Rate my draft

[kmitchell]

This is from last season, I should have had a championship. 14 teams.

Crawford
Criminals

Westbrook
A. Johnson
Fitzgerald
T. Jones
R. White
N. Burleson
K. Warner
Scheffler
PACKERS
J. Campbell
Ricky Wil.
G. Olsen
C. Perry
JETS
J. Hardy
M. Stover

[kmitchell]

Edit: This is the team that won it.

Dalton
Merryman

D. Brees
R. Grant
S. Smith
E. Graham
D. Driver
A. Rodgers
M. Forte
D. Lee
Gostkows.
A. Toomer
F. Jones
TITANS
J. Porter
A. Battle
TEXANS
S. McDonald

[TRJ997]

This is from last season, I should have had a championship. 14 teams.

Crawford
Criminals

Westbrook
A. Johnson
Fitzgerald
T. Jones
R. White
N. Burleson
K. Warner
Scheffler
PACKERS
J. Campbell
Ricky Wil.
G. Olsen
C. Perry
JETS
J. Hardy
M. Stover

You had three top 10 WRs, two top 10 RBs, and the #2 QB. I'd grade your draft an A+. You don't have any RB depth, and your WR depth went on IR in week 1, but you had the starting lineup to get into the playoffs easily. I do wonder about the competitiveness of a 14 team league that saw Larry Fitzgerald slip to the 3rd round.

[kmitchell]

There was 10 WR's taken before Fitz, I wish I had a way to save our draft board as an image and paste it in here. I had some stupid picks (Burleson, Perry, Hardy), but the 3 top 5 WRs, 2 top 10 RBs, and a top 5 QB should have carried me for a 14 team league.

[TRJ997]

Burleson was a good pick. It's unfortunate that he was injured after only 2 full quarters of play, but he did manage to get 5 catches for 60 yard and a TD in that time. And although he didn't help your team for the season, 6 of your first 7 picks were knockouts. Chris Perry wasn't such a terrible pick either. I carried him all season and dropped him for C Benz when he lost the starting job. Perry wasn't that bad, but he had such horrible matchups every week that you couldn't even consider him. It seemed like he was always playing PIT, BAL, PHI, or NYG. I was hanging on to him mainly for the championship game when he squared off against CLE. Benson rushed for 171 yards that day on my bench.

I'm guessing your team made the playoffs, but was knocked out in a one game matchup because they underperformed. I think any single matchup between 2 reasonable fantasy teams is about 70% luck. That's why I think the All vs All method of determining wins and losses is better than the Head to Head method. In the AvA method, each week all team's scores are compared against each other and the top half of the league gets a Win, while the bottom half gets a Loss. It's the same as H2H, except that the right teams win each week. I just don't agree that Team A should score 60 points and win, while Team B scores 120 points and loses. It would be different if Team A played great defense, which contributed to their win, as opposed to benefiting from random scheduling at the start of the season. I also think the AvA method should apply in the playoffs. If there are 4 teams in the playoffs, the top 2 scoring teams in week 15 move to the Championship game and the bottom 2 are eliminated. In the Championship game AvA is H2H.

This system is completely different from a total points league, which has even less luck, but isn't as exciting on a weekly basis. The only valid argument I ever hear favoring H2H over AvA is that you know who you're playing against. You know who to talk smack to.  And you know which players to root against. I respond that:

1. You're playing against the entire league and if you're in the bottom half, you are playing against the lowest scoring team in the top half.

2. I talk smack to whoever I'm hanging out with, which is usually not the manager I'm matched up against.

3. Rooting against players is the worst part of fantasy football. I used to obsess over my opponents players and cheer when they did poorly, but it's such a miserable way to spend a Sunday. I try not to let my opponents team affect my mood. I'm happy when my team is scoring points, regardless of whether I'm winning or losing.

For some reason, very few people agree with me that this is the superior system. In the league I commish, I make a weekly post showing who would have won and what the standings would be using AvA. Last year, even the team who was most negatively affected by scheduling (3 games) didn't want to change to AvA.

[kmitchell]

I went 11-2 in the regular season. I had a bye week 14, and played a 7-6 team in the 2nd week of playoffs. Besides Andre Johnson, my team had a horrible week, and knocked me out. I had a 104.4 avg points per game, and the team that won the champion ship had 85 per game. FF gets frustrating because the first 13 games almost mean nothing, and it comes down to the 2 playoff games.

[TRJ997]

FF gets frustrating because the first 13 games almost mean nothing, and it comes down to the 2 playoff games.

I couldn't agree more. There should be no more than four playoff spots in a 12 team league. Six playoff spots means 50% of the league gets in, which is ridiculous. Add in the AvA method and you've got a recipe for the best team winning your league more often.

[olafberserker]

How lame ....

[kmitchell]

I'm the LM of our current league, and I will ask the guys what they feel about the AvA setting when we do our draft at the bar my brother manages at. We usually do 14 teams, with 6 going to playoffs. The top 2 have a bye week 14.