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0 Subject: RIFC leagues for 2021 - preliminary setup

Posted by: Guru
- [330592710] Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 12:44

I'll be renewing the various RIFC leagues this week in order to take advantage of the early-bird pricing. If you were in a league and you get a notice, just ignore it for now.

With the NFL season expanding to 18 weeks (and 17 games per team), some adjustments will be needed. I have some thoughts on possible modifications, which I will share soon. Stay tuned.

1Guru
      ID: 330592710
      Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 12:15
Here is my proposal for adapting to the extra week of the NFL schedule.

First, note that byes will take place for weeks 6-14. It would be inappropriate to start the playoffs in week #14 as before, as byes will still be occuring.

So, playoffs need to be weeks 15-17 (week 18 will not be used)

With 14 teams in the league, a full double-round-robin regular season schedule requires only 13 weeks. If we extended the round-robin format through week 14, then matchup scheduling will be unbalanced. Not a dealbreaker - but I think we can do better than that.

We could expand the league to 15 teams, enabling a full 14-week double-round-robin schedule. But this would take an extra 48-50 NFL players out of the free agent pool, which is already thin, especially at some positions.

So - how about the following approach?

We continue with an 8-team championship playoff bracket, as before. After 13 weeks, the top 6 teams by W/L will be locked into a playoff slot (with seeding yet to be determined based on overall results through weeks 1-14).

The final two playoff slots will be based on total points for weeks 1-14.

For week 14, only the top 6 teams in the W/L standings will have head-to-head matchups. The other teams will continue to play, but will compete only for total points.

Teams ranked 1-3 by W/L face each other in week 14 matchups (1 vs 2, 1 vs 3, 2 vs 3). Those teams will then be seeded as the top 3 in the playoffs, based on total W/L records including week 14.

Teams ranked 4-6 by W/L face each other in week 14 matchups (4 vs 5, 4 vs 6, 5 vs 6). After week #14, the team (of those three teams) with the best overall W/L record will be seeded #4. The other two teams will still be playoff bound, but will be seeded based on total points.

Teams ranked 7-14 will compete for total points only in week 14. They will have no stated matchups for that week. After week 14, the two of these teams with the highest total points for the whole season will be added to the playoffs.

Seedings for slots 5-8 will be based solely on points for those four teams.

I think this seems fair, as we can continue with a full round robin regular season schedule with each team facing every other team exactly twice. The week 14 matchups for the top 6 teams will impact seeding position only, and all teams will still accrue points in week #14 for the purpose of earning the final two playoff spots.

Clear? Comments? Other ideas?

2Toral
      ID: 9541311
      Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 07:53
It hurts my head, but appears to have been well thought out.
3R-Money
      ID: 31128257
      Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 10:13
I think you can simplify all of that by just making week 14 a points only week for all teams. Last chance push for 7th or 8th seed, as well as any tie breakers to be decided by points.

I love the creativity but It would suck earning a 5 game lead on a team over 13 weeks just to be seeded lower than them because week 14 ended up being a bad bye week for me - or I just had a bad week 14 in general.
4Nerfherders
      ID: 56261418
      Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 21:04
If you can set the schedule a week ahead of time, you could have first seed through week 13 play the second seed, 3rd vs 4th, etc on down the line? The second game that week could be 1st vs 3rd, 2nd vs 4th, etc. Nobody gets the last place team as a break who's not already out of it, and the 5/6/7/8 matchups would have serious implications.

Just a thought.
5Guru
      ID: 330592710
      Thu, Jun 10, 2021, 10:24
[3] R-Money - you misunderstood. If you have a 5-game lead going into the playoffs, then the worst you could finish is with a 3-game lead (by going 0-2 in week 14). The top 3 teams would be seeded based on total W/L through weeks 1-14.

I did consider using points only for week 14, but then that leaves the top 4 seeds with effectively nothing to play for in week 14, since they would already be locked in to the top 4 spots.
6R-Money
      ID: 31128257
      Thu, Jun 10, 2021, 11:25
@Guru - apologies I did misread. I guess the only other question would be is if it would jive having the total games number different from team to team. And you could theoretically have a non playoff team with a better record than a playoff team. So long as that doesn't grind gears I see no real flaws in your plan.
7Taxman
      ID: 16554621
      Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 12:35
Re: 1

I like it, should keep every team motivated thru the playoffs.
8Doug
      ID: 32546312
      Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 15:25
Just brainstorming alternatives, in relative order of preference:
1. Truly Wildcard Weekend (below)
2. Expand to 15 teams (mentioned in passing in #1 above)
3. Seeding-focused H2H (Guru's proposal in #1)
4. Some week counts for points only, not H2H (like #3 above)
5. Some week is skipped entirely

For options 4 or 5, I might vote to use Thanksgiving week (so we can deprioritize FF for a holiday week), or possibly week 1, instead of week 14.

Truly Wildcard Weekend
----------------------
Playoff seeds 1-5 go to best H2H through week 13, and playoff seeds 6-7 go to best remaining points through week 13. They all get byes in week 14. As Guru noted in #5 this leaves these teams with "effectively nothing to play for in week 14", which I think is a feature not a bug. They don't have to try to scramble to fill a week 14 bye or cover a short-term injury / "questionable" tag... they can prepare their rosters for the playoffs.

Last seed is a battle royale of the 7 remaining teams... high score in week 14 gets the #8 seed. Even the last place team has motivation all season long to continue making roster moves that give them a chance in week 14 to make the playoffs.
9Guru
      ID: 330592710
      Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 18:35
Invitations have been emailed to all 42 managers who participated in a RIFC league in 2020. So far, 30 have already opted in for 2021.

I'll protect available slots for returning managers for at least another week. After that, I'll consider taking on newbies. If you want to be on a waiting list, please send an email to davehall@rotoguru2.com.

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