Articles from the Commish and the Leagues Team Owners about our Fantasy Football League
Well we have completed another successful CIFL season, and soon we will be voting on the new rules for the league. I thought I would discuss some of this years proposals so that my opinions and why are known by the league. This is not to try and sway votes, I just want everyone to know why I am voting the way that I am. Feel free to respond with your opinions whether you agree or disagree.
The first rule to discuss deals with franchise players. Many of us felt that 5 was too many last year and this proposal could very well of passed as it was 6-3 in favor of. The purpose of lowering back down to 4 franchise players was to provide more quality to the draft. I think it ended up working to all of our advantages by having a year of 5 franchise players before voting again as it seems that many have changed their minds on this proposal. I have joined the group opposed to this now. Although with my team, it would probably be to my personal advantage to go ahead and vote in favor of this proposal, I felt like we still had some quality players lower in the draft.
Next we have the deadline to get the proposals turned in. This is a very important proposal for the league. There is a lot of work that goes into getting the league ready for the season and getting the rules in place is an important part of that. We saw last year how owners weren’t able to properly prepare for the draft like they normally do since they weren’t sure on the rule changes for the season. Having a deadline assures that everyone will know the changes with plenty of time to prepare for the upcoming season.
A change in the tie breaking order has been suggested as well. Currently, head to head match ups is ahead of division record. The proposed change is to swap these two factors. I disagree with this for this reason. If I have the same record as team A and I beat them twice in a season, I think that should give my team an advantage over team A even if they have a better division record. While the proposed method may be a better way to list the standings within the season when only 1 game has been played between the 2 tied teams, in the end each division team plays 2 games vs each other and I think that should take precedence in the end.
The Status of games proposal, I am up in the air about. I completely understand both arguments on this. I am leaning toward voting yes however, mainly due to the fact of I don’t like changing results a week after the fact. We got really lucky this year that things worked out with this, but there is definitely a chance of controversy in the future if this is taken care of one way or the other. There is also a proposal for allowing a waiver move to playoff teams for the playoffs. I am against this mainly due to the fact that everyone knows that good players on good teams might not play in the final weeks and that it is a good idea to take that into account with your draft day or trade deadline strategy.
And finally we have the go a year without rule proposals, proposal. To me this would hurt the league big time, even if it’s just one year. As we have seen, things come up every year. Our league needs the ability to make changes when needed. I don’t think anyone wants (and I don’t want to have to) the commish to put rules into place when something comes up and not having the ability for the league to vote on the matter for 2 years. This league is a modern day fantasy league and proposals are needed to keep it a modern league so that its rules don’t get classified as a "stone age of fantasy football" rule.
Like I said, feel free to post your opinions if you would like. But I do ask that you provide reasons for feeling the way that you do so that everyone can try to understand your views on the subjects.
Each year the question of Team Defense vs. our individual defense comes up. The fact is more and more leagues are switching TO individual defensive players over the team defense concept. Most say that Individual Defensive Players (IDP’s) adds further realism and depth to fantasy leagues. The IDP’s also allows each team to start 11 players each week, which equals the same number of players on the field at one time for a team, thus the further realism to the league.
Although IDP’s add more realism and complexity to fantasy football, they also bring a random factor to the games. Some player’s points fluctuate greatly from week to week due to sacks and interceptions, rather than the more stable tackle stats. Plus the IDP’s bring a more random factor when it comes to week to week matchups. If your defense is the Ravens and your playing the 49ers, you know that you’re likely going to have a good week. But a player like Ray Lewis against the 49ers offense brings more of a random factor to your team. Thus creating more of a challenge in your weekly selections for your lineup, in turn causing more parody within the league.
A team defense system may be more reliable, easier to draft, and more traditional with the older leagues. But it does allow a league owner to focus more on offense , thus taking away a lot of the draft day strategy. IDP’s give each owner the opportunity to put together a dominant defense piece by piece.
