All Pro Football 2k8 - Season 3 Owners Meeting

I think it's time to hold an asynchronous owners meeting for Season 3. There has been interest by some in getting back into the league. Some people have expressed an interest in doing a draft so we don't have 4 Ben Coates and so hopefully someone can compete with Ruthless.

So what say you, team owners and potential team owners?

I'm interested. A draft might be fun if it can be worked out. I mean I don't want to end up with a gold kicker/punter(Yeah I know they're not available but just saying).

I'm in...I think a draft would make for an interesting change...but that makes me think -- wow, you struggle enough with decisions when you have everyone to choose from, think of what it'd be like if we have more limited options because someone else has taken your favorite gold RB!

firesloth wrote:

I'm in...I think a draft would make for an interesting change...but that makes me think -- wow, you struggle enough with decisions when you have everyone to choose from, think of what it'd be like if we have more limited options because someone else has taken your favorite gold RB!

You'd have to plan ahead.

Draw up your draft board, slot your favorite players, secondary choices at Tight End, etc. and then you'd be on the clock. I think it would be a blast.

I think we could easily run the draft in the forum over several days or a week. It's only 11 rounds. If we set an order, owners can just check in and make picks.

We should probably find a list of all the players to print out as well.

That's a good point. It would be interesting to do it over IM. Maybe even Skype. :P. However, we could probably do it asynchronously if we knew all the people involved up front. Then people could be "on the clock" for a given amount of time we determine.

I think it would be fantastic. Early projections point to Earl Campbell going #1 -- just a wild guess.

I'm in for Season 3, and I'm in for a draft, now I have to start playing again to warm up.

Maybe an idea moving forward, what are thoughts on a "Keeper League"?

Bagga, you want to throw together a quick-and-dirty app to use for the draft? As long as it doesn't have to be real-time, it should be extremely simple. If not, I think I'll do it.

I'm in too. Can't wait

We also need to discuss draft order. I have no problem going with worst record picks first, but it should still be snaked. But we are adding in new players as well, so where would they end up? So does that mean random would be more fair?

Also, I was in a league that snaked drafts by going 1-10, 10-1, 10-1, 1-10, and then swapping each round. The thinking is that this may have tilted the draft in the favor of the #10 a bit, but not as much as an advantage that the #1 would get if it was just a traditional snake. So we found it to be closer to fair. Maybe a mathematician could come up with a proof?

Since our draft will be eleven rounds, this alternate snake may be even more useful, as the team that gets 1st pick in the first round, would also get 1st pick in the last round.

Another, maybe better, option would be 11 random rounds.

Any thoughts?

For a snake, it'd be more interesting if the folks with the higher draft picks could actually choose when they go. In fantasy drafts it's always felt like picking #2,#3 with so many slots before your next pick was a bit of a detriment. The 1-10, 10-1, 10-1, 1-10 route would seem to fall into that trap for the #1 pick.

I actually prefer something like 1-10, 1-10, 10-1, 10-1

Maybe I say that because I'll be picking like #3.

Here is some info I mentioned to Chris in the Week 8 thread that I thought would be useful for everyone prior to the draft.

For anyone who else is interested, 2K Football Strategy has a great forum where guys discuss all aspects of the game. Some of it is more in-depth than I care to go, but some of it is very enlightening. Prior to the draft, it would be well worth checking out the Team Creation Strategy forum. Lots of good ideas on what makes or a good team.

In fact, I think the need for a draft is even more important once you start getting this info. The more people figure out who the studs are, the less personalized each team will be.

So I was looking for a list of the players to figure out if this is actually possible. I think it is, but it will be much more interesting than we were anticipating.

Sportsgamer.com has a sortable list of all the players in the game. You can sort by position, tier, and abilities. It's a very cool app.

If you take out the seven kickers, and the one punter, there are 239 players to draft. Everybody should get a nice QB, as there are 34 of them. The interesting part? There are only eleven cornerbacks and 15 safeties (strong and free). That will be interesting, as I made full use of two CBs and two safeties.

I would encourage everyone wanting to play take a look at this site, and get a feel for what kind of team you want. If you do that, and check out the Team Creation Strategy forum I mentioned, I think we can have a great draft.

If my XBox gets back in time, i'd like to be in.

I think new players should be given 4-4 records, and thrown into the middle of the order, that way the losing teams get the top picks, and the winning teams still get the low picks. The new people can be pulled out of a hat for order of the picks in the middle. Let me know what you guys think?

That sounds fair. Other people's thoughts? I think the bigger question is what do you do after round 1? You kind of hate to penalize Ruthless every round for being so good. Maybe after that go with firesloth's idea?

