Changing playoff bracket

[TaDa]

In our money league, a guy that is in first place in the other division has started a vote.

Currently, in a 10 person league, the top 3 teams from each division make the playoffs. Person in first place gets a bye week and then plays the winner of the first playoff week the following week. The person in first place is saying in his post "I don't want to not play a week. Let's go top 4 teams from each division make the playoffs". Should I even entertain this change even if the vote passes?

[JasonSeahorn]

So 8 out of 10 teams would make the playoffs? I don't think that's a good idea, it almost doesn't matter how bad teams did since 80% of them made the playoffs. In fact, this idea is really stupid for the 1st place team because the team he plays against could go off for a huge week. Getting the bye week lowers the variability that can come up in the playoffs. I'm not sure why he suggested it.

[spodog]

NEVER change the rules after the season starts. Can you imagine the NFL doing this?

[Dan Lambskin]

NEVER change the rules after the season starts. Can you imagine the NFL doing this?

agreed

[TaDa]

I think that he recommended this change just because he is so competitive, and doesn't want the bye week. That being said, I agree that changing rules like this mid-season is a really bad idea. Like you said, if the other dude in first gets knocked off by the 8 seed because Leon Washington goes for 35 points (not like it happened to me this season and I got burned or anything ), then he'd be pissed off.

For next year, I'm probably going to put up for vote actually changing the playoff bracket so that only the top 2 teams out of each division make it. Then each playoff round is 2 weeks long to help eliminate that one lucky week.

[rmjones101]

Don't change the rules now...

I'd go out on a limb and guess that the 1st seed is looking at projected playoff matchups and may be worried about late round playoffs and is hoping that his only real competition could conceivably lose to a lower seed if you added 2 lower seeds into the playoff picture. Especially if the 2 lower seeds not in contention are suddenly racking up a large amount of points and stand a good chance of taking out his competition.

[flotsamnjetsam]

NEVER change the rules after the season starts. Can you imagine the NFL doing this?

agreed

3rded.

[Matthias]

NEVER change the rules after the season starts. Can you imagine the NFL doing this?

agreed

You can if the vote is unanimous. Personally, I think it's a terrible idea as playoff games are such crapshoots I like to keep the number of playoff teams small and reward people for paying attention in the regular season. But if 10 out of 10 guys in your league want everyone and their brother to make it, then so be it.

FWIW, baseball changed its rules in-season this past season to allow instant review of home runs. And the NFL came within a couple of votes of adopting instant replay for the 1998 playoffs, by voting on it during the 1998 season. But they came a couple votes short and adopted it in the 1999 off-season instead. But also in 1998, the NFL did change the rules mid-season on the coin toss as a result of the dispute at the Thanksgiving Day game. So it is definitely within the realm of imagination. It's even within the realm of what's already happened.

[Vlad]

offer him to play the other bye team for a side bet without any implication on the playoffs...

[Vlad]

I think that he recommended this change just because he is so competitive, and doesn't want the bye week. That being said, I agree that changing rules like this mid-season is a really bad idea. Like you said, if the other dude in first gets knocked off by the 8 seed because Leon Washington goes for 35 points (not like it happened to me this season and I got burned or anything ), then he'd be pissed off.

For next year, I'm probably going to put up for vote actually changing the playoff bracket so that only the top 2 teams out of each division make it. Then each playoff round is 2 weeks long to help eliminate that one lucky week.

just a sugestion about this from my own experience this year.make it the winners plus 2 wild cards instead of the top 2.
my league div 1 2.team A 5-7 3. team B 5-7
div2 2.team C 8-4 3.team D 8-4

so we'll have a losing team making the playoffs while much better missing it...

i'm actually think to just go with 1 divission and the top 4