepare. Im sure the guy who won last year wasnt sitting in the draft in the 12th round complaining that its taking too long, or wanting to rush off to get another beer. Im not implying that anyone who posts new rules changes either does that, but I think it's fair to say that there is a large % of owners who do lose interest once you get into the 6th or 7th round. Why the hell should they be rewarded then? Suck it up and pick better players. I mean, the 5th-10th rounds are arguably the most important ones.

And as far as it being unrealistic because it's not like real football, that's why the word fantasy is attatched in front of it. Of course it's not like a real NFL lineup, nor should it be expected too.

People want to:
1) shorten roster sizes
2) allow bye week point averages to be used
3) decrease the number of "key position" players you need in your starting lineup

How about we add that teams losing get a 50 point head start each week while we are at it. None of these ideas make the game more strategic or competitive, they make them easier and more of a crapshoot. Everyone on here talks of how this is the National Championship of Fantasy Football and the entry fee dictates that is the true test of a challenging contest, yet they want to make the game easier by changing the rules.

The way the game is now, lends to multiple strategies being effective and that is how it should be. There are some teams who build around their Rbs, while others do it around their WRs. Last year, a key component to some of the top teams was Tony Gonzalez. Just because you grab 2 RBs doesnt mean you are going to win.

There is also absolutely NO chance of the NFFC requiring 1 RB in the future. If that happens, I will dress up like Sam Cassell for next year's draft.

Route Collectors · Post by **Route Collectors** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 12:39 am

Richie
First of all I hope the family and business are all doing well. Every time you talk about those hoagies it makes me hungry - and I've never even tried one. Maybe Rick and I could talk you into packing some up and coming to Chicago next year.

Sorry but I have to agree with the previous post. David said it all pretty well for me. I also hate the RB frenzy but the point was made that there are enough for everyone to get 2 starters. Those who don't SHOULD hold an advantage with top wide outs or TE.

This contest is difficult. That's one of the things I like about it. Last year I did pretty well, this year, not so great. Tom has made the statement on a few occasions "it's who you pick".

I always hated that statement as it relates to draft slots but it is a true statement nonetheless. Here's another thought.... maybe adopting a different strategy that doesn't depend on RB scoring is an alternative way to approach the draft. Anyway, it's good to see you active on the MB again, I'm just on the other side of this idea.

Jeff

King of Queens · Post by **King of Queens** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 1:34 am

As usual, David, nice post. I especially liked the part about how people will always find a reason to complain -- very true!

That said, I don't believe that Richie is trying to make this game easier with his RB/WR/WR/WR/WR/WR suggestion. The point was made to give more people options if bad luck should fall upon them. The way things are right now, if your top RB goes down, you're pretty much screwed. The logic in Richie's suggestion is that there are plenty of decent WR replacements on the FA wire, and teams can continue to compete after losing their RB1/RB2 to injury.

Having had the chance to think about this some more, I came up with this obvious realization: if your top ANYTHING goes down, you're probably not going to win. Yes, there is more positional scarcity at RB and (though decreasingly) TE than at QB and WR. To combat this, many owners take 3 RBs in the first 3 rounds. While these teams will often have a weak WR corps, they will almost always be covered at both RB spots and can even withstand an injury. On the flipside, mid-level WRs will usually score more than mid-level RBs, so teams that draft WRs early AND keep both of their top RBs healthy are going to do well in this format. Risk/reward clearly enters the equation on draft day.

The possiblity of a RB/WR/WR/WR/WR/WR lineup would certainly CHANGE the current strategy of many NFFC owners. I'm still not really certain where it would DECREASE strategy, but David's post also made me realize that it would probably not INCREASE it, either.

King of Queens · Post by **King of Queens** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 1:57 am

Originally posted by David Wooderson:
And since you asked for a reason why there should be a required 2 RBs, and not just some gay stock answer like "its tradition" or you just "have to have it", here is why I think you should require 2 RBs.

There are 32 NFL teams, so you can start with the assumption that each NFL team has 1 RB. Now there are some teams that use a couple backs that are worth palying (Kansas City) and then there are some teams who's backs arent worth using, so you are looking at around 32 backs that are in play, give or take a few.

With 14 team leagues, you assume that every team tries to get 2 backs, meaning 28 of the 32 starters are gone, which is a number that fits the amount of teams in the NFL, hence the requirement of 2 RBs.David, many leagues are requiring 2 QBs for exactly these reasons. Would you be in favor of such a change, or should we leave things alone out of tradition?