Rule Change Proposals: The Playoffs
One thing that is very hard about fantasy football is the low sample size. Luck plays a much bigger role in football (fantasy and otherwise) than other sports because we play so many fewer games and collect so much less data to score with. One or two games often makes the difference between going to the playoffs or not so winning or losing a couple games in what someone could consider a lucky way can have a big impact on a season. This becomes even more of a factor once the playoffs start. Now instead of a short 14 games season we have only one game.
The main two recommendations here are an attempt to soften the edge of this randomness without removing it completely: Changing Wild Card Qualification to include top power ranked teams & Playoff Bonus Points. The last is just about cutting the Toilet Bowl.
1) Change Wild Card Qualification to Include Top Power Ranked Teams
Any top-3 team as ranked by Power makes the playoffs as a wildcard if they did not win their division. The rest of the wildcard teams make the playoffs based on their records the same way they do now.
Note that this does not increase the number of wild card teams. There would still just be 3. The goal here is to make sure that a team that really was one of the best in the league all season but lost more games then you would expect still gets a shot in the playoffs.
There are certainly a number of tweaks we could make to this proposal. Is top-3 right? Top-4? Top-2? Should the wildcards who qualified because of their power be seeded higher or lower than the wildcards who qualified due to their records?
If we had implemented a top-3 rule in past years the following teams would have qualified for the playoffs instead of some other teams:
2013: Bronies would have replaced Mimes
2012: no change
2011: Capo would have replaced Bill
2010: no change
2009: Drow would have replaced Beavers
2008: Rednecks would have replaced Capo
2) Playoff Bonus Points
In all playoff games (including the FLOF Bowl), the team with the higher regular season Power ranking is awarded bonus offensive points before the game equal to half of the difference between their Power Ranking and their opponent's Power Ranking rounded down.
The idea here is to blunt the randomness of the one game playoff by giving teams a bit of a bonus for their prowess during the regular season. Note that teams would still get 3 points for home field and that home field would still be determined as it is now (by seeds).
Obviously some tweaks we could make would be to change how much of a bonus we gave. We could give the higher ranked team the full difference between their power rank and their opponent's for instance.
Below I note what bonus points everyone would have gotten if that system had been implemented this year and how it would have changed the final scores. Back to 2008, this system would not have changed a single result. If we awarded the full difference between power rankings as the bonus,two games one game (yea, bad at math) would have changed results (see parenthetical notes below).
So maybe we don't need to bother or we need to use the full difference... Interestingly the team that would have gotten at least 1 bonus point was 18 - 7 over this time period. In 2009 and 2008 a number of playoff opponents were so close in power ranking that neither would have gotten a point in the 1/2 difference scheme and some would not have in the full difference scheme either.
2013:
Lagers +3 bonus > Lagers 11 @ Hamburlgers 57
Dynasty +7 bonus > Mimes 16 @ Dynasty 37
Dynasty +4 bonus > Dynasty 69 @ Bill 0
Drow +7 bonus > Hamburglers 2 @ Drow 16
Drow +7 bonus > Dynasty 0 v. Drow 28
2012:
Bill +2 bonus > Old No. 7 5 @ Bill 53
Drow +4 bonus > Bronies 6 @ Drow 59
Malleus +6 bonus > Drow 29 @ Malleus 24 (if we gave the full difference as bonus instead of 1/2 Malleus would have won this game)
Lagers +4 bonus > Bill 23 @ Lagers 54
Drow +1 bonus > Drow 34 @ Lagers 28
2011:
Beavers +1 bonus > Bill 0 @ Beavers 24
Lagers +5 bonus > Rednecks 12 @ Lagers 111
Malleus +6 bonus > Lagers 45 @ Malleus 34
Flannel +1 bonus > Beavers 18 @ Flannel 3
Lagers +4 bonus > Beavers 4 v. Lagers 90
2010:
Drow +9 bonus > Drow 50 @ Ramjets 12
Mimes + 5 bonus > Old No. 7 30 @ Mimes 23
Malleus +3 bonus > Drow 8 @ Malleus 39
Lagers +1 bonus > Old No. 7 10 @ Lagers 31
Malleus +5 bonus > Malleus 17 @ Lagers 0
2009:
Beavers +4 bonus > Beavers 19 @ Ramjets 32 (if we gave the full difference as bonus instead of 1/2 Beavers would have won this game No, clearly not...)
Malleus +1 bonus > Rednecks 14 @ Malleus 41
no bonus > Ramjets 33 @ Mimes 8
no bonus > Malleus 10 @ Bill 18
Bill +5 bonus > Bill 21 @ Ramjets 0
2008:
Mimes +2 bonus > Capo 34 @ Mimes 26
no bonus > Drow 5 @ Bill 0
no bonus > Drow 0 @ Malleus 84
Flannel +2 bonus > Capo 44 @ Flannel 35
no bonus > Malleus 13 @ Capo 0
3) Toilet Bowl
The Toilet Bowl is silly at this point. I say we remove it unless someone has a good idea for making it at all relevant.
