Possible League Changes

(Nothing in this post was created using any sort of generative AI)

I figured it would help some people with voting on rule changes if they were fully explained with pros and cons to help make decisions.

Add another Flex spot

This one was already voted on last season, but I personally think it is important to bring up again. I want this league to be more focused on depth and long-term team management instead of a little more luck-based (or high variance) league which is what our current league setting suggest. The argument for adding another flex spot boils down to a couple things: Better teams are more likely to win (reduces luck a little bit), and boosts mid-tier player values. Fantasy football is really fun, but the luck aspect can sometimes dampen that. Good teams getting upset is certainly fun if you are the one that wins, but redcuing luck (a little) and making sure the good teams win more often I think is an important part of fantasy. Teams that build their roster with enough depth to have good players in 3 flex spots, deserve to have that success. The other benefit is that mid-tier players get a small boost in value. Another flex spot means that 10 more players are starting each week. That means players that are borderline starters are now starting most weeks making them more valuable. This will also stimulate the trade market. More players can start making depth trades more valuable and possibly more frequent which is always entertaining.

Now obviously there are drawbacks to this rule change. It will widen the gap between rebuilding teams and contending teams and making building a contender harder. Deeper teams in the league like Tony Dorset or Chase-ing a Dynasty (previously The Pollard Express) are at an advantage because they already have good enough players to start in that 3rd flex spot, but a team like Rome Wasn't Built in a Day could struggle because they don't have the depth for that 3rd flex spot. Having to acquire another player to start every week makes rebuilding tougher and widens the talent gap. Although I have this presented as a drawback, I personally (emphasis on personally) think this is a good thing. I think it should be more difficult for teams to be in that contender tier and depth (in the starting lineup) should matter more than it currently does. With how small the starting lineups are, you can get away with a sub-par team just as long as you have one or two really good players. Increasing the size of the starting lineup will make it a little harder for teams to get good, making the good teams good. Although yes this larger gap between rebuilding and competing teams will make some matchups less competitive which I can understand is not ideal. Additionally, this would make rebuilding tougher as those teams would need to acquire more players to get into the contender tier and make rebuilds take longer. Lastly, while I personally like moving towards a league that rewards deeper starting lineups, I can understand that people would like a littler higher variance with more randomness.

Make Draft Lottery Weight on Max Points For

Currently, the lottery system takes each of the 4 non-playoff teams and puts them into an unweighted lottery where each team has an equal chance at the #1 pick. This is not an ideal system, and one that should have been fixed way earlier (that's my bad). My proposal here is to weigh the odds based on the Max Points For, for each of the non-playoff teams. If you aren't aware, Max Points For (MPF) is the total number of points your team would have scored if you set the best possible lineup each week. This change actually affects multiple issues, the first being the lottery odds. Currently having the worst team have the same odds as a team that just missed out on the playoffs is not ideal to say the least. Weighing the odds based on MPF will give the truly worse teams the better odds at the top pick (which is exactly what the draft is for). The next thing this affects is tanking. By using MPF, there is no reason for teams to tank for better odds. Aside from being the last team in or out of the playoffs, benching your star players will have no affect on your MPF and will not give you a better chance at #1. 

The cons of this rule change are certain unlucky teams get screwed late in the season. Teams that score a lot of points (or have boom/bust guys on the bench) but still lose a lot of games get the short end of the stick by having lower odds. I think this is too specific of a problem because if you are truly worried about that one boom/bust guy on your bench, you can just trade them or drop them from your team. They are unlikely to truly be startable.

The last discussion point for this will be what the lottery odds will be after this change. With a 5 team lottery in the new 12 team format, the odds can be a little wonky so I have provided a few options for teams to ponder over if we want to make the switch.

I have a few options for the league to ponder over

30/25/20/15/10

This is likely to be the most fair in my opinion. It does not heavily favour the worst team in the league, but gives them a significantly larger chance at getting the top pick like they should. It also does not completely rule out the other teams from getting the pick but makes it rare enough.

