Silver Bullet payout......revolutionary???

[Route C]

I love anything that makes points more important than record but the above proposal needs to be tweaked or clarified. The huge problem with the above proposal as written is that it actually makes H2H much more likely to cause an undeserving team to make the championship round, which I don't think is what you're trying to accomplish.

The reason for this is that is that right now, the "#1 seed" goes to record, and it's more likely than not that the best record is one of the three highest scoring teams in the league. If you were to instead make the "#3 seed" based on record after the first two seeds are awarded based on points, it then becomes very unlikely that the team getting in the championship round based on record is one of the three highest scoring teams in the league. The end result is that you've drastically reduced the likelihood that the team getting in on record is one of the top 3 scoring teams in the league.

I do like the idea of shifting payouts to points over record. The ideal tweak would be the that #1 seed is still awarded based on record, but payouts go to the top 3 teams based solely on order of points scored. Or forget H2H entirely.

Why not keep the format as it stands in the SB yet guarantee a playoff spot to anyone finishing top 3 in points for each league. They wouldn't receive any league $$$ but would get a shot at the overall. The other alternative is keeping it as is but guarantee the top 45 scoring teams a spot which would be the same as above except higher scoring leagues may get 2 additional spots where a lower scoring league may not take any more spots.
I do agree that we will never have the perfect contest with H2H. There will always be luck and there will always be bad owners that result in dead teams.
If we keep a combination like we're discussing I think it will appeal to more owners. No one will be completely happy so maybe we should keep a little compromise in our vocabulary as we discuss this.
I do think Billys idea makes complete sense in stand alone leagues but may require some tweaking for the overall contests.

Good discussion

[BLACKHAND]

Same thing happens in a prime time where you could get beat out of a playoff spot. But what makes the primetime worse is that if your top points and top record which might be 5th to 6th in points are tied , you would go you off for the top money whereas in the silver bullet top points get the money of top prize. Luck is always going to play a partial factor in our game. In my diamond League that Billy and I are in we had a guy (Travis Dorsey ) quit after week 6 and did not set a lineup after that. a lot of teams get easy wins which they did not deserve including the team that had top record. Team record is mostly luck while total points is more of a mirror of your team. Good conversation in this thread though.

[Money]

To add to the frustration of all this, I finished 28th overall and am not getting in. The spot is going to a guy who was in a 3 way tie for second in head to head standings. He didn't even have the most points out of that group and that team makes the playoffs? And by the way that team is in 85th overall.

[Greg Ambrosius]

To add to the frustration of all this, I finished 28th overall and am not getting in. The spot is going to a guy who was in a 3 way tie for second in head to head standings. He didn't even have the most points out of that group and that team makes the playoffs? And by the way that team is in 85th overall.

We chose not to add Wild Card Tiers to this format, so that there were only 45 Championship Round teams and a 1 in 45 chance of winning the title and the $30,000 grand prize. However, I think it makes sense to add a Wild Card Tier of 15% of total teams (this year that would have been Top 27 teams) to the mix next year. It just makes sense.

And I'll analyze all third place qualifying teams today and see if this format was better than our other format or worse. We'll make changes if needed and tweak where needed for 2020 as this contest is definitely coming back and with a bigger guarantee/prize payout.

[Money]

To add to the frustration of all this, I finished 28th overall and am not getting in. The spot is going to a guy who was in a 3 way tie for second in head to head standings. He didn't even have the most points out of that group and that team makes the playoffs? And by the way that team is in 85th overall.

I'll add on a little more analysis in advance of Greg's more thorough analysis. The 93rd and 109th overall teams got in as well. This is out of 180 teams. Two of these teams had stellar 8-5 records and qualified because of them. I think we all know that this is not how it's supposed to work.

This organization always makes needed changes and I believe one will come for next years competition.

[chriseibl]

I want to point out that it is a factual statement that making H2H the 3rd seed makes H2H more important when it comes to making the championship round than if H2H were the number one seed. I think most posters on this thread understand that but do think it's important to reiterate that this isn't something that needs to be analyzed.

In the Primetime and Classic, the team getting in based on record is the best record out of 12 teams.

In the Silver Bullet, the team getting in based on record is the best record out of the 10 teams who weren't the top 2 point scorers.

Given the above facts, it is only possible for the team getting in the championship based on record under Silver Bullet rules to be equal to or worse than the team that would have gotten in under Primetime or Classic rules. Further analysis is not necessary because it is not even a possible scenario that the team getting in based on record under Primetime or Classic rules would be worse than the team that would have gotten in under Silver Bullet rules.

[Cocktails and Dreams]

I hate these rules. The nffc has always done an incredible job rewarding the best teams by having record first. This makes it very difficult to luckbox your way into the playoffs over a more deserving team. Please just leave it here if you must. I can pass. I don’t want to deal with it in classic and prime time and heaven forbid in the high dollar leagues.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Okay, I will post this data elsewhere as well, but it deserves to go here first since there is already discussion on our playoff format.

No matter what contest we run, our major goal is to have the best teams qualify for the Championship Round. We don't have a perfect system, but through 16 years of tweaking I think we've come up with one of the fairest playoff qualifying systems in the industry. This way the best teams are earning the most playoff money, which makes sense.

