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IDEAS for the 2022 FANTASY FOOTBALL SEASON

Things I am thinking about for next season which are all up for discussion will now be PINNED as separate POSTS. That way you can click REPLY on the actual NUMBERED POST, and it will keep each idea and response thread a little more organized.

#1 :: ADDING DEFENSE/Special Teams:
Adding a DST to the current line-up roster. I will never add KICKERS, but I am toying with DST.

#2:: THE GUILLOTINE!
Adding a guillotine element to the league. One league I played in this year did that and it was awesome. Basically, each week the lowest scoring team is "guillotined" and out of this side bet competition. Until week 9 when the last two teams play a side match for a head to head comparison to see who survives 9 weeks without ever being the lowest scorer and wins a side pot of some kind. I loved it and will ponder the best way to add an element like this. It's kinda like a survivor pool if you've ever played that. But it also just helps a team who may not be in the playoff hunt potentially still be alive in a season long bet and therefore helps them update their line-up etc...

#3:: CHARGING $1 FOR TRANSACTIONS
Adding a $1 per free-agent/waiver transaction cost to the prize pool. I've always thought paying for your moves was the best way to do it, especially since we only paid $50 for the entire season. Some managers make very few moves and others, (*like me!*) enjoy making TONS of moves! I think adding $1 per move to the prize pool per manager is a solid philosophy. It would help people who get move-happy think harder about their decisions, and also just make the prize pool bigger and more fun. I would print out the activity feed mid-season and collect monies after week 7 and then at the end of the regular season again. (I would just count them up and post how much everyone owes. Then divide the prize pool up by preset percentages and increase the totals with the new money. Or pay the guillotine winner with this money or something of that nature.)

#4:: CHANGE THE SCHEDULE
Changing the schedule for next year to not have a BYE week included in the playoffs. However earning the BYE week became a very important thing and awesome prize for the Division Winner so I sort of love it. Mostly because I LOVE the elegance of a 13 week schedule meaning you play your Division Rivals 2x and the cross division 1x. I just love removing the randomness from most Fantasy Football Schedule Makers. I played in one league one year where I had to play the best team in an 8 team league 3 times and the second best team 3 times the league winner played the worst two teams 3x... just dumb. But open to suggestions. And I love having the championship being cumulative total of 2 weeks rather than just one random weekend determining the prize money winner. But I am open to suggestions.

#5:: POOLING SCHEDULE
I have always toyed with the idea of the possibility of every week playing 2 opponents instead of just one head to head match. I've always loved the idea of pools like if we added 2 teams and each week there were 4 pools of 3 teams each and those pools played each other. So Pool A would rank 1-2-3 on total score and the winner would get 2 wins, the loser would go 0-2 and the middle would go 1-1. THEN we'd add to that the matchup versus the MEDIAN and each week you'd have 3 game outcomes. This would further ration out the best teams and get them more toward the top. But I've never actually done a simulation of this type scheduling to see how it would impact the season differently or if it would change the seedings. But I have always felt like it was lame whenever a winning team got to play an opponent twice and both times caught some great players on a bye week. This would eliminate that from being the case more often. I've also toyed with the idea of just NO HEAD TO HEAD match-ups at all and just rankin the ten teams 1-10 every week and assigning points each week. 10 for a win, 9 for second, 8 for third, etc... but I think the nature of the head to head is part of what is fun about things... so I don't think I'd ever want to do that.

#6:: TAKE A MULLIGAN
Something I've always wanted to do, but no one has ever vibed with me on this idea... but hear me out. I've ALWAYS wanted to offer the managers a paid addition called a MULLIGAN. So let's pretend it's $50 to enter the league, and we go to the $1 per move, we'd offer an option to PURCHASE for $10 additional dollars a ONE-USE MULLIGAN (And limit to 1 per manager per season). AND the way it would work would be BEFORE MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL, (ONE TIME PER SEASON for those who purchased it before the DRAFT happened) the manager could DECLARE a mulligan and SUB one of their BENCH SCORES for one of their DUD scores that had already happened.

And it would have to be done PRIOR to Monday Night Football Kickoff... (Or possibly PRIOR to their LAST starter's kickoff is probably the better way to do it.) Because I want some element of it not being a guaranteed win to do it. Like a Tuesday Morning RE-DO is not what I want, but I want the idea that when you make that start-sit that just SHANKS, and you are staring at a Monday Night matchup with the thought, "If I had only started McKissick over Melvin Gordon I'd only need Locket to have 11 and I could win this game!!" I just want that to be a thing that can actually happen.

But I think it's gimmicky enough to LIMIT it to ONCE PER SEASON. And I also think allowing EVERYONE to do it ONE TIME makes for some fun strategies. Because in the instance I just described, maybe the opponent also has a potential mulligan they could use to offset your mulligan declaration, so the timing of when you declared it would have to have some form of protocol. Something like "All Mulligan Declarations have to be posted to the Public Message Group at least 5 minutes before your last starter's kickoff" or similar.

