Blizzard: Fantasy Planning

Yesterday I began strategizing in earnest for the August 17th Fantasy Auction Draft, and now I'm going to continue to rally for Fantasy Football Revolution.

Head-to-Head Competition is for suckers. A few years ago, Blue Viking Devil and I figured out how stupid head-to-head scheduling is for fantasy football: it's a system that consistently allows inferior competitors to finish above superior finishers. But we didn't want to just use total score, either: that makes it pointless to follow football on a weekly basis. So we borrowed from our experience running cross country, and devised a standings system that puts every fantasy manager head-to-head with every other fantasy manager every week. It's much more competitive, and much fairer.

If you're in a league of 10, you are competing each week against every other team in the league. If you finish with the best score for the week, you beat all 9 people, so after one week, your record is 9-0. If you have the second best score for the week, you had 8 wins and 1 loss, so your record is 8-1. And on down the line.

It is far superior--and I've explained why here.

I also believe snake drafts are for cowards (the Revolution requires inflammatory language). An auction draft is the way to go. If you compete in an auction, you have far more control than if you compete in a snake draft. Rather than being stuck in your alloted draft slot, you have control over which players you want to target. The snake draft is an equalizer--the auction forces you to be savvy. It also makes the actual draft experience far more fun, and isn't that what it's actually all about? Instead of sitting around naming off picks, you're actively bidding against each other (we use a cup flipping system. Somebody names a player, and you go around the table. If it comes to your turn, you either have to raise the bid, or you flip your cup. Flipping your cup is like folding in poker--you're out, and you can't come back in. So you go around, and those still in the bidding up each other's bid until one person is left). It can be intense, heated, loud, and always fun.

We use the arbitrary sum of 265 dollars to spend on 16 rosters. I don't recommend such an arbitrary sum, but I don't recommend 100 dollars, either (you want to have a lot of increments to bid--at 100 dollars, there is less bidding, meaning less fun. At even 200 dollars, there is a lot of fun bidding--you can go up by one quite a ways, and later in the draft people still have money to bid).

Join the Revolution. Compete in an auction league, and give the cross-country scoring system a try.

Now on to some links.

In his latest basketball blog, Bill Simmons continues to make jokes about people that make less money than him: "if Roger can produce anything I've ever written that called him LeBron an "overhyped fraud," I will send him a $200 check to double the salary that the News-Herald is paying him every week." Classy.

The Strib reports on Viking veterans' feelings about where the team is at.

The Strib notes that Antoine Winfield will attend what is mandatory, and that's it. As a veteran DB, I'm not sure there's a lot he'll miss. As long as he shows up for training camp and enters the season ready to play, I don't care. But he's a joy to watch, so I hope he is not terribly dissatisfied with the organization.

The Ppress reports on Tarvaris Jackson's practice performance.

Vikings.com looks at Cedric Griffin's progress.

Via Fanhouse, The Virginia-Pilot looks closely at Gerald Poindexter.

Pro-football-reference.com looks at the potential effect losing Tiki Barber will have for the Giants.