OONFL2kEleventyOne - Playoffs Ho!

[Zaxxon]

Update: Pre-season has begun, which means sign-ups are officially being accepted. To sign up, PM me and include the email address that you'd like to have added to the OONFL mailing list for the season, whether or not you'd like to add an Ironman entry alongside your regular entry, and let me know your preferred donation tranmittal option: PayPal or snail mail. I'll reply with appropriate instructions.
End Update

Okedoke. The Cubs are out of realistic contention, which means it's probably about time to start thinking football. We've got about 8 weeks until kickoff, 4 weeks until the super-exciting pre-season starts, so let's get the ball rolling. We've done a pre-preseason planning thread each year and have gotten a few good rules tweaks out of them in the past, so let's get this show on the road.

An overview for those new to the site and/or pool:

-Any OO member is welcome to join us; we also generally allow immediate family and close friends of OOers, if they have an itch to get in (my father-in-law, Mr. Bob, for example, participates even though he doesn't visit OO). I've had several requests from friends and family to get in, so I'm going to open up to a few more of my non-OO folks this year. If any of you have close peeps that you have wanted to invite but haven't yet, this would be a good season to do so.

-The pool lasts from Week 1 through the Super Bowl, every game picked by every player.
-A correct pick earns 2 points, an incorrect pick 0.
-Each player may optionally designate up to five games each week as 'locks'. Correct locks earn 3 points instead of 2, and incorrect locks cost a point instead of washing out.
-At regular-season's end, the top 50% of players continue to the playoffs; the rest become cheerleaders (or hecklers).
-Playoff scoring is similar, except each player has a total of 5 locks for the duration of the playoffs, and the Super Bowl is worth 4 base points rather than two.
-$20 entrance fee, regular-season winner gets 10%, 3rd-place playoffs gets 15%, 2nd-place playoffs 30%, and playoff winner 40%. A special award known as the End-of-Season Surge, earns 5% and goes to the player scoring the most points during the critical Week 13-17 period.

Last year we had 31 regular and 2 Ironman entries, bringing forth a sweet pot. Hopefully we can even more fool^Z^Z^Z^Zparticipants this year. It's a ton of fun, and I urge anyone even remotely interested in NFL football to give it a shot. For $20, you can get a lot of enjoyment over the course of many months. Previous seasons' stats & info are available for perusal here.

On to the survey!

For those who participated last year:
1) Do you plan to participate again this year? If not, why not?

2) Are there any rules changes you would like to see put into place?

3) Are there any especially interesting tiebreaker question options this year?

4) Do you plan to bring any friends/family into the pool with you? If so, who and how many?

For anyone interested who did not participate last year:
1) Please post your intent to participate.

2) I think <insert idea here> would make the pool more interesting/fun.

3) Do you plan to bring any friends/family into the pool with you? If so, who and how many?

Official sign-ups will begin later in the summer.

[Isgrimnur]

1) Do you plan to participate again this year? If not, why not?

Yes

2) Are there any rules changes you would like to see put into place?

No

3) Are there any especially interesting tiebreaker question options this year?

No

4) Do you plan to bring any friends/family into the pool with you? If so, who and how many?

No

[Remus West]

1) Do you plan to participate again this year? If not, why not?

Yes

2) Are there any rules changes you would like to see put into place?

No

3) Are there any especially interesting tiebreaker question options this year?

No

4) Do you plan to bring any friends/family into the pool with you? If so, who and how many?

No

This.

[Jiffy]

Thanks Isgrimnur for doing all the quoting work.

1) Do you plan to participate again this year? If not, why not?

Yes

2) Are there any rules changes you would like to see put into place?

No

3) Are there any especially interesting tiebreaker question options this year?

No

4) Do you plan to bring any friends/family into the pool with you? If so, who and how many?

Probably not, but will check with 1 close friend who also loves football.

[Isgrimnur]

Thanks Isgrimnur for doing all the quoting work.

I aim to please.

[Zaxxon]

PS - The Bears are going to win it all this year. I'm just certain of it.

[Isgrimnur]

PS - The Bears are going to win it all this year. I'm just certain of it.

High hopes for Caleb Hanie, then?

[Zaxxon]

I'm pretty sure Peppers is going to destroy entire offenses with nothing but his left index finger. Or something.

[JC Anejo]

1) Do you plan to participate again this year? If not, why not?

Yes

2) Are there any rules changes you would like to see put into place?

No

3) Are there any especially interesting tiebreaker question options this year?

