Potential changes for 2012 (Discussion Thread)

[Rebels GM]

GMs,

I'm planning on increasing the number of contract years to 120. This is something that I had set up initially last season but I ended up going with the 100 cap that we used in TBL2 as this was the first season that I ran an IDP league. This could take place effective for 2012 or we can phase in over a period of time.

Just a heads up I am planning a few tweaks to the scoring system (nothing major but I will adjust a few things to try to even the points from positions a bit). I cannot make these adjustments until after RT does their rollover.

The Blitz Bowl champion payout will be reduced from $600 to $500 with the $100 deducted going to the "Welfare Bowl" which will be a three week battle (week 14,15 & 16) between the two teams with the worst record in he league (regardless of conference). Unlike the Toilet Bowl which is a consolation tournament. The Welfare Bowl will award the team that scores the lowest total over the course of three weeks (GMs will be required to start their BEST lineups) and the cost of their league fee for the following season. This will be transferable to any replacement GMs.

UPDATE: after reading some of the posts I might tweak this to award blbs instead of cash.


I'm also considering increasing the number of starting IPDs from 5 to 6 with 3 flex players so it's the same for both offense and defensive players.

I'm going to discuss these items with Adam and Ethan and make a formal decision as soon as possible.

If you have any other proposed rule changes for us to consider please let post them here. While I've nearly perfected this dynasty format over the years there is always room for improvement.

I'm currently working on the 2012 TBL3 Rulebook. You can view the FIRST DRAFT by using the link below:

docs.google.com/View?id=dhr6wjsd_293d4tjz4gg

[The Football GURU]

1. I dont think this end of season trading period should be open unless a non refundable deposit is made by a GM to ensure they don't make a ton of trades then decide not to come back. I think this trading period we are in now is dangerous.

2. There should be more value for interceptions by DB's. Its a passing leage now and QB's are thowing less and less interceptions. They should be valued more for players. Also, if there is a way to have intereceptions higher for position...say, DL gets the most, LBs get the second most, and DBs get the least (but still more then they get now)

3. Kicker scoring needs a MAJOR motification. No way should a kicker outscore pro bowl offensive players.

4. I like 2 DL, 2 LB, 2 DB, 1 flex for D at any of the 3 positions than being able to play an overload at one position.

5. There should be a limit to the TE's you can start, Never saw a 4 TE set and the league should be as realistic as possible.

6. Don';t like the new competition. I dont like how the champion gets less $$$ for someone who is in 14-16th place. Chances are those teams are run by a GM who barely pays attenion with the intention of leaving anyway but if his team happens to get 3 good weeks back to back gets rewarded? I think that stinks

I would rather see that $100 spread out to reward maybe top non qb offensive player, top defensive scorer and maybe top weekly individual started player score on offense and defense.

Thanks

[Rebels GM]

The Welfare Bowl is for the GM that had a bad season and gives them the benefit of having their league fee paid. This is to give them a small bone and hopefully keep the teams that need work/rebuild an incentive to remain/join the league.

There will be some scoring tweaks for sure but nothing radical.

As for the starting lineup requirements the flexibility allows for teams to start their best lineups which should level the playing field. This has been something we've done for years and really works well.

I appreciate the input Chris. This is exactly the type of discussion I want to have.

[sweetness34]

I don't like the welfare bowl idea at all. To break even in this league you have to win the championship 1 out of every 6 years which I think that is tough enough. To make the odds of a breakeven franchise even tougher seems silly to me. There is the toilet bowl already how much more money goes out to being below mediocre. I would strongly consider leaving if welfare bowl stays in effect.

increasing cap years is tough cause teams based there drafts off of 100 years. I may have signed my players to longer contracts if 120 years were the case. I tried putting a year value on each player then looked at who i could franchise in which years if need be. 20 extra years would have changed that dramatically. Not to mention decrease the number of free agents each year which in turn decreases the value of blb's.

all in all i am not of fan of any of these changes to be honest except for the extra idp flex i am fine with that.