We have all seen the trades and questioned why would that owner make that trade. Trust me I know, when a player is traded for draft picks someone will wonder why? Can’t speak for everyone else but the acquiring of draft picks have overall help that team out in one way or another. Here are some of the highlight pickups teams have made by getting extra picks. The two best would have to be Joe Horn (drafted by Dynamite with Destroyers #2 03 pick) and Tom Brady (drafted by Rebels with Ghosts #5 04 Pick). Horn has been a stud for the Dynamite. Horn was 3rd on the Dynamite in scoring in 03, nearly being named all conference, then was franchised and was all CIFL in 04. Brady on the other had led the Rebels in scoring in 04 with 210 points for an average of 15PPG. Other good pickups made via the traded draft pick have been Todd Heap in 03 by the Rockers via the Legends who averaged 4.7 PPG in 10 games. Jay Feely twice, averaging a respectable 5.1 games for the Legends via the Ghosts in 03, and averaging 8.5 PPG in two games for the Rebels via the Ghosts again in 04 as a backup to Jeff Wilkins. Jay Fiedler had 11 points in the back up role to Donovan McNabb for the Attack in 03 via a trade with TWISTERS. Then you have the trades that don’t work out at first….but eventually work out for the best. For instance, in the 04 draft, the Rebels traded a 7th round pick back to the Dynamite in order to move up 2 spots in the first round. The Rebels then drafted Darryl Jackson, who was solid, but not great for the Rebels. The Rebels later traded Jackson for a 05 draft pick. The Dynamite in that deal, got their 7th round pick back that had been traded the previous season, plus still was able to draft the player that the owner wanted all along in the first round. This trade also had an effect on the team sandwiched in between the Rebels and Dynamite…the Destroyers. The Destroyers had intended on drafting Jackson themselves, so the trade threw a wrench in their original plans as well. Another pick that later worked out for the better was the Ghosts drafting Amani Toomer with the Twisters 5th pick in 04. Toomer had a dreadful year, but the Ghosts was able to use him in a trade to get a running back, that actually played a major role in a win for the Ghosts that week. Although neither player produced the rest of the year, the trade did win one game for the Ghosts. But of course every picked up draft pick isn’t going to be a success. Twisters only got 6.5 PPG out of Rich Gannon in 03 after drafting him via the Dynamite. Jason Taylor failed to live up to the previous year when the Ghosts drafted him with their 5th round pick acquired from the Rockers in 03, and Dallas never got any thing out of Olindo Mare with the 13th round pick gained from the Ghosts in 03, but he did have the #2 kicker in the league that year….so it wasn’t that big of a loss for them. While only a couple of these picks have made huge impacts, for the most part, these extra picks have been very helpful to the teams acquiring them. The advantage to gaining draft picks is that you can fill your starting spots faster, enabling you to make more riskier picks later on. This is why I was able to draft Willis McGahee, Anquin Boldin, and Julius Jones as early as I did last year. Now 2 of those risks will most likely be franchised next year. This year a record 9 draft picks have been traded so far…maybe the trends of the success of acquiring draft picks will be more evident after next season is through.
Here is the list of traded draft picks made in the league:
2003: Destroyers trade 2nd RD pick to Dynamite (Joe Horn); Legends trade 3rd RD pick to Rockers (Todd Heap); Dynamite trade 3rd RD pick to TWISTERS (Rich Gannon); Rockers trade 5th RD pick to Ghosts (Jason Taylor); Ghosts trade 5th RD pick to Legends (Jay Feely); TWISTERS trade 12th RD pick to Attack (Jay Fiedler); Ghosts trade 13th RD pick to Dynamite (Olindo Mare)
2004: Dallas trades 1st RD pick to Rebels for 1st RD Pick and 7th RD pick (Darryl Jackson/Mike Vanderjagt/Jevon Kearse); TWISTERS trade 5th RD pick to Ghosts (Amani Toomer); Ghosts trades 5th RD pick to Rebels (Tom Brady), Ghosts trades 12th RD pick to Rebels (Jay Feely)
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