Three of the Dumbest Things About Fantasy Football and How to Fix Them, Part III

(Posted July 12, 2021)

Welcome back, readers. In Parts I and II of this three-part series, we talked about two quick fixes to some glaring deficiencies in the “standard” format that has taken hold in season-long fantasy football: (1) utilising an auction draft instead of a snake draft, and (2) Determining weekly wins and losses by replacing head-to-head play with a league-wide points competition each week. These are two pretty easy upgrades to some truly dumb aspects of the game we all love.  Now let’s challenge another sacred cow of the “standard” fantasy format as we look at how most leagues crown a champion, why it’s a flawed approach, and how to fix it.

PART III:  Season-Long Means Season-Long;  Follow the NFL Calendar

As a reminder, the NFL is all about player safety so naturally the league added another regular season game starting with the 2021-22 campaign.  Each NFL team will now play 17 games over 18 weeks, instead of 16 games over 17 weeks. So fantasy leagues will need to adjust their schedules to this new calendar.

The “standard” season-long fantasy football format for this upcoming 17 game (18 week) NFL season will have teams playing a “regular season” from weeks 1-14, then playoffs will be held in weeks 15 and 16, and then a championship game will be held in week 17 – or some close variant of that. So for the most part, and once you factor in the bye week, you’re drafting players for ONLY 13 games of a 17 game NFL regular season (plus playoffs if you’re fortunate enough to make them). You’re leaving up to four full games per player on the table. Think about that for a second, and ask yourself if that makes any sense.  Why should the start and middle of the season matter so much more than the finish? A player you drafted could end up in the top ten (or better) in fantasy points at his position – but not for you, because you missed the playoffs and he went nuts during the final few weeks of the regular season (2018 and 2019 Derrick Henry comes to mind, and there are multiple examples like this each season). 

Folks, the game is called “season-long” – play the full season! Let your whole league enjoy a few more torturous Sundays, and let the teams that prove to be best over the course of a full regular season emerge for a chance at the championship. It’s how the NFL does it, so why shouldn’t fantasy leagues follow suit?  My fantasy league plays its regular season through the entire NFL regular season (more on that below) and finds not only to be a significant improvement, but (wait for it) a lot more fun also. And yet, very few leagues that I’m aware of stray from the “standard” format on this score. Who, other than our significant others, doesn’t want four more meaningful regular season Sundays to experience the highs and lows of fantasy football? Moreover, why allow the vagaries of the late-season NFL schedule and the timing of injuries over the course of three weeks play such a big role in determining your champion?  Why should weeks 15-17 (when players are as banged up as they get, injuries are often at their peak, and some NFL teams have switched their focus to next season) count so much more than other weeks? Shouldn’t you do all you can to try to give the best season-long teams the best chances of winning it all? Again, if you allow yourself to step back for a moment, this is another aspect of the “standard” version of fantasy football that makes little sense, and should be questioned. Yes – if you play to the end of the regular season the final week can be quirky with NFL teams resting some players, but you can manage.  

I know what you are thinking – how can this idea work, and what do you then do about the playoffs?  The answer is going to sound a little complicated, but in practice is easier than you would think, and as an added bonus it brings some great new elements to the game.  

In a nutshell, here is one of several possible formats: Playoff seeding is finalized after the regular season ends (previously week 17, now it is week 18) and then in each playoff round, teams that are still competing for the fantasy league title are allowed to use, or “protect”, players on their final regular-season roster that are on teams that are still alive in the NFL playoffs. The fantasy division winners (and perhaps a few other top seeds – depending on how big your league is and how many teams make your playoffs) get byes for the NFL Wild Card round while the other playoff teams in the league compete to advance to the Divisional Round. A league can choose to limit the number of “protections” per round, or not (currently, we limit it to three on offense and three IDPs, and it is an annual source of debate).  The remainder of each lineup for a playoff round is filled out via a draft, with the better-seeded teams drafting in the preferred draft slots (we use a modified snake for this, in order to give the better seeded teams a larger advantage). As in the regular season, each playoff week uses total points scored to determine the top half of teams that “win” and advance to the next round, and the bottom half of teams that “lose” and go home. Again, how you structure this (including how many teams advance in each playoff round) depends on league size and how many teams you want in the playoffs, but working backwards, you want your final four teams competing during the Conference Championship round (since four NFL teams are competing, so each team gets a starting QB, TE and PK) and the final two teams competing for your league championship on Super Bowl Sunday. For smaller leagues, you can make this work by skipping the Wild Card Round. Imagine – a full extra month, or more, of fantasy football!  Not to mention, a bunch of extra drafts.  What fantasy player wouldn’t want this? 

As you might imagine, this format changes some players’ values on draft night and as the season goes on, and helps to enhance the mid-to-late season trading market as teams that are desperately trying to make the playoffs try to sell their likely playoff “keepers”, and teams that are doing very well try to add likely studs for a deep playoff run. In this way, the game and the role of GM become a little more like the real sport being mimicked.  Again, most should see this extra dimension as an enhancement.

So that’s it - three pretty dumb things about the game, and three fairly easy fixes. Don’t be scared to give the ideas covered in this series a try, or at least to discuss them with your league.  While we are here, three other things that don’t make a ton of sense to me (and that my league does not feature) are priority or open waivers, rather than having all waivers processed at the same time using blind bids, full point PPR rather than a half point or less (or no points), and playing a team defense instead of a few IDPs - but those are all topics for another day.