Week 14 bye weeks

[t.j 35]

Fellow fantasy football afficionados, I come seeking fantasy scheduling advice.

As most of you have probably noticed, now that the NFL has added an extra game to the regular season, they have also, in their infinite wisdom, scheduled 4 teams to have their bye in week 14.

That's a problem for my league because we have 14 teams and have always played a 13 game round-robin regular season (an aspect we quite enjoy), followed by an 8 team playoff.

Obviously, having teams playing playoff games with potentially key players on a bye week is not desirable.

So far we haven't come up with any ideas to deal with this that we really like.  Some ideas we've considered, roughly in order that we like them best so far, to least: A. Have week 14 be play-in games between the 7-10 seeds, and the 1-6 seeds get a bye.  B. Skip week 1 and play the 13 regular season games between weeks 2 and 14 (not sure if this is even possible on our site).  C. Have week 14 (or week 1) not have any head-to-head matchups, but have the games count toward the points scored tiebreaker.  (Again, not sure if this is possible.)  D. Manually schedule week 14 for head to head regular season games between teams with adjacent records, e.g. 7 seed vs 8 seed, 9 seed vs 10 seed, etc...

Any other bright ideas?

[t.j 35]

FWIW here's an article on the topic: Week 14 Bye Weeks And The Fantasy Football Schedule: Potential Solutions | Wolf Sports

Their option 2 is the same as option B above. Options C and D above are variations of their Option 1.

[weepaws 3,006]

In my 14 team non ppr league, we made the regular season 14 games long.  

 

[Ray_T 718]

12 hours ago, weepaws said:

In my 14 team non ppr league, we made the regular season 14 games long.  

 

• this is  the only solution.  I'm sure it  is not by accident.  The NFL wants you watching.

[DrG 102]

Skip week 14 :)

[polecatt 471]

On 5/14/2021 at 7:50 PM, t.j said:

Fellow fantasy football afficionados, I come seeking fantasy scheduling advice.

As most of you have probably noticed, now that the NFL has added an extra game to the regular season, they have also, in their infinite wisdom, scheduled 4 teams to have their bye in week 14.

That's a problem for my league because we have 14 teams and have always played a 13 game round-robin regular season (an aspect we quite enjoy), followed by an 8 team playoff.

Obviously, having teams playing playoff games with potentially key players on a bye week is not desirable.

So far we haven't come up with any ideas to deal with this that we really like.  Some ideas we've considered, roughly in order that we like them best so far, to least: A. Have week 14 be play-in games between the 7-10 seeds, and the 1-6 seeds get a bye.  B. Skip week 1 and play the 13 regular season games between weeks 2 and 14 (not sure if this is even possible on our site).  C. Have week 14 (or week 1) not have any head-to-head matchups, but have the games count toward the points scored tiebreaker.  (Again, not sure if this is possible.)  D. Manually schedule week 14 for head to head regular season games between teams with adjacent records, e.g. 7 seed vs 8 seed, 9 seed vs 10 seed, etc...

Any other bright ideas?

This may take some time to set the schedule, but, you could do bye weeks in your fantasy league.

Seriously, if you add a bye week to each team. Have two team on bye each week for something like weeks 3-10, or something like that, it would push the season to week 14, and you could still keep the 13 game round robin format.

[AxeElf 787]

20 minutes ago, polecatt said:

This may take some time to set the schedule, but, you could do bye weeks in your fantasy league.

Seriously, if you add a bye week to each team. Have two team on bye each week for something like weeks 3-10, or something like that, it would push the season to week 14, and you could still keep the 13 game round robin format.

Yeah, but currently, every fantasy team has the same disadvantage when it comes to player byes--each team's studs only play 12 games at best.  Giving some teams byes on the weeks their stud players are on byes themselves is kind of an unfair advantage--those teams will have studs that get to play all 13 games.  I guess you could make some attempt to not give a fantasy team their bye on a week that their regular starters have byes, but then you've got a scheduling nightmare on your hands.

[nobody 2,461]

Play against the league average week 14 or week 1.

[polecatt 471]

13 minutes ago, AxeElf said:

Yeah, but currently, every fantasy team has the same disadvantage when it comes to player byes--each team's studs only play 12 games at best.  Giving some teams byes on the weeks their stud players are on byes themselves is kind of an unfair advantage--those teams will have studs that get to play all 13 games.  I guess you could make some attempt to not give a fantasy team their bye on a week that their regular starters have byes, but then you've got a scheduling nightmare on your hands.

Yeah, there's no real perfect way of doing it. Just an idea.

