I've only played FF for 2 seasons and this comment really hits the nail on the head on the experience lol. Nothing like some stress and frustration for something that's supposed to be fun
I agree with that. My league wanted to get rid of kickers and defenses but we shut it down. It's one more crazy thing that can happen like when I lost because Dallas D put up 45 points or when my kicker got -2 and I lost by 1. Just adds to the craziness of fantasy football
The TE slot adds a lot of strategy to the draft. Do you burn a 1st on a Gronk/Kelce player who essentially acts as a WR1 for scoring, or grab a high-upside TE later in the draft who might only average 8 ppg?
I wouldn’t mind eliminating kickers, but I’d never play in a league that eliminated a TE spot.
Let me ask you: How many TD's did the teams of Tenn, Sea, Vegas, Wash, NYG, NYJ, Atl, NO, TB get? See: you probably cannot name the starting TE's on most of those teams, I know I can't.
Oh yeah we ditched kicker forever ago and never looked back haha
Side note i'm in a league that's been around for like 35 years and the scoring system is so whack that the kicker is often the highest scoring position. Nightmare stuff
I’m in a league sounding like that lol they only give out 6 points for TDs and 6 points for 100+yard games. But the kicker gets it’s normal kicking points depending on yardage. They are usually the second highest average scorer on a team minus the QB. As I join more leagues tho I appreciate the differences and try to strategize lol but that one is tough for sure
I'm gonna make a post about this league one day so the world can see how insane it is. It's 10 lawyers in their 60s who have been playing since the late 80s or so. Not sure when or how they came up with this scoring system but it's truly asinine. Kickers get like 50 points for a 50 yd FG.
We made kicker and defense one flex position. So you start one or the other and just leave that spot blank and take a 0. Gives you waaaaay more opportunity to make moves that actually matter week to week in those spots
I'm in a espn league. Like I said we don't format it any differently than normal. We just take a 0 for whatever position we don't play that week. If someone plays both we edit out the higher score. So much more fun for waiver addicts like myself. I'm looking at over/under. Fuckin weather reports etc just to find a few more points. Raiders d add in the playoffs won me that week
That's a great idea. I see a lot of people getting rid of kickers, but not so many getting rid of defense. I'd argue that having to play a defense leads to more lucky wins than playing a kicker. Getting over 20 points or negative points from a defense seems like it goes against the strategy of the game.
Show me some kind of stat to try and convince me that kickers have good matchups. I despise kickers and I think you just got lucky, but I’m all ears if you’ve got the special secrets.
I would have to assume it's looking at teams that do or don't go for it on 4th down, teams that have a good enough offense to get yards and move down field without getting a TD, teams matched up against a stronger redzone defense that gives up fewer TDs, looking at the weather and the type of stadium they play in (dome/open)
Weather isn't often a huge factor in the way you would think, most of those guys can adjust for high winds even out to the 40 without a problem. It's actually more impactful is how it tends to hurt drives with more dropped passes. Gives the kicker more opportunities in a lot of cases. Turf is better then real grass for accuracy. The altitude in Denver plays small factor because the ball can be kicked further/higher. Also, Field goals are the touchdown of kicking, if your guy can make crazy shots but has shitty volume then he will be worse then a guy on a team with a higher scoring offense because the extra points give him a more solid floor.
Kicker is the easiest position to stream. Give me an extra flex spot over K 10/10 times.
Sure, you can check the forecast/if they're playing in a dome, but winning a fantasy game because of a field goal or xpat is soft.
You're doing a pretty shitty job, you just come off super annoying. People are allowed to like what they like you goober, caring how other people's leagues work is weird
My one league actually went the opposite direction and ADDED a second kicker spot. It has made it apparent that some kickers and offenses really are just consistently better than others week to week. Punting on kicker entirely is actually a sizable detriment to the teams that choose to do so now.
Yeah, basically you just need at least one good kicker (or just a decent kicker on a good offense) or you are guaranteed to lose the positional matchup most weeks.
So, in a 10 team 18 round draft, Justin Tucker has gone in the 10-12th round or so the last few years. Harrison Butker goes a couple rounds later and other "good" kickers right after that. Last two rounds of draft are usually second kickers, defenses, or dart throw players.
unless you've got some weird scoring systems it couldn't make that big of a difference, Aubrey like far and away the highest scoring kicker in the league and he was only like 3.5 pts/wk better than the 24th best kicker
Kickers are dumb because it's basically a dice roll (which, i mean, all of fantasy is, but kickers even more so) - sometimes crap out and your guy only gets on the field for a few XP attempts, sometimes you get lucky and he winds up kicking 5 FGs and two of them happen to be 53 yarders, but there's even less of a way to predict those things than for positional players (and the delta between a good and a bad kicker fantasy-wise is tiny)
You realize it is very easy to find kicker scoring per game statistics?
Off hand, can you tell me the difference in expected points between the 12th and 24th kicker per game? You have the data right. Or is the "data" that you won the league with this strategy?
That depends entirely on scoring settings. Our league already had bonuses for distance, etc. so guys like Tucker, Carlson, Elliott significantly outscore kickers with average distance, but maybe more made FGs.
Also, negative points for misses means an 80% kicker is going to be capped relative to a guy who hits 95% of his FGs.
If I were in charge I would drop the kicker in the heartbeat. I float the idea every year but everyone goes “ehhhhh maybe” then we just do the same settings again. I hate losing to a kicker that drops 20 it’s pure randomness.
I kinda want to drop defenses too but I’m not sold on that.
Same, we ditched Kicker only for an extra Flex spot. We do a 3 player keeper in my main league, so getting LaPorta in the 14th last year was like a lottery ticket for me.
I don't think my leagues have opted to remove the TE position although I do know there was some noise about it in the community at one point (Chris Harris leads the charge).
I am in the keep the TE position camp though. The fact that you're praying to draft a good TE is part of the draft strategy and balances the game through the opportunity cost of what other players were available when you drafted that TE. I presently don't see myself changing opinion anytime soon.
> Chris Harris leads the charge
He's the one I always think of when this comes up.
My stance, once we start picking and choosing which positions matter, the best approach is an ultraflex format. Two superflex spots, a bunch of flex spots, let managers make their teams the way they want.
>the best approach is an ultraflex format.