40/27.5/17.5/10/5

This option more heavily favours the bottom two teams giving them over two thirds of the odds for the number 1 pick. If you heavily believe that the draft lottery should favour the teams at the bottom then this is the option for you. Additionally, it gives the two teams likely closest to the playoffs the worst odds, because teams that good should generally not have a high chance at jumping up. This, in my opinion, is too drastic of lottery odds, but that's up to you to decide.

30/22/20/16/12

If you like chaos in the lottery, then this is the option for you. With the odds being quite flattened, the chance of movement in the lottery is very likely. Although, the rebuilding teams will have a harder time actually rebuilding with these odds.

First there will be a vote on if we want to switch to MPF as a way of ranking the non-playoff teams, then if that passes the 2nd vote will determine which set of odds we use.

Top 2 Seeds Play Each Other in Round 1 + Winner Chooses Opponent

This one is a fun twist that can add drama and entertainment to the league. Instead of the 1st and 2nd seeds getting a bye in the first round (they still technically do), they will play each other. The stakes of this matchup will be the winner choosing who they want to play in the 2nd round instead of battling to stay in the playoffs. There are a few good parts to this, mainly adding drama/entertainment to not just the top 2 seeds but for the whole league watching. Additionally, this will help create rivalries between teams. Rivalries are kind of hard to naturally have, so forcing teams to choose their playoff opponent will create rivalries and more tension among teams in the league.

The argument against this is that it overcomplicates the playoff format and that it feels gimmicky. I understand this a little bit, if you feel that this is an attempt at trying to fix something that isn't broken that makes sense, but entertainment would be through the roof with this one. The last drawback would be it punishes the loser of this game if they have to play someone they don't want/different team they would originally play. Some people might like to stay with the traditional format which would be understandable. If Expansion to occur this rule would be eliminated as the 1 and 2 seeds would already have a 1st round matchup.

With expansion and the 7-team playoff format, this rule will be removed and all matchups will happen as normal.

Increase Punishment for Blatant Tanking

This one is purely dependant on the change to the lottery. If the lottery moves to being based around MPF, then there is no reason to tank via setting a poor lineup. But if we do not change the lottery format, then increasing the punishment for tanking is something we need an overhaul for. Currently, the first offence for tanking will be a warning then the 2nd offence will get you punished. This obviously needs to change to be harsher to avoid tanking. I propose three options:

Option 1

1st offence: Lose 2nd rounder

2nd offence: Lose 1st rounder

3rd offence: kicked out of league

This starts off a little soft losing only a 2nd rounder which some people might not think is harsh enough when purposely losing could be the difference between making the playoffs and being inside of the lottery with a chance at the first overall pick. The punishment picks up quickly by taking away the tanking team's 1st round pick for the second offence and then getting kicked out the league if they tank once again. This could be seen as too harsh but if a team is blatantly tanking on 3 separate occasions then it is likely they are trying to ruin the league by purposely losing. The cons with this option is that after a team tanks once, they are unlikely to tank again after being called out for it and losing their 2nd round pick. For some, losing their 2nd round pick isn't enough of a deterrent to stop people from tanking that first time, especially if it means they can get into the lottery.

Option 2

1st offence: Move 1st to end of 1st round

2nd offence: Lose 1st and 2nd rounder

This one has more of an immediate impact on the first tanking offence which could be more of a deterrent. Instead of just losing their 1st round pick, it will be automatically moved to the end of the 1st round, losing out on the benefit of being in the lottery or losing early in the playoffs. This will directly benefit everyone else in the league bumping up people that finished ahead of the tanking team and even possibly reducing the lottery teams to just 3. The 2nd offence gets a little more serious but losing the 1.10 wouldn't be impactful enough so they will also lose their 2nd rounder as well. Again, I hope that a person doesn't set a poor lineup on purpose more than once (or at all), but if they do it a second time then some picks should be taken away for hurting the integrity of the league. If they happen to tank for a 3rd time, then they will be kicked out that will be consistent among all the options

Option 3

1st offence: Lose 1st rounder

2nd offence: Lost all current year draft picks

This options has the harshest punishment for the first offence for maximum deterrence, but some might say it is too harsh. That is up to you guys. But if a team is blatantly trying to lose by setting a poor lineup, they should not be rewarded with the benefit of drafting with their first round pick. If they happen to tank again they will lose all of their draft picks for the current year making it the harshest punishment of them all.