[sgttomorrow]

1. I dont think this end of season trading period should be open unless a non refundable deposit is made by a GM to ensure they don't make a ton of trades then decide not to come back. I think this trading period we are in now is dangerous.


This is true. I agree.

I do not like the welfare bowl either. I also agree that teams that do not pay attention should not be rewarded. It's a headache waiting to happen. Losing should never be rewarded under any circumstances. Ever. I got no money this year. I have a good team. I'll wait til next season. If I quit then I didn't deserve to be here. No reward for losing.


And by all means the kicking scoring needs an adjustment. I lost and won more games because of kickers than anyone. It's not fun to cheer for kickers.

I would also ask that any changes to scoring have an explanation behind them. I think that's important. It will be a tremendous help in getting everyone in tuned to the scoring rules better.

[Rebels GM]

You make some food points Shaun. I agree with you in regards to the planning and contract year allocation from the initial draft, but I really believe the years need to increase to 120. The more I think about this the more I'm leaning towards doing this increase in increments of 10 so it won't be such a drastic change. Thats how we implemented it in TBL when we increased the number of contract years.

As for the payout for the Welfare Bowl I see your point. I'm going to have to really think this over and discuss this with Adam and Ethan. I know we need to do something for the lower teams. Maybe we award blbs instead of money.

Onece again great discussion going on

[Das Mannschaft]

1. I dont think this end of season trading period should be open unless a non refundable deposit is made by a GM to ensure they don't make a ton of trades then decide not to come back. I think this trading period we are in now is dangerous.

I agree with this 100%

I also propose that we get points for fumble recovery. I think that the bonus for a QB for throwing over 400 yds is ridiculous Rob and I discussed this earlier on in the year. I propose that we cut down the Kickers points!!! They score more some weeks than top players like Ray Rice and McCoy. I think that we should keep the IDPs as are and possibly change that next season and give the league at least a year to prep for this upcoming change. Thats the only "Fair" resolution.

The Welfare bowl im iffy about. I like the concept because it helps keep owners that have not so great teams in the league with the incentive of $100. I dont like it in respect that a lot of owners will start tanking to get in this bowl game as well a high draft pick. It relies on a lot of integrity on the owners behalf. We could always reform the Toilet bowl.

[Rebels GM]

The fumbles recovery was a mistake on my part and will be added. The 400 yard passing bonus has never been as big of a factor in past years because it was a rarity. Rather than change it for next year I want to give it at least another year to sample the passing yardage. If we have another season like this past one we will need to adapt.

I have some ideas in mind and I'll explain them when the changes are made but I'll tell you guys right now that this league will never have "conventional scoring" it'll always be about performance.

As for the kicker points they'll be adjusted as well but like I said nothing drastic. When you compare the big days that they have in comparison to other big performance days by other positions it's not that far off in comparison to traditional scoring leagues when comparing the points put up by other positions.

The bottom line is that kickers are important and can and will win games (you should know this better than anyone Jeff considering Mr. Wide Right's performance in the SB.

[sweetness34]

my problem with adjusting the years is that i am losing a player that i easily put another year on his contract if i had 10 more years and definately if i had 20. The other part is i signed certain players to different years so i could use my franchise tag on those players per given year and not be stuck having to decide which player to franchise. I would have probably added years to each of those players contracts so that i would not have to use a franchise tag at all on them. to add years for rookie players and the free agents that are available this year kind of stinks cause most of them would not have been free agents and the teams that are losing those players could have kept them an extra year or 2 to decide if they were worth going after in free agency or washed up.

[Rebels GM]

Every team in the league could say that Shaun and I totally get what you're saying. However longterm this will most certainly be in the best interest of the league. The incremental approach is fair and will allow us to adjust over a two year period.

[Rebels GM]

I also wanted to address this offseason trading period. All of the GMs have confirmed a return for next year. The 2012 season is upon us and while RT hasn't rolled over yet this is no different than when RFA opens in April.

[sweetness34]

In an effort to provide continuity and stability to the league and give GMs the ability to plan there will be no major rule changes planned for the first three seasons of play. *This doesn't include scoring tweaks and adjustments deemed to be in the best interest of the league by the BOD. The league will always listen to any suggestions that GMs has and will be as open minded as possible, but the final decision will remain with the BOD.

