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        the Gridiron >> between the 20's >>  Survey:  GREAT days... on your bench!
        
(Message started by: StegRock on Dec 17^th, 2005, 10:26pm)

Title: Survey: GREAT days... on your bench!
Post by StegRock on Dec 17^th, 2005, 10:26pm

"Inspired" by another thread which elicited my admitting that I had Tiki Barber on my bench today in JYJ's "experts" league, :-[ I want to pose this age-old question, which doesn't often get addressed. How do you feel when you have a guy who has a
[smiley=tough.gif][smiley=bat.gif][smiley=frank.gif]M[smiley=vampire.gif]O[smiley=ghost.gif]N[smiley=demon.gif]S[smiley=Freddie.gif]T[smiley=witch.gif]E[smiley=zombie.gif]R[smiley=hellhound.gif][smiley=evil.gif][smiley=snake.gif]
game on your bench? [smiley=scared.gif] [smiley=yikes.gif]

Let's sit around the campfire and discuss... [smiley=campfire.gif]

Title: Re: Survey: GREAT days... on your bench!
Post by Walker Boh on Dec 18^th, 2005, 9:50am

Leaving a MONSTER game sitting on the bench is one of the worst feelings in fantasy sports...[smiley=bawling.gif] Just knowing that you had all those points for nothing is enough to make you want to quit playing all together! What makes it worse is if you should of had him in the lineup, but over thought the situation and thought you knew something ( [smiley=sneaky.gif]) that you clearly didn't... ([smiley=doh.gif]) Now that's the ultimate [smiley=shootmyself.gif]. That's where the cliche, "Never bench your studs" comes from, right? Now, I can handle it if some perennial bench warmer blows up and has a career game, but if it's one of my top players that I just happened to be pissed at, fuhgetaboutit! [smiley=waitinforu.gif] But it's these decisions that make fantasy sports fun... Where will the next MONSTER game come from? Who will be this week's mirage? Should I go with my proven player that's down on his luck, or take a chance and go with a hunch? Ultimately, that's what the game is all about... making the right decisions. It's your choice, now don't screw it up! [smiley=dunce.gif]

Title: Re: Survey: GREAT days... on your bench!
Post by MordecaiCourage on Dec 18^th, 2005, 5:16pm

on 12/18/05 at 09:50:43, Walker Boh wrote:

It's your choice, now don't screw it up! [smiley=dunce.gif]

Boy .... I have screwed the pooch time and time again on this issue over the years!!!
[smiley=hellyeafunny.gif]

Most recently this week when I sat Brady and started Delhomme. Not that Brady had a MONSTER game or anything (a 14 point swing over Delhomme)....but the term "don't bench your studs" or "dance with who brought you" is glaring me in the face once again!! Like I said earlier I screwed the pooch again! ;)

Title: Re: Survey: GREAT days... on your bench!
Post by StegRock on Jan 1^st, 2006, 6:52pm

I hope more respond to this, what I take to be, enthralling topic for die-hard fantasy footballers. I want to respond to this from both an emotional vantage point and from one of a person who believes that there are ways to mitigate that,... well,... let's address the former right now,... HORRIBLE visceral feeling that every fantasy footballer has to get when leaving a stud, especially when he is one of your top players, on your bench, and the subsequent enormous feeling of relief when you are fortunate enough to get the win anyway. That latter part having been said, I still get an ill feeling EVERY time I recall this crucial game against the second-place team I cost myself by benching Joe Horn, who had a, not incredible, but VERY solid game that week, in favor of Terry Glenn (then of the Packers), who had like a 40-yard, 0-touchdown effort, which, mind you, almost ended up costing me the GBRFL Championship, but ultimately didn't,... in 2002 that is. Leaving a stud on your bench is just (that) gut-wrenching, no two ways about it and no matter how many times you say to others... and yourself, "At least he was on my bench, not in my opponent's (or someone else's) lineup," it does not make it feel better (on many levels as you all should know).

But, all that said, there are ways to minimize this. After all, benched players are still a part of (the value of) your team, moreover, for the long haul. You surely do not want your reserves to suck just because they happened to be on your bench. Over my 17 seaons of fantasy football, three ways of shedding light back on that "bigger" reality and, thus, mitigating the immediate, knee-jerk emotional reaction come to mind... and all three involve making your game "deeper" (I think in both senses of the word, i.e. not just in number, but also in meaning). First, playing off the notion of the long haul and the "bigger picture", for which your whole roster is a part, there is going with a deep-keeper format. Allowing teams to protect 10+ players (in a non-IDP format) brings to the fore the overall value of a team's roster and then a circular gestalt also arises because deep keeper leagues make trading more prevalent overall and, for that matter, offseason trading a reality, which in turn places greater emphasis on a team's overall value. Secondly, there is making starting lineups deeper. The better you can come up with a system that maximizes the fielding of solid players week in and week out, let's say 10 teams starting 3 wideouts or 9 teams starting 3 running backs, the less the chance that a stud is left on a bench (I will eventually touch on this more extensively and in more detail in another thread I'm going to start here "between the 20's" on New Year's Day regarding fantasy football and luck). While this does not completely eliminate the possibility (that's not what I'm trying to do, actually), it increases the likelihood that GREAT games will have a "real" impact on your league and not just get wasted. The third way may not seem as apparent. It involves overall roster depth. The deeper the rosters, say 20+, the more having solid games on your bench is just a part of life in your league and in that way, though, again, the feeling cannot be thoroughly eliminated (not the point), it does get minimized, especially in the context of a keeper league with deep starting lineups. I mean when you have 20+ players on your team, you WILL get used to having solid performances on your bench, but first of all they probably are the truly unpredictable ones, not by one of your studs, that you can't (and I usually don't) feel as bad about and secondly the overall value they've increased your team by you have a better chance to "appreciate" (in both senses of the word) and, thus, more often than not outweighs the limited scope of that one week because with deeper rosters comes an increase in flexibility which facilitates trades (which throws emphasis on the "bigger picture" of overall roster value).

So, while the gut-wrenching feeling of having stud performances on your fantasy bench is surely a reality all fantasy footballers will forever have to endure, it is not an entirely helpless situation. There are ways to better structure a league that get away from emphasizing that negative side of the coin and instead shed light on the, also very real, positive side of the coin.