14-team League

[49erAddict-08]

Our league is considering the move from 12 teams to 14 teams this year. Has anyone played in a 14-team league? If so, what did you like/dislike about it?

[Big Country]

I like a 14 team league. Not a lot different than a 12 teamer really. Obviously there is a bit less on the waiver wire, but so what, in theory greater reward to the more prepared owners that drafted well.

 

And scheduling is super easy - All teams go in one division, you play everyone once from week 1 thru 13, then you can have the top X number of teams make the playoffs for weeks 14-16

[49erAddict-08]

Thanks BC!

 

What roster / lineup sizes have you seen with a 14 team league? Right now, we have a roster size of 18 and a lineup of 10 (see my sig below). Would it be best to cut some of that down with a 14 team league?

[Shorttynaz]

Seems pretty standard (lineup requirements). I played in a 14 team league once, and I'm not lying when I saw kickers and defenses being selected in the 4th round. A lot of people feel the need to reach - but if you're prepared, you can really dominate that draft.. I do it in all my drafts anyway, but keep a close eye on what the guys picking around you need too. Will help to know what they need and what they don't - you can start to expect what will be there next round, and what wont.

[irish]

I play in 2-16 team leagues and something I did when setting up the rules was to provide the opportunity for owners to be creative when choosing their starting lineup by allowing more FLEX spots.

 

Our lineup requirements-

1QB

1-3 RBS

2-4 WRS

1-2 TES

1 K and

1 DEF

 

So with having to start 10 players, we have 7 definite spots with 1 QB, 1 RB, 2 WRs, 1 TE, 1 K and 1 Def and 3 Flex spots.

[Whiskey Pimp]

Thanks BC!

 

What roster / lineup sizes have you seen with a 14 team league? Right now, we have a roster size of 18 and a lineup of 10 (see my sig below). Would it be best to cut some of that down with a 14 team league?

 

 

If you go with 16 player rosters then you would almost have the same amount of players available with 224 on rosters in a 14 team league vs 216 players in a 12 team league.

[Riffraff]

14 team league, 21 roster spots. Decimal scoring.

Start 1 QB, 1 RB, 1 WR/TE, 3 flex (RB/WR/TE), 1 PK, 1 D

The flex spots allow flexibility in rosters. Doesn't make them cookie-cutter or force bad trades just to field a specific line-up..

 

1 division so you play all 13 other teams, no weak divisions. Also makes easy tie-breakers via head-to-head.

 

6 teams make the play-offs. 2 get a first round bye.

week 14 = wild card round (3vs6, 4vs5);

week 15 = semi-finals (seed 1 vs worst seed advancing, seed 2 vs better seed advancing)

week 16 = championship.

 

Select 1 tie-breaker player during play-offs only. Ties are allowed in the regular season.

 

This is a dynasty league, so your roster size may vary.

[archiebonker]

We had a 12 team league, then went to 16, back to 14 last year. Thinking of going back to a 16 team league again with 4 Divisions. Last season we went with one Division and 14 teams. We did Double Headers each week and it worked well. Now with the 16 Team league (if we find the right people that is), we will be doing Doubles again and playing only 12 Weeks of Reg Season. Tried a new playoff format and it worked great. 8 teams in playoffs with 4 weeks of play. Advantage given for top 4 teams by allowing them to lose one game.

 

I like the Flex options, but hard to make changes in our league with out some complaining. So I made 1 Flex option this year and I'll see if I can't push for 2 next year.

Edited May 2, 2013 by archiebonker

[49erAddict-08]

Sounds like a few people have played 16-team leagues. How are those? Seems like the rosters might be spread pretty thin.

[archiebonker]

Well, they can be. But with our league. Always tough to push something through, but I think I love the whole concept of a 16 team league. You can have 4 Divisions and I just came up with a pretty fun schedule. We also did a Blind Bidding Waiver wire with free pickups after that. What I tried to push this year was to have two Flex positions. But even though most wanted it, I'm going with one and try to see how that goes.

ya, it's not for everyone and you'll get guys mad that they have to play some 3 string WR or a Backup RB. But the games were alot closer and there wasn't alot of difference between number 1 and 16.

We also went with a 12 week Regular season and a 4 week playoff. Worked great. Gave advantage to the top 4 teams after the Reg season.

[irish]

Sounds like a few people have played 16-team leagues. How are those? Seems like the rosters might be spread pretty thin.