That is what the rule book says but I guess you left some room to manuever with adjustments deemed to be in the best interest of the league.

Also I remember when the subject was brought up about kicker scoring in the message board you were very addiment about not changing anything for the first 3 years. here is your post in the message board about it


The Commish





Rob Lee

Edited: Sun Sep 18 2011 8:20:49 pm ET by Commissioner



[e-mail]

Posted: Sun Sep 18 2011 8:18:11 pm ET



Yeah, the goal is to make every position important, relevant and somewhat upredictable. Nothing about the scoring in this league is conventional. I guarantee that it's unlike anything most have you have played in and will take some getting used to.

The thought behind the scoring is to make every game count and unpredictable so any team can win any game. It all depends on situations. Big plays change the outcomes of games and that's the thought behind the scoring. A 95 TD pass is HUGE, a 50 yard FG is HUGE. It changes the complexion of a game. A shanked chip shot is HUGE and your kicker will lose points accordingly. I can't wait to hear it when someone gets a (-25) for missing a chip shot FG or XP.) The bottom line is the scoring allows for come crazy points and outcomes of games. Every player at every position can score a huge amount of points depending on what happens in the games.

I don't plan on making any significant changes to the league for 3-4 seasons so we can let the dust settle and allow you all to get a feel for this style of league. This is a conventional league by no means and that's exactly why it makes it special.

Now my question is why the sudden change of heart in making these changes. I see that you have way the most blb's in the league and you have 7 picks in the draft all in the first 3 rounds. This 20 year add to the cap benefits you greatly considering you have the highest team in cap years right now with 76.

remember i am a fair person i traded you back when i didnt have to cause you werent feeling so great about the deal right afterwards cause that is the type of person i am. However this doesnt look good to me with how much this favors you for the rfa and next draft and the fact that i have not heard anyone else say anything about adding years to the cap. In fact when we had that trade chat room a lot of teams were dumping high contracts that wanted to rebuild. As I look at the rosters I really only see 1 team with a cap problenm and that would be you cause you have the ability to pick up the most FAs and 7 high draft choices with only 24 years left to do it with everyone else has seem to accomodated there team with enough years to do what is necessary for them.

[Rebels GM]

This has nothing to do with my team Shaun. I have plenty of blbs to work around anything that comes my way whether that is via trade or by cutting some players etc. I've been playing in this type of format for years and I always work around the cap. I do have a lot of picks, but I'm telling you now that I'll be making some deals. Generally, I like to add 2-4 players per draft and that's pretty much my plan for this year too.

I did state that there wouldn't be major changes for the first 3 years and I don't see these as major changes and they don't have to be implemented in this year. I do want to see the cap increase and it will increase within the next few years whether that's incremental or we wait a few years. I firmly believe that having an expanded cap is the right thing to do longterm.

The Welfare Bowl is something that I feel very strongly about. Like I said if we don't give cash, we can give blbs, but there has got to be something for the bottom teams.

Like I said none of this is etched in stone and I promise you that Adam, Ethan and I will discuss this in great length and make a decision. I'm also not opposed to phasing these changes in so GMs can plan accordingly if need be.

I will most certainly take into account what GMs are saying here and whatever we decide I assure you will be in the best interest of the league and not my team or any GM.

Once again I think this is very good discussion and I want to let you know that I appreciate your passion and dedication to the league. You bring up several good points.

[The Football GURU]

I think the addition of contract years is an issue at this point. I think if this is done now, there needs to be something given to each GM now as a concession. Here are my suggestions:

1- we can add up to 2 years to any DRAFTED player on our roster currently for no charge
2- We can keep 1 player we were to lose to RFA that either only had 1 year left or was a waiver pick move.
3- We are compensated with BLBs which will hekp with RFA/extensions for players we may have given more years to but didnt because we had only 100 years to dole out.

This helps those who may have given drafted players more years. If you don't have any drafted players still on your roster, you can't utilize it.