We tried something new for the NFFC Silver Bullet after getting feedback from some key NFFC veterans and felt we had tweaked our playoff format for the better a little more. Total Points was being rewarded straight out after Week 13 for first and second place, eliminating the need for league playoffs. The third seed and winner of third place money would then go to the best remaining h2h team. This became more of a Total Points league than h2h, but in this final playoff spot h2h was still very important.

Was this the right playoff format or not? We weren't sure until now.

I'll say that it wasn't if the goal was to get the three best teams from each league playing for the grand prize. Now, if the goal was to reward the Top 2 teams in points with the most league money and without a league playoff, then we hit a home run. But I'm not sure turning this contest into a Total Points contest is the answer, so we may need to tweak this some more.

Here's the facts from 2019:

** Only 4 of 15 third place qualifiers came from teams that were third in h2h record and 3rd in points
** 6 teams were 4th in points
** 3 teams were 5th in points
** 1 team was 6th in points
** 1 team was 7th in points

Is 11 of 15 teams qualifying for the playoffs despite finishing fourth or lower in points good for the players? You tell me.

The average point differential between the 3rd place qualifier and the team that finished 3rd in league points was 50.44 points. That's too much. Granted, three leagues skewed the average as they had teams that finished 149.95 points behind the 3rd place qualifier, 117.15 points behind and 109.25 points behind. In five leagues, the 3rd place qualifier was within 12 points of the 3rd place points team and in one of them they were only 0.4 points behind. Those four had margins of 0.4, 6.1, 6.4, 11.0 and 11.6.

Also, the difference in the overall points race between the third place qualifier and the third place points team was 25.36. Twenty-five spots difference in points among only 180 teams is a lot. In a contest that rewards total points, this is troubling.

We also erred by not having a Wild Card Qualifying percentage. In our other contests, if you finish in the Top 15% of points you earn a Wild Card spot in the Championship Round. For this contest, that would have been 27th or higher in total points. We had teams finish 25th, 26th and 28th who didn't make it into the Championship Round and two of those teams would have made it with this rule. We need to add this next year.

This has been a great debut season for this single-entry, season-long contest but I think more discussion needs to be on the playoff qualifying format. I'll keep the discussion open for ideas before we dive in, but I have some thoughts on this as well. Again, thanks to everyone who pushed us into trying this single-entry contest and good luck to everyone in the Championship Round. It's been a great debut season and I'm convinced that the best is yet to come for the NFFC Silver Bullet.

Okay, here's a look at the 15 leagues and how the 3rd place qualifier compared to the 3rd most points team in each league:

3rd place Qualifier finished 4th in points, 46th overall (3rd place points was 41st overall, 11.0 points back)
3rd place Qualifier finished 4th in points, 61st overall (3rd place points was 60th overall, 0.4 points back)
3rd place Qualifier finished 3rd in points, 37th overall
3rd place Qualifier finished 3rd in points, 31st overall
3rd place Qualifier finished 4th in points, 68th overall (3rd place points was 58th overall, 11.6 points back)
3rd place Qualifier finished 4th in points, 59th overall (3rd place points was 55th overall, 8.55 points back)
3rd place Qualifier finished 5th in points, 47th overall (4th place points was 26th overall, 52.45 points back)
3rd place Qualifier finished 4th in points, 62nd overall (3rd place points was 25th overall, 81.95 points back)
3rd place Qualifier finished 3rd in points, 32nd overall
3rd place Qualifier finished 5th in points, 109th overall (3rd place points was 30th overall, 149.95 points back)
3rd place Qualifier finished 7th in points, 93rd overall (3rd place points was 34th overall, 109.25 points back)
3rd place Qualifier finished 5th in points, 79th overall (3rd place points was 76th overall, 6.1 points back)
3rd place Qualifier finished 3rd in points, 22nd overall
3rd place Qualifier finished 4th in points, 70th overall (3rd place points was 67th overall, 6.4 points back)
3rd place Qualifier finished 6th in points, 85th overall (3rd place points was 28th overall, 117.15 points back)

Thoughts?

[Route C]

This IMO is an easy thing to solve. It's obvious the players who have chimed in and Greg are on the same page. We all want to reward points the most while also putting the best teams in the playoff round. Does that sound right?
In the classic...primetime etc if the team with most points doesn't win H2H then those 2 teams get the same $$$ and battle it out in a 3 week shootout for the rest of the 1st place $$$.
Here's what I propose. Keep all of that the same with one exception. Reward high points based on 16 weeks. No reset in league battles. That's so unfair for a team to build a lead that takes 13 weeks only to have a chance to lose in a 3 week shootout because of a reset. That's fine for the overall championship round but let's change it so that a team that accumulates the most points over 16 weeks gets the most league $$$.
Does that solve the dilemma of rewarding the most deserving teams. Tell me if I'm missing something. This sounds like a good plan.

[Route C]

One more thing, and this may seem too drastic but in my home league we reward high points after 16 weeks that includes all teams....even those who didn't qualify for the playoffs. If players truly want to reward points...this is the purest way to do it. In a tight league race this will also keep more owners engaged for the duration.