It’s finally here! The fantasy playoffs! Unless you’re in a contender league (in which case your playoffs began two weeks ago) or a total points league like a Draftmaster (which has no playoffs), week 15 is the first of three playoff weeks.
How Playoff Brackets Are Structured
First, let’s talk about the winners.
One of DataForce’s overriding philosophies is to keep customers involved as much as possible by making every game throughout the year meaningful. This helps keep owners interested all year long and keeps them submitting competitive lineups. This philosophy drives our thinking in offering a toilet bowl, in devising our playoff contention rules (where two teams make the playoffs based on total points scored), and byes for the division winners. You can’t rest on your laurels once the playoff picture starts to solidify, since there’s almost always something to play for.
Along this line of thinking, and due to your responses on the off-season survey, two years ago we adjusted our rules for playoff brackets.
In weeks 1 and 2 of the 3-week playoff season, the best team (according to its win/loss record over the first 14 weeks of the season) will always play the worst team. Like the NFL, our brackets will automatically adjust after the quarterfinals, and again in the semifinals. The best team will play the worst team, as determined by your standings.
You can learn more about the playoff contention rules, and the reason we do it this way, by clicking on the HELP button from your League->Standings page. It’s at the very top left of every page.
But What If I Missed the Playoffs?
Then the rest of this newsletter is for you.
Keep setting your lineups through week 17! It’s especially important if you’re in a Keeper, Dynasty or Legacy league.
All teams that do not make the semifinals drop into the toilet bowl. If you made the playoffs, but don’t advance to next week (week 16), you drop into the toilet bowl. Everybody’s in the toilet except the four teams playing for 1st-through-4th to win real-money prizes.
Single-Year Leagues and Multi-Year Auction Leagues
Single-year leagues and multi-year leagues with an off-season auction (like salary cap and contract leagues) fall into this category.
You do not play head-to-head during the toilet bowl. It’s a total-points competition. Check the right side of your League->Playoffs page to see your standing on the toilet bowl leaderboard. Top place after week 17 wins $24 in bonus money, second place wins $12 bonus money. This money can be used toward any league purchase or renewal.
You may have noticed that once you drop out of the playoffs, all your waiver money disappears in a puff of smoke. Yep, you can no longer bid on waivers on Wednesday nights. However, you can still pick up free agents for toilet bowl play.
Contender Leagues
Contender league playoffs began way back in week 13, so the toilet bowl is a little different.
Contender leagues are 48-team contests made up of four 12-team leagues. Of those 48 teams, 16 (four from each league) advanced into the ‘quad’ playoffs in week 14, and 32 were seeded into one large toilet bowl. The toilet bowl for Contender leagues therefore lasts four weeks, from week 14 through week 17.
Again, the right side of your League->Playoffs page shows the toilet bowl leaderboard, this time with 36 teams involved. The top 4 after week 17 win $24 in bonus money, and the next four win $12 bonus money.
Guillotine and Total Points leagues
These leagues don’t offer a playoff bracket, but they still have bonus money to give away. $24 in bonus money will go to the team finishing fourth, and $12 bonus money to the team finishing fifth.
Dynasty, Legacy, and Keeper leagues
These are the multi-year leagues that have an annual draft. It’s even more important in these leagues that you continue setting competitive lineups.
You can win bonus money in these leagues too, but there is another consideration that may be even more important.
Remember that next year’s draft order for toilet bowl teams is determined by potential points. Potential points is a measure of how well your team COULD have performed, if the optimal lineup were set each week. The lower your potential points, the worse your team actually is, and the earlier your draft pick in the next year’s draft.
Well, for these leagues, your toilet bowl score is DEDUCTED from your potential points total. THE AMOUNT DEDUCTED IS THE USUAL POTENTIAL POINTS SCORE, BUT WITHOUT ANY ADJUSTMENTS FOR ZERO-SCORING POSITIONS from your starters. So, for weeks 1-14, your potential points total grows: during weeks 15-17, it decreases. The better your players perform in the toilet bowl, the better your draft pick next year. The point of this rule is two-fold:
- It’s fun! It gives toilet-bound teams something meaningful to play for in weeks 15-17
- It rewards those who didn’t decimate their team in order to score fewer potential points during the regular fantasy season.
May your toilet bowl be a truly rewarding experience!
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Lee Harmon
Commissioner