They sound like league that's been together for a while, so if they adopted this new format, I'm guessing it would be for several seasons, so hopefully any sort of discrepancy like that would even out over several seasons. Of course the process can be fine tuned over time as well.

If teams know their schedule before they draft, I don't see it being an issue so much, they can draft accordingly. Or have a specific format, just like with the draft. Picks 1 and 2 get the first bye weeks, 3 and 4 the week after that and so forth.

That's what it takes though, being able to adapt to all the different crazy situations that may come your way. Just another wrinkle. The skilled will find ways to use it to their advantage, the lesser skilled won't.

[polecatt 471]

18 minutes ago, nobody said:

Play against the league average week 14.

Or you could just play and the highest 7 scores get a W

[weepaws 3,006]

Oh my soul, I don’t see the difficulties of changing to a 14 week regular season. 

Pretty easy  fix, and one extra week of ff, sounds great.  

[t.j 35]

16 hours ago, polecatt said:

Yeah, there's no real perfect way of doing it. Just an idea.

They sound like league that's been together for a while, so if they adopted this new format, I'm guessing it would be for several seasons, so hopefully any sort of discrepancy like that would even out over several seasons. Of course the process can be fine tuned over time as well.

If teams know their schedule before they draft, I don't see it being an issue so much, they can draft accordingly. Or have a specific format, just like with the draft. Picks 1 and 2 get the first bye weeks, 3 and 4 the week after that and so forth.

That's what it takes though, being able to adapt to all the different crazy situations that may come your way. Just another wrinkle. The skilled will find ways to use it to their advantage, the lesser skilled won't.

For what it's worth, it's a dynasty league, so drafting according to bye weeks isn't realistic.

I may have to petition the site to support something like you and nobody were talking about (top 7 teams in week 1 get a W).

[polecatt 471]

5 hours ago, t.j said:

For what it's worth, it's a dynasty league, so drafting according to bye weeks isn't realistic.

I may have to petition the site to support something like you and nobody were talking about (top 7 teams in week 1 get a W).

Oh yeah, dynasty makes that difficult. My dynasty league has the same schedule each year.

What host site do you use?

[t.j 35]

I'm using myfantasyleague.com.  Turns out they have some useful options that I didn't know about in Weekly Schedule Setup (can assign any matchup including assigning any individual team a bye or a matchup against the weekly average) and Adjust Standings (so I could manually change the W/L result to be based on top half of scores of the week instead of weekly average).

[TBayXXXVII 2,390]

On 5/16/2021 at 9:16 PM, weepaws said:

Oh my soul, I don’t see the difficulties of changing to a 14 week regular season. 

Pretty easy  fix, and one extra week of ff, sounds great.  

Until you're the one who's 7-6 vying for the last playoff spot and playing against the guy who's 12-1... where as the other 7-6 guy is playing against the dude who's 1-12 that gave up 7 weeks ago and doesn't really care anymore.

[weepaws 3,006]

19 minutes ago, TBayXXXVII said:

Until you're the one who's 7-6 vying for the last playoff spot and playing against the guy who's 12-1... where as the other 7-6 guy is playing against the dude who's 1-12 that gave up 7 weeks ago and doesn't really care anymore.

That would be the same as being the one who’s 6-6 vying for that last playoff spot and playing the owner who’s 11-1, where as the other 6-6 owner is playing against the owner who’s 1-11 that game up 7 weeks ago and doesn’t care anymore. 

So what’s the difference? 

Its an easy fix, 14 week regular season.  

[TBayXXXVII 2,390]

8 minutes ago, weepaws said:

That would be the same as being the one who’s 6-6 vying for that last playoff spot and playing the owner who’s 11-1, where as the other 6-6 owner is playing against the owner who’s 1-11 that game up 7 weeks ago and doesn’t care anymore. 

So what’s the difference? 

Its an easy fix, 14 week regular season.  

The difference is that one is a balanced/fair schedule and the other in an unbalance/unfair schedule.  Being 6-6 and playing an 11-1 team for the first and only time, in Week 13 is just timing.  Being 7-6 and playing a 12-1 team for the second time when no one else has too, in unbalanced.  It could also affect the playoffs too.  What if you're one of 3 teams vying for a bye week.  Your last game is against the guy who's 4th while your two rivals are playing against the two worst teams in the league?

Look, you can decide to do that, I'm just saying that it comes with a consequence and it's not just "an easy fix".

[weepaws 3,006]

In our 14 team non ppr league, 14 owners voted to make it an easy fix, 14 week regular season. 

