We kicked off our IDP Experts and IDP Everyman’s Tournaments last week, 12-team competitions for our players to showcase their individual defensive player skills. And as with everything fantasy football, a little luck never hurts. Case in point: Von Miller = great pick this past week; Jason Pierre-Paul = not so great pick. That’s the way the ball bounces, even on the defensive side.

The top three from each group advance to the next round played this week, Week 14 of the NFL season. This upcoming week determines which players advance to our tourney championship games in Week 15.

From Round 1, the first place finisher for each of Groups A, B and C form Group D. The second place finishers from Round 1 form Group E. The third place finishers from Round 1 form Group F. The fourth place finishers are out of the tourney. The tribe has spoken.

Each of groups D, E and F will play a double header round robin this week, which is four games. The games will be added to your Game Manager shortly so everyone can get started. Now without further adieu, here are the standings from Round 1 of each tournament.

IDPwithBEE wins the group with a perfect 3-0 record.

AndyMiley wins the group with a perfect 3-0 record.

JeneBramel wins the group using the points differential tie-breaker over Stwongbad and FansFantasy. Stwongbad finishes second using the head-to-head tie-breaker over FansFantasy.

laoch wins the group with a perfect 3-0 record.

Airbus79 wins the group using the points differential tie-breaker over patwat and j0eo1s. patwat finishes second using the head-to-head tie-breaker over j0eo1s.

Terminalkennedy wins the group with a perfect 3-0 record.

Thanks again to all of our competitors for taking part, and good luck to everyone still in it!

We got a lot of love for our last series of tournaments, the “For The Heck Of It” tourneys that spanned Weeks 7 through 10 of the NFL season. Last week we had our big Turkey Day Challenge event to celebrate Thanksgiving football. Time for another tournament? Yes. This time we get defensive and are rolling out two tournaments that draft individual defensive players (IDP) for all of the challenges.

First, we have an IDP Experts Tournament, and man, have we assembled a superstar cast of combatants for this one. They are all on Twitter, so give them a follow for some exceptional fantasy football insight. The group includes the individuals who currently hold down the #1, #2, #3, #4, #7 and #8 ranked spots in FantasyPros IDP Accuracy Scores (year-to-date)! Here is the lineup:

» Jene Bramel (JeneBramel), Footballguys
» Gary Davenport (IDP Manor), Fantasy Sharks
» Steve Gallo (IDPSteve), The Huddle
» Ross Miles (PFF_RossMiles), Pro Football Focus
» Andrew Miley (AndyMiley), Dynasty League Football
» Brian Quinlan (BNQ_), Roster Watch
» Jeff Ratcliffe (JeffRatcliffe), Pro Football Focus
» Brandon Salamat (IDPwithBEE), Roster Watch
» Walton Spurlin (Tylerrose34), Fantasy Sharks
» TheFFGhost (TheFFGhost), Dynasty League Football
» Steve Wyremski (SteveWyremski), Dynasty League Football
» Ken Zalis (FansFantasy), FansFanasyFootball

And here our the groups for the tourney:

Groups A and B each showcase a competitor from DLF, Sharks, PFF and Roster Watch, so if one website can win both of those groups, then it will be big time props to them. Group C is our mixed bag group, Huddle vs. Footballguys vs. FansFF vs. DLF. We have some Throwdown first timers here, and some Throwdown vets, so we see if that plays a part determining our Experts Tourney Champ.

 
Our second tournament is 100% Throwdown vets, as many of these names dominate the top of our Leaderboard. What was originally just named our IDP Tournament, we’ll call this one our IDP Everyman’s Tournament. These guys may not make a career or part-time career in fantasy sports, but this will be a very tough group in its own right to advance to and win the championship.

This tourney includes our #1, #2 and #3 ranked players, each in a different group. We’ve also got #5 through #7 and #9 through #12. Heck, our lowest ranked player in this is robmcangus, but I saw his Turkey Day results. He dominated our IDP achievements from the T-Day Challenge. I think the low ranking just means he was a little later to the party playing Throwdown this season. Yep, this is going to be a battle!

Okay, quickly lets go over the format and rules. Everything is pretty much the same as our prior 12-team tourneys, except with IDP lineups.

