Analyzing NFFC Primetime Playoff Format

[Greg Ambrosius]

You know, I've never been afraid to make changes to our baseball and football games if I felt the changes made our games better. Through the last eight years, we've changed many aspects of our game, from the way we pay the league champion to adding league playoffs to adding KDS/Third Round Reversal to even adding Wild Cards to the Championship Rounds of both contests. If owners feel changes are necessary and they make sense for all of us, we'll make them.

That leads me to create this thread because I am intrigued about the discussion about the Primetime playoff format. Again, I feel our current setup of a 13-week regular season and rewarding the top 2 teams is the best way to go if our goal is to reward the best teams in each league. We pay down three spots and two of them are for the most points. We can talk all day long about "dead teams" and h2h matchups, but in our format if you score the most points you will always be rewarded and only 1 of 12 teams is rewarded for the h2h matchups. As I posted earlier this week, 22 of 30 Primetime h2h leaders after Week 11 are either first or second in their league in points, so few teams are leading thanks to fortunate matchups.

That being said, I think it's worth looking at all of the facts involving our game and see if our setup is better than the one that hundreds of players are familiar with. That setup was the old WCOFF setup where they played 11 week regular season games and then had four teams in league playoffs in Weeks 12 and 13. I'm not exactly sure how they did it, but I assume a 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3 met in Week 12 and the winners met in Week 13.

I assume the other eight teams were finished then after Week 11 and didn't compete again until the consolation round. I'm not a big fan of that, but we can discuss that later. Anyway, since the NFFC Primetime just finished Week 11, I went through all of the data to see if our format of rewarding the top teams after Week 13 was more or less fair than a h2h league playoff. Here are some of the facts:

** After Week 11, only 3 of 30 (10%) of Primetime league h2h titles were won. That means that 27 of 30 leagues are still fighting for the h2h title with 8 leagues having multiple teams tied for first and several leagues with 4 or more teams still in the h2h hunt. If the debate to have league playoffs is to keep more teams involved longer it seems futile, since eight teams are eliminated after Week 11 when the data shows that just as many teams if not more are still in the hunt for Primetime titles heading into Week 12.

** Of the three teams that have clinched the h2h title in the NFFC Primetime, all three also lead in total points and should win the $5,200 league prize for dominating the regular season. They lead the runnerup teams in their leagues by an average of 168.57 points. One team leads by 269.05 points and leads the fourth place team by 312 points. Would it be fair to have these teams still go h2h in the playoffs to prove they are the best teams or is this really helping the other playoff teams?

** Of the 15 teams that currently lead their Primetime leagues in h2h record and total points, they lead their leagues by an average of 90.85 points. They also lead the fourth place teams in those leagues by an average of 139.45 points. Again, these 15 teams (50% of all leagues) seem to have dominated most of the year, so the league playoffs would benefit the other teams more than the best teams.

** The No. 1 scoring teams in all 30 Primetime leagues score an average of 1,663.35 points per team.

The No. 2 seeds in all 30 leagues are averaging 1,596.38 points, or 66.97 points less than the No. 1 seeds.

The No. 3 seeds in all 30 leagues are averaging 1,558.21 points or 105.14 points less than the No. 1 seeds and 38.17 points less than the No. 2 seeds.

The No. 4 seeds in all 30 leagues are averaging 1,523.90 points or 139.45 points less than the No. 1 seeds, 72.48 points less than the No. 2 seeds and 34.31 points less than the No. 3 seeds.

Now granted, things can still change in Weeks 12 and 13 and things can either tighten or widen with two more weeks of competition. We'll analyze the data after Week 13 as well. But if the NFFC Primetime had ended after Week 11 and gone into h2h playoffs, it's possible that a lot of dominant teams still would dominate this week. But it's also possible that in one week their dominance would be eliminated because of one game. In 7 Primetime leagues, the No. 1 seed has already scored 200+ points than the No. 4 seed, so it's obvious a league playoff would benefit the lower seeds much more than the top seeds.

I'm not sure what all of the numbers tell us, but it provides some data for the debate either way. I'll look for some other facts and stay active on this thread, but feel free to list the pros and cons of each playoff format and we'll see where it leads us for the Primetime in 2012. Thanks all.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Just a real quick thought here: The first thing that the scoring data shows me is that our current system is very fair in determining the top two teams in each league. We don't overvalue h2h records and this isn't only a total points league. If you dominate in total points but have bad matchups, you can still win all $5,200 by winning the three-week league playoff. And if you got lucky in h2h matchups, you'll be rewarded $2,600 and then be exposed most likely in the three-week league playoff.

So honestly, the data shows me that for the most part the best teams in the NFFC Primetime are justly earning the most money. Adding a four-team league playoff format seems to favor the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds, don't they?