No

4) Do you plan to bring any friends/family into the pool with you? If so, who and how many?

No

[The Meal]

For those who participated last year:
1) Do you plan to participate again this year? If not, why not?
Yes

2) Are there any rules changes you would like to see put into place?
One to consider (in the attempt at generating some discussion here) would be the ability for someone to have a bit of a mulligan in the case of forgotten picks/internet vacation/etc. Dropping one's lowest week of scores is one implementation (though a distasteful one as not all weeks have the same number of games -- though this wouldn't necessarily be a deal-breaker). Worth considering, and depending on the implementation I may actually be in favor of it.

3) Are there any especially interesting tiebreaker question options this year?
Favre TD tosses seems appropriate again. Maybe Tomlinson TD runs? I haven't thought enough about the NFL this off season (I know, shame on me) to really come up with any good ones. Lions victories (if any)?

4) Do you plan to bring any friends/family into the pool with you? If so, who and how many?
No

[Zaxxon]

2) Are there any rules changes you would like to see put into place?
One to consider (in the attempt at generating some discussion here) would be the ability for someone to have a bit of a mulligan in the case of forgotten picks/internet vacation/etc. Dropping one's lowest week of scores is one implementation (though a distasteful one as not all weeks have the same number of games -- though this wouldn't necessarily be a deal-breaker). Worth considering, and depending on the implementation I may actually be in favor of it.

This is something I've thrown around in the past, but never pursued as I haven't come up with a way to implement it that doesn't suck. A few ways to go about it:

-Drop lowest week. Not ideal since game count varies as you pointed out.
-Give a small bonus to anyone with a 0 week. Say, 10-15 points. This would bring a forgotten week from a disaster to something bad but a bit less of a kneecapping. I'm not a big fan of this one, as it could lead to someone doing better by not submitting than someone who does submit. It's hard to pick an appropriate bonus # that's fair both to those that don't and that do submit.
-Hand out extra locks for future weeks to those who miss a week. Part of me thinks this option is intriguing, as it isn't a handout of points to those that forgot, but rather the opportunity to rise back up a bit through solid play (picking a 6th and 7th lock, for example, is tough. Rarely are there that many 'gimmes' in a week). But I don't like the fact that it could screw with our stats by altering the max possible points/week.

Thoughts?

[Isgrimnur]

Allow the drop to be 16 games rather than an entire week. For people that play every week, the get a bit of a plus on the handicap while someone missing a week with fewer gamers isn't crippled and would have ~3 games on another week in handicap.

You're still incentivized to play every week by not blowing all of your drop points, but it won't completely cripple you if you do.

[The Meal]

I don't like either of your last two options as it puts different rules in place for folks who've missed as compared to folks who've submitted. Different rules open things up (on a conceptual level) for weirdness that's best avoided from the get-go.

Typically early weeks and late weeks are the ones with more games than those in the middle (when teams have byes). Based on previous seasons, are there really that big of a differential in average points awarded between those two populations? I'd guess that they're pretty close to each other in the grand scheme of things, and would think it wouldn't do much to change the nature of giving an advantage to someone who missed say Week 7 vs. someone who just had a lousy performance on Week 16. The cool thing is that it likely would keep that "oh shit!" person in the running longer, keeping participation high throughout. The bummer thing is that it turns the meaningful portion of the competition into sixteen weeks of differentiation, chopping 6-7% off the total regular season event.

Seems more of a question as to what you want to reward: marathon pickers (relatively speaking) who are consistent for getting picks in each week, or risk-takers who aren't afraid of laying an egg one week but then also outperforming the peloton on weeks when they've made quality guesses.

[Zaxxon]

Allow the drop to be 16 games rather than an entire week. For people that play every week, the get a bit of a plus on the handicap while someone missing a week with fewer gamers isn't crippled and would have ~3 games on another week in handicap.

You're still incentivized to play every week by not blowing all of your drop points, but it won't completely cripple you if you do.

I'm not opposed to this option, but I also need (want) to keep any potential solution to something that can be implemented without *too* much pain into the spreadsheet. Dropping a week is easy; dropping 16 games is a bit more involved.

I don't like either of your last two options as it puts different rules in place for folks who've missed as compared to folks who've submitted. Different rules open things up (on a conceptual level) for weirdness that's best avoided from the get-go.

Concur; the third one especially would heavily favor those that miss a very early week.