 
Week 13

• 12 players split up into three groups of four; Groups A, B and C
• Each group plays a round robin (3 games) in Week 13
• 1st place finisher in each group advances to Group D
• 2nd place finisher in each group advances to Group E
• 3rd place finisher in each group advances to Group F
• 4th place finisher in each group get bupkis, nada, zilch, nothing. You’re out

Week 14

• Each group of three plays a double header round robin (4 games) in Week 14
• 1st place finisher in Group D and 1st place finisher in Group E advance to A-side Championship
• 1st place finisher in Group F and 2nd place finishers in each of Groups D, E and F advance to B-side Championship
• 3rd place finisher in each group get bupkis, nada, zilch, nothing. You’re out

Week 15

• A-side championship involves three games between the two players in Week 15. The best won-loss record from the three matches is our A Champ
• B-side championship is a round robin between the four players. 1st place finisher in the group is our B Champ

Format and Other Rules

• All tournament games are Individual Defensive Player (IDP) lineups and PPR scoring format
• Group rankings are determined by won-loss record. In the event of identical won-loss records, the first tie-breaker is head-to-head record between the players who tied, and the second tie-breaker is point differential for all group games
• Official tournament games are created by Throwdown admin and will be marked as tourney games in your Game Manager. If you experience a problem with a tourney game, contact admin to help fix it rather than creating an unsanctioned game
• The assigned challenger and challengee for each game will be divided as evenly as possible across all games for each player. In the event of an odd number of games the challenger/challengee for the last odd game will be randomly assigned
• Games must be completed in the specified week. In the event of a game expiring prior to draft completion, Throwdown admin will determine one person who failed to sufficiently live up to their commitment to complete the draft and/or give their opponent enough time to draft, and declare that game a forfeit and drop the player to last place in his or her group.

Prizes

A Champ and B Champ will each receive an official Fantasy Throwdown t-shirt (time to order more!) and eternal bragging rights. A Champ earns 7.5 bonus points towards their Throwdown Leaderboard ranking formula mechanism. B Champ earns 5 bonus points towards their Throwdown Leaderboard ranking formula mechanism.

That about sums it up. Thanks to our experts for taking time to participate and good luck to all of our competitors!

To our regulars out there, thanks for playing Fantasy Throwdown, including providing feedback and helping build a great community of fantasy football players.

To our mailing list members who haven’t checked in for a while, or since last season, come on over. The regular season is past the halfway mark, but we’re going to continue playing Throwdown all the way through the Super Bowl, one week at a time.

Here is a snapshot of things going on this month:

Turkey Day Competition

It is back. Or will be next week, that is. Our favourite (note the “u”) holiday that isn’t even a holiday where Mike lives – U.S. Thanksgiving. Three games on the NFL schedule, which is perfect for a little game we like to call Fantasy Throwdown. It will be similar to last year’s hootenanny. Look for details posted early next week.

“For The Heck Of It” Tournament

We ran three concurrent, 12-team tournaments that featured ten fantasy football celebrities, played 135 Throwdown matches, spanned four weeks, weathered one super storm, and concluded this past weekend. Congrats to our A Champs, Shasta, WHUDEY, Mike and our B Champs, EyeoftheGator, JeneBramel / jrnall2 and cwill0303. If you missed participating, you missed a good one, but maybe you’re up for the next one…

IDP Tournament

The reason we don’t spell out acronyms like IDP very often is because we know we attract top fantasy football players who can break down expected tackle distribution numbers when stars Ray Lewis and Sean Lee are sidelined. If you qualify – or maybe it is time to learn – sign up for our next tournament which includes more Vontaze Burfict and less Trindon Holliday.

Player vs. Player Stats

Wondering how your head-to-head record stacks up against Players X, Y and Z? Sure, you could just count the wins and losses in your Game Manager history, but we’ve made it a lot easier. Go to our new stats tool, start typing your username, select and hit submit. Don’t get mad if you find one or two players are bringing your overall win % down. Get even.

Challenge Friends and Get Social

To help grow Fantasy Throwdown, we need more people to play, and that is where you guys and gals come in. Marketing geniuses we ain’t. Deep pockets we ain’t got.

Help spread the word by introducing football fans to our game and challenging new people to play. We’ll do our best to improve features of the game and keep the website chugging along.

Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, and even Google+ for each of Mike and Matt. You follow or like us, maybe share a link or thought to your timeline, and that helps our exposure. Win-win for all. Think how you can boost your Leaderboard ranking with a wave of potential opponents who don’t know their Block from their backside.

Leaderboard

User patwat is on his third consecutive week holding down the top spot on our Leaderboard, and he’s built himself a little cushion. MtgProHammer and laoch currently sit in second and third, respectively, but there is a lot of jockeying for position in the two through six spots. The more you play, the better you play, and the better ranked players that you beat, the higher points you earn and better ranking. Go!

