What is the Right Size for a Fantasy Football League?

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How many teams/managers should you have in a fantasy football league?

Recruiting is essential to how fun, challenging, and rewarding the league will be throughout the season. I've been a fantasy football commissioner for almost 10 years. My experience as head-honcho has taught me a lot about how to structure a league. If you are thinking about commissioning or joining a league for the first time then you may want to consider my thoughts on the right size.

One of the main goals in the league is to have something to play for. Many successful leagues play for prize money. When managers feel they are in it for something it generates more interaction and a more fun league. Another goal is to have the right amount of depth. The league should be both inviting for newbies and challenging for veterans.

My previous leagues have been between 10-14 teams. This number seems to work pretty well because: every manager gets good familiar players, it leaves the right amount of good talent in the free agent pool, teams play each other no more than twice, and there's plenty of revenue for prize money. Currently my league is 12 deep and has the following settings, which are based primarily on Yahoo's default settings:

Roster: 1QB, 3WR, 2RB, 1TE, 1K, 1DEF, 7BN.
Playoffs: 6 teams, WKs 14, 15, 16.
Divisions: 2, with each division winner clinching a playoff spot.

My only change is the additional BN spot to make up for having maximum moves set to 10. I believe these are good settings for a league that's 12-14 deep. Unless you have no maximum moves set, then I would decrease the BN to 6. Having too many players on your team can be frustrating as you'll constantly fight yourself on who to start. Also, it allows managers to horde players just for the sake of not letting anyone else have them.

The question then becomes, "What is the minimum and maximum amount to have in a league?" Most fantasy football applets such as Yahoo allow you to have between 4-8 teams make it to the playoffs. Ideally you want no more than half of the teams make it into the playoffs. Otherwise there's really no reason to be competitive in the regular season. You would also have trouble collecting a good amount of revenue for first, second, and third place prizes. For this reason I think 8 teams is as low as you can go. You might discover an 8 team league leaves too much talent wasted in the free agent pool. A good fix might be to increase the roster size to 16 and add a utility player, like a WR/TE, RB/WR, or RB/TE. I would use these settings for a 8 team league:

Roster: 1QB, 3WR, 2RB, 1TE, 1RB/WR (or WR/TE, RB/TE), 1K, 1DEF, 7BN.
Playoffs: 4 teams, WKs 15, 16.
Divisions: none.

Yahoo allows you to set your league up to 20 teams. This really seems too much since a lot of the talent will be tapped out of the free agent pool. Also, since there are only 32 regular NFL teams it would be difficult for every team to carry backup QBs, Ks, or DEFs, which will lead to frustration with a lot of managers. For this reason I think 16 deep is the largest you want your league to be. I would use these settings for a 16 team league:

Roster: 1QB, 3WR, 2RB, 1TE, 1K, 1DEF, 6BN.
Playoffs: 8 teams, WKs 14, 15, 16.
Divisions: 4, with each division winner clinching a playoff spot.

This may actually be the ideal size for a competitive league. Half of the NFL's 32 teams is 16 and would allow each manager to carry a backup QB, K, and DEF. It would be highly competitive with 8 teams going into the playoffs. 16 teams would give the league a lot of revenue for prize money. You would probably see more action on the trading block since available free agent talent will be scarce. With plenty of competition, depth, interaction, and reward, you would be on your way to commissioning a great fantasy football league.

Romo Tonight

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I'm looking forward to watching Tony Romo answer to the C'boys fans who are calling for his head.

As a fantasy owner of Romo, I'm not too worried. His last start looked bad but he still got 2 TDs against a tough D. True, that game was hard to watch. Even harder if you're a C'boys fan; they lost the last game in the old stadium and the first game in the new one.

I'm guessing Romo is still popular in that locker room. Even if his accuracy is a bit off like last week, Jason Witten, Roy Williams, and others will go after the ball and take pressure off Romo. I'm thinking 300 yards and 3 TDs. I don't care if the Panthers are #3 in passing defense. C'boys will get it done tonight. Dallas relax.

"Willis McGahee is done."

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That's what was heard last year in a disappointing season for # 23. LeRon McClain stepped-it-up and was the leading rusher for the Ravens in 2008. The thought for many was Ray Rice would take over in 2009 and handle most of the carries. That theory seemed relevant as Rice is now listed as #1 on the depth chart and has started in all of the Ravens games in 2009.

Ray Rice could very well be the future but what is also for sure is the Ravens, like a lot of other NFL teams, are using a committee running back system. A lot of the top rushing teams seem to mix-it-up with a blend of old and new, or strong and agile, or both into their running games. The Ravens for example, who are the #4 team in rushing, mix it up with McGahee, Rice, and McClain. McGahee and Rice both have 190 rushing yards on the year. Every ball carrier has a score. McGahee has 6 TDs, which leads the NFL. The Saints, who are #1 in rushing, have done so with 4 ball carriers: Mike Bell, Pierre Thomas, Reggie Bush, and Lynell Hamilton. Each have at least a TD. The first two have shared 75 of the team's carries. The Dolphins split-it-up with Ronnie Brown and Rickey Williams. The Broncos do it with Correll Buckhalter, Knowshon Moreno, and LaMont Jordan.

