Season 4 Draft Ideas

Nitka and Goldenrage,

With the influx of new and exciting talent MRL will continue to grow at a good quick pace. I know you guys mentioned that yall are still debating on how to do the draft with as many as 40 total members.

Personally i like the hockey style scoring system though I think it could probably be tweeked in regards for points allowed, especially for new member who come in mid season and cant make the playoffs. The open schedule format may help some of those issues to where you could add games during the season if need be. Does anyone know of a site that can help these guys make auto schedules? I know keeping track of the wins and losses is a bitch. I'd be willing (as im sure most will be) to throw some cash up for league dues on LeagueDaddy or a similar site to help take a ton of the administrative headaches away from you guys.

As for the draft, id like to suggest that you take the worst 5-8 NFL teams out of the selection process (unless someone wants to draft them) and then randomly draw the remaining balance of the teams from the remaining pool. For example:

Take away the following teams: Browns, Rams, Bills, Cards, Panthers, Seachickens (or whoever)

that leaves 26 teams to draft. Then you take the same 26 teams, throw them in the hat and randomly draw the amount of teams you need to cover everyone that's in season 4. Then let the draft commense. It just means the raiders could go back to back but i think that's probably still proper since the new guys/poor teams will still get first crack.

Thoughts anyone?

We have been thinking of ways for adding more teams into the draft. My idea was oppisite. We were thinking of doubling every team but a few top teams. Adding a total of 60 teams into the pool.

League daddy and other league tracking sites is a good idea, im using somoene to track wins and loses in season 4 so the standings and schedule are always updated. If that doesnt work out well then... However, at the end of it, it is still different then the other members doing it, that is a lot easier.

Let me talk the teams idea with golderage and see what we come up with.

Thanks man

What is wrong with the Rams?

Everything Getsum...Everything

make it so that who ever finishes last (must complete there schedule) picks first and whoever wins it all picks last etc

or it might be time to open seperate leagues - 16 teams a league or whatever or do a 32 man team and then the remaining guys just play a MRL "Minor" league season - winner fills in the first spot for the pros the next season?


something along the lines like that?

MB, i gotta admit that this format with the numerous teams and open schedule/hockey-style scoring is unique and diff from what we have in c-4 and most other offline leagues...MRL may wanna think about keeping that format as part of our identity? Thoughts?

Nitka and Rage, it's been my experience (managing leagues) that with an open schedule format you will have a flurry of activity early and then when losses start piling up you start losing steam toward the end of the season. You may want to consider opening blocks (of say 8 games) for a certain time span in order to keep participation flowing.

I'd also recommend capping the number of teams at say 40 and just replace deadbeats with new owners (that way they can keep games already played and still have a shot at the playoffs without complicating the scoring process). For instance, me and Jamie both came in a week late so we wound up losing a min of 6 points and a max of 14 points since we didnt have any games scheduled. That's a huge difference when it comes to seeding for playoffs. Right now the way the scoring is set up, seeding is irrelevant because you could have a 1 seed vs a new guy who may be elite and just eeked into the playoffs.

Luckily the overall skill of peeps in MRL seeding is probably irrelevant anyway, but still, a great season should somehow be better rewarded.

Crazy thought...let there be 4 byes (1-4) then let teams 5-9 pick which playoff opponent they want to face, kind of like an opponent draft....NOW THAT WOULD BE REALLLLLLLLLL INTERESTING! Then let 1-4 "draft" their opponents from the 1st round games. Now that's a spicy and dramatic reward for having a great season.

I think that any more owners over 32 is a bit strange.

Just doesnt feel right having two owners with the same team.

I like the point system and think its neat!

I also like taht the # of games are fewer then what you see else where. 10-12 game season with the hockey points is great!

Agreed on the shorter season...10-12 or even 14 games gives EVERYONE a shot at the show which makes end of the road games that much more exciting.

I just think its cool taht you dont 100% have to finish all your games - you get rewarded to just flat out WIN -

also I tihnk there should be a bonus system where if YOU DO finish your games then you get extra points - gives incentive for those that wont be winning games all the time to finish the season to try and get in the playoffs.

spot on dial up

Love the idea for bonus points for all games played. Huge and proper incentive there.

I like the draft order how it is with the lottery setting up the draft. WHat it does is prevents teams from losing on purpose to better their draft position. The last 2 lotteries have worked out like that (worst/new fist and champ towards the back) anyways outside of a few situations.

Now I joined week 2 and had the option to take whatever team was left and keep my new member status- meaning I would have better chance of getting a team I wanted next season, or take a better team and lost that new owner. I chose to take the Rams and keep my status so I can have a better team next season.

I like how you use current real NFL rosters this made me start rooting for the Rams mid-season so that their players would improve for me. Now that said I like on-line franchise too so you can build your team.

What if you build divisions into it? You could determine who goes where by finish from last season, to balance the league out a little better.

MaddenBible wrote:

make it so that who ever finishes last (must complete there schedule) picks first and whoever wins it all picks last etc

or it might be time to open seperate leagues - 16 teams a league or whatever or do a 32 man team and then the remaining guys just play a MRL "Minor" league season - winner fills in the first spot for the pros the next season?


something along the lines like that?

MB & SDU, you guys have great ideas BTW!!

We have been thinking of splitting into 2 leagues which will create 2 champions. I guess I was thinking more when we hit the 50th member. but if we split now we would be able to put all the most committed members in 1 league and the new members and less committed in another? Or split the league into 2 Divisions and have seperate drafts for the divisions. How would the divisions be split though? What would it be based on so the comp is spread out?

The number of games I agree with are nice, what are your guys thoughts on the length of the season in days? 12-14 games like a month or so?

I 100% love the bonus points idea, I can actually increase the total points for each win if all games are played. Like if someone is 4-8 = 52 ponts (7-win, 3-loss) since they played all their games then wins can go up to 9 or something which would give 60 total. Great idea either way!

Why not do this, set the league up exactly like the NFL, it just so happens we have 32 teams. 16 game schedule and all. Everybody grabs a team. Play it out just like the NFL. Playoffs is top 6 from each conference and top 2 get byes. Once we get 32 players, have everybody else fill out a form like you do and basically do a rookie league for the new entrants. That way your core players who you know will play will never have a problem and you new guys get a testing league so to speak. For every 32 we get, start a new league and we can even move guys from league to league and have league wars between the different leagues.

Just my 2 cents.

I like having the higher number of guys make the playoffs, like 16. So maybe 4 division winner's get byes, and 4 wildcards make it in.

To be honest I like the idea of a Super League how it is now, there is no way around having doubled teams though. I think an NFL type 4 division structure is to much but 2 Div/Con would be interesting. Both the Con/Leagues even can have seperate drafts. Thoughts?

I think having a minor league system would be a great idea, just determining how many go in the major league and how many in the minor. I love the idea of having the most committed (MRL Core) in the major league and make new members prov themselves to make it based on how many games you played and how active on Twitter you are maybe. That way we don't have an issue where I had 3 NP's cause I was scheduled with 3 new members who didn't even play a single game. Also I really like the lottery draft system it just builds suspense and it's completely random so you don't have Jaynizz and Sgibs stuck with the bills or panthers every season they have a shot for something else.