OK so now that we are close.... what the heck is the playoff structure? This is what PC said: Which has two problems: (1) It's not what's on the league page right now (league page has byes for the top 6, followed an 8 team playoff beginning in Week 14. That seems ridiculous. It barely rewards regular season wins at all). (2) It literally doesn't work as described. Through each round, you'd go from 10 teams to 6 teams to 3 teams. The only way that seems like it would make sense is if the top 2 got double byes, and the remaining 8 played for 2 spots. Is that what it's supposed to be?
When I first worked it through, change to a 10 team playoff, the structure worked. Not sure what happened as I was setting up the league, but, yeah, it's definitely not correct right now. I'm going to spend some time today working through fixing it. I still want a 10 team playoff, but it might have to be the 1st seeds out of both divisions having a double bye week. I'll work out the logistics of it and post the playoff schedule as soon as I can.
So after being alerted to how the playoff structure isn't working out how I originally intended, this will be how things work after the regular season ends next week. We are going to keep the 10 team playoff structure, but the two division winners will skip directly to the semifinals, with one wrinkle. The first two seeds will play each other in week 13. Winner gets to choose who they play in the semi-finals. Everyone else, 8 teams, will be playing week 13 to advance or get knocked out. Week 14 will be a 6 team quarter final which will play down to 4 teams (both division winners getting a bye), week 15 will be a 4 team semi final playing down to 2 teams, and week 16 will be the championship. I'm getting confirmation whether I can reseed/add/remove teams each week through the nfl.com site, or if I'm going to have to do this manually. Whichever way, I'll make sure to keep everyone updated on what teams are playing who and how everything is going to shake out. On a side note, I'm being fucking trolled by the customer care team from nfl.com. The brackets will look like this regardless. 1st and 2nd get two byes, 3rd plays 10th, 4th plays 9th, 5th plays 8th, and 6th plays 7th. After that, it will be winner of 3rd/10th vs 6th/7th and winner of 5th/8th and 4th/9th. After that it will be whichever of the top two seeds wins in week 13, they get to choose their opponent in the semi final, and then it goes to the championship week. When I originally set up the league this way, I wanted to take away a couple things. The first, keeping people at the bottom of the standings involved throughout the season. Too many times I've seen the bottom 4 teams give up around week 8 when they are almost assuredly eliminated from the playoffs. This allow teams to accumulate wins when teams are no longer actively working through the waiver wire and staying involved for the entirety of the season. Second, I wanted the regular season to mean something, which is why the division winners are both getting prize money, but I also wanted to create the opportunity for most teams having a chance at making a championship run. With the addition of the second league and trying to attract players, some of who are more casual than others, I wanted it to be tempting enough for people to play. This may have caused the overall structure not to be as ideal as I would have wanted, but it was helpful in filling out both of the leagues.
Perhaps it's a bit premature for feedback for next year, but I'd point out the following: (1) League 1 has operated nearly flawlessly. The best teams point wise won divisions, the worst are out, the distribution between divisions is near perfect. This is how this structure should operate in the ideal. (2) League 2 is a complete clusterfuck, man. Five of the six teams in division 2 have outscored every single team in division 1. The 6th outscored half the division. Two teams completely gave up, and one of them is gonna make the damn playoffs after (1) dropping Nuk and Snead, (2) trading away half his team mid season for pennies on the dollar trades that really we all should have vetoed, and (3) not even really setting lineups for half the season. So we still ended up with the first problem. It honestly would have been better competitive-balance-wise if he had just forgotten about his team following week 1. Meanwhile, iczorro or Jimmy James are gonna miss the playoffs. While that is unfortunate in Jimmy's case, it is most absurd if it's iczorro since he is on pace to basically finish tied for second in points scored. I completely get what you were going for, but League 2 is a perfect example of the danger for divisional imbalances that this creates. Perhaps even the worst case scenario.
Yeah, I gave up. Basically I enjoy watching a game, but I don't follow it or know it well enough to make educated decisions in a fantasy league. I don't understand how waivers work, and the initial draft was new and kind of confusing to me. I had a bunch of injuries that I then tried to "fix", and it just got worse, and there was no way in hell I was going to recover at all, so I effectively just stopped and offered up any/all players I had to anyone who wanted them. How I made the playoffs, when scoring as little as I did, and finishing 11th in the League, I have no idea. Of course I'll get knocked out in the first round, but I would expect nothing else. I probably won't play next year.
I don't blame you for the giving up, to be honest. You had some absolutely shit luck! The CJ, Rawls, Lacy, and Decker injuries on one squad is kind of nuts. It's more the trades and add/drop that I find annoying, because that affects the entire league. When we all play each other and have seeding, it makes everything screwy. For example, while it was early and maybe even a trade you fully intended to make, the Reed trade might have sealed a division for nom. That being said, it's not like you decided who was in which division, which was the primary (and possibly unpredictable) problem. And I probably sound whinier that I should, since I'm gonna end up fine; I just think it's worth pointing out how bad jimmy_james / iczorro is getting screwed here. Because it lowers the probability that I ever have to play you, duh.
I don't understand what I should have done differently... I had some players almost die on me, so I had to replace them... and I tried for a few weeks to build up a team that was even laughably competitive... but it didn't work out. It was no longer fun, there was no hope of me doing any kind of OK, so I bailed. At that point I offered anyone and everyone any of my players, no questions asked, so that I wasn't keeping what few good players I had away from others. How else should I have played it? (Understanding that I was throwing in the towel... because again, it wasn't fun any more...)
Yeah I understand some of the problems with setting up the league this year, and it's shitty that league 1 worked out so well and league 2 did turn out as badly as it did with the imbalance of the divisions. With complete transparency in mind, I'm actually thinking of just killing the second league next year and running a higher dollar buy in 12 team like we had in the past. Last year wasn't so bad, but this year has kind of shed light on the fact the owner pool is too shallow once you get past a league and a few teams. Lesson learned.
Looking at the league seeding, aren't I currently in 8th? Like, does the person at the bottom of each division miss the playoffs, or the two people at the bottom of the overall seeding? Either way, it shouldn't affect me unless Rodgers and Cobb have 200 yards and 4 touchdowns between them, while Davante Adams is silent.
Ignore the current seeding for the playoffs. I have to manually edit all of the matchups to make things work with the current format. After the games tonight, I'll let everyone know who is playing who.
If my calculations are correct, I'll be in 3rd place in division 2 after this week, being the top scoring of the 6-6 teams. Jimmy James will be in last in that division, which will be pretty fucked up if he doesn't go playoffs, considering div 1 has three teams that are 3-9