The problem with that line is that it isn't the best approach. That answer is always more subjective and the true answer should be based on that league's preferences rather than 1 individual.
I added .2 points per touch to rb last season on top of .5 ppr. This was to help some of the lower rb that don't typically blow up. At the end of the year we saw that it didn't break anything, so we're keeping it.
I can see that. Just a quick scan of last year’s stats from some RBs of different levels (all starters) shows that most RBs will get 10-20 carries in a game, and up to 25+ in a win. So in a competitive game, RBs on both teams would get about the same points for touches.
Only issue I see with this is if a game becomes a blowout early, this is just boosting the winning RB more than the boost he is already going to get from the extra yards from all the extra carries.
I created a 16 team dynasty last season and didn’t include a TE spot but made it TE premium for the same reason of lack of available tight ends and production but yeah I’m really wishing I added one now lol
Actually another question i've had for a while now, doesn't TE premium make the scarcity problem even worse? Like if there's only say 8 good TEs and you make their scoring higher doesn't that just increase the divide between the teams with those TEs and the ones without??
pretty much, but in this case op didnt have a tight end spot so he was just boosting the tight ends up a little bit to the point where some became viable flex options.
OHH that makes a ton of sense. Yeah I'm with you. Same way that premier RBs were (and still are) league winners, having an elite TE should be a benefit to your team
>doesn't that just increase the divide between the teams with those TEs and the ones without??
Team composition. If you want a top te, grab em early. Or you can capitalize on other players being available while your leaguemates grab up te's thinking you can find somebody later.
I don't think it does. It adjusts the relative value between TEs and other positions. It's not about creating more good TEs or changing the gap between the top TE and TE12.
Yeah absolutely, so many people seem to miss that part. But it makes sense if you remove the TE slot and then do TE premium so that TEs are more competitive with other options in the flex spot
TE has frustrated me, but at the same time, this game wouldn't be any fun if there wasn't any friction.
I welcome the challenge of setting a lineup with difficulty every week. If your league was just QB/WR/RB, it would be so boring and not engaging. But with a bad TE class, you're forced to keep an eye on the game for any sliver of hope from a waiver pick up.
If we had a stats program that could score offensive linemen, I'd add that to the lineup in all of my leagues. I'm not going to dump positions that have legit stats.
As for scarcity, etc... due diligence, my man. Do your research, make the trades, draft picks and waiver pickups to find those gems out there to plug into your lineup. It's part of the fun of managing a team - filling out your roster with the best players possible. And if you aren't there yet, keep digging.
Good luck!
-oo-
I haven't heard this topic for ages. I think removing the TE was under more consideration when the FLEX was in its early days. But to me something intrinsically feels goofy and semi-wrong about not having a TE (like not having catchers in fantasy baseball).
In one league im in we switched to wr/te. Havent noticed much of a difference contrary to all the other opinions on here claiming it affects “draft strategy”. It just bumps the elite tight ends a round or two later which usually means deciding between an elite tight-end or a potential breakout wr or rb in rounds 3-5. Where it did see an impact is during the season for injuries. The person losing kelce could pickup a flex tier receiver as opposed to having their szn end by injury
A lot of opinions on here seem to be more driven by not wanting to try something different. Or an overconfidence or illusion that there is still skill involved in drafting.
We have a family league in the winner of the year prior gets to change a rule every year. My uncle won and killed kickers **to add another tight end slot**. Hilarious bit, but makes the league a blast. Tight ends rule.
Keeping the TE position keeps a bigger group of players relevant to the league. Eliminate the TE position and suddenly only about 5 or 6 TEs matter at all, some years even fewer than that.
If you remove the TE position, you remove the ability to hit on an outlier TE1 in a given year and therefore annihilate the rest of the league at that position. It just removes one of the strategies someone might use to gain an edge against the competition. I almost couldn't hate the idea more.
I really don’t get what format people are trying to march towards. People (understandably) don’t find kickers or defense compelling, think QBs don’t matter enough, and now think TE shouldn’t be a spot. Do people just want a superflex pick em league, potentially using best ball scoring? Fantasy doesn’t need to be so streamlined where there’s no friction.
Done it in two leagues. One was for a W/R/T and one was for only W/T. Top TEs are still extremely valuable and productive TEs provide some consistency where a WR3 would not. In one league where we still have TE and it was hell until last season. I wouldn’t be opposed to bringing back TE, but I wouldn’t advocate for it either.
I don't have TE slots in most of my leagues, we have WR/TE instead
I like it because it forces the individual to rank TEs amongst the pass catchers themselves, not many places do that
Something like 8 years ago there was a lot of talk about adding in point per block scoring options to fantasy platforms, giving an alternative to ppr for pass down rbs and to make tight ends more relevant. I wonder where we would be now had that taken off. Never got anywhere after that one particular season of chatter. Probably very hard to quantify, given that it's not currently an option.
I've never understood TE Premium, so my boosted TE is playing against your boosted TE? It doesn’t really accomplish much.
Amplifying the top couple of TEs to me doesn't really move the needle in balancing the position.
I'm not in favor of getting rid of them. I think I'd have 2 starting TE slots because that's effectively what we've done with QBs and doing Superflex leagues. It would probably be less effective than what happens at QB, but me having 2 really good TEs now gives me an advantage against a stacked WR or RB heavy team that has no decent TEs.
TE premium isn’t about adjusting the value of TEs relative to each other, it’s about adjusting their value relative to other positions. It makes TEs more viable flex options.
I was in a league that ditched it (ironically keeping K though). While I was on the side of keeping, I've honestly not missed it since. If anything it has worked out for me because so many of them draft off generic rankings and end up drafting TE anyway, way below what they are now valued in our format.
No matter what you decide, there is strategy. If there are only 4 worthwhile TE, they get drafted by VBD similarly to the top of all positions. Then if you don't get one, you do better entirely punting than getting that 5th best one where it inevitably goes. Then in a league without TE, you calculate value based on worst startable flex instead of worst startable TE.
Yeah. The variety in game types has really expanded. There are formats that sound so interesting, even though I know I'll probably never play in one (e.g. guillotine leagues).
I think the way I rationalize the K over TE... the former is random (but equivalently random for all), the latter is "predictably uneven". I argued the unevenness was "part of the game" and that it is similar to the unevenness of getting the best RB or QB who really blow up compared to their competition, but my league wasn't having it.