With that in mind -- and with a goal of trying to keep more teams active longer in each of the Primetime leagues -- maybe the best solution is to provide a league playoff format for the third place money. If we allowed more teams -- like the top 4 after the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds -- to compete for the third place money in Weeks 14-16 it might keep teams fighting longer during the regular season. And right now only 34.31 points seem to separate the third and fourth seeds among all 30 leagues, or an average of just 3.12 points per week. The spread of points isn't much more when you look at the 5th and 6th ranked teams in each league.

This isn't exactly the league playoff format WCOFF members are used to, but it's an option that keeps more teams fighting, keeps Weeks 14-16 more meaningful for half of the field, and still rewards the top teams in each league. I realize that some No. 3 and No. 4 seeds like that roll of the dice in Weeks 12 and 13, but what do the top seeds think? Aren't there just as many dominant Primetime teams who want to be rewarded for their season-long work or do they like the thrill of the one-game matchup too? I'd be interested to know.

Again, just an idea. It's one that I believe Bluefoot proposed previously and I didn't digest it until now, when I've looked at the numbers. Just food for thought.

[Greg Ambrosius]

The FFPC does have league playoffs, giving two playoff spots to h2h qualifiers and two playoff spots to total points. I know that Billy questioned why it's not 1 h2h qualifier and 3 total points qualifiers and he was told that it keeps more teams in the playoff hunt longer. I guess it could, but so could total points. Either way, with only an 11-week regular season I would think that like our data showed most leagues are still pretty tight at that time, no matter what the playoff qualifiers are.

I ran one FBG Online Championship team and while it's a small sample size, it showed that:

** Only 5 of 12 teams still had a shot at a h2h playoff spots entering Week 11.

** The second h2h qualifier finished 5th in points, knocking out the team that finished fourth in points, just 0.95 points behind the third seed. That team just missed out on two counts.

** My team won its last 5 games and would have loved two more weeks of action, but honestly it wouldn't have mattered. I was doomed when I took Peyton Manning at 6.1 and got no points from him. I finished 6-5 and was 100+ points behind the point qualifiers, a total I'll blame on Peyton and Mike Williams!!

** I enjoyed the league and I'm sure the four teams competing for league prizes are enjoying Weeks 12 and 13. I wish I was still playing, but for the most part the top teams are in. The system works both ways. I'll be interested to see if the top two scoring teams emerge victorious in the league playoffs or if the h2h matchups work in the favor of the lower scoring teams. I'm sure every league is different.

Tom is in one league playoff, so maybe he likes it better than me!! One of his teams finished second in points and he's in the No. 2 vs. No. 3 matchup. I'll have him analyze his league when he has time.

[Glenneration X]

I like your thought process a lot Greg. It keeps the real money in the hands of the truly deserving, but gives those who've had a tough start or a couple critical injuries the chance at some redemption.

I also like an idea someone had previously posted where there could be a playoff for teams that do well weeks 12 & 13 to qualify for the overall championship who wouldn't have qualified under the current setup.

Maybe you do some kind of combination. Your four-team playoff for 3rd place money and an overall contest where maybe you reward the 5 best teams that wouldn't have qualified otherwise with a wild card into the big hunt.

I haven't given any of this any real thought. Just saw your post and brainstorming here.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Originally posted by Glenneration X:
I like your thought process a lot Greg. It keeps the real money in the hands of the truly deserving, but gives those who've had a tough start or a couple critical injuries the chance at some redemption.

I also like an idea someone had previously posted where there could be a playoff for teams that do well weeks 12 & 13 to qualify for the overall championship who wouldn't have qualified under the current setup.

Maybe you do some kind of combination. Your four-team playoff for 3rd place money and an overall contest where maybe you reward the 5 best teams that wouldn't have qualified otherwise with a wild card into the big hunt.

I haven't given any of this any real thought. Just saw your post and brainstorming here. Actually, maybe we even expand the Wild Cards in the Primetime from the top 10% of overall teams to top 15%. That's somewhat less confusing and keeps teams trying those final weeks to post big numbers. Again, it's a way to reward season-long top point teams rather than just two-week "hot" teams. Just a thought.

[Sandman62]

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:
And right now only 34.31 points seem to separate the third and fourth seeds among all 30 leagues, or an average of just 3.12 points per week.This is an interesting idea Greg. And FWIW, it's even closer in more leagues than this average shows. Specifically, though the average difference between 3rd and 4th among all 30 leagues is 34.31, only 10 leagues have a difference greater than that; IOW, 20 of the 30 leagues have 3rd/4th separated by LESS than this average. The average is skewed by the 10 leagues whose differences are greater. The median difference is just 25 points.