 

 

very thin. almost nothing on the waiver wire and it's difficult to make a trade in 16-teamers as well, cause even though u may be improving at one position, you're probably really hurting yourself at the other. unless, you got lucky and have 2-3 solid qbs or tes in a start 1 qb/te league and u can upgrade at wrs or rbs. even with tes, you can usually use the other in the flex spot.

 

16-teamers are all about solid drafting and making the correct lineup decisions. oh and luck.

[archiebonker]

True Irish....but if you have less on the bench and open up to flexes. It makes it interesting. And we made TE's Reception points a bit better (1.25pts per). It helped balance out the three postions (WR RB TE). I'm hopping to go to 16, 4 Divisions, and have 9 starters , 1 or 2 Flex and 4 Bench players. Hope this works...

[SecondString]

I play in two 14-team leagues, have been in one of them for six years now. The scheduling is perfect, you play each team once. The league I play in is radical as far as roster size, only ten spots, 8 starters & 2 bench. The effect of this is that the draft generally has less importance than your week-to-week moves as compared to most leagues. The ww is quite deep, even with 14 teams. Lot of strategy and tough decisions week in & week out.

 

The other 14 team league I'm in was started from the one I just described. We added another bench spot in this league (11 roster spots, 8 starters / 3 bench). Last year, we put up a vote to see about expanding to four instead of three bench spots. It got voted down, the owners love the fact that there are important roster decisions that must be made every week, you can't just draft and kick back.

[BA Baracus]

I play in 2-16 team leagues and something I did when setting up the rules was to provide the opportunity for owners to be creative when choosing their starting lineup by allowing more FLEX spots.

 

Our lineup requirements-

1QB

1-3 RBS

2-4 WRS

1-2 TES

1 K and

1 DEF

 

So with having to start 10 players, we have 7 definite spots with 1 QB, 1 RB, 2 WRs, 1 TE, 1 K and 1 Def and 3 Flex spots.

 

 

That sounds like a good setup. Having more flex options would make the thin WW more manageable for sure.

[archiebonker]

I'm going to try to convince our league to go with two Flex postions. We had none and it's tough to even get one. I'd love to see at least two.

 

1 Flex = RB or WR

1 Flex = WR or TE

[Swiss Cheezhead]

I like a 14 team league. Not a lot different than a 12 teamer really. Obviously there is a bit less on the waiver wire, but so what, in theory greater reward to the more prepared owners that drafted well.

 

And scheduling is super easy - All teams go in one division, you play everyone once from week 1 thru 13, then you can have the top X number of teams make the playoffs for weeks 14-16

 

 

This is why for redrafts, I think 14 is the best number of teams. Scheduling is a big deal for me -- everybody loves being able to play everybody else.

 

ETA: Other benefits:

1) It allows for 42% of teams to make the playoffs (6 of 14), which I think is perfect for FF. We give the top 2 seeds a bye in Week 14.

2) The dilution of players is about right. I think rosters in 10-team leagues are just ridiculously overstocked with talent, 12-teamers are decent, and 14-teamers (with 9-player rosters) truly reward skill vs. luck. When you get up to 16, you're rostering close to 150 players, and that's just too many. The lack of anything decent on the waiver wire means losing teams could lose interest halfway through the season.

Edited June 3, 2013 by Swiss Cheezhead

[archiebonker]

I'm trying to make our league a 16 team 4 Division league again after going with 14 last year. I really want to use Flex players to open it up. At the moment we have 1QB 2RB 3WR 1TE 1K 1Def. (9 starters).

Would like the shorten the bench from 6 to 4 and use Flex positions

 

What suggestions do you guys have on Flex positions for our league and the amount of guys on the bench?

 

Also I figured out a schedule that would allow each Division team to play each other 3 times / each conference team 2 times / and the teams from the other two divisions once (1x8 ) each in 12 weeks of Regular season.

 

Thanks

[Big Country]

The larger the league, the more important I think flex players come into play. It allows enough flexibility in building a team as certain positions dry up faster than others. As RBs are generally the shallowest position, I would start by removing one of the required RBs and replacing with a flex, so that your lineup would be 1 QB, 1-2 RBs, 3-4 WRs, 1-2 TEs, 1 K and 1 D.

 

You could also consider dropping one of the WR spots from the starting lineup, but it isn't neccessary. I'm more of a fan of deeper starting lineups, so would stick with the greater number of WRs, just throwing out options.

 

A roster of 16 is fine. With 9 starters, having 7 bench players means teams have to make the decision of whether to carry a backup at every position (including K and D) but be relatively shallow in depth, or carry more depth at the RB/WR spots and play revolving K/D.