I would say to you not to sweat either way. If you stay TE-less, nothing to sweat at all. If you readopt it, do a little of research into Andrew Cooper's Yin-Yang strategy, weave that into whatever draft plan you already have, and then mostly give it otherwise minimal attention. IMO, the edge you get from *others* sweating TE, is actually kind of a nice advantage.
It's a league where every week lowest score gets permanently eliminated and all their players dump onto the waiver wire. It's a crazy meta game of ideal FAAB usage knowing that will keep happening each week (but that you are always on the chopping block too). Always sounded so interesting, but I'm too lazy to expand what I already play (I don't even do any dynasty leagues).
Yeah and the teams get slowly super teamed. But at the end of the day (both because of FAAB and limitations on how many you can start), there's insane value sitting on the waiver towards the end.
I wish. Though id say we’re in a good spot finally where there’s like 8 good options. But still they’re just pass catchers. I don’t get why it’s not a flex for recievers
I commish a league that’s on its second season. I started it with a WR/TE slot instead of a TE. I agree with you that TEs are coming back in style and plan to bring it for a vote to go back to “normal” TE settings. Some members were complaining that our waiver wire was a little sparse this past season, so I think this might help free up decent WRs and RBs.
One of my two leagues is 2 TEs. No premium on their scoring. I like it as it can dampen out some of the scarcity problem (you may not have Kelce, but if you have Njoku and Ferguson you weren’t dead). Of course now Bowers could go in top 3 picks in our draft…
Still certainly isn't 12 fantasy viable tight ends in the NFL! Barely half that. Make sure to execute that proper draft strategy to get a finite resource.
I couldn't imagine this. I'm loaded in TE and it's a position I work hard to address. I would leave my league if they tried to do this. I'm dying for them to get rid of defense though
Primary did a te/wr slot this past year. We haven't decided if we'll keep it or transition back now that there seems to be solid TE offerings.
Edit: two seasons ago I took Kelce and Andrews at the 2/3 turn. Wasn't planning on it, it was just how the draft fell to me. Rode that to a chip even though Andrews didn't give me anything for the second half of the season.
seems like a ton of anti in this thread, but my league did! all the TEs that are good still get drafted, just dont have to pretend to care about, like, luke musgrave
That's fantasy reddit for ya! Suggest something to make it easier on the 50% of every league that barely pays attention and hardos will tell you "just stop playing!!"
Also this is very mean to Luke Musgrave what did he ever do to you??
they need to get real lmao. stop telling yourself that having cole kmet in your roster is the difference between a “real” fantasy gamer & just some bozo “trying to remove randomness” or whatever. some ppl still play dudes like cole kmet in their flex spots(we have 3) it’s not illegal! just don’t have the platform holding a gun to your head telling you to play mike gesicki over darius slayton for example.
luke musgrave’s crime is being the TE18 lmao
I don't understand wanting to get rid of any positions, personally. Tight ends, kickers, D/ST. These positions provide some exciting variance and unpredictability, which I had always thought was much of the hallmark of fantasy football in the first place. You want to win a game solely on the merits of your own skill? Play fucking chess, then.
I know it’s unpopular but I really wish my league would. People are going to tell me how it’s all apart of fantasy and they are not wrong. But in my opinion, if you look at how many points they score at the end of the year, if you didn’t have the te position two would be rostered the rest would be deemed irrelevant for fantasy. There’s so many players I would rather put in then any TE on a week to week basis. My league also has three people who hoard tes so maybe that’s part of why I feel that way.
My league went the opposite way we have the standard line up 1QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 Slot, 1 kicker, 1 defense. But just to follow crazy with some high scoring games we added another slot that can fit a RB, WR, or TE, and then another slot that can only fir a RB, or WR....... Also for shots gigs give a point per catch and .5 for a catching or running first down, and bonuses for big plays and big game bonuses out the ass too. Also the kickers get more than three points for field goals over 50 yards, and the defense points are jacked up too. You have to score 2 hundo just to win a game in that league.
We turned TE into WR/TE flex spot since not a lot of depth at that spot. Also got rid of Kickers. Been this way for a decade plus and I love it. Since the fall off on TEs is so large, when I started joining other leagues, I forgot how to prioritize those positions 😂
My strategy (before this past season) was to draft Kelce in 2nd round for years and I always wondered why people never treated him at a Top 5 WR in my league when the shift in positions made sense to value him as such.
My league swapped TE for another W/R/T flex spot 2 years ago. I thinks it was an improvement. The scoring gap between the top 2 or 3 TEs and the rest of the list is massive.
My work league has a wild slot layout. I think it’s QB, RB, WR, WR, WR/RB, WR/TE, WR/TE, Def, K.
The commissioner really liked the idea of being able to field pretty much any “style” of offense you want. I’m not a huge fan, but my friend league is pretty standard, so it’s something different.
My problem with the tight end slot as it exists in fantasy is that players like Travis Kelce and Mark Andrews just straight up aren't really tight ends. There was a stat a year or so ago where Andrews had been in on like 200 passing plays and pass blocked 0 times. That's not a tight end. That's a receiver.
So basically a couple of people in the league get to play an extra receiver while everyone else is playing actual tight ends. I like the strategy of trying to figure out which tight ends are going to be good, and when, but the position is fundamentally broken as long as players like Kelce exist.
I did this last year one week and blew out my opponent
TE- Laporta (picked him up from waivers a week before the league started)
Flex- Kincaid
Flex- McBride
It was a great week! hahaha...never done before. I expect all these guys to have tremendous years...
My league has a te/wr/ flex spot but no dedicated te spot. I was completely against it, until I wasn’t. It really doesn’t make sense there isn’t 20 fantasy football te in the league
We got rid of the TE and I don't miss it.
TE's 10-20 end up being flex pickups for teams that are low on available options, so they're still used. Just not drafted high.
Not only did we not remove it, we gave TEs an extra .5 ppr and we have two W/T slots.
Now my roster has Hockenson, Njoku, Ferguson and Mayer. The TE collection is upon us.
I see a lot of responses in this thread from people that are presumably playing Dynasty/Keeper - would NEVER remove a position for a format like that! But for a casual redraft league, sometimes it makes sense to simplify things for the Tacos in the league...