And it would be something that had a time stamp and was verifiably provable when it happened and the actual technicality would rule the situation. So gamesmanship of when to post that information would come into play etc... I've always thought this would be fun, but it would require 10 managers who were willing to totally geek out with me and participate in it and enjoy taking advantage of it.

#7:: CHANGING WAIVERS
I've always wanted to play in a WAIVER-LESS where at any point during any game you could pick up your guys. But I understand that gives a HUGE advantage to the managers who watch every game every minute. So I don't think I'd ever go to a system like that, but what I was pondering would be the possibility of a system where we had FAAB but it cleared Sunday Night and again on Tuesday. So you could see a rookie play on Sunday at 4pm and put your waiver in for him and get him that night before all the press came out the next day about who the hottest pick up was. It wouldn't require you to watch every game but would give advantages to those folks who stay in tune with it at least on Sunday night to review their entire league type thing.

Not sure I will toy with actually shifting to this way, but if everyone loved the idea I could easily be persuaded. My buddy who is my comedian's league plays in a "no waivers instant pick up league" and after Aaron Jones' first carry his rookie year, I texted him and said, "grab this JONES kid, he's awesome!!" And he did, and it was magical. And in the same league last year fifteen seconds after Dak Prescott got injured like five guys had already grabbed all the decent QB's and prevented my buddy from even getting one that week worth having because he forgot to take his phone to the toilet with him hahahahaha. So brutal but so awesome. :) Anyway, weigh in on this and let me know you what you think.

#8:: INJURY FREE FANTASY, ANYONE?
This is probably the most important because it will require a lot of coding on my part, I've always wanted to implement an INJURY FREE FANTASY concept. The way it would work would be you'd RANK YOUR BENCH players in some form of priority order and any time your starter was to be ruled out, your highest ranked bench player who is able to sub for them would instantly just "go into your lineup" for you. Any points that bench player earned while on your bench would NOT count in your team total, but any points they earned while they were IN your lineup after the injured player WOULD count.

And also an ability to assign hand-cuffs versus a ranked order... so like if you owned Mattison and Dalvin Cook. You could tell the system that MATTISON goes in for COOK not your highest ranked WR if Cook were in the FLEX type thing. And you could also set your preferences for WHEN the sub happened. Would it happen when they were declared QUESTIONABLE to return or would it wait until they were ruled OUT type thing.

(All of this is predicated on my ability to code an actual solution that accomplishes this which is not certain that it can happen since I have to code and test live on Sundays and haven't had time to play with it.) BUT IF THIS idea interested everyone I would double down and try and develop it. I think it's a marketable APP idea and would totally catch on if I can make it simple enough. And then a more advanced version would allow you to sub your players even if they weren't injured.
 
But if they were SUCKING type thing hahahah. But again, that idea would require all managers who watch all games, so the ranked Bench Idea just being the standard mode of operation and you set your starters and rank your bench would allow you to not automatically lose the week your main guy gets hurt in the first quarter. (And I think all QUARTERBACK slots would become SUPER-FLEX spots so if you had a quarterback on BYE and no QB on the bench your highest ranked bench player would auto-sub for your injured Quarterback type thing... Anyway, let me know what you think of this idea.)

#9:: CHANGE THE STARTING ROSTER
Lineup changes for more flexes. I am seriously toying with the idea of a complete overhaul to the ROSTER starting requirements. I want to expand the strategies and differences in thoughts and award unorthodox thinkers. So I am toying with the idea of instead of 2RB, 3WR, 2RWT, 1 TE, 1QB, 1QWRT, we actually move to the same 10 starting number but go to: 1RB, 1WR, 1TE, 2QWRT, 5RWT. So instead of 2RB and 3WR and 1 TE and 2 flexes, we go 1 of each position required and the rest FLEXES. I think it would just give you a chance during a bye week to stream a second Tight End or even THIRD tight end. Or maybe you have a gauntlet of wide receivers who could play during the week all your RB's are on BYE. I think it would be way more fun and allow us tons of strategy decision not currently afforded to us with the limitations we have in place.

#10 :: COUNTING THE QUARTERBACK AS THE ROOKIE
In addition to the above I am pretty much already going to move toward allowing the QUARTERBACK to count as your rookie. I thought it would provide too much advantage to do this for the few quarterbacks who are rookies and play, but this season we did this in my comedian league and it is GREAT. Since you can only roster 3 active quarterbacks it means gambling on rookie Quarterbacks at the expense of carrying a solid third quarterback. It made for great strategy decisions. It also impacted me in the leagues where I couldn't do this as I placed way too much value on Justin Fields in those leagues as you may have seen (if this is posted in one of those leagues! Hahahah)

Weigh in on your thoughts about these things, and please in the comment section post the NUMBER of the above issue when referring to your thoughts. For example, "In regards to Number #2 above, I think bla bla bla... " 

THANKS, EVERYONE!
GOOD LUCK IN THE PLAYOFFS

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