Converting to a More Standard League

I have been in a fantasy football league for 15 or so years, starting back in the mid-90's when I was living in Boston.

Since there was no standard roster size or scoring, you can imagine that our league had quite an imaginative flair.  For instance, a 40 yard touchdown play would be worth 18 points to the WR/RB and 10 points for the QB.  Also, kickers that hit from 50 plus yards got an additional 3 points.  That's right, 6 points for a FG!

It was all good and fun...but as we lost owners due to marriages, kids...LIFE...it became apparent that recruiting new members was difficult since it took a new owner about 3 seasons to acclimate to our scoring system.  So we have attempted to change the rules each year to become more in line with standard scoring leagues.

The biggest change, and mistake, was cutting all touchdowns to 6 points.  Sound good?  Well, we didn't take into account the fact that your average starting QB scores twice as many touchdowns as your average RB/WR.  So there was a big advantage to teams that had top 5 QB's.  Since we are an auction league, it didn't hit me until about an hour into our auction that something was amiss when Eli Manning went for $26 (this was 3 years ago and we have a $200 budget).  Fortunately, I held over a revitalized Kurt Warner for $10.  But my backups were horrible and you need them in our league because we have bonus payouts for total team points, including bench scoring, at the end of the year.

So, it's nice that we are getting more standardized...we will finally be adding TE as a position this season...but my advice is to be careful when you make a dramatic change or changes.  And be sure you know your rules and the impact of any changes.