Personally, I see this as a brand new league. This will be much different than the first two seasons. I'd prefer to see just a random draft. Then snake it, or even have random picks every round. I will however, agree to use our finish this season to come up with a draft order. But I do feel pretty strongly that it should be a snaked draft of some sort.

A snaked draft is needed. I'm okay with either draft order plan, I just want to play.

Edit: We really shouldn't do a random order each round. When building a team, knowing where you'll draft in the first round of the Bronze could dramatically change your draft plans as you'd know that Christian Okoye would be available.

You're right, Jayhawker. Good call. Especially considering that we're getting renewed interest for other Goodjers. Let's figure out how to run this draft, settle on some rules and get it going. Oh, we should probably finish last season too.

I will still call it Season 3, but that will be mostly out of pride that we've managed to run full seasons.

Elliottx wrote:

A snaked draft is needed. I'm okay with either draft order plan, I just want to play.

Edit: We really shouldn't do a random order each round. When building a team, knowing where you'll draft in the first round of the Bronze could dramatically change your draft plans as you'd know that Christian Okoye would be available.

That's a good point. But I think it should really be wide open. I'd like to see us draft from any tier in any round.

Jayhawker wrote:

I'd like to see us draft from any tier in any round.

That just blew my mind. The complexity of draft strategies would go way up but that's a great idea.

Just stabbing at the air until someone steps in front of my knife.

No, I think you're right, Jayhawker. Someone like myself, who REALLY values Ben Coates (for a wild example) might make him my #1 pick even though he's silver. I doubt many bronze would jump above Gold or Silver. But there are many silver players who would jump over Gold if I thought they wouldn't be available later.

DSGamer wrote:

That sounds fair. Other people's thoughts? I think the bigger question is what do you do after round 1? You kind of hate to penalize Ruthless every round for being so good. Maybe after that go with firesloth's idea?

Firstly, every idea of firesloth's should be fully followed.....Mmmm, hello Ms. Thatcher. Wait, did I say that out loud?

Secondly, yes. Yes we should penalize Ruthless as often as possible for being so good. In fact, we should find out where he lives and take this whole punishment thing to a whole other level.

(For the record: I'm mostly kidding in alluding to potential violence against Ruthless and his vehicles, and house.)

Also, I think it goes without saying that we should be able to draft whomever we want regardless of round. Indeed, that's what makes it so tense -- it'd be awfully tempting to pick Okoye or Ottis Anderson early on just to make sure you got the great value of those bronze, silver players.

Prederick wrote:

If my XBox gets back in time, i'd like to be in.

Lo and behold, the box arrived today. I'm insies.

Prederick wrote:
Prederick wrote:

If my XBox gets back in time, i'd like to be in.

Lo and behold, the box arrived today. I'm insies.

Yippee...and nice to self quote.

firesloth wrote:

Firstly, every idea of firesloth's should be fully followed....

Yeah, that guy's sharp.

Ok, it seems like these guys are in:

Jayhawker
DSGamer
Elliottx
firesloth
baggachipz
Kush15
Grumpicus
ruthlessmuffin
Prederick

Ok, that is nine guys. Missing from last season are Fredslacks, ChrisLTD (he seemed iffy about committing to a second season when I played him in the last game)Gumbie, and frankiemumbles. Anyone else know if there are some other potential interest?

I'd say it looks like we should try for a 10 or 12 team league, depending on commitments from these four.

Grumpicus, you mentioned that you or bagga might try to do a simple draft app. Where do we stand on that? Maybe it could use the database of the sortable list of players sportsgamer.com has.

We do need to get his going, or we will lose interest pretty quick.

Jayhawker wrote:

We do need to get his going, or we will lose interest pretty quick.

Yes. Indeed. I can't be the main person to drive this, though.

I don't want to feel like I'm forcing anyone to do anything. So if we get a critical mass I need the help of everyone interested. That's why this is an owner's meeting and not "the commish dictates". I'm happy to facilitate, etc. but I would love to see some concensus on how to do the draft rules-wise, maybe how to do the draft technically and on.

Frankiemumbles is in he will be back tomorrow

Jayhawker wrote:

Grumpicus, you mentioned that you or bagga might try to do a simple draft app. Where do we stand on that?

It doesn't appear to have gone anywhere... which means I'll take care of it. It won't be fancy real-time, AJAX

.

Jayhawker wrote:

Maybe it could use the database of the sortable list of players sportsgamer.com has.

If you know of someway to download it from there, or anywhere else, I'm all ears.