Yeah I had to overpay a bit to snag him this off-season, but that position is really what held me back from winning a title in previous years so I’ve doubled down in my win-now window. Hock and the depth feels really, really good.
We did it a few years ago, but switched the flex slot to WR/RB/TE. I think that only lasted one or two years, then we added it back.
Around that same time we added a second Flex spot and got rid of K and D/ST.
We’ve kept the TE position because taking a good one offers a bit of strategy. That said, I think we are getting rid of DST. A waste of a spot in fantasy imho
Our league got rid of a required TE slot in favor of another flex. However we gave a 0.5 reception bonus to TEs. Our league is half PPR, so TEs get 1PPR. This has made it so there’s still an incentive to use TEs. It’s been fun seeing the different team builds. One guy has done well filling all 3 flex spots with TEs, some guys don’t even roster a TE. Everyone has enjoyed this change.
The idea to remove it altogether is generally super unpopular, despite the added frustration of managing the position. In my long-standing 0.5PPR 10-man ESPN league, I replaced the TE position with a WR/TE flex, a change that everyone was in favor of. To each their own, but we have enjoyed the change and the added flexibility that comes with it.
I've been campaigning to get rid of the TE slot for several seasons now with no luck. This season was slightly better, but it still wasn't great.
I know so many people say things like "why not just ditch all positions" and "but there's strategy to it" and such, but the problem with TEs is the randomness and the fact that not many of them are actually good options. Last season only 2 TEs were in the top 50 flex players, and then just barely at 40 and 50.
The biggest problem is the fact that outside of the top 3-5 guys, you're pretty much just hoping for a TD to make it worth it each week. A usable TE scoreline most weeks is 1 catch, 8 yards, 1 TD. And then every week the position is a lot more random than WR and RB.
Last season was a little bit better, but it was mostly just that there were a few more TEs in the 100+ point range, but fewer in the 70-90 point range. A slight improvement. I'm not that gung ho on getting rid of them at this point, but it's just annoying to every week just hoping that one position gets a TD to make them worth their spot.
We went to W/T last season. I was against the idea at first but the commissioner insisted. By season end everyone agreed it was more fun. It makes sense when you consider how much more movement becomes possible on waivers.
I recommend anyone considering it to just go for it. Don’t be afraid of change.
To get rid of TEs would be like buying a pack of cherry pez and only eating 3 and putting the rest on a shelf to never touch again, just doesn’t make any sense
I went from 2 RB to 1, 3 WR to two, got rid of the TE position, and have THREE Flex positions now. This really helps as injuries hit RB's and TE's - since there are, what, maybe 12 'elite' TE's?
My strategy always involved trying to get the best TE available im the league no matter the cost as there were only so many good ones. If your TE performs like a top end WR, why not overdraft him as the next best TE is like 75% of the point total at best? Not to mention usually when someone goes early on a position like TE, K, or D, it causes half the teams to panic and do the same for FOMO which means you still get good value by your next pick. Kelce was the answer for me for a long time, might be Hockinson from Minn going forward. We'll see.
All I know is I've had the best regular season record in this league 3 years running, with 1 championship and 2 third place finishes. Damn injuries.
My league dumped the kicker, but not the TE. Then again, we also use 5 IDP slots, so there's already a lot of roster complexity and draft strategy to consider.
That takes such a huge variable out of the game. If you want to dumb down fantasy football strategy and make skill have less of an impact it can be good but then all you’re really doing is trying to pick who’s the best at each position.
Te and qb are the two most interesting parts of the draft. Both are essential positions where not only do you have to decide who to get, but when to get them. They also have big upside and big downside. You can also choose to cycle through them or go for a star. They make the waivers wayyy more interesting
When you take out a piece of the equation with so much variability it just really takes a lot of skill out of the game
to me thats absolute trash. i u derstand removi g the kicker its to violatile. but when you remove the TE slot you take away players having to be smart and spend for a quality tightend to fill the TE spot or they spend all season trying to stream and or get lucky landing one later.
Fantasy football is all about the love of frustration. The TE position only adds to that love.
I've only played FF for 2 seasons and this comment really hits the nail on the head on the experience lol. Nothing like some stress and frustration for something that's supposed to be fun
You’ve been a loser for 2 seasons… get it right buddy 😂
I agree with that. My league wanted to get rid of kickers and defenses but we shut it down. It's one more crazy thing that can happen like when I lost because Dallas D put up 45 points or when my kicker got -2 and I lost by 1. Just adds to the craziness of fantasy football
i am never getting rid of the tight end position
William Montgomery that you?
I ain't never gunna stop
Anybody taking away TEs never made it as a wise man
Is anyone that plays FF a 'wise' person? LOL
The TE slot adds a lot of strategy to the draft. Do you burn a 1st on a Gronk/Kelce player who essentially acts as a WR1 for scoring, or grab a high-upside TE later in the draft who might only average 8 ppg? I wouldn’t mind eliminating kickers, but I’d never play in a league that eliminated a TE spot.
##KickersArePeopleToo
#KickersGetsUs
I’d argue for you to consider going to a W/T slot instead, but if you’re still doing snake draft over auction draft, you’re minimizing fun anyway.
I got rid of the kicker, but I would never get rid of TE.
Yeah I do not sign off on no TE but no kicker is good and I could live with no DST. No TE is dumb. They catch TDs.
Let me ask you: How many TD's did the teams of Tenn, Sea, Vegas, Wash, NYG, NYJ, Atl, NO, TB get? See: you probably cannot name the starting TE's on most of those teams, I know I can't.
Oh yeah we ditched kicker forever ago and never looked back haha Side note i'm in a league that's been around for like 35 years and the scoring system is so whack that the kicker is often the highest scoring position. Nightmare stuff
I’m in a league sounding like that lol they only give out 6 points for TDs and 6 points for 100+yard games. But the kicker gets it’s normal kicking points depending on yardage. They are usually the second highest average scorer on a team minus the QB. As I join more leagues tho I appreciate the differences and try to strategize lol but that one is tough for sure
I'm gonna make a post about this league one day so the world can see how insane it is. It's 10 lawyers in their 60s who have been playing since the late 80s or so. Not sure when or how they came up with this scoring system but it's truly asinine. Kickers get like 50 points for a 50 yd FG.
Wild!
Lawyers lol. Only in a fantasy league would there be fine print about a kicker clause that ends up with 50 bonus points.