The main two recommendations here are an attempt to soften the edge of this randomness without removing it completely: Changing Wild Card Qualification to include top power ranked teams & Playoff Bonus Points. The last is just about cutting the Toilet Bowl.
1) Change Wild Card Qualification to Include Top Power Ranked Teams
Any top-3 team as ranked by Power makes the playoffs as a wildcard if they did not win their division. The rest of the wildcard teams make the playoffs based on their records the same way they do now.
Note that this does not increase the number of wild card teams. There would still just be 3. The goal here is to make sure that a team that really was one of the best in the league all season but lost more games then you would expect still gets a shot in the playoffs.
There are certainly a number of tweaks we could make to this proposal. Is top-3 right? Top-4? Top-2? Should the wildcards who qualified because of their power be seeded higher or lower than the wildcards who qualified due to their records?
If we had implemented a top-3 rule in past years the following teams would have qualified for the playoffs instead of some other teams:
2013: Bronies would have replaced Mimes
2012: no change
2011: Capo would have replaced Bill
2010: no change
2009: Drow would have replaced Beavers
2008: Rednecks would have replaced Capo
2) Playoff Bonus Points
In all playoff games (including the FLOF Bowl), the team with the higher regular season Power ranking is awarded bonus offensive points before the game equal to half of the difference between their Power Ranking and their opponent's Power Ranking rounded down.
The idea here is to blunt the randomness of the one game playoff by giving teams a bit of a bonus for their prowess during the regular season. Note that teams would still get 3 points for home field and that home field would still be determined as it is now (by seeds).
Obviously some tweaks we could make would be to change how much of a bonus we gave. We could give the higher ranked team the full difference between their power rank and their opponent's for instance.
Below I note what bonus points everyone would have gotten if that system had been implemented this year and how it would have changed the final scores. Back to 2008, this system would not have changed a single result. If we awarded the full difference between power rankings as the bonus,
So maybe we don't need to bother or we need to use the full difference... Interestingly the team that would have gotten at least 1 bonus point was 18 - 7 over this time period. In 2009 and 2008 a number of playoff opponents were so close in power ranking that neither would have gotten a point in the 1/2 difference scheme and some would not have in the full difference scheme either.
2013:
Lagers +3 bonus > Lagers 11 @ Hamburlgers 57
Dynasty +7 bonus > Mimes 16 @ Dynasty 37
Dynasty +4 bonus > Dynasty 69 @ Bill 0
Drow +7 bonus > Hamburglers 2 @ Drow 16
Drow +7 bonus > Dynasty 0 v. Drow 28
2012:
Bill +2 bonus > Old No. 7 5 @ Bill 53
Drow +4 bonus > Bronies 6 @ Drow 59
Malleus +6 bonus > Drow 29 @ Malleus 24 (if we gave the full difference as bonus instead of 1/2 Malleus would have won this game)
Lagers +4 bonus > Bill 23 @ Lagers 54
Drow +1 bonus > Drow 34 @ Lagers 28
2011:
Beavers +1 bonus > Bill 0 @ Beavers 24
Lagers +5 bonus > Rednecks 12 @ Lagers 111
Malleus +6 bonus > Lagers 45 @ Malleus 34
Flannel +1 bonus > Beavers 18 @ Flannel 3
Lagers +4 bonus > Beavers 4 v. Lagers 90
2010:
Drow +9 bonus > Drow 50 @ Ramjets 12
Mimes + 5 bonus > Old No. 7 30 @ Mimes 23
Malleus +3 bonus > Drow 8 @ Malleus 39
Lagers +1 bonus > Old No. 7 10 @ Lagers 31
Malleus +5 bonus > Malleus 17 @ Lagers 0
2009:
Beavers +4 bonus > Beavers 19 @ Ramjets 32 (
Malleus +1 bonus > Rednecks 14 @ Malleus 41
no bonus > Ramjets 33 @ Mimes 8
no bonus > Malleus 10 @ Bill 18
Bill +5 bonus > Bill 21 @ Ramjets 0
2008:
Mimes +2 bonus > Capo 34 @ Mimes 26
no bonus > Drow 5 @ Bill 0
no bonus > Drow 0 @ Malleus 84
Flannel +2 bonus > Capo 44 @ Flannel 35
no bonus > Malleus 13 @ Capo 0
3) Toilet Bowl
The Toilet Bowl is silly at this point. I say we remove it unless someone has a good idea for making it at all relevant.
2 Comments:
Wow, so I had a whole big comment that just got lost so...
1. I like the first idea
2. I don't like the second idea. Randomness is an essential element of the game and part of what makes it fun. That's what you tell stories about.
3. Toilet bowls are stupid.
Going to agree with Chris here.
1. I like it.
2. I don't hate it, I just don't see the point in making a change that probably doesn't matter. Don't really care one way or the other on this one.
3. As the newly crowned toilet bowl 'winner', it can die.
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