Double and Triple-Headers

[Cult of Dionysus]

So I'm just kinda playing around with a new league idea, and one concept that I'm thinking seriously about is using double and triple-headers. I've never used them before and typically had a negative view of them.

But I'm warming up to the idea. Hear me out.

Fantasy football is so much about luck. Week to week results are a total crapshoot. So why make a season depend on 13 individual matchups spread out over 13 weeks? Instead, wouldn't it make more sense to have 26 matchups spread over 13 weeks? Wouldn't that reduce the importance of luck, kinda like Victory Points?

Imagine if you will a 16 team league, with 4 divisions. You played seven tripleheaders against your division foes (total of 21 matchups), spread throughout the season. You also played six doubleheaders against other divisions (total of 12 matchups) for a total of 33 matchups, with the majority against your division rivals. Basically, you'd end up playing each of your rivals 7x and still get to face all 12 other teams 1x. If only the division champs made the playoffs, wouldn't this approach be really interesting.

One more cool element to having double and triple-headers. If you schedule a couple of triple-headers at the end of the regular season, it would keep a lot of teams in the playoff hunt. Why? Because if a team got hot in weeks 12 and 13, it could theoretically make up a ton of ground. I'm no math whiz, but wouldn't it be possible to make up a 6 game deficit?

That's pretty cool on its own. But as a whole, it could be pretty epic.

[maxhyde]

I love leagues that do double headers. More games eliminates some randomness...of course, saves it for the playoffs. (Still a little bitter about last years playoff failures from my good teams)

[Phaded]

It is a fine idea if you are aiming to have the best fantasy team win every single year.

Personally myself, I prefer the single match; "any given sunday" type of role. I also say this as someone who has led one of my leagues in PF the last 3 years and have yet to win the championship. I feel like it'll keep the majority of teams more engaged if they have a "chance" - I prefer it for the competitive nature for it.

As much as you try - you'll never completely eliminate luck from fantasy football, it will always be a factor; so I just embrace it myself.

[M-Dub]

I started a thread about this a few months ago.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=152267

I was stunned by how many people seem to love the “any given Sunday” element of random chance. I won’t rehash all my arguments in favor of double-headers here, as I feel I laid them out pretty clearly in the thread above. Suffice it to say, I prefer a higher element of skill in fantasy football. You can’t eliminate chance altogether, nor would you want to, but working to reduce it seems like a worthwhile goal to me. Surprisingly, not many people appear to agree.

One of the best things about playing double-headers specifically in a 12-team league is that you can wrap up the regular season in just 11 weeks with everyone playing each other exactly twice, so no need for divisions. That leaves you five weeks for the playoffs, which allows you to more time to reduce flukiness on that end as well. My league plays one-week quarterfinals and then two-week semifinals and finals. It’s a much more satisfying experience, imo.

[UnsafeAtAnySpd]

I'm in a few leagues with double headers. A couple of them use a few double headers weeks to try to mirror the full NFL schedule in a compressed time period. Another adds a few double header weeks at the end of the season to add some end of the season drama/importance. One that I commish, uses them every week and is broken down so that each team plays every other team at least once and every division team twice. This last one was a huge pain to try to figure out the schedule for though and I made a couple mistakes (3 divisions, 18 teams, 13 weeks).

[BradysBunch]

I played double headers in a non dynasty format and loved it. I believe the better teams make the playoffs. And for the luck factor going out the window...I say ( in our 12 team league) half the teams made the playoffs and once there, let the luck begin. At least your top teams made it in. Luck will always be a part of ff.

[bigchiefbc]

My main league does doubleheaders every week, and I dig it. Makes it so that even when I run into a 1-week buzzsaw, I still have a chance at a break-even. A kickass week gets you two wins instead of one. Yes, it does limit luck to a certain extent, but not to a large degree.

[ArrylT]

I am not in any double or triple headers but I would be open to being in those types of leagues.

[BigBawseRoss]

my one league i have a triple header each week and its nice and i think it shows the best teams a lot better than a traditional set up where a team could get a break each week while another team happens to play the high scorer half the weeks.

another alternative is to keep it traditional but have some of the playoff spots or even all of em based off all-play percentage (if you played each team each week what percent of games would you win) Keeps it feeling the same but bases the ranks on who actually had a good team all season.