Poker, Football, and everything sports

I love fantasy football. In my completely biased sports loving opinion, I think its one of the greatest inventions of our generation. I will play it every year until I can't use a computer anymore and when that day comes I will make my kids and grandkids manage my teams. But as much as I love it, I hate the playoffs just as much.

In real sports, a great regular season is rewarded by something so simple yet so powerful: Home field advantage. It is the reason why so many 1 and 2 seeds make the title game. But in fantasy football, there is no home field advantage. Just a matchup against a" lesser" opponent where more often then not you are projected to win by 10 points at the most. I have two 10 team family leagues where 8 make the playoffs, and in those leagues, these are the 2nd round matchups: 8 vs 4 6 vs 7 and 8 vs 4 6 vs 2. So both top seeds are out, one 2, and both 3s because there is no reward for a good regular season. Well I have a few simple ideas that would make the regular season matter more.

The easiest solution would be to impliment an alternate playoff system that mirrors the current nfl system, where the top 2 seeds get byes, 3 plays 6 and 4 plays 5. This way, not only do over half the teams still get in, but the top seeds are given the huge reward of a 1st round bye. This seems the easiest, but in the event that yahoo's computers can't handle this, here are a few other simple solutions.

1. Give the higher seeds a point advantage: This would probably be the easiest, and there is an easy way to give the high seeds a bigger advantage. Take the difference in the seeds, double it, and give the higher seed that many points to start. So in 1vs8, 1 would have a 14 pt advantage. 2vs7 a 10 pt advantage. And so on and so on. This way, the top seeds get a benefit, and the lower seeds have a tougher mountain to climb, as they should.

2. Add a flex position for higher seeds: Another option would be to give the higher seed an extra player at either wr or rb. Tbis would give them a bigger advantage, and would reward the deeper teams, because depth doesnt matter in the playoffs rite now. A perfect example would be my #2 team that lost. A team that had santonio holmes, sidney rice, and cedric benson on the bench. While neither player would have given me enough pts to win, it still would have given me a fair advantage given my better season then my bros.

3. Allow one in game change for higher seeds: This is unlikely since it goes against the agonizing yet awesome experience of picking the rite or wrong side of a coin flip just before the game. But it would help a team that loses its star at halftime (cough aaron rodgers) or has two players who have ripped it all year combine for 4.5 pts (cough brandon lloyd and dwayne bowe).

So by adding any one of these perks, it not only emphasizes the regular season had much more, but it makes fantasy more realistic. Thanks for reading.