Playoff Format

The playoffs are the key to cap off a great Fantasy Football year. How do you want to reward the #1 team, but still give the 1 team that sweated out the last week of the regular season a chance to sweep through the playoffs and claim the crown? Unless you run a league that incorporates some kind of home field advantage during regular season play (like the NFL or the NumbCruncher Ultimate Leagues), then the playoffs may need to tweaked differenly to crown the team that most deserves.

Normal Brackets

This is the common format is Fantasy Football, but it doesn't really reward the upper tiered teams. Record wise the Best team plays the Worse team, then the next best team plays the next worse team. Sometimes Byes are rewarded to the top team or teams to avoid an early exit, but they still have to play head to head at some point. The fact is that every team has an equal chance to win each matchup. Just because a team has rolled through the early part of the season doesn't mean it will continue. In smaller lineups, 1 bad performance or injury to a stud could cost a top team a chance at some serious prize money. It is the playoffs and anything can happen

Double Elimination

The more chances a team has, the more likely it is to show its true colors. It is highly unlikely that the Top team will lose 2 weeks in a row, and if it does, then no format would have produced this team as a Champion. It would take a little longer to run this kind of format, but it may be worth it. A 4 team double Elimination playoff would take 4 weeks, and that is assuming 1 Championship game between the 2-0 team (BYE in the 3rd Week) and the 2-1 2nd chance team.

An alternative to this is a type of half and half Double Elimination format. This is the format that I use in my local league and love it. 4 teams make the playoffs, 2 Division winners & 2 Wild Card teams. The 2 Division winners play in the first round (What! That is absourd!) and the 2 Wild Card teams face off. The Winner of the heavyweights gets a Bye into the Championship game. The Loser of the Wild Card game gets ELIMINATED! The worse Division winner and the best Wild Card team face off to advance to the Championship game. The loser will finish 3rd or play in a 3rd Place game against the ELIMINATED Wild Card team. This gives priority to winning your division. These teams have 2 chances to make it to the Championship game, while the Wild Card teams would have to win 2 in a row.

Home Field Advantage

Some leagues incorporate some kind of Home Field Advantage. Usually, the top seeded team is given an extra amount of points. This can either be a set amount of points regardless of seed differential, or a calculated amount based on seeding differential or regualr season wins/losses. An artificial lead is hard to grasp, but atleast it is rewarding regualr season performance.

Another possible alternative is for the Top team to choose which team he gets to play in each round of the playoffs. This is reverting back to the Normal Brackets, but atleast the Top team skilly chooses the team it can most likely defeat. The next highest seed then chooses its opponent until each matchup is set. The same procedure occurs for each round of the playoffs for all teams remaining. It is atleast a step above the Normal Brackets.