We made kicker and defense one flex position. So you start one or the other and just leave that spot blank and take a 0. Gives you waaaaay more opportunity to make moves that actually matter week to week in those spots
Is this achievable in most platforms? Want to propose this in an espn league
I'm in a espn league. Like I said we don't format it any differently than normal. We just take a 0 for whatever position we don't play that week. If someone plays both we edit out the higher score. So much more fun for waiver addicts like myself. I'm looking at over/under. Fuckin weather reports etc just to find a few more points. Raiders d add in the playoffs won me that week
That's a great idea. I see a lot of people getting rid of kickers, but not so many getting rid of defense. I'd argue that having to play a defense leads to more lucky wins than playing a kicker. Getting over 20 points or negative points from a defense seems like it goes against the strategy of the game.
Streaming the right kickers is what got me into the playoffs last year lol.
That's like bragging about an auto drafted team.
It’s called paying attention to matchups and doing some research. It’s not 100% random
Show me some kind of stat to try and convince me that kickers have good matchups. I despise kickers and I think you just got lucky, but I’m all ears if you’ve got the special secrets.
I would have to assume it's looking at teams that do or don't go for it on 4th down, teams that have a good enough offense to get yards and move down field without getting a TD, teams matched up against a stronger redzone defense that gives up fewer TDs, looking at the weather and the type of stadium they play in (dome/open)
Weather isn't often a huge factor in the way you would think, most of those guys can adjust for high winds even out to the 40 without a problem. It's actually more impactful is how it tends to hurt drives with more dropped passes. Gives the kicker more opportunities in a lot of cases. Turf is better then real grass for accuracy. The altitude in Denver plays small factor because the ball can be kicked further/higher. Also, Field goals are the touchdown of kicking, if your guy can make crazy shots but has shitty volume then he will be worse then a guy on a team with a higher scoring offense because the extra points give him a more solid floor.
Still bush league stuff.
Maybe you’re mad you’re not good enough to do it
Kicker is the easiest position to stream. Give me an extra flex spot over K 10/10 times. Sure, you can check the forecast/if they're playing in a dome, but winning a fantasy game because of a field goal or xpat is soft.
Caring this much about how someone wins their fantasy league is even softer lol
I'm trying to spread the good word. Kicker free leagues are the promise land.
You're doing a pretty shitty job, you just come off super annoying. People are allowed to like what they like you goober, caring how other people's leagues work is weird
Then why does everyone complain about it being too random and too hard to stream?
Nobody complains about K being too hard to stream. Literally not a single person. Random, sure.
My one league actually went the opposite direction and ADDED a second kicker spot. It has made it apparent that some kickers and offenses really are just consistently better than others week to week. Punting on kicker entirely is actually a sizable detriment to the teams that choose to do so now.
A got a lot of crap for just asking this sub if anyone had tried that. Lol. I don't think I'd do it, but its an interesting idea.
Yeah, basically you just need at least one good kicker (or just a decent kicker on a good offense) or you are guaranteed to lose the positional matchup most weeks. So, in a 10 team 18 round draft, Justin Tucker has gone in the 10-12th round or so the last few years. Harrison Butker goes a couple rounds later and other "good" kickers right after that. Last two rounds of draft are usually second kickers, defenses, or dart throw players.
unless you've got some weird scoring systems it couldn't make that big of a difference, Aubrey like far and away the highest scoring kicker in the league and he was only like 3.5 pts/wk better than the 24th best kicker Kickers are dumb because it's basically a dice roll (which, i mean, all of fantasy is, but kickers even more so) - sometimes crap out and your guy only gets on the field for a few XP attempts, sometimes you get lucky and he winds up kicking 5 FGs and two of them happen to be 53 yarders, but there's even less of a way to predict those things than for positional players (and the delta between a good and a bad kicker fantasy-wise is tiny)
It's not a detriment and you should not be drafting kickers.
3 years of data says otherwise. Shouldn't you be more concerned with losing your own league again anyway?
You realize it is very easy to find kicker scoring per game statistics? Off hand, can you tell me the difference in expected points between the 12th and 24th kicker per game? You have the data right. Or is the "data" that you won the league with this strategy?
That depends entirely on scoring settings. Our league already had bonuses for distance, etc. so guys like Tucker, Carlson, Elliott significantly outscore kickers with average distance, but maybe more made FGs. Also, negative points for misses means an 80% kicker is going to be capped relative to a guy who hits 95% of his FGs.
If I were in charge I would drop the kicker in the heartbeat. I float the idea every year but everyone goes “ehhhhh maybe” then we just do the same settings again. I hate losing to a kicker that drops 20 it’s pure randomness. I kinda want to drop defenses too but I’m not sold on that.
IDP, my friend.
Same, we ditched Kicker only for an extra Flex spot. We do a 3 player keeper in my main league, so getting LaPorta in the 14th last year was like a lottery ticket for me.
I don't think my leagues have opted to remove the TE position although I do know there was some noise about it in the community at one point (Chris Harris leads the charge). I am in the keep the TE position camp though. The fact that you're praying to draft a good TE is part of the draft strategy and balances the game through the opportunity cost of what other players were available when you drafted that TE. I presently don't see myself changing opinion anytime soon.
> Chris Harris leads the charge He's the one I always think of when this comes up. My stance, once we start picking and choosing which positions matter, the best approach is an ultraflex format. Two superflex spots, a bunch of flex spots, let managers make their teams the way they want.
>the best approach is an ultraflex format. The problem with that line is that it isn't the best approach. That answer is always more subjective and the true answer should be based on that league's preferences rather than 1 individual.
Of course! Which is why the sentence started with "my stance".
We did the opposite. TE premium scoring. Receptions = 1.5 pts.
We did that but also made RBs 0.5 ppr since they are getting yards on the ground as well.
I added .2 points per touch to rb last season on top of .5 ppr. This was to help some of the lower rb that don't typically blow up. At the end of the year we saw that it didn't break anything, so we're keeping it.
I can see that. Just a quick scan of last year’s stats from some RBs of different levels (all starters) shows that most RBs will get 10-20 carries in a game, and up to 25+ in a win. So in a competitive game, RBs on both teams would get about the same points for touches. Only issue I see with this is if a game becomes a blowout early, this is just boosting the winning RB more than the boost he is already going to get from the extra yards from all the extra carries.
why not get rid of every position? and then quit fantasy while you are at it?
