League Tweaks

How can you make your league more interesting? How can you make it more like NFL football? How can you ensure that owners stay involved all season? Tweak your league's rules. Come up with different ways to do things and people will pay closer attention to what's going on. I have put some league tweaks in previous posts. Let's go over them, as well as a few others.

League Size: 10, 12 or 14 teams. Any less is too few. Any more is too many. You really can go up to 14 teams, it's not that bad. It forces owners to decide what they want their team to be good at.

Decimal Scoring: Give out .1 points per yard rushing or receiving, or .05 points per yard passing. This differs from the standard 1 point per 10 or 20 yard threshold. It will virtually eliminate the possibility of ties.

Tie Breaker Players: Designate one player from each team to break ties if they occur. Most of the time leagues mandate that the player be a non-starter, but do whatever works for you. As with decimal scoring, this reduces the likelyhood of a tie. If a tie occurs with decimal scoring or after the tiebreaker players are taken into account, let it stand as a tie.

Head Coach Scoring: Draft a head coach for your team. Give points for a win, take points for a loss. Or use the coaches to break ties.

Individual Defensive Players: Shortened to IDP. Draft players instead of whole defensive teams. This forces owners to know more players. It is a good way to put some excitement into the defensive side of things. Positions are Defensive Line, Linebacker and Defensive Back. Give the players points for tackles, sacks, interceptions and fumble recoveries. 1 point per tackle, 2 per half sack and 4 points per turnover is good. Give out 6 points for a defensive touchdown. If you want you can give out 1 point per pass defensed.

Special Teams Scoring: Give individual players from offense or defense 6 points per special teams touchdown. You may consider giving out points for return yards. If you do this give out 1 point per 20 or 25 yards.

Yardage Bonuses: Create a bonus for good performances on offense. Going over 100 yards rushing or receiving gets a 3 or 5 point bonus. Same bonus is earned for 300 yards passing. Or, you could increase the amount of points you get per yard. You might go from 1 point per 10 yards to 2 points per 10 yards. If you use decimal point scoring, think about decimal bonuses too.

Point Per Catch: The World Championship of Fantasy Football gives 1 point per catch to all players. I would suggest giving 1 point per catch to tight ends to help make them more valuable. Either works, but mine is better.

Flex Player: Most people are familiar with a tweak called the 'Flex Player' , someone who is a WR, RB or TE. This is kind of silly because most leagues that allow flex players just add it in to a regular starting lineup. It looks like this; 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1K, 1 Def, 1 Flex. How many NFL teams start 3 RB's? None? Right. Why not just let that flex player be any position? I really want to start two kickers.

Flex Lineups: Allow different starting lineup combinations. This means you're trying to make a lineup like an NFL team might start. Always start one QB and one K. On offense start: 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE or 2 RB, 3 WR, 0 TE or 1 RB, 2 WR, 2 TE or 1 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE. If you have IDP in your league, let them change as well (no less than one at any position).

Trade Deadline: Make a trade deadline. Put it around fantasy mid-season.

Trade Draft Picks: Let owners trade draft picks. This works best in keeper or dynasty leagues. Owners may trade picks for picks leading up to the draft. During the season, allow player for future pick trades. This enables owners to make a playoff push by giving up next year's picks. If an owner drops out of the league before he has to give up picks, reset the trade. Put the player back on the first owners roster and remove the extra pick. Alternately, you might give the owner who traded the player away a compensatory pick at the end of a round instead.