GUNSLINGERS

[5th4x4 0]

I had mentioned that I might create an alternative Fantasy Football league, and I have now done so. 

 

The name of the league is called GUNSLINGERS.

 

There are 2 options available to us, although I should also mention that there is a 3rd supplemental option that can be used along with one of those other two options, as I'm about to explain. 

 

I realize that this all sounds very cryptic, so I'll elaborate.

 

We can go one of 2 ways in regard to which service to use:

1) ESPN

2) Yahoo

Here are further details on that:

 

The ESPN option is a Head-to-Head league. We're all familiar with that type of league. It's the same system that most fantasy leagues use (including the current NJGF Fantasy league).

It uses arbitrary schedules created by a computer to pit each team against another team in the league.

 

The Yahoo option offers a different style. That style is a "Points Only" style league. 

That style does away with head-to-head matchups (aka: arbitrary schedules) , and it instead rewards teams for their ability and consistency to score points (which is ultimately the objective of fantasy football: SCORE AS MANY POINTS AS POSSIBLE).

This is how Yahoo describes it:

 

Points Only

In a "Points Only" League, scoring is cumulative over the course of the entire season. Each player in your team's starting lineup earns points based on their performance in each of several stat categories.

The points they score are added to your daily point total, and the team with the highest total at the end of the year wins its league championship.

 

That eliminates the instances where your team may be the second highest scoring team in a given week, but your team just happened to play the team that scored the #1 highest number of points during that same week.

Therefore your team would get an "L" in a head-to-head style league, while other teams who scored less (sometime far less) than your team would get a "W" for defeating a team that also scored less than your team scored.

The reality of that is that your team would have defeated BOTH of those teams (or all but 1 team), and yet your team earns an "L" during that week, while lower scoring teams are credited with a "W".

(sound fair?)

 

That is ultimately not the objective of every team that plays fantasy football. The objective of fantasy football is to score as many points as possible PERIOD.

Ambiguous schedule matchups should not derail that objective. After all, which teams go into any head-to-head matchup saying that they will only score X number of points in order to defeat their particular opponent that week?

The answer to that is: NO team does that!

Because EVERY team is trying to score as many points as possible every single week. It's never about your opponent... it's always about your own team and it's ability to score points.

Therefore it's POINTS that are the objective of every team, and not some arbitrary head-to-head matchup created by a computer.

Anyway, that is why the head-to-head style is flawed when it comes to fantasy football.

 

Anyway, only Yahoo offered the "Points Only" (aka: High Score) option. ESPN does not. (at least not in their free league).

 

So what's the 3rd supplemental option?

The 3rd option is a creation of my own making (if it exists anywhere else, I've not been made aware of it), and I've been using this style for my own fantasy league since 2006. 

I call it ULTIMATE Fantasy Football, and it works like this:

 

We use a Fantasy Football service (like Yahoo, ESPN, etc) to provide our 'live scoring' data, and 'player info', and 'roster lineups', and 'waiver wire transactions', etc. 

But the standings from those services are not used.

Instead I have coded/created a program of my own design that calculates the "high to low" scores of each team each week. It calculates how many "wins" each team would have accumulated if their team would have played against every other team in the league that week.

(in other words, each team is playing head-to-head against each and every team in the league... every week of the season)

 

So using a 10 team league as an example... the team that scored the highest score that week would be credited with 9 Wins (9-0 for the week), since their score would have defeated all of the other 9 teams in the league

On the other end of the spectrum, the team that scored the lowest score that week would have defeated 0 teams, and therefor that team would be credited with 0 wins for that week (0-9).

The rest of the teams would be credited with 8-1, 7-2, 6-3 (etc) records for that week, depending upon how many teams they would have defeated that week. 

We then add every team's win totals from week to week to create the cumulative standings in the league.

 

Here is a sample from my league last season - and this is what I would provide as a supplemental website to whatever fantasy service (Yahoo/ESPN) that we choose to use to provide the desired services for our league.

 

http://www.thebusinessofdata.com/tuff13/TUFF.asp

 

(I'll be happy to describe what it all means. Just ask)

 

I've obviously dumped a lot of info here, so I'd be happy to answer any questions that anyone might have.

 

And btw, I foresee 10 teams (even if I have to import some of my own league's team owners to fill unfilled slots for this season), and I also envision an entry fee of $10 for this season (just until we get everyone acclimated and comfortable with the system). After all, some of us are already in multiple leagues by now - including the NJGF League - so it's probably best to make this as easy and painless as possible right now.

 

I'll further explain playoffs and payouts as well.

 

And just so you know, I take ZERO dollars from my leagues. I do all of this strictly for the opportunity to compete in a fair and equitable system. After all, fantasy football can be based on luck.... but I prefer to skew it towards consistency and skill.

And every team owner that has played in my leagues has become a much better fantasy player because they have learned how to SCORE, as opposed to how to win lucky.

 

Sorry for the lengthy intro, but this is not your typical style of fantasy league, so there is a lot of info to pass along in the beginning.

 

If anyone is interested (or curious and/or has questions) let me know. 

I have already set up Yahoo and ESPN leagues for GUNSLINGERS, so all we need to do is get enough players (teams), and decide on a draft day/time, and whether the entry fee should be $10 or.... ?? 

 

If you've read this far, thanks for hanging with me  : )

[panteramatt 27]

Im in keep me updated. Also I prefer the espn layout. 

[shizzoizzo7 6]

I'm in with whatever others decide

[5th4x4 0]

I just obtained a new client, and the scope and scale of his project is extensive.

Therefore I can't spend much time here trying to recruit teams to join. 

So without any additional interest here, this league idea will likely just fade out.

Sorry. I was hoping to offer an alternative, but it looks like we're stuck with the moronic 15+ team league after all.