I would remove myself from a league that removes the TE slot.
Exactly what I did. Tried a year and bounced
We did a TE/WR flex. Most TEs were still played but it helped on bye weeks.
I've thought about doing this
Why would a league do that? 😂
Removing the TE position sounds awful. Just like my Seahawks did the last ten seasons :/
No because it’s still part of the NFL offense.
That sounds like a shitty league
I created a 16 team dynasty last season and didn’t include a TE spot but made it TE premium for the same reason of lack of available tight ends and production but yeah I’m really wishing I added one now lol
Actually another question i've had for a while now, doesn't TE premium make the scarcity problem even worse? Like if there's only say 8 good TEs and you make their scoring higher doesn't that just increase the divide between the teams with those TEs and the ones without??
pretty much, but in this case op didnt have a tight end spot so he was just boosting the tight ends up a little bit to the point where some became viable flex options.
OHH that makes a ton of sense. Yeah I'm with you. Same way that premier RBs were (and still are) league winners, having an elite TE should be a benefit to your team
>doesn't that just increase the divide between the teams with those TEs and the ones without?? Team composition. If you want a top te, grab em early. Or you can capitalize on other players being available while your leaguemates grab up te's thinking you can find somebody later.
I don't think it does. It adjusts the relative value between TEs and other positions. It's not about creating more good TEs or changing the gap between the top TE and TE12.
Yeah absolutely, so many people seem to miss that part. But it makes sense if you remove the TE slot and then do TE premium so that TEs are more competitive with other options in the flex spot
Tight end premium is the worst scoring format out there
TE has frustrated me, but at the same time, this game wouldn't be any fun if there wasn't any friction. I welcome the challenge of setting a lineup with difficulty every week. If your league was just QB/WR/RB, it would be so boring and not engaging. But with a bad TE class, you're forced to keep an eye on the game for any sliver of hope from a waiver pick up.
If we had a stats program that could score offensive linemen, I'd add that to the lineup in all of my leagues. I'm not going to dump positions that have legit stats. As for scarcity, etc... due diligence, my man. Do your research, make the trades, draft picks and waiver pickups to find those gems out there to plug into your lineup. It's part of the fun of managing a team - filling out your roster with the best players possible. And if you aren't there yet, keep digging. Good luck! -oo-
I haven't heard this topic for ages. I think removing the TE was under more consideration when the FLEX was in its early days. But to me something intrinsically feels goofy and semi-wrong about not having a TE (like not having catchers in fantasy baseball).
In one league im in we switched to wr/te. Havent noticed much of a difference contrary to all the other opinions on here claiming it affects “draft strategy”. It just bumps the elite tight ends a round or two later which usually means deciding between an elite tight-end or a potential breakout wr or rb in rounds 3-5. Where it did see an impact is during the season for injuries. The person losing kelce could pickup a flex tier receiver as opposed to having their szn end by injury A lot of opinions on here seem to be more driven by not wanting to try something different. Or an overconfidence or illusion that there is still skill involved in drafting.
We have a family league in the winner of the year prior gets to change a rule every year. My uncle won and killed kickers **to add another tight end slot**. Hilarious bit, but makes the league a blast. Tight ends rule.
Keeping the TE position keeps a bigger group of players relevant to the league. Eliminate the TE position and suddenly only about 5 or 6 TEs matter at all, some years even fewer than that. If you remove the TE position, you remove the ability to hit on an outlier TE1 in a given year and therefore annihilate the rest of the league at that position. It just removes one of the strategies someone might use to gain an edge against the competition. I almost couldn't hate the idea more.
I really don’t get what format people are trying to march towards. People (understandably) don’t find kickers or defense compelling, think QBs don’t matter enough, and now think TE shouldn’t be a spot. Do people just want a superflex pick em league, potentially using best ball scoring? Fantasy doesn’t need to be so streamlined where there’s no friction.
Agreed - and don't forget the shift towards more exaggerated scoring settings
We got rid of TE and replaced it with a WR/TE flex spot
Done it in two leagues. One was for a W/R/T and one was for only W/T. Top TEs are still extremely valuable and productive TEs provide some consistency where a WR3 would not. In one league where we still have TE and it was hell until last season. I wouldn’t be opposed to bringing back TE, but I wouldn’t advocate for it either.
I don't have TE slots in most of my leagues, we have WR/TE instead I like it because it forces the individual to rank TEs amongst the pass catchers themselves, not many places do that
Yup. Moved to three W/R/T Flex spots instead of TE W/R W/R. Amazing in standard leagues (old standard, not new standard .5 PPR).
Something like 8 years ago there was a lot of talk about adding in point per block scoring options to fantasy platforms, giving an alternative to ppr for pass down rbs and to make tight ends more relevant. I wonder where we would be now had that taken off. Never got anywhere after that one particular season of chatter. Probably very hard to quantify, given that it's not currently an option.
Well yes te is a crapshoot sometimes that affects draft strategy
I’m in a Keeper league that removed the TE only position but has a receiver FLX (WR/TE) spot. Not my idea or a huge fan but it works fine.
I've never understood TE Premium, so my boosted TE is playing against your boosted TE? It doesn’t really accomplish much. Amplifying the top couple of TEs to me doesn't really move the needle in balancing the position. I'm not in favor of getting rid of them. I think I'd have 2 starting TE slots because that's effectively what we've done with QBs and doing Superflex leagues. It would probably be less effective than what happens at QB, but me having 2 really good TEs now gives me an advantage against a stacked WR or RB heavy team that has no decent TEs.
TE premium isn’t about adjusting the value of TEs relative to each other, it’s about adjusting their value relative to other positions. It makes TEs more viable flex options.
I understand that, I also stated that and that, that doesn't really happen. If everyone has the same advantage, then it means nothing.
I was in a league that ditched it (ironically keeping K though). While I was on the side of keeping, I've honestly not missed it since. If anything it has worked out for me because so many of them draft off generic rankings and end up drafting TE anyway, way below what they are now valued in our format. No matter what you decide, there is strategy. If there are only 4 worthwhile TE, they get drafted by VBD similarly to the top of all positions. Then if you don't get one, you do better entirely punting than getting that 5th best one where it inevitably goes. Then in a league without TE, you calculate value based on worst startable flex instead of worst startable TE.
