Long time 4for4.com subscriber and very successful fantasy football manager Alex Kaganovsky (aka Nag’) has started an exciting new High Stakes league. Recently Alex sent this article over.

If you're looking for player-friendly rules, a $75,000 Grand Prize or just some innovative rules for your league, keep reading.


“High Stakes Fantasy Football for Big Brains”
So you’re a forecaster of fantasy football, a professor of pigskin prognostication. You dominate your local leagues and you’ve gobbled up the newer innovations that have permeated the sport. Point-per-reception (PPR) leagues, no problem. Flex players, blind bidding for waivers, two quarterbacks, auctions, these and many other options for fantasy leagues are now second nature to your finely-tuned football mind. Well it’s time to start eating more fish and popping more ginkgo biloba because a new fantasy challenge waits on the horizon.

The Fantasy Football Players Championship (www.TheFFPC.com) has thrown down the gauntlet with a fresh, new high-stakes competition that introduces a plethora of changes to both scoring and strategy. They have created a system that offers multiple draft/lineup/waiver strategies to provide the flexibility for a team owner to play the game his way. Adding this type of diversity to the rules encourages creative strategies that simply aren’t available in most fantasy leagues. If you are a fantasy “artist”, read on as we examine the FFPC’s unique personality.

First, let’s examine two of the major changes that will affect both your draft and your lineup management; the 1.5 point-per reception TE rule and the FFPC Dual-Flex. This is a PPR league and to add some pizzazz to the TE position, the TE’s will receive 1.5 points for a reception instead of the standard 1 for WRs and RBs. This makes the TE significantly more valuable and that means owners are more likely to draft a TE early which leads to more variation in the somewhat predictable draft order we all face. Last year six TEs caught more than 60 passes and with Jason Witten and Tony Gonzalez both flirting with the century mark in catches, it seems the perfect time to elevate the tight end’s value in fantasy leagues. Even mid-level TEs with 40-50 catches can produce numbers that rival some 3rd and 4th WRs which means that this slight change will cause a ripple effect throughout the draft. Perfect timing to reemphasis the TE in fantasy football just as the position is surging in the NFL as well, nice job FFPC.

Now add on an even bigger change in lineup management, the Dual-Flex. It means exactly what it sounds like; instead if the typical one, you get to play two flex positions in your lineup, to join the required, 1-QB, 2-RBs, 2-WRs, 1-TE, 1-K and 1-Defense. These two flex positions are chosen from RBs/WRs/TEs as usual but this feature opens up the sky to possibility for a creative owner who may also draft with a specific team-type in mind. Are you a hoarder of RBs? You could actually start four RBs in this league. Fancy a fleet of fast WRS? Bombs away, you could start four WRs as well. Did you fall in love with the TE rule above and snake Witten and Gonzalez to play a double or even a triple TE fantasy formation? It’s all yours. An owner also gains the ability to target his favorite late round sleepers based on his team type, for example gambling on late RBs if the team has gone the RB-heavy route in the draft.

Here’s another interesting angle the FFPC Dual-Flex presents. Normally, if you already have 3 solid starting running backs on your roster, you need not look in the direction of another RB who just happens to pop up on the waiver wire. Sure, you’d love to get him for depth -- who wouldn’t? -- but is it worth spending a large portion of your blind bidding bucks on a player who’ll just ride the pine for your squad as a 4th RB? But what if you can actually start him? Well, that possibility changes everything, doesn’t it? Not only would you be cornering the RB market in your league, but you’d be building a powerhouse roster in the process. The same goes for the TE position. With 1.5 point per catch and the FFPC Dual-flex, you can now try and go get that Eric Johnson or Tony Scheffler off the waiver wire as not only your second, but even your third starting TE.

As you can see, while the Dual-flex is just a subtle adjustment to the lineup requirements, it doubles the number of lineup configurations, allows for very individualized draft & free agency strategy and also provides for better bye week coverage. Why hasn’t someone thought of this before?

Other subtle changes lurk inside the FFPC system, all of which add to the concept of more strategy all of the time. Action Scoring gives points to any player in your lineup who scores even if it’s on special teams. As more teams try to clone Devin Hester this will surely affect drafts going forward. True conditional bidding will be implemented for waivers, allowing maximum flexibility for in-season roster management. The draft will be held live in Las Vegas yet allow simultaneous on-line participation as well. So much for peeking at cheatsheets or judging a book by what jersey it wears, damn. The waiver wire has been extended for weeks 12 and 13 for all playoff teams, a significant strategic move that enhances playoff maneuvering. This rewards those teams with waiver wire skills, increases the skill needed to manage your money and grants one last shot at some fresh blood for the playoff run.

Now the subject of playoffs, where the FFPC has made some innovative changes that enhance the playoff experience and that’s where the money is! If you win your league with the best head-to-head (H2H) record or lead your league in total points then the cash rolls in, $1000 to be exact and you gain the top two seeds for your league’s playoffs. As a side benefit, these two teams are automatically in the big dance for the big money, technically the Championship Round. This is a marked improvement over the specter of making your championship game, losing a heartbreaker and then having no shot at the big cash (Nick Goings anyone?). It actually gets better because four teams enter the playoffs with a shot at the league championship not just two. You can finish fourth in your league, make the playoffs and win two games and cash in as league champion. This system is fair to the top two seeds, includes 1/3 of your league in the playoffs and has a great four team H2H playoff. I ask again, why hasn’t someone thought of this before?

The FFPC’s mantra is that it is a contest created for players, by players. This package of innovation combined with clever tweaking of the standard formats exits the oven as a fine pastry created by some true fantasy football chefs. Did I mention that the grand prize money of $75,000 is already in escrow, that the payouts are the highest in the high stakes arena or that you can Free-peat™? (See www.TheFFPC.com for details) This is a party at Caesars Palace that I won’t miss; I just hope my brain is big enough!

Rich McClellan – a high stakes player