Thanks again for your time! Don’t forget the Turkey Day Challenge next week.

Our first tournament of the season is in the books. Three tournaments actually, run concurrently, and by all accounts they went great. I know many of our competitors are already champing at the bit to get in another tournament, many to redeem themselves for an early exit in this event.

The tournament winners were determined through the Sunday games. We didn’t need Monday Night Football’s Kansas City Chiefs at Pittsburgh Steelers overtime … what is the opposite of “thriller”? … to identify our A and B Champions from each of the tourneys, even though a few individual games still hung in the balance.

Now we can make it official, congrats to Shasta, WHUDEY and Mike (that’s me) who are our A Champs for the Dynasty League Football, Footballguys and Pro Football Focus tournaments, respectively.

The B Champs are EyeoftheGator, JeneBramel / jrnall2 (Jene took over for jrnall2, who was unavailable due to the birth of his third daughter – extra congrats, and good luck!) and cwill0303.

Our winners each earned eternal bragging rights, obviously, for finishing at the top of our 12-team, three week competitions. Each also won an official Fantasy Throwdown t-shirt and earned bonus points towards their Leaderboard ranking. A Champs received 7.5 points and B Champs received 5 points. Our 10th ranked player on the Leaderboard currently has about 70 points, so the bonus points are pretty significant. Those additions are already reflected in the updated Leaderboard.

Special events on the horizon include bringing back our Turkey Day Competition, but we’d also like to squeeze in another tournament or two between now and the NFL Playoffs. You can sign up for an IDP Tournament in the forum, and we’ll get that rolling as soon as possible, hopefully next week.

Thanks again to all of our players, and especially Jarrett Behar (EyeoftheGator), Eric Dickens (DLFootball), Ryan McDowell (RyanMc23) representing Dynasty League Football, Sigmund Bloom (Bloom), Jene Bramel (JeneBramel) and Will Grant (FBGWILL) representing Footballguys, Mike Clay (MikeClayNFL), Bryan Fontaine (Bryan_Fontaine) and Ross Miles (PFF_RossMiles) representing Pro Football Focus and Jim Day (Fantasytaz) from FantasyTaz and honorary Fantasy Throwdown rep for this event. Every one of these guys is on Twitter, and I’ve linked their names to their Twitter accounts, so give them a follow if you aren’t already.

Here are the final results from our “For The Heck Of It” Tournaments.

Round 2 is in the books for our “For The Heck Of It” Tournaments. A few matches were still to be decided from the San Francisco 49ers-Arizona Cardinals yawner on Monday night.

For those who didn’t manage to stay up for the duration, Larry Fitzgerald was tackled half a yard short of the end zone on the Cards’ final play on offense. It made a difference in two of my traditional fantasy leagues, and here is hoping you weren’t on the wrong end in your Throwdown match as a result of that Kevin Dyson-Mike Jones-esque finish. (Sorry to dig up that analogy, Titans fans.)

From our initial rules, the winners of Groups D and E advance to the A-side Championship to play three games against each other this week. The second place finishers in Groups D and E, plus first and second place from Group F, play a round robin for the B-side Championship.

At the end of it, we’ll have an A-side and B-side Champion for each of the Dynasty League Football, Footballguys and Pro Football Focus tournaments. Although this wasn’t envisioned at the start, perhaps we can have a cross-tourney champion match the following week.

Of greater concern right now is whether everyone who advanced can check in this week as a result of power outages due to Superstorm Sandy. We’ll do a roll call and see if anyone is missing in action. If that happens, then we will roll the tournament finals to the next week. We are Fantasy Throwdown – we can do that!

Congrats to all of our competitors who advance to the finals. Check below for the Round 2 group standings.

Shasta wins the group with a perfect 4-0 record. Eyeofthegator finished second using the points differential tie-breaker over DLFootball.

mann231 wins the group with a 3-1 record. Butkiss finishes second with a 2-2 record.

RyanMc23 wins the group with a 3-1 record. stauqmuk finishes second with a 2-2 record.

Fantasytaz wins the group with a 3-1 record. ffbobby24 finishes second with a 2-2 record.

WHUDEY wins the group with a 3-1 record. ChipsAndTricks finishes second with a 2-2 record.

j0eo1s wins the group using the points differential tie-breaker over jrnall2 and JeneBramel. jrnall2 finishes second using the head-to-head tie-breaker over JeneBramel.

Mike wins the group using the points differential tie-breaker over cwill0303. cwill0303 finishes second with a 3-1 record.

qryztopher wins the group with a perfect 4-0 record. TheKommish finishes second using the points differential tie-breaker over Grindstone.