Here are the differences between 3rd and 4th in all 30 leagues (ranked by difference):
MEDIAN: 25
AVERAGE: 34

89
83
82
77
74
69
59
56
49
40
30
30
30
27
25
24
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21
19
19
16
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12
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7
5
2
1

However, something else to keep in mind is that the same could be said for the differences between 2nd and 3rd. And teams who have earned 3rd place (under current rules) could feel just as entitled to their prize as those who have earned 2nd place by similar narrow margins.

Here are the differences between 2nd and 3rd:
MEDIAN: 28
AVERAGE: 38
113
99
80
79
71
68
66
63
61
52
45
41
32
30
30
26
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13
8
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3
2
1

I think you realize that no matter where you cut things off, there will likely always be some who wish it were extended another spot (to include THEM! ).

[ November 25, 2011, 05:30 PM: Message edited by: Sandman62 ]

[Coltsfan]

Here's something I've been thinking about.

Keep the top H2H and top points as automatic qualifiers. Keep the top 10 percent in points.

Have 3 divisions with each team playing every other team once during the 11 week season. The winners of each division along with the highest point team get in the playoffs for some type of additional playoff prize and a shot to get in the big dance the last 3 weeks.

This might give teams hope at winning a division and keep them interested well into the season. If they aren't the top scoring or best overall record, or top 10% in points, they still would have a chance of qualifying through the playoff system. I would fully expect that typically teams with the best overall record in the league or most points would win this but it gives hope to a lot of the other teams. But at the same time it doesn't totally penalize a top team by losing a single playoff game. It just gives a few more team some hope.

So best overall league record and most points win a prize (TBD) as they do now. Playoffs are for an additional prize and shot at the overall. Smaller divisions will keep it more competitive and instead of looking at the standings and saying I"m in 7th people will be looking at it and saying I"m in 2nd with a chance.

Just a thought but I think this would keep the integrity of what we have plus open things up a bit for more teams to compete.


Wayne

[Greg Ambrosius]

One of the things to keep in mind is that we're often accused about being too niche, so I don't want that to happen with the 12-team event. We need to keep this mainstream so that folks understand it clearly. Trust me, not everyone even reads the rules!! So it needs to be done and explained easily. "If I finish here, I get this much.....", right?

I think we're all on the same page and it's a good discussion, which is what I expected. We all want the most money to go to the best teams and to keep as many teams fighting for money finishes as possible, yet simply explainable!! That's the goal. And over a 13-week regular season so that we all get our money's worth. Now, how can we best accomplish that?

Nothing against any model out there, I'm just not content to duplicate someone else's or claim that ours is foolproof. I'm always trying to improve on our mousetrap and feedback from the users can help in that goal.

And Mike, that's GREAT DATA. Agreed on all, but you are right at some point we need to reward the regular-season champs with payouts for h2h AND total points after Week 13 makes the most sense. Even if it's as close as you say.

[Jersey Dawg]

What the WCOFF did, and it seemed to work was something like this:

They had an 11 week season. At the end of week 11, the team with the best H2H record and the team with the most points each won some money. The next best H2H and next best total points joind the top two team in a 4 team playoff for the league title, second and thrid place, basically giving 4 teams a chance for the rest of the league money.

If one team had most points and best H2H, that team won both portions of the early money and still had to fight for the league title and the rest of the money. Their reward was the "early money" payout and they got to choose their opponent from the remaining seeded teams for week 12.

It seemed to work well. But, so does the NFFC as it stands now.

In my Primetime league the top 4 teams are 37 points apart. There is a real chance the 3rd or 4th scoring team could win H2H, meaning the 2nd highest scoring team would not make the run for $100K. That would stink, but it is what it is.

Not much help... sorry.... I'm good with both formats.

I would be all in favor of expanding the run for $100K to the top 15% of teams and leaving everything else alone. At most you would probably only add 5-6 teams, but would give more than that a real reason to plug along as far into the season as possibe.

Pete

P.S. - I use the term "WCOFF paid the top teams" loosly. We all know they paid nearly nothing to anyone not named Dustin or Jesse.

[ November 25, 2011, 07:01 PM: Message edited by: Jersey Dawg ]

[kjduke]

I like having a playoff for the league title, and I like the FFPC setup which guarantees the top 2 in both points and record make the playoffs. However, I don't think the FFPC-style 1-week H2H matchups are ideal, and I don't see why league money should be awarded before the playoffs even begin.

I'd like to see league playoffs concurrent with and similar to the overall playoff, with the top 4 seeds in each league competing over weeks 14-16 for the league title and ALL league money. Each team also would carry their regular season point average into the league playoff as a reward for a strong regular season - same as in the overall race.

I'd also do away with the wildcards and put all four playoff teams into the overall race. This makes it very simple - top two in either league points or record guarantees you a playoff berth - and it keeps many teams in the race for most of the season. The same structure could be used for the 14-team leagues, which further simplifies it for all of us that compete in both formats.

[ November 25, 2011, 08:26 PM: Message edited by: KJ Duke ]