Wednesday/Friday Waivers

[Coltsfan]

Greg,

I didn't intend this post as a shot at you or the NFFC. It's the exact same problem elsewhere. There is just very little time to do wavier wire work and since we really have very little idea as to who is playing this coming week we are just making guesses. At least on Friday it becomes a bit more clear.

I"m not asking for anything now but maybe others will feel the same way and ask for a change after this year. This whole situation may not affect guys doing just one league as their players may all be healthy. But on leagues where I do have several injuries I'm at a loss on what to do since I have no idea who will be out. The example is my Prime Time. I have Bradshaw, Forte, Maclin, and Garcon. It's a muddy situation at best on most of these guys. At least on Friday we know if they practiced or not. Everything right now is just rhetoric.

One suggestion for next year would be to update the player stats in real time. I know that the waiver wires are open earlier which is nice but it would be nice to have the updated scoring there so we don't have to go searching for guys who may have done little to nothing the first couple of weeks and then had a big game on Sunday. It takes a day or two for the scores to update so we have to go hunting for guys way down the list or else alphabetize the names and then scroll down.


Wayne

[RedRyder]

Greg,

I didn't intend this post as a shot at you or the NFFC. It's the exact same problem elsewhere. There is just very little time to do wavier wire work and since we really have very little idea as to who is playing this coming week we are just making guesses. At least on Friday it becomes a bit more clear.

I"m not asking for anything now but maybe others will feel the same way and ask for a change after this year. This whole situation may not affect guys doing just one league as their players may all be healthy. But on leagues where I do have several injuries I'm at a loss on what to do since I have no idea who will be out. The example is my Prime Time. I have Bradshaw, Forte, Maclin, and Garcon. It's a muddy situation at best on most of these guys. At least on Friday we know if they practiced or not. Everything right now is just rhetoric.

One suggestion for next year would be to update the player stats in real time. I know that the waiver wires are open earlier which is nice but it would be nice to have the updated scoring there so we don't have to go searching for guys who may have done little to nothing the first couple of weeks and then had a big game on Sunday. It takes a day or two for the scores to update so we have to go hunting for guys way down the list or else alphabetize the names and then scroll down.


Wayne

I was one of the folks that felt VERY strong about having waivers on WED & FRI...not anymore! I'm with you Wayne, it's too much! I even cut my leagues down this year and it is still too much. I'll be doing more DEs and weekly salary cap games next year

[BONGIZMO]

Was against Wednesday waivers originally and still feel the same way. With my real life job, the mid week waiver is a nuisance. As I have lost RB after RB on multiple teams, I'm forced to bid high on players to try and protect myself versus it being due to true need. There is little info on most owies by the first FA run so you are just paying and praying imo. Much like Jules and Wayne said, it could well mean scaling back my managed teams going forward which I really don't want to do.

Scott

[bald is beautiful]

I'm in three NFFC leagues this leagues, so I figure that allows me to express my opinion in no more than three short paragraphs. First, I recognize NFFC addressed this situation by giving the players with dual waiver periods. That was player friendly to choose what the players apparently wanted. It is irrelevant what other game operators are doing. NFFC made its decision independent of other contests, as it should do.

Second, this really isn't a NFFC problem. It is an NFL problem because of the greedy owners and these Thursday games, who forced this problem on us. As long as the dual setup applies across the board (which of course it does), then it is what it is and I have to deal with it.

Nonetheless, I despise the dual waiver setup. Most important to me, this setup forces me to take an inordinate amount of valuable time away from my workday on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I am forced to stay as current as possible with minor news pieces because I do not know injury status of key players. We are all prognosticators on the performance of players in this game, but now we are even more so, being forced to guess about the status of players and whether player X is worth a sizable bid when he may not even see the field on Sunday. Some fantasy players may like that strategy element - I don't.

[particra]

I also think that an unintended consequence of the dual waivers is going to be complete apathy towards the Weds. FAAB for teams that are out of it by Week 9.

[Shrink Attack]

I tend to share these concerns. I cut my number of NFFC teams to three this year because I knew the early part of the week would be very tough. That has proven to be true. I won't bore you with details, but Mondays and Tuesdays are extremely busy for me and I often get home late from work on both days. In fact, the limited amount of time I have to work on waivers over two days has been stressful and lessened my enjoyment of this hobby.

However, I do see the need to have early waivers due to the Thursday night game. The solution seems obvious to me: Have the Wednesday Waivers be only for the two teams playing Thursday.

I know this was an option in the preseason survey, but none of us had experience with this set-up in the past and the idea seemed out of sync. I commend the NFFC for taking the lead and putting into effect the system that most customers voted for. Now that we've experienced the negative effects of full waivers so early in the week, this seems like a good solution. I know that all Free Agent decisions have to be made in the context of every team in the league, but having to worry only about picking up players from two teams wouldn't be nearly as crushing as what we're experiencing now. Then by Friday, we've all had more time to process information and see a full week of practice reports.

I hope next year this change is strongly considered. I'm not sure I would enjoy playing Fantasy Football again having to do these early waivers next year.

[BillyWaz]

Knowing that my work schedule would be a little more manageable than in the past was a factor in me keeping so many teams. I totally agree with everyone that it is extremely time consuming early in the week, and like Wayne said, it would be great to have the players totals updated Monday morning.

That being said there are TWO major areas that would speed things up tremendously in my opinion (well one more than the other)...

1) The bidding system is really flawed in the fact that you can't just eliminate your top bid and not eliminate your backups bids. What I find happening is that (for example....and using obvious players) I put in a bid on Drew Brees and backup bids on Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers on Monday night during the game. Well on Wednesday, I see that Robert Griffin is now available and I would rather have him than Drew Brees. Well in order to keep the same sequence with RGIII as my top bid, I have to delete EVERYTHING and start over again. While that might not sound like a big deal, it can be extremely time consuming.

2) This is far less important, but when searching for a free agent, why is there no longer a "place bid" button on the page?? For example, if I find that RB Arian Foster is available in my league through the search, I now have to hit the back button (which kicks me back to the QB's) and find this player. Sure, I can do it by player, but if he hasn't played it has to be done alphabetically. Since there are usually 5 pages per position, I have to guess whether the "F's" (for Foster) are on page 2 or 3? I knew in years past the place bid button was on the page......would be nice to have it back.

Bottom line is if you take the number of people who are in this contest (not number of entries), you would obviously fall way short on numbers. With these Thursday games not going away, it should be PRIORITY #1 for a contest to make this process as EASY AS POSSIBLE. Otherwise, people will take fewer and fewer teams, which obviously leads to less numbers for a contest.

[Coltsfan]

Good post Billy - I agree completely!


Wayne

[King of Queens]

Worth a read:

http://nffcforums.stats.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4020

[King of Queens]

1) The bidding system is really flawed in the fact that you can't just eliminate your top bid and not eliminate your backups bids. What I find happening is that (for example....and using obvious players) I put in a bid on Drew Brees and backup bids on Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers on Monday night during the game. Well on Wednesday, I see that Robert Griffin is now available and I would rather have him than Drew Brees. Well in order to keep the same sequence with RGIII as my top bid, I have to delete EVERYTHING and start over again. While that might not sound like a big deal, it can be extremely time consuming.

Not that hard, Billy. Use the "Edit Add" feature to replace Brees with RGIII. Then add Brees as a Conditional Bid and move him up between RGIII and Brady.