Bryan_Fontaine wins the group with a perfect 4-0 record. Scott Kuff finishes second using the points differential tie-breaker over PFF_RossMiles.

The results are in for Round 1 of our Fantasy Throwdown tournaments, so it is time to compile the group standings and see who advances to Round 2, played Week 8 (this week) of the NFL season, and a step closer to the Championship Round played in Week 9.

The first place finisher in each group, in each of our three tournaments, will form Group D to play against each other in Round 2. The second place finisher in each group will form Group E and the third place finisher in each group will form Group F. The last place finisher in each group is out of the tournament. If you are unclear on the rules or format, including tie-break procedures – and I sure needed them – check the initial tournament post for the details.

Shasta wins the group using the head-to-head tie-breaker over Butkiss. RyanMc23 finishes third using the head-to-head tie-breaker over Airbus79.

DLFootball wins the group with a perfect 3-0 record. Terminalkennedy finishes second using the points differential tie-breaker over stauqmuk and Demiser. stauqmuk finishes third using the head-to-head tie-breaker over Demiser.

EyeoftheGator wins the group using the head-to-head tie-breaker over mann231. laoch finishes third using the head-to-head tie-breaker over Matt.

FantasyTaz wins the group using the head-to-head tie-breaker over Wilforkisland. j0eo1s finishes third using the head-to-head tie-breaker over Bloom.

FBGWILL wins the group with a perfect 3-0 record.

ffbobby24 wins the group using the head-to-head tie-breaker over WHUDEY. JeneBramel finishes third using the head-to-head tie-breaker over atcdav.

@BNQuinlan wins the group using the points differential tie-breaker over TheKommish and PFF_RossMiles. TheKommish finishes second using the head-to-head tie-breaker over PFF_RossMiles.

Mike wins the group using the head-to-head tie-breaker over qryztopher. Scott Kuff finishes third using the head-to-head tie-breaker over MikeClayNFL.

cwill0303 wins the group using the head-to-head tie-breaker over Grindstone. Bryan_Fontaine finishes third using the head-to-head tie-breaker over patwat.

There are the results from Round 1. Definitely some closely contested groups as only two of nine had a first place finisher with a perfect 3-0 record. Congrats to all of our group winners and other teams advancing to the next round. Those groups and matches will be created soon, so watch your email or your Game Manager for the green light to get your Round 2 games underway.

It is about time we had our first Fantasy Throwdown special event of the season, wouldn’t you say? We are nearly six weeks in, things are running somewhat smoothly, and we still have a number of weeks before Thanksgiving. (I assume everyone is keen for the second annual Turkey Day Competition?)

Okay, so the question is, what are we going to do for say, Weeks 7-9? I’m thinking some sort of battle of attrition tournament. It won’t be entirely cut throat as we’ll – just like in my minor hockey days – declare an “A” side and a “B” side champ in our third week. Here is how it goes:

Week 7

• 12 players randomly split up into three groups of four; Groups A, B and C
• Each group plays a round robin (3 games) in Week 7
• 1st place finisher in each group advances to Group D
• 2nd place finisher in each group advances to Group E
• 3rd place finisher in each group advances to Group F
• 4th place finisher in each group get bupkis, nada, zilch, nothing. You’re out

Week 8

• Each group of three plays a double header round robin (4 games) in Week 8
• 1st place finisher in Group D and 1st place finisher in Group E advance to A-side Championship
• 1st place finisher in Group F and 2nd place finishers in each of Groups D, E and F advance to B-side Championship
• 3rd place finisher in each group get bupkis, nada, zilch, nothing. You’re out

Week 9

• A-side championship involves three games between the two players in Week 9. The best won-loss record from the three matches is our A Champ
• B-side championship is a round robin between the four players. 1st place finisher in the group is our B Champ

Format and Other Rules

• All tournament games are Team Defense lineups and PPR scoring format
• Group rankings are determined by won-loss record. In the event of identical won-loss records, the first tie-breaker is head-to-head record between the players who tied, and the second tie-breaker is point differential for all group games
• Official tournament games are created by Throwdown admin and will be marked as tourney games in your Game Manager. If you experience a problem with a tourney game, contact admin to help fix it rather than creating an unsanctioned game
• The assigned challenger and challengee for each game will be divided as evenly as possible across all games for each player. In the event of an odd number of games the challenger/challengee for the last odd game will be randomly assigned
• Games must be completed in the specified week. In the event of a game expiring prior to draft completion, Throwdown admin will determine one person who failed to sufficiently live up to their commitment to complete the draft and/or give their opponent enough time to draft, and declare that game a forfeit and drop the player to last place in his or her group.