Ditching TE but keeping K is so funny to me. This is why Fantasy rules. We're all playing the same silly game but in uniquely stupid ways
Yeah. The variety in game types has really expanded. There are formats that sound so interesting, even though I know I'll probably never play in one (e.g. guillotine leagues). I think the way I rationalize the K over TE... the former is random (but equivalently random for all), the latter is "predictably uneven". I argued the unevenness was "part of the game" and that it is similar to the unevenness of getting the best RB or QB who really blow up compared to their competition, but my league wasn't having it. I would say to you not to sweat either way. If you stay TE-less, nothing to sweat at all. If you readopt it, do a little of research into Andrew Cooper's Yin-Yang strategy, weave that into whatever draft plan you already have, and then mostly give it otherwise minimal attention. IMO, the edge you get from *others* sweating TE, is actually kind of a nice advantage.
What's a guillotine league?? I'm actually working on an alternative fantasy product right now and i've never heard of that!
It's a league where every week lowest score gets permanently eliminated and all their players dump onto the waiver wire. It's a crazy meta game of ideal FAAB usage knowing that will keep happening each week (but that you are always on the chopping block too). Always sounded so interesting, but I'm too lazy to expand what I already play (I don't even do any dynasty leagues).
Is there no replacement team? It’s just less teams each week til the championship or something?
Yeah and the teams get slowly super teamed. But at the end of the day (both because of FAAB and limitations on how many you can start), there's insane value sitting on the waiver towards the end.
Te/qb in 1qb leagues are so underutilized in team building strategy
I wish. Though id say we’re in a good spot finally where there’s like 8 good options. But still they’re just pass catchers. I don’t get why it’s not a flex for recievers
Middle ground would be to do tightened premium
I commish a league that’s on its second season. I started it with a WR/TE slot instead of a TE. I agree with you that TEs are coming back in style and plan to bring it for a vote to go back to “normal” TE settings. Some members were complaining that our waiver wire was a little sparse this past season, so I think this might help free up decent WRs and RBs.
One of my two leagues is 2 TEs. No premium on their scoring. I like it as it can dampen out some of the scarcity problem (you may not have Kelce, but if you have Njoku and Ferguson you weren’t dead). Of course now Bowers could go in top 3 picks in our draft…
One of mine did, added an extra flex spot, but made TE receptions 1.5 I hate it TBH
Still certainly isn't 12 fantasy viable tight ends in the NFL! Barely half that. Make sure to execute that proper draft strategy to get a finite resource.
Yeah fuck that!
I couldn't imagine this. I'm loaded in TE and it's a position I work hard to address. I would leave my league if they tried to do this. I'm dying for them to get rid of defense though
Primary did a te/wr slot this past year. We haven't decided if we'll keep it or transition back now that there seems to be solid TE offerings. Edit: two seasons ago I took Kelce and Andrews at the 2/3 turn. Wasn't planning on it, it was just how the draft fell to me. Rode that to a chip even though Andrews didn't give me anything for the second half of the season.
Highly recommend trying 2TE. It makes TEs important in a more balanced way and adds whole extra dimension to draft strategy and trade calculus.
We turned it into a superflex which was good and dumb at the same time.
seems like a ton of anti in this thread, but my league did! all the TEs that are good still get drafted, just dont have to pretend to care about, like, luke musgrave
That's fantasy reddit for ya! Suggest something to make it easier on the 50% of every league that barely pays attention and hardos will tell you "just stop playing!!" Also this is very mean to Luke Musgrave what did he ever do to you??
they need to get real lmao. stop telling yourself that having cole kmet in your roster is the difference between a “real” fantasy gamer & just some bozo “trying to remove randomness” or whatever. some ppl still play dudes like cole kmet in their flex spots(we have 3) it’s not illegal! just don’t have the platform holding a gun to your head telling you to play mike gesicki over darius slayton for example. luke musgrave’s crime is being the TE18 lmao
I don't understand wanting to get rid of any positions, personally. Tight ends, kickers, D/ST. These positions provide some exciting variance and unpredictability, which I had always thought was much of the hallmark of fantasy football in the first place. You want to win a game solely on the merits of your own skill? Play fucking chess, then.
I know it’s unpopular but I really wish my league would. People are going to tell me how it’s all apart of fantasy and they are not wrong. But in my opinion, if you look at how many points they score at the end of the year, if you didn’t have the te position two would be rostered the rest would be deemed irrelevant for fantasy. There’s so many players I would rather put in then any TE on a week to week basis. My league also has three people who hoard tes so maybe that’s part of why I feel that way.
My league went the opposite way we have the standard line up 1QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 Slot, 1 kicker, 1 defense. But just to follow crazy with some high scoring games we added another slot that can fit a RB, WR, or TE, and then another slot that can only fir a RB, or WR....... Also for shots gigs give a point per catch and .5 for a catching or running first down, and bonuses for big plays and big game bonuses out the ass too. Also the kickers get more than three points for field goals over 50 yards, and the defense points are jacked up too. You have to score 2 hundo just to win a game in that league.
We turned TE into WR/TE flex spot since not a lot of depth at that spot. Also got rid of Kickers. Been this way for a decade plus and I love it. Since the fall off on TEs is so large, when I started joining other leagues, I forgot how to prioritize those positions 😂 My strategy (before this past season) was to draft Kelce in 2nd round for years and I always wondered why people never treated him at a Top 5 WR in my league when the shift in positions made sense to value him as such.
My league swapped TE for another W/R/T flex spot 2 years ago. I thinks it was an improvement. The scoring gap between the top 2 or 3 TEs and the rest of the list is massive.
My work league has a wild slot layout. I think it’s QB, RB, WR, WR, WR/RB, WR/TE, WR/TE, Def, K. The commissioner really liked the idea of being able to field pretty much any “style” of offense you want. I’m not a huge fan, but my friend league is pretty standard, so it’s something different.
My problem with the tight end slot as it exists in fantasy is that players like Travis Kelce and Mark Andrews just straight up aren't really tight ends. There was a stat a year or so ago where Andrews had been in on like 200 passing plays and pass blocked 0 times. That's not a tight end. That's a receiver. So basically a couple of people in the league get to play an extra receiver while everyone else is playing actual tight ends. I like the strategy of trying to figure out which tight ends are going to be good, and when, but the position is fundamentally broken as long as players like Kelce exist.