The exceptions (teams that seem to use the 'every down' back system so far) are the Titans, Vikings, and Bills. Chris Johnson, Adrien Peterson, and Fred Jackson seem to handle most of the load for their teams. But those exceptions all have great spell backs who will most likely see more carries as the feature back will defiantly need to rest later on.

The running back committee system allows for more players to get their second chance and for older players to last longer. Don't expect the Ravens to part with McGahee any time soon or even slow his role.

Another rusher called, "done" is LaDainian Tomlinson who was out last week with an ankle injury. The Chargers, who are second to last in rushing, will desperately need L.T. to get their team back in their regular form. When L.T. is back, start him. If he is somehow in your free agent pool, text the guy who dropped him, "you're an idiot," pick him up and at least start him against the Broncos in week 6 for sure.

Weelky Waivers

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The massive wave of waivers claims went through today. I like the process. The experience has me thinking of adjustments for next year. I'm thinking of setting the "max moves" and "max trades" to "no maximum", returning to a 15 man roster size, and activating weekly waivers. I can simply rely on teams' waiver budget management to keep player acquisitions fair and even.

Wildcat = Fantasy Fun

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Last night was the 1 year anniversary of the Dolphins tromping the Patriots and surprising the crap out of everyone with the wildcat offense. MIA won 38 - 13. How could I forget. I had good 'ol Ronnie Brown on the bench and only missed out on 5 TDs, one being a freakin pass. My opponent that week was at the Ravens game with me; laughing his but off as we watched, on the jumbo-tron, Ronnie run all over NE. I made sure to start Brown this time.

This year the offensive tactic was no surprise, but still, hard for IND to stop. I had a ball watching Ronnie get 137 yards and 2 TDs. One thing is for sure, the induction of the wildcat offense has changed a lot in fantasy football. Primarily, it raises the stock of the player who takes the snap. In MIA's case its their 1st-string running back. Why wouldn't you want Ronnie Brown on your team?

I snagged up Ronnie in the 4th round this year. Thinking not only is he the 1st-string back in a run-heavy offense but the potential fun factor of watching him play. It paid off. While I didn't quit see any passes from Ronnie, or 5 TDs, I sure needed the 25 pts to ensure my win over last weeks top scorer. It almost felt like having another QB in the line-up.

I'm sure I'll get trade requests for Ronnie now. No way am I parting with this dude. I'll start him even in a tough match-up against a good DEF. It's just too much fun to watch.

Oh ya, and I'm happy with my team this year.

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. . but I'm not super sure about Romo. SWASHBUCKLERS
1. (11) DeAngelo Williams
2. (18) Andre Johnson
3. (39) Tony Romo
4. (46) Ronnie Brown
5. (67) Derrick Mason
6. (74) Chris Cooley
7. (95) Devin Hester
8. (102) Sammy Morris
9. (123) Ted Ginn Jr.
10. (130) David Garrard
11. (151) Brent Celek
12. (158) Kevin Curtis
13. (179) Arizona
14. (186) Jason Hanson
15. (207) Houston
16. (214) Shaun Suisham

The Season Has Begun

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Guess I slacked off for a while there but, I'm back.

A lot has happened in my league (B.F.F.G.) since my last post. There's been some surprises and some set-backs. The good news: I'm in the 3rd season of the B.F.F.G. as an awards-style fantasy football league. This is why Football is #1.

The live on-line draft was a success. I was kinda worried about possible technical difficulties but everyone seemed to log on and know what to do when everything started. Using the Yahoo on-line draft tool reduced the draft time to 1 1/2 hours. A lot less than the 7 1/2 hours last year when we drafted manually. It didn't take any fun out of the draft either. There were a few parties of teams doing their own thing at home. 2 guys decided on autopick and it didn't hate on 'em too much. The chat tool was amusing at times. The experience was better than expected.

It's safe to say I will stick to the live on-line draft style next year, but I must say I missed having the party. I was reluctant to have one since I didn't know how a wireless router would respond in the situation. 14 PCs hooked up for the draft sounded like an overload waiting to happen. Thankfully, there were no technical difficulties with 5 PCs hooked on the wireless router. So I think its good. I plan to reimplemented the draft party next year, "B ring Y our O wn L aptop" style.

The only small set-back was losing 2 teams due to hard times in a bad economy. This brings the B.F.F.G. down to 12 total teams for 2009. Luckily, I was able to edit the schedule before week 2, making the 2 lost teams face each other every week. The lost teams will not affect the rest of the league this season.

The challenge then becomes, what to do with the players on those teams? I'm very happy with the advancements in Yahoo. I was able to dump the players on the 2 teams and place all free agents on waivers. This allows each team to simply make claims using their acquisition budget. To make up for the addition talent in the free agent pool I increased the max moves and trades to 12 each, which was the average request by some team managers.

The process of dealing with the 2 lost teams made me think about some of my settings. The idea of max moves and max trades is to keep the free agent acquisitions fair. I set the roster size to 16 from the standard 15 to adjust for the fact that each teams max moves is 10. I'm wondering now if I went back to 15 on the roster, weekly waivers from Sun - Tue and set the free agent acquisition budget to 200 if it would not only keep things fair but make it more interesting. I'll have to think about that one.