One can face consequences no matter the length of the regular season.  

Ironically in the past we’ve done a 14 week regular season, only four teams make it into the playoffs in our league, so when we did 14 week regular season we just simply played the playoff games week 15 and championship game week 16.  

Plus we also do a full season for total points.  

What we are going to be doing and have voted with 100% of all owners agreement 14 week regular season and two week playoff and two week championship match.  

It’s the same as what we’ve been doing for the last three years in a 13 week regular season, two weeks playoff match up and than two weeks championship match up.  

Find it to be an easy fix.  

[t.j 35]

23 hours ago, TBayXXXVII said:

The difference is that one is a balanced/fair schedule and the other in an unbalance/unfair schedule.  Being 6-6 and playing an 11-1 team for the first and only time, in Week 13 is just timing.  Being 7-6 and playing a 12-1 team for the second time when no one else has too, in unbalanced.

Correct. This is precisely why we were looking for a better solution, even if it's a more complicated one.

[TBayXXXVII 2,390]

Just now, t.j said:

Correct. This is precisely why we were looking for a better solution, even if it's a more complicated one.

I think our league is going to just ride it out this year and see what happens.  If we don't like it, next year I believe the plan will be to just start Week 2 instead.

[nobody 2,461]

10 hours ago, TBayXXXVII said:

I think our league is going to just ride it out this year and see what happens.  If we don't like it, next year I believe the plan will be to just start Week 2 instead.

Well only one team will potentially get screwed, so I expect most people will be fine with it.

[Bills04 54]

I don't understand all the stuff I've seen on this?

 

NFL plays now an 18 week season.  Week 15 = playoffs - top-2 have byes; 3-6, 4-5.

Week 16 = 1 vs. 3, 2 vs. 4.

Week 17 = 1 vs. 2 for SB

Week 18 = punt; last week.

 

What am I missing?

[weepaws 3,006]

3 hours ago, Bills04 said:

I don't understand all the stuff I've seen on this?

 

NFL plays now an 18 week season.  Week 15 = playoffs - top-2 have byes; 3-6, 4-5.

Week 16 = 1 vs. 3, 2 vs. 4.

Week 17 = 1 vs. 2 for SB

Week 18 = punt; last week.

 

What am I missing?

Agreed. 

[nobody 2,461]

The issue was stated multiple times pretty clearly.

The original poster is in a 14 team league.  In a 13 game season, each owner plays every other owner exactly once.  He would prefer not to have owners having to play a strong team twice while others have to play a weak team twice.  

[weepaws 3,006]

Let’s play two. 

When life gives you lemons, make lemon aid.  

 

[polecatt 471]

On 5/17/2021 at 10:20 PM, t.j said:

I'm using myfantasyleague.com.  Turns out they have some useful options that I didn't know about in Weekly Schedule Setup (can assign any matchup including assigning any individual team a bye or a matchup against the weekly average) and Adjust Standings (so I could manually change the W/L result to be based on top half of scores of the week instead of weekly average).

Oh okay, I'm not familiar with them.

I know on my league, on ESPN, I could just set teams up with a bye and then manually adjust it afterwards.

It's not perfect but it works out

[TBayXXXVII 2,390]

Our league decided to not play Week 1.  We're still drafting Labor Day weekend (before the Wk 1 games), but I won't be inputting our lineups in until after the Week 1 games.  This will make our Week 14, the last week of our regular season, and well use Weeks 15, 16, & 17 as our playoffs.

[Donkey 34]

23 hours ago, TBayXXXVII said:

Our league decided to not play Week 1.  We're still drafting Labor Day weekend (before the Wk 1 games), but I won't be inputting our lineups in until after the Week 1 games.  This will make our Week 14, the last week of our regular season, and well use Weeks 15, 16, & 17 as our playoffs.

well that sucks what are you going to do week 1, mow the lawn?

[AxeElf 787]

2 hours ago, Donkey said:

well that sucks what are you going to do week 1, mow the lawn?

He'll be trying to figure out how the Cowboys won on opening night.

[t.j 35]

On 5/16/2021 at 4:40 PM, polecatt said:

This may take some time to set the schedule, but, you could do bye weeks in your fantasy league.

Seriously, if you add a bye week to each team. Have two team on bye each week for something like weeks 3-10, or something like that, it would push the season to week 14, and you could still keep the 13 game round robin format.

Do not want. We would end up with some teams having byes when none of their players are on a bye, and other teams having byes with lots of their players are on a bye.