If you are worried abour RFA, 120 years will hurt RFA for sure.

[Rebels GM]

Good ideas Chris. The more I think about this the more I think if done it needs to be done over a period of time so GMs can prepare. Maybe within 2-3 seasons we can increase to 120 years (perhaps by 5 years at a time) or use one or more of the concessions you mentioned.

You might be right about the 120 years hurting RFA. Maybe 110 would be better or perhaps we keep it as is. I'm not opposed to keeping it at 100, but I do think having the extra years will be best for the league longterm. The thing that should keep a solid crop of RFA is the limitations of contract extensions and the cost to use the franchise and transitions tags.

The one thing I'm getting out of this discussion is that I don't think making this change quickly and without getting feedback from the GMs is a good thing.

Keep it coming fellas. I'd love to hear from other GMs. I've learned over the years as a commissioner that I don't have all the answers and that being a good leader requires being a good listener.

[bangorblueox]

I don't like the welfare thing either.If anything have them play 4 blbs so they can improve there team but I don't like it at all really.reward teams 4 loosing.I would also like to see a little change to the K's scoring.I do think there should be a limit on how many TE's u can play(3)I think is good.I like the idea of having more D players.I can't remember does 3rd place g.et anything?If not I think there should be a game for 3rd and they should get something instead of the welfare thing.I think changing the years from 100 to 120 shouldn't be done either unless we can all go back and give out the rest of the years and that would be a mess and I agree it would make the RFA part less important.

[sweetness34]

Jan 7, 2012 21:17:54 GMT -5 The Football GURU said:

I think the addition of contract years is an issue at this point. I think if this is done now, there needs to be something given to each GM now as a concession. Here are my suggestions:

1- we can add up to 2 years to any DRAFTED player on our roster currently for no charge
2- We can keep 1 player we were to lose to RFA that either only had 1 year left or was a waiver pick move.
3- We are compensated with BLBs which will hekp with RFA/extensions for players we may have given more years to but didnt because we had only 100 years to dole out.

This helps those who may have given drafted players more years. If you don't have any drafted players still on your roster, you can't utilize it.

If you are worried abour RFA, 120 years will hurt RFA for sure.

i like this not bad ideas. Just cause I am arguing the other side of the coin here what exactly are the benefits for the longterm of the league by adding 20 years rob I cant really think of any.

[Rebels GM]

The benefit would be that teams would be able to give drafted players longer deals. As it stands now it's very easy to reduce contract years, but you only get one shot at signing players and adding them is hard. In TBL we have an 80 year cap and that is without IDPs. The 20 additional years really doesn't give enough years for the additional players. With 5 starters that's an average of 2 years per player.

Trust me man. This is without a doubt in the best interest of this league longterm and is something that I really think will be a good thing for the league and something that I would like to see happen sometime in the future.

I can see phasing this in over a period of time so GMs can prepare if need be. If we add 5 or 10 years per year until we get to 120 it doesn't benefit/hurt any team more than another.

[bangorblueox]

I have to say I think sweetness is 100% right.I think messing with the years at this point is a mistake.

[Nea Kameni]

Hate the following:
1. Changing to 120 Contract years - This absolutely takes away from Free Agency. Which is huge in this style league. This also sucks/unfair for those teams that have been trading away early draft picks. This absolutely changes the value of the picks. Keep it at 100. We already have enough garbage players on our rosters.
2. Welfare Bowl - If your team sucks, then rebuild the old fashioned way. This isn't a charity event.
3. Current Trade Period - Agree with Guru.
4. Adding IDP - The current setup is great. IDP scoring is too random. I would prefer to see the owner whom displays skill/knowledge vs luck getting the wins.

Like:
1. Reducing Kickers scoring - Absolutely ridiculous right now.
2. Like the Toilet Bowl - I would like to change the format.

[Rebels GM]

All good points Aaron.

Not sure I totally understand the concern about the trading period? What's wrong with allowing GMs to trade players/picks that are on their roster? I could see if we didn't have everyone on board for the following season.

