Tuesday, August 2, 2011

HW Rule Changes Over the Years

As we enter the 10th Hazelweird season, I may do some retrospective posts to help us think about it. Today: significant rule changes over the years. Later: greatest draft moments (we relive a lot of the pre-draft party and draft party moments, and probably ought to save those for the bit more closed circle of email anyway, but I'll refresh us on some great moments during the draft).

Open Bench
Hard to believe: the first year we actually had fixed backup positions: you were required to draft a backup kicker, backup defense, etc. The second year we opened up three random bench positions, then going forward we opened the entire bench (actually at this point the entire roster is open: you don't have to draft a full starting lineup).

Fractional Scoring
A great move once we started using Yahoo for FFB (another crazy note: we didn't start that until 2007. From 2002-2006, either Justin or I got everybody's lineups through email, then MANUALLY ADDED SCORES. Ridiculous. 2007 was also the start of this blog). Now every yard is equal.

From 25 yards per point to 20 yards per point
It's still a TD heavy league, but we've created more scoring and given more credit for yardage. Fractional scoring and the 20 yards per point changes have greatly increased excitement, I think.

Three Starting WRs
A very recent move: until 2009, we started two WRs (though we evolved flexible lineups so that you could start three WRs, but it meant starting only one RB).

Preseason Free Agency: One Pick Each
We started our preseason free agency system because (a) we have closed rather than open FA system and (b) we started doing the draft very early in summer to accommodate various things. I think our new change--away from the injury picks, to everybody getting one and only one preseason FA pick--is going to be a major change. There had been other evolutions to this rule (including removing retirements, trades, and cuts from preseason FA pick eligibility).


A few other changes of note:
--We changed our auction salary cap from 265 to 275 to 300 and may (Abe! Brad!) change to 300 with $0 bids.

--AP recognition: We've been through the grisly history of this recognition before, but I do think it has value: you want to score as many points as possible in fantasy football, and this gives you recognition if you score the most. It's another fun thing to follow and chase.

Am I missing anything: are there some other significant changes we've made? Which of these changes has been the biggest?


11 comments:

  1. I suppose the introduction of the Skills Competition deserves mention.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pretty irrelevant, but we changed the snake draft order from last-first to first-last. Hopefully we never need to use that, though.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Oh, what the heck, I like him. Larry Fitzgerald."

    Joe spending all his money on Priest Holmes and Randy Moss. And then sitting at the table drafting $1 players after everyone else had finished drafting.

    ReplyDelete
  4. And now another major rule change: $0 bids.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think posts like this tell me that its August, and I'm used to blogging about football a lot, but now I'm not. I am happy that when I hear something like that Bryant McKinnie gets cut, I don't need to say anything about it. But the result is you get to read really pointless posts like this from me.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Unlike most of you, I have fond memories of snake drafts. I was guaranteed to have 16 players at the end of the night (one of my irrational auction draft fears is that I'll be outbid every time and end up with no one). We took 15 minute smoke breaks between every round. We sat around while Joe talked to Rob on the phone about everything that had happened between phone calls. We walked away for rounds at a time and came back demanding to be filled in on who had been taken. Brad held my hand through each draft and told me who everyone was and where I could find them on my cheat sheet to cross them off. The snake draft: an underrated aspect of the history of Hazelweird.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I too have fond memories of the snake draft. My only championship came with the snake draft.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Jerod and Bryan point something out....we should have * by the "snake draft" championship years....those aren't true Hazelweird championships.

    Just sayin.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Someone's mad that they haven't won since you expanded the league.

    It won't be long until your 10 year anniversary.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Maybe we should put * by every year that there weren't 10 members of Hazelweird too.

    ReplyDelete