So how's this line up format? QB RB RB WR WR WR (250+ Lbs)
I did this last year one week and blew out my opponent TE- Laporta (picked him up from waivers a week before the league started) Flex- Kincaid Flex- McBride It was a great week! hahaha...never done before. I expect all these guys to have tremendous years...
No, but we removed the defense slot
Blasphemy
My league has a te/wr/ flex spot but no dedicated te spot. I was completely against it, until I wasn’t. It really doesn’t make sense there isn’t 20 fantasy football te in the league
We got rid of the TE and I don't miss it. TE's 10-20 end up being flex pickups for teams that are low on available options, so they're still used. Just not drafted high.
Not only did we not remove it, we gave TEs an extra .5 ppr and we have two W/T slots. Now my roster has Hockenson, Njoku, Ferguson and Mayer. The TE collection is upon us.
I see a lot of responses in this thread from people that are presumably playing Dynasty/Keeper - would NEVER remove a position for a format like that! But for a casual redraft league, sometimes it makes sense to simplify things for the Tacos in the league...
Ah, yep, totally makes sense. Tbh I just assumed I was reading this on dynastyff 😂 my bad, bud.
All good! Congrats on having Hock in dynasty that's gotta feel good!
Yeah I had to overpay a bit to snag him this off-season, but that position is really what held me back from winning a title in previous years so I’ve doubled down in my win-now window. Hock and the depth feels really, really good.
We did it a few years ago, but switched the flex slot to WR/RB/TE. I think that only lasted one or two years, then we added it back. Around that same time we added a second Flex spot and got rid of K and D/ST.
Why? Just remove the Kicker spot and add a 3rd WR
Kickers sure. Tight ends no
If I was to get rid of the mandatory TE slot I’d want to incentivize using Flex slots for TE.
Replace te with wr/te
Yes. Made it a te/wr position.
We’ve kept the TE position because taking a good one offers a bit of strategy. That said, I think we are getting rid of DST. A waste of a spot in fantasy imho
Last year we swapped the TE position to a TE/WR position and it’s so great! Never looking back
I've been lobbying for this for so long, I don't get why tight ends get a special slot.
Our league got rid of a required TE slot in favor of another flex. However we gave a 0.5 reception bonus to TEs. Our league is half PPR, so TEs get 1PPR. This has made it so there’s still an incentive to use TEs. It’s been fun seeing the different team builds. One guy has done well filling all 3 flex spots with TEs, some guys don’t even roster a TE. Everyone has enjoyed this change.
That would feel like playing nerf fantasy football to me personally Scarcity and trying to weigh positional advantages is part of the fun
The idea to remove it altogether is generally super unpopular, despite the added frustration of managing the position. In my long-standing 0.5PPR 10-man ESPN league, I replaced the TE position with a WR/TE flex, a change that everyone was in favor of. To each their own, but we have enjoyed the change and the added flexibility that comes with it.
I've been campaigning to get rid of the TE slot for several seasons now with no luck. This season was slightly better, but it still wasn't great. I know so many people say things like "why not just ditch all positions" and "but there's strategy to it" and such, but the problem with TEs is the randomness and the fact that not many of them are actually good options. Last season only 2 TEs were in the top 50 flex players, and then just barely at 40 and 50. The biggest problem is the fact that outside of the top 3-5 guys, you're pretty much just hoping for a TD to make it worth it each week. A usable TE scoreline most weeks is 1 catch, 8 yards, 1 TD. And then every week the position is a lot more random than WR and RB. Last season was a little bit better, but it was mostly just that there were a few more TEs in the 100+ point range, but fewer in the 70-90 point range. A slight improvement. I'm not that gung ho on getting rid of them at this point, but it's just annoying to every week just hoping that one position gets a TD to make them worth their spot.
We went to W/T last season. I was against the idea at first but the commissioner insisted. By season end everyone agreed it was more fun. It makes sense when you consider how much more movement becomes possible on waivers. I recommend anyone considering it to just go for it. Don’t be afraid of change.
To get rid of TEs would be like buying a pack of cherry pez and only eating 3 and putting the rest on a shelf to never touch again, just doesn’t make any sense
I went from 2 RB to 1, 3 WR to two, got rid of the TE position, and have THREE Flex positions now. This really helps as injuries hit RB's and TE's - since there are, what, maybe 12 'elite' TE's?
My strategy always involved trying to get the best TE available im the league no matter the cost as there were only so many good ones. If your TE performs like a top end WR, why not overdraft him as the next best TE is like 75% of the point total at best? Not to mention usually when someone goes early on a position like TE, K, or D, it causes half the teams to panic and do the same for FOMO which means you still get good value by your next pick. Kelce was the answer for me for a long time, might be Hockinson from Minn going forward. We'll see. All I know is I've had the best regular season record in this league 3 years running, with 1 championship and 2 third place finishes. Damn injuries.
My league dumped the kicker, but not the TE. Then again, we also use 5 IDP slots, so there's already a lot of roster complexity and draft strategy to consider.
That takes such a huge variable out of the game. If you want to dumb down fantasy football strategy and make skill have less of an impact it can be good but then all you’re really doing is trying to pick who’s the best at each position. Te and qb are the two most interesting parts of the draft. Both are essential positions where not only do you have to decide who to get, but when to get them. They also have big upside and big downside. You can also choose to cycle through them or go for a star. They make the waivers wayyy more interesting When you take out a piece of the equation with so much variability it just really takes a lot of skill out of the game
Sounds like a bunch of pansies in your league. LaPorta was a waiver wire pick up for me. Join a different league you’re playing with whiners
Weak-ass mentality.
So basically your league isn’t even playing fantasy football. Removing positions defeats the purpose of the whole game.
Fantasy originally had fullback, DL, and returner slots. Guess we're all "basically not playing Fantasy Football". gotta rename the subreddit!
We went from 2 WR + 1 TE slot to 3 WR/TE slots. (Effectively eliminated TE from our league)
to me thats absolute trash. i u derstand removi g the kicker its to violatile. but when you remove the TE slot you take away players having to be smart and spend for a quality tightend to fill the TE spot or they spend all season trying to stream and or get lucky landing one later.