 

One other thing I have seen in 16 team leagues, and I can't say I totally agree with it, is roster limits by position, primarily for QBs. I'm always a proponent of allowing owners to build teams the way they want, and if that means snaring a 3rd QB so some team doesn't have a backup, then that is just strong strategy to try force a trade down the road.

[flemingd]

The larger the league, the more important I think flex players come into play. It allows enough flexibility in building a team as certain positions dry up faster than others. As RBs are generally the shallowest position, I would start by removing one of the required RBs and replacing with a flex, so that your lineup would be 1 QB, 1-2 RBs, 3-4 WRs, 1-2 TEs, 1 K and 1 D.

 

The flex decision is really about how you want to allow owners to improve their teams. Flex is great, but it kills the trading potential of a league. Why trade your strong RB3 for a WR upgrade when you can just start your RB3? If you don't flex, that RB3 is points on the bench and it gives you a strong incentive to pick up the phone, log into your league management page, or shoot out some emails. The flip side is even more glaring.

 

Team A

RB2 Ben Tate

TE's Graham, Myers

 

Team B

RB's Rice Sproles, LeShore

TE Celek

 

With flex, Team A just starts Myers over Tate. Team B now would love to upgrade his TE, he's willing to offer up a solid upgrade at RB2, but can't find any takers. Heck he could even get bold and trade Rice for Graham depending on scoring.

 

I am now of the mind that flexing does more harm than good. FF has devolved into "log into the draft, talk smack in chat, then retreat behind your computer screen and watch the waive wire for the next 16 weeks". A significant part of that is our cultural paradigm shift, sure, but we're making it easier to do with our rules. I get why we did it - those without RB's got screwed, pure and simple. But there are now alternatives. PPR can drastically alter than. The prevalence of RBBC and the evolution of the passing game have as well. We don't need flex any more.

[archiebonker]

We have always played with PPR in our league. We had 16 teams 2 years ago. Some guys complained that it was too tough to pick good players up to make a good lineup. We feel back to a 14 team league. But I really missed the Divisions and I thought 16 was fun. So I was trying to balance it out. Flex or Not to Flex....

So I'm wondering if I should add 1 Flex or 2 Flex. And do I do something like 1 Flex = RB or WR

2 Flex - TE or WR

I'm wondering if anyone had a better option and what do you think if I shrink the Bench to 4 from 6?

 

 

Flemingd - I am listening. I'm a bit nervous doing this. But there isn't a ton of trading in our league for some reason. I wish there was.

 

[keggerz]

Sounds like a few people have played 16-team leagues. How are those? Seems like the rosters might be spread pretty thin.

 

Absolutely my favorite size league...outside of expert leagues & mocks all I play in are 16 team IDP dynasty leagues.

[Big Country]

I definitely enjoy the 14 and 16 team leagues primarily because the talent is spread out more. With a 10 team league, everyone can have studs at every position, that is a little less so in 12 team leagues.

 

In 14 and 16 team leagues, just about every team has some glaring weakness. Yes, a flex spot may ease filling in those weaknesses, but rarely do you have a team with truly no real weakness, This leads to more interesting trade banter, and also makes researching the waiver wire and being proactive a neccessity. If you read about the WR stepping up in practice and likely to get more looks, you have to jump now, not wait for him to have his breakout week. The people that generally complain about the lack of talent available for pickup are also generally your less involved owner that isn't doing the research and can't figure out why that WR that had 3 catches all year but just went 6 for 120 and a score was picked up a week ago.

 

I'm not a staunch IDP advocate like keggerz is, but it certainly does add an element to the game. The part that I do agree with keggerz though is that if you do IDP, you need to do full blown IDP so that defense is at least close in importance to offense overall, not the kind of dipping a big toe in the pool IDP I often see where you have a full offensive roster and then just 1 or 2 IDP spots, just to be able to say you are playing IDP.

[archiebonker]

I have the league agreeing on doing a Flex position this year, but I'm not sure if I can push through 2 Flex positions.

 

With 9 starters, how would you work 1 Flex and 2 Flex (if I can push it through). ?

[Big Country]

For 1 flex position:

 

1 QB

1-2 RB

2-3 WR

1-2 TE

1 K

1 D

 

For 2 flex positions:

 

1 QB

1-3 RB

2-4 WR

1-3 TE

1 K

1 D

[keggerz]

 

The part that I do agree with keggerz though is that if you do IDP, you need to do full blown IDP so that defense is at least close in importance to offense overall, not the kind of dipping a big toe in the pool IDP I often see where you have a full offensive roster and then just 1 or 2 IDP spots, just to be able to say you are playing IDP.