Lastly, just a reminder that these options will only be put into place IF we do not move the lottery to based around MPF. If MPF is added, tanking will have no effect on lottery odds, but we could still have a small punishment for something losing to miss the playoffs and make sure they are in the lottery. I will have the league vote on MPF lottery first before putting up this poll.

Limit of 4 D/ST per roster

This one was brought up after I rostered 5 D/ST on my roster and there was some discussion about having a limit for this position and I agree, again my bad for not having this originally. This one is simple, teams shouldn't be able to hoard all the Defences to stop other teams from being able to play one. I don't think I really need to explain this one so much, do you think we should limit the amount of Defences someone should be able to roster or not.

Divide the league into 2 Divisions

Last one, and this was requested by one specific member in the league with a way of trying to create more rivalries, and make the league more fun/dramatic. With rivalries being hard to come by naturally, creating divisions would help foster that forcing certain teams to play each other more often year after year. With these new divisions, scheduling matters more and more, playing your division opponents twice a year (just like in the NFL), will help build those rivalries even more. In terms of the playoff format, the top 2 teams from each division will make the playoffs with the top team in each division will be the 1 and 2 seed. The two remaining playoff spots will be decided by which ever teams have the best records. This makes more sense than just making it top 3 in each division, because if Division A is weaker than Division B, teams in Division B could get screwed out of a playoff spot despite having better records than the playoff teams in Division A. Making the last two playoff spots the remaining teams with the best records attempts at keeping the playoffs for the best teams in the league. Now if you want an option in which there is a little more randomness or more fun, playoff teams can be decided by 1-4 (top 2 teams in each division) then 5th is next best record, then 6th would be which ever remaining team has the highest points for. This gives the team with the most points for a little recognition if they've had an unlucky year with points against.

Divisions will often have balancing issues in which one division is just stronger with more "good" teams while the other weaker division will have more weaker teams. This creates an imbalance in the scheduling where teams in the tougher division will have to play more games against good teams. This can cause better teams to be left out of the playoffs when they've had a tougher schedule than teams in the weaker division. The other argument against divisions is that it will decentivize some trading. With new rivalries teams might be less likely to trade to teams within their own division (you see this in the NFL where teams have to pay more than market value for a player already in their division). Why would a team want to give good players to a team that is in their division and they have a rivalry with? Additionally, teams might not want to trade because their division is easy to win or their division is too hard. Why would a team make trades to improve their team if the other teams in the division are levels better. Teams might feel like there is no way to get into the playoffs because they have to play each of the good teams in their division twice.

Rookie Draft turns into a Slow Draft

This one probably won't be very popular after the start up draft took weeks but I thought I should at least throw it out there to get people to think about it. The reason I propose this is mostly for trading. I have had several thoughts about trading up or down several times during the rookie draft, but because of how quick the pick clock is, I can never get that done. Extending the pick timer to, say a few hours, would allow teams time to try and get a deal done to move up for a prospect they really like, or trade down when they don't like any of the rookies. This will add a new dimension to the rookie draft that we don't currently have.

I understand that the drawback is pretty clear, people will not be active during the whole draft and it will drag on for days. The startup draft was particularly greuling because some people were busy during most of the days with their jobs (names will not be named). We do not need to have the same timer as the startup draft, it could be like a 3 hour timer (paused for overnight) so that people have time to search for a trade, or even reach out if its not their pick. This one is a longshot, I just wanted to gauge interest.

Any rules that pass can always be revisited in the future if they are not working as intended or predicted. This is an ever evolving league and we should always be thinking about things that can help the league run smoothly or making things more entertaining. That's what this is all about anyways, having fun. Especially for me cause I have 12 wins in 3 seasons. Anyways, just as a reminder, all rules need a majority for them to pas (6/10). Polls will take place after the rookie draft since everyone should be active for that.