I get what you're saying about a GM trading and bailing but that could happen at any point. If that's the case we couldn't open trading until June 1st which is when the league fees are due by.

[cwall07]

I dont really like the Welfare Bowl idea but as long as no cash goes their way i can live with it. I also hope that the scoring remains the same, I just traded MJD for Gates because of the scoring system so a change in my opinion would not be fair. In my opinion the cap is good where it is but I dont really care if it changes I think RFA will suffer and the rich will get richer and the teams on the bottom will have less free agents to try and improve with. I am not worried about a Gm leaving, but I think common courtesy should be to answer a trade requwst in no more than a weeks time. If you arent interested just decline the offer.

[The Football GURU]

it sounds like no one likes the Welfare Bowl if it means a financial payout. The whole objective there should be to get these teams better and more competive rather than reward them with money. I have no issue if they are playing for BLBs or compesitory draft picks. again, i rather see that $100 go to an individual leader.

[The Football GURU]

Another idea....More ways to get BLBS. examples:

1- if you lose a game you get 10 blbs, win and you get none...bad teams get more blbs to help rebuild
2- at the end of the year, division winner gets none, 2nd gets 10, 3rd- 20, 4th-30, 5th-40, 6th- 50- again, a way to help bad teams get better
3- top scoring player at each position gets X amount BLBs each week.

I am sure there are other ways and the BLB amount above are examples.

If doing so, lower the FREE allotement we get too so we have to earn more blbs

[Das Mannschaft]

Jan 8, 2012 12:03:56 GMT -5 The Football GURU said:

Another idea....More ways to get BLBS. examples:

1- if you lose a game you get 10 blbs, win and you get none...bad teams get more blbs to help rebuild
2- at the end of the year, division winner gets none, 2nd gets 10, 3rd- 20, 4th-30, 5th-40, 6th- 50- again, a way to help bad teams get better
3- top scoring player at each position gets X amount BLBs each week.

I am sure there are other ways and the BLB amount above are examples.

If doing so, lower the FREE allotement we get too so we have to earn more blbs

Not a bad idea. I think that the amounts needs some adjusting but this would be a good way to keep from doing the welfare bowl and keep the crappy teams competitive by giving them BLBs to trade and use in free agency.

I don't like the idea of extending the cap to 120 until we have a few more seasons under our belt. I agree with everything that Aaron had to say pretty much.

[Fundy]

Right now high scorer gets $25 each week. I would like to reduce the amount so that every week of the season AND FF playoffs there are chances at the high score money. This rewards teams who have a lot of depth and keeps everyone interested the entirety of the FF season.

[Rebels GM]

Jan 8, 2012 1:18:00 GMT -5 cwall07 said:

I am not worried about a Gm leaving

I'm not either Chad. As much as I think we have a great group here I wont let a GM threatening to leave over changes stop changes that I feel are good for the league. The way I see it is a GM cannot appreciate being in a league like this find another one that suits your style a bit better. I have no shortage of finding replacement GMs as I already have a waiting list for this league.

That's not meant at Shaun who said he'd leave if we did the Welfare Bowl, that's just my take on running leagues in general. You're never going to please everyone so at the end of the day you make decisions and live with them.

However, it's obvious by feedback that many GMs don't like the idea of increasing the contract cap and or the Welfare Bowl. So that has caught my attention and will without a doubt be a factor in any decisions that are made. The last thing I want to do after coming off a great first season is rock the boat too much and cause issues and or hard feelings. Those are the types of things that will kill a league and I've already invested too much time to see this thing fail.

Jan 8, 2012 12:03:56 GMT -5 The Football GURU said:

Another idea....More ways to get BLBS. examples:

1- if you lose a game you get 10 blbs, win and you get none...bad teams get more blbs to help rebuild
2- at the end of the year, division winner gets none, 2nd gets 10, 3rd- 20, 4th-30, 5th-40, 6th- 50- again, a way to help bad teams get better
3- top scoring player at each position gets X amount BLBs each week.

I am sure there are other ways and the BLB amount above are examples.