[AxeElf 787]

Add a 15th team, duh.  Everything else remains the same; 14 week round robin, 8 team playoff in weeks 15-17.

[weepaws 3,006]

8 teams out of 14 make the playoffs, why have a regular season. 

 

[TBayXXXVII 2,390]

16 hours ago, Donkey said:

well that sucks what are you going to do week 1, mow the lawn?

Watch football.....? 

 

A suggestion was brought up to have Week 14 be a free for all week.  The top scoring team that week gets $75, second gets $50, but for the sake of competitive balance, we made Week 1 the bye week. The guys may decide on something for Week 1, but it won't count in the standings.

[Donkey 34]

6 hours ago, TBayXXXVII said:

Watch football.....? 

 

A suggestion was brought up to have Week 14 be a free for all week.  The top scoring team that week gets $75, second gets $50, but for the sake of competitive balance, we made Week 1 the bye week. The guys may decide on something for Week 1, but it won't count in the standings.

Well it's your league just seems weird to completely discount week 1. Seems like there's a better way, like just randomly drawing the schedule for week 14.

[TBayXXXVII 2,390]

7 minutes ago, Donkey said:

Well it's your league just seems weird to completely discount week 1. Seems like there's a better way, like just randomly drawing the schedule for week 14.

That would lead to an unbalanced schedule.  It's a 10-team / 13 week season.  With two 5-team divisions, we play 8 division games (2 vs each team), and 5 non-division games (1 vs each team).  If we randomly draw a schedule, then that could lead to teams playing harder opponents with uneven bye weeks or more division wins/loses, determining division winners, playoff seeding, and playoff teams.  By skipping week 1, everyone plays with players who will have bye weeks and no one will have an advantage or disadvantage.

As an example... what if two teams are tied for their division at 9-4 (both 6-2 in their division), and one division leader gets the 3-10 last place team in their division while the other plays a last place team in the other division.  Both win... but now, one guy at 10-4 has a 7-2 division record and the other guy is 6-2.  Is it fair that one team gets to have a bye week in the playoffs because he got to play an extra division game?

To me, it seems weird that you would actively avoid an easily attainable fair and balanced schedule at the behest of finding a way to concoct a 14th regular season game which would cause an unbalanced schedule.

[weepaws 3,006]

Playing 14 week regular season, and than we roll into our four team playoff week 15&16 and championship week 17&18. 

Amen. 

[t.j 35]

On 5/25/2021 at 5:15 PM, AxeElf said:

Add a 15th team, duh.  Everything else remains the same; 14 week round robin, 8 team playoff in weeks 15-17.

Not an option because it's a dynasty league.

I would not have been keen on having to find another owner anyway.

[AxeElf 787]

1 hour ago, t.j said:

Not an option because it's a dynasty league.

Pfft...  Every real-life "dynasty league" undergoes expansion at various times.  This would be a great time to add a team.

[Donkey 34]

On 5/26/2021 at 4:35 PM, TBayXXXVII said:

That would lead to an unbalanced schedule.  It's a 10-team / 13 week season.  With two 5-team divisions, we play 8 division games (2 vs each team), and 5 non-division games (1 vs each team).  If we randomly draw a schedule, then that could lead to teams playing harder opponents with uneven bye weeks or more division wins/loses, determining division winners, playoff seeding, and playoff teams.  By skipping week 1, everyone plays with players who will have bye weeks and no one will have an advantage or disadvantage.

As an example... what if two teams are tied for their division at 9-4 (both 6-2 in their division), and one division leader gets the 3-10 last place team in their division while the other plays a last place team in the other division.  Both win... but now, one guy at 10-4 has a 7-2 division record and the other guy is 6-2.  Is it fair that one team gets to have a bye week in the playoffs because he got to play an extra division game?

To me, it seems weird that you would actively avoid an easily attainable fair and balanced schedule at the behest of finding a way to concoct a 14th regular season game which would cause an unbalanced schedule.

Could do week 1 schedule based on last years finish, i.e. 1 plays 2, 3 plays 4 etc. Then regular schedule for weeks 2 - 14. Maybe this gives a slight schedule advantage to lower teams but that's not a bad thing.  

[TBayXXXVII 2,390]

1 hour ago, Donkey said:

Could do week 1 schedule based on last years finish, i.e. 1 plays 2, 3 plays 4 etc. Then regular schedule for weeks 2 - 14. Maybe this gives a slight schedule advantage to lower teams but that's not a bad thing.  

We might decide to do something Week 1, but whatever it is, it won't count towards the season.  Might just do a $50 prize to the best Week 1 lineup or something like that.