Prizes

A Champ and B Champ will each receive an official Fantasy Throwdown t-shirt (yes, they do exist) and eternal bragging rights. A Champ earns 7.5 bonus points towards their Throwdown Leaderboard ranking formula mechanism. B Champ earns 5 bonus points towards their Throwdown Leaderboard ranking formula mechanism. No, the ranking formula is not currently published anywhere, but trust us, this is significant!

If anyone would like to promote their business with suitable prizes for our tournament, we would be happy to accept and award them to the winners or other players for various tournament accomplishments. Please contact Mike or Matt to discuss.

Sign Up

We need 12 players to get this thing rolling early next week. Contact us via email, Twitter or Facebook, and we’ll get you in or on the alternate list. Just make sure you can sufficiently commit to the drafts for up to the next three weeks. Don’t delay! Good luck!

We are right in the thick of traditional fantasy football league playoff time, Weeks 14-16 of the NFL season, and a lot of our players are concentrating on those playoffs over playing their typical slate of Fantasy Throwdown games.

That’s cool, and we’re perfectly fine with that. One of the great things about Fantasy Throwdown, in our not entirely humble opinion, is that you can play a lot, or play a little. It is completely flexible since we are playing new games week to week. Got the latest project off your desk? Time to challenge some people to a game of Throwdown. Busy week ahead? Scale back the challenges or take a week off. It’s all good – just don’t forget to come back!

For those of us who have played fantasy football for a dozen or so years, give it take, the natural evolution of our lives probably has gone from Mr. No Responsibility, lots of free time, living in the bachelor pad that turned into the weekend sports bar (without the hot waitresses) for the boys to kick back and watch football (college and pro) from dawn to dusk, all the while jawing about our fantasy football teams, and taunting your best buddy, “I told you not to draft Terry Allen!” (circa, 1997).

Sorry, got off track there as I walked down memory lane. That was the old life. What that evolved to (a.k.a. the new life) is Mr. Family Man, work stretches beyond both ends of 9 to 5, probably promoted to some kind of management position which is stressful because the 20-somethings working for you take no pride in the quality of their work. From there you’re running home, and taking your 2.5 kids to their activities, balancing the finances, fixing stuff around the house and all the while keeping the wife happy.

Not an easy task, and how does fantasy football possibly fit into the new life? Fantasy Throwdown is one answer to that. Big commitment? Nope. Get a dozen buddies together? Nope. Manage a team with weekly waivers and trade proposals to respond to? Nope. However… Thrill and skill of the draft? Yep. Play against one person, head to head? Yep. Feels like traditional fantasy football? Yep.

It’s like, as our own lives evolved as described above, Fantasy Throwdown made more and more sense so we can keep playing the game of fantasy football that we love. Damn, we’ve got a good thing going here. And even if your fantasy league playoffs are in full swing right now, those leagues are wrapping up soon. Hopefully they haven’t wrapped up for you just yet!

When your other season is done though, whether due to an early playoff exit thanks to DeMarco Murray’s unexpected fractured ankle early in the game last week, or after hoisting your league’s championship trophy, Fantasy Throwdown will be right here, ready for you. We’ll be here right through the NFL Playoffs.

And what are you going to do otherwise, anyway? Prep for your fantasy baseball draft that is still another three months away? Didn’t think so.

 
Tournament Updates

Our Fantasy Football Writers Tournament and Players Tournament both finished off Round 1 of the two-week tourney in Week 14, with just four of our 16 participants in each tourney moving on to the Championship round. The game results and group standings were posted in the Site News earlier this week.

Congrats to KevinShockey, ianj300, Fantasy Acumen and @BNQuinlan who each won their groups to advance in the Players Tourney. They are playing a round robin this week to determine the winner.

Mike vs. unstable draft results

Over in our showcase Writers Tourney, unstable (a.k.a. Bob Harris) of FootballDiehards won his group, and then we had some Throwdown vets, filling in a few open spots to get us to 16, who won their group. MtgProHammer and Osowilds each advanced – okay, I admit it, I stacked the board with some of our best players – and I was fortunate to sneak out of the last group.

Mike vs. Osowilds draft results

We are doing a similar round robin this week, and two of the match drafts are already in the books between myself and unstable, and myself and Osowilds. Click the images for the draft results. MtgProHammer is slow playing