If doing so, lower the FREE allotment we get too so we have to earn more blbs

Not bad ideas, but I really think I've got a firm grasp on the financial model of the league and I don't plan on making any changes here such as reducing the annual allotment. The cost of using the franchise tag is 250 blb itself and adding a year is 50 so a 300 year allotment is pretty much on par.

I also don't want to take away the other blb awards for the winning teams. Just as I want to help the bottom teams there needs to be a reward for having great seasons and giving teams a chance to stay on top.

Jan 8, 2012 12:00:34 GMT -5 The Football GURU said:

it sounds like no one likes the Welfare Bowl if it means a financial payout. The whole objective there should be to get these teams better and more competive rather than reward them with money. I have no issue if they are playing for BLBs or compesitory draft picks. again, i rather see that $100 go to an individual leader.

I've been thinking about this one a lot and the more I think about it the more I'm leaning towards giving a blb award to the winner and keeping the payout for the SB Champion the same or maybe give the 3rd and 4th place team a consolation game for $50 bucks and the other $50 to the team that has the highest scoring week over a 17 game period.

As for the scoring tweaks there won't be radical changes to any position. I have no plans to change the TE scoring Chad. I do plan to adjust the kicker points a tad cause at this point there higher than what we have in TBL but not by much. I can tell you guys right now that any league I run will always place an importance on kicker points and be performance based.


Keep the feedback/suggestions coming guys. This has really been good and got me thinking. I just wish we had more GMs chiming in.

[sweetness34]

it seems to me that most of the gm's that spoke in here are against adding the 20 years to the cap, and also against financial compensation for the welfare bowl. So why not play it out for a few years see how it goes and if the gm's decide you know what a few extra cap years wouldn't be a bad thing then we change it but we change it before the season starts and effective after the championship game so noone is effected during the season because of it, as it is now alot of teams are effected by this decision because of the timing of it.

[Rebels GM]

I just got off the phone with Ethan. We had a great conversation about the topics being discussed in this thread. We both agreed that adding years to the cap needs to be a major process over a period of time. What we discussed was increasing by 5 years per season (starting with 2012) over the next four seasons until we hit 120 in 2015. This would also include adding an additional IDP flex in the 2013 season.

As for the Welfare Bowl I don't think we'll provide any financial compensation but rather a blb bonus.

We also discussed the scoring tweaks and we're going to do some testing to try and make all the positions equitable for the most part.

Lastly, I really like Tyler's idea of reducing the $25 weekly payout to $20. This will give us an additional $65 that will allow us to payout for the high points through week 16 of the season. By reducing the payout of the SB Champion from $600 to $500 we will gain an extra $100 that we'll be able to divide up and give $50 to the winner of a consolation game between the losers of the conference championship games. From the last $50 we'll give another $20 to the high scorer from week 17 so we have all weeks covered and this will keep GMs focused through the entire NFL season (Great idea Tyler) and then award an additional $30 to the team that had the highest score over the course of 17 weeks which will increase their winning for that week from the normal $20 to $50.

Make sense?

Anyway, all of this is still under discussion between the BOD and I haven't had a chance to talk to Adam about any of this. Plus I'd still like to hear from the other GMs before we make any formal decisions.

Once again I really appreciate the feedback from you guys. This is tremendous and will really help the BOD in making these decisions.

[cwall07]

I really like the money break down Rob. It keeps everyone in the game til the end. I also like adding one more flex idp. I dont like going to 120 cap but think with extra idp flex we would need to extend to 105 cap. I think that blbs for the welfare bowl is a good idea, but i think the winner not the loser should get the blbs. I dont like scoring changes unless we are given a few years notice. The scoring system was put out before the league started and everyone had a chance to look at the rules and build their team accordingly. Just because kickers and idps can outscore a quarterback it doesnt mean that the rules need to be adjusted so this league is closer to everyother fantasy league. The scoring system is one of the factors that makes this league so fun and makes it difficult to try and master. I was glad to see that scoring set up for all three Big League leagues is different, so all player new and experienced have to addapt and learn as we go.