2006 Pre-Kickoff FF?

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Winged Wonder

I'll definitely play! gives me something to do over the summer besides being a SHARPie thats robotics related ^_^

(leslie needs another hobby)

Well, the drafting would have to happen in the fall (winter, probably), for the simple reason that we don't know who's officially coming back, and what's happening in the rookie department. With so many kids graduating, and some of them going on to start teams, I would say some are draftable in such a scenario.

Curtis does have an interesting concept with the five regionals plus the Championship. Since I know that teams add and drop regionals with some frequency, I think the easiest way to run it on the back end would be to lock in the competitions at the time of drafting.

For example: Let's say 1293 signs up for Palmetto, and I, even though wisdom from Palmetto FF last season screams otherwise, pick them. Drafting continues, and 1293 magically signs up for Peachtree and Florida. At this point, I'm still only getting points for 1293's performance at Palmetto, but I could draft them again to get the newer regionals.

Thoughts?

[Jeff Waegelin]

Originally Posted by Billfred

Well, since it seems there's enough buzz to get this off the ground, I'll ask a few questions of the group.

The first is the method of picking teams. Three options I can think of:
1) Team at event. For example, you wouldn't draft 1293, you'd draft 1293 at Palmetto. Simpler to assign points to, but adds another layer to drafting (as you're shopping regionals as well) and has a chance of backfiring as teams drop and add competitions.
2) Average score. Here, you'd just be picking 1293. Just what you think it is.
3) Some other funkified scoring system. If it's implementable, and seems fair enough to all concerned, I'm open to it.

Then there's the question of Championship vs. No Championship. After a bit of thinking, I'm in favor of it, even if it adds another layer of trickiness to scoring.

Finally, there's drafting methods. To keep with the spirit of things, all trades would naturally end at Kickoff. However, I've thought more about teams that drop out or in, and I think there's a few ways to play this:

1) Allow folks whose teams dropped to pick another team once event payment deadlines have passed. (GP would be in full effect.)
2) Have everyone create a list before Kickoff with their backups, several deep.
3) Pick from the List of Fate.

Thoughts?

I would be in favor of the "average score" method, or some other scoring system that allows you to draft 3 teams, for the entire season. Yes, it will be imbalanced, and not every team will be equal... but I think that adds a great dynamic to the game. Do you pick a team that's only going to one event, and hope they do really well at that event? Or do you pick a team going to 3 regionals and the Championship, and hope that their average performance is better than that of the one-event-wonder?

Drafting by event could be interesting (do you choose a team's Week 1 regional, when competition is lighter, or Week 5, when they've had a chance to compete and improve?), however, I think that a whole-season approach would be much more manageable for participants during the draft process. If you have to go through every team, and every regional in which those teams compete, there would easily be two to three times as many draft options to sort through. By limiting it to the team for the entire season, it greatly reduces the draft pool, which should make it considerably easier for players to decide on a picking list. Even reducing the numbers this way, there are still more than enough teams in FIRST to fill a FF league, so why not make it easier on everyone, and just pick by team, for the whole season?

As far as accounting for dropped teams, if you draft by team, not by event, the problem solves itself. Unless your team backs out of FIRST entirely, you'll still have a team competing and earning you points, and, with an average score system, it won't put you at much of a disadvantage (if any at all). If a team did withdraw from FIRST, I would say the drafter would be allowed to pick from any team still remaining on the draft board at that time.

So, for those two reasons (reducing complexity of draft, and eliminating the drop problem), I am strongly in favor of a whole-season, average score (or similar) system. I think it will be the easiest to manage, and the most dynamic choice.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Jeff Waegelin

Unless your team backs out of FIRST entirely, you'll still have a team competing and earning you points, and, with an average score system, it won't put you at much of a disadvantage (if any at all).

I was thinking about this the other day, and I realized that there is the off chance of this happening, which would be bad on multiple levels.

Perhaps it would work better for everyone to draft, say, 4 teams with the lowest score dropped?

[Corey Balint]

Originally Posted by Billfred

I was thinking about this the other day, and I realized that there is the off chance of this happening, which would be bad on multiple levels.

Perhaps it would work better for everyone to draft, say, 4 teams with the lowest score dropped?

Instead of drafting a team for the season, you draft a team for a regional.

EX: Team 25 attends NJ and Palmetto. Team 25 can be picked twice, once for the Palmetto Regional and then once for NJ.

This makes it a more complex system, but its more fair for everyone.

[Ben Lauer]

I am not sure I like this, for 2 reasons, what if a team decides to go to a regional later in the season? and What if a team drops out of a regional due to funds?

Anyway, Like i said in the other thread, i think it should be done right after the robots ship. Some teams will have posted pics and most teams will know what regional they are going to. It is very hard to gather the Data necessary for all the calculations with score and such, so I would perhaps like to hear ideas that don't directly involve scoring of the robots and prehaps placement and award based. As we all know, the scores in the earlier regionals are much lower normally so if a team competes in the last 2 weeks it will probably have a better average score than one that competes in the first 2 weeks even if the second team placed better.

hope that makes sense.

[Collin Fultz]

i agree with Ben on the fact that drafts should be done after the ship date.

in fantasy football, you don't draft your players before the rookie draft, or before training camp. you wait to see who's gonna be a starter...who's gonna retire...etc

that way one person isn't left high-and-dry with ricky williams as his fantasy stud running back for 2004

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Ben Lauer

Anyway, Like i said in the other thread, i think it should be done right after the robots ship. Some teams will have posted pics and most teams will know what regional they are going to. It is very hard to gather the Data necessary for all the calculations with score and such, so I would perhaps like to hear ideas that don't directly involve scoring of the robots and prehaps placement and award based. As we all know, the scores in the earlier regionals are much lower normally so if a team competes in the last 2 weeks it will probably have a better average score than one that competes in the first 2 weeks even if the second team placed better.

The whole reason the drafting will happen before Kickoff came from a thread a while back about teams and their reputations. Right now, after hearing some good reasons for it, it appears that the drafting will be for a team for the whole season, with their scores averaged. (The drafting four and dropping one thing may or may not happen--I'd like more feedback on that first.)

And by scores, I mean their FF score, similar to how Palmetto (and probably a lot of the other leagues) was run this year, where awards and seedings score the points.

[Ben Lauer]

I don't think dropping the 4th is a good idea. If you have 4 well rounded picks, then dropping one is not advantageous. But if you have 2 awesome, and 2 weak, you have an advantage on the person with 4 well rounded teams.

Draft X number keep X number.