| Is there a micromanager in your fantasy league? You know the
type: someone who makes a roster move every week, who agonizes over lineup decisions, who
watches matchups like a hawk looking for the most infinitesimal of advantages. I’m
not like that when it comes to running my team, but I am a micromanager when it comes to
my league. I am a charter member of the CFFL, which will enter its seventh season in 2000.
Every year, we look for ways to improve our league. I thought I’d share a couple of
our latest innovations with you. (Hey, it is the season of sharing.)
Total yards from scrimmage — For the last two years, we’ve noticed a
problem in our league. Running backs such as Marshall Faulk, Duce Staley and Edgerrin
James who are good receiving threats are undervalued under our yardage-bonus system.
Faulk’s fine ’99 season hasn’t been accurately reflected on our fantasy
league’s scoresheet.
To remedy that, we’ve made two changes. The first is a new yardage-bonus system
that will make things a little fairer. The second is an innovation I’d suggest to all
fantasy owners. For running backs and receivers, use total yards from scrimmage — not
rushing or receiving yards separately — to determine yardage totals. To put it
simply, we’ll add Faulk’s rushing and receiving yardage, then use that total to
calculate the bonus.
We suggest you use yards from scrimmage, not total yards, because kickoff- and
punt-return yardage will skew your totals. Also, don’t include passing yards, since
it’s hard to correlate them to rushing and receiving yards. (We have a separate scale
for passing bonuses already.) For quarterbacks, add their rushing yards and receiving
yards to determine their total yards for scrimmage, and then calculate passing bonuses
separately. And when a back or receiver throws a pass, his passing totals won’t go
into the total-yards calculation.
Two kickers — Our league has eight teams. Our second innovation would only
work for a league with 10 teams or fewer.
Next season, each team will start two kickers and get the average of their scores on
his scoresheet. This will mitigate the impact of kickers, who all too often score a
disproportionate number of points.
The second-place team in our league this season basically had two productive players
during the stretch drive — QB Steve Beuerlein and PK Mike Hollis. We didn’t
think it was right for a kicker to lift an otherwise mediocre team into the league final.
Our solution was the two-kicker system.
Of course, if a team has two good kickers, it will overcome the intent of this rule.
But aside from taking the kicker out of the game completely, this seems like the fairest
way to go.
The reason only teams with 10 teams or fewer could enact this rule is that a fantasy
team must have at least three kickers on the roster to be able to start two every week.
Each owner will also have to watch the bye weeks carefully. |