Typically early weeks and late weeks are the ones with more games than those in the middle (when teams have byes). Based on previous seasons, are there really that big of a differential in average points awarded between those two populations? I'd guess that they're pretty close to each other in the grand scheme of things, and would think it wouldn't do much to change the nature of giving an advantage to someone who missed say Week 7 vs. someone who just had a lousy performance on Week 16. The cool thing is that it likely would keep that "oh shit!" person in the running longer, keeping participation high throughout. The bummer thing is that it turns the meaningful portion of the competition into sixteen weeks of differentiation, chopping 6-7% off the total regular season event.

Assuming you're back to talking about your original suggestion of dropping the lowest week here. I concur with your whole paragraph. I haven't done any serious analysis of the bye week vs non-bye week scores, but a cursory glance doesn't look as though there's a huge disparity.

Seems more of a question as to what you want to reward: marathon pickers (relatively speaking) who are consistent for getting picks in each week, or risk-takers who aren't afraid of laying an egg one week but then also outperforming the peloton on weeks when they've made quality guesses.

I'm concerned not so much with rewarding those who submit every week as ensuring that we don't give an undue advantage to those that miss a week.

A fourth option would be to remove the regular-season 5-locks-per-week limit. I think this would be a self-policing change, as those who haven't missed a week aren't (generally speaking) going to go wild with locks, while those who goose-egged will have a bit more leeway to take some risks to catch back up. This would also certainly be the simplest to implement.

I'm not sure I'm a fan of any of these options, but I could see myself getting behind the first or fourth if the group as a whole likes them.

[Isgrimnur]

Allow the drop to be 16 games rather than an entire week. For people that play every week, the get a bit of a plus on the handicap while someone missing a week with fewer gamers isn't crippled and would have ~3 games on another week in handicap.

You're still incentivized to play every week by not blowing all of your drop points, but it won't completely cripple you if you do.

In re-thinkng this, there's nothing to "drop".

Perhaps the ability to use 16 one-point bonuses. If someone drops a full week, they can use the whole drop for that week. For someone that's picked out completely through the season, they can turn 16 of their losses into one-pointers. It doesn't

[Isgrimnur]

I'm not opposed to this option, but I also need (want) to keep any potential solution to something that can be implemented without *too* much pain into the spreadsheet. Dropping a week is easy; dropping 16 games is a bit more involved.

For 1 single point over zeros, it would be a season-ending calculation rather than week-to-week. You could total up the zeroes (easy enough with a spreadsheet conditional count) and add one point to the season total for each zero up to 16. Anything over that stands. If someone manages not to lose 16 games in a season, then they only get the points equal to their number of losses.

I'm just spitballing and haven't had a lot of time to think through repercussions.

[Zaxxon]

Allow the drop to be 16 games rather than an entire week. For people that play every week, the get a bit of a plus on the handicap while someone missing a week with fewer gamers isn't crippled and would have ~3 games on another week in handicap.

You're still incentivized to play every week by not blowing all of your drop points, but it won't completely cripple you if you do.

In re-thinkng this, there's nothing to "drop".

Perhaps the ability to use 16 one-point bonuses. If someone drops a full week, they can use the whole drop for that week. For someone that's picked out completely through the season, they can turn 16 of their losses into one-pointers. It doesn't

Yeah, as I was re-reading my reply I realized this. Pretty sure everyone will have 16 goose-eggs in a season. I'm also not a fan of removing some of the risk from using a lock. I think if we go this general sucky-pick-dropping route, it'd be simply taking your lowest week and striking it from the record. But even this has its drawbacks--when do we do the drop? On a running basis? At the end of the season? If the former, folks will all have 0 points after week 1. If the latter, folks won't (easily) know their true standing until all is said and done. It could work, but adds complexity that I'm not certain is worth the effort.

If I had to pick right now, I'd go for either leaving the system alone or for uncapping lock counts in the regular season.

[Zaxxon]

If someone manages not to lose 16 games in a season, then they only get the points equal to their number of losses.

If someone manages not to lose 16 games in a season, then they will have won that season, and likely a financial purse with > 6 zeroes at the end through Vegas betting.

[Isgrimnur]

I didn't say it was likely, I was just trying to cover all the bases.

[$iljanus]

1) Do you plan to participate again this year? If not, why not?

Yes bring on the pain

2) Are there any rules changes you would like to see put into place?

Not at the moment

3) Are there any especially interesting tiebreaker question options this year?

Not at the moment

4) Do you plan to bring any friends/family into the pool with you? If so, who and how many?

no

[Jeff V]

1. Y 2. N 3. Number of players incarcerated while on an active roster 4. Maybe the same two as last year

One way to handle missed weeks without it being a death sentence is to grant points equal to (or slightly less than) the lowest score of the week. You still might be hosed if someone has a really piss-poor week, but mostly, it should be enough to keep you from falling off the table.

[The Meal]

Eliminating the cap on number of locks is a very intriguing rule change and could be a good method to allow folks to make up for missed picks. It'd be a softer method than dropping a week's worth of scores, but it'd be a weightier change in terms of strategy for folks who didn't miss any picks. I wouldn't whine if that were an applied change (though I won't champion it as a change, either).

[theohall]

1) Do you plan to participate again this year? If not, why not? Definitely IN!!!!

2) Are there any rules changes you would like to see put into place? Like the rules the way they stand.

3) Are there any especially interesting tiebreaker question options this year? How many games will Sam Bradford start? How many INTs will Cutler throw or how many times will Cutler be sacked? (it is a Mike Martz offense which features plenty of both). Will add more if I think of them.

4) Do you plan to bring any friends/family into the pool with you? If so, who and how many? Doubtful. Still getting to know folks in Jax.

[Skinypupy]

For anyone interested who did not participate last year:
1) Please post your intent to participate.

I'm in (not sure how I've missed this before)

2) I think <insert idea here> would make the pool more interesting/fun.

Nothing jumps immediately to mind

3) Do you plan to bring any friends/family into the pool with you? If so, who and how many?

Nope, just little 'ol me.

[Zaxxon]

Ooh; fresh blood.

[Captain Caveman]

Miss Taken and I are IN again for this year.

[Zaxxon]

Quick bumparino to see if we get any more opinions on rules proposals.

[soulbringer]

Im in again.

[Gromit]

In after last year's hiatus...

[moghedian]

1. I'll try again

2. Keep same rules in place. If I forget or we're on vacation I'll try to remember to get my picks in.
Other than that...If something horrible comes up, my picks are the least of my worries.....


3. Can't think of any but my answer is 13.

4. Nope. No friends.



Is there still an Ironman option?

[Zaxxon]

Is there still an Ironman option?

Definitely will still be an Ironman option. Even if only a couple of folks are using it, I like the idea. Hopefully a few more folks will get in on that action this year. I liked the separate wager you guys had going last year--perhaps something like that could be arranged prior to kickoff this year in order to entice more folks to give it a shot?

[Zaxxon]

Bippity-boppity-BUMP.

[Jiffy]

Is there still an Ironman option?

Definitely will still be an Ironman option. Even if only a couple of folks are using it, I like the idea. Hopefully a few more folks will get in on that action this year. I liked the separate wager you guys had going last year--perhaps something like that could be arranged prior to kickoff this year in order to entice more folks to give it a shot?

If I get my lazy ass in gear, I'll try an Ironman entry as well this year. I like the challenge!

[gwartok]

Almost forgot about this, I'm in if it's not too late Zax.

[Zaxxon]

Almost forgot about this, I'm in if it's not too late Zax.

It's definitely not too late; this is just a planning thread. Actual signups haven't even started yet--I generally start taking official entries when the preseason begins (only a week now!).

[Skinypupy]

Is there still an Ironman option?

Definitely will still be an Ironman option. Even if only a couple of folks are using it, I like the idea. Hopefully a few more folks will get in on that action this year. I liked the separate wager you guys had going last year--perhaps something like that could be arranged prior to kickoff this year in order to entice more folks to give it a shot?

What is Ironman?

[Isgrimnur]

Ironman is picking the entire season before Week 1.

[Zaxxon]

Ironman is picking the entire season before Week 1.

And it's a 2nd entry, and half the entry fee. So you'd play a normal entry, and also submit a full-season Ironman entry.

[Grievous Angel]

1) Do you plan to participate again this year? If not, why not? Yep.

2) Are there any rules changes you would like to see put into place? Can't think of anything.

3) Are there any especially interesting tiebreaker question options this year? Which team will have the most players arrested during the regular season?

4) Do you plan to bring any friends/family into the pool with you? If so, who and how many? It's pretty much a collaborative thing, so it'll just be the one GA/Mrs. GA entry.

[JC Anejo]

Is there still an Ironman option?

Definitely will still be an Ironman option. Even if only a couple of folks are using it, I like the idea. Hopefully a few more folks will get in on that action this year. I liked the separate wager you guys had going last year--perhaps something like that could be arranged prior to kickoff this year in order to entice more folks to give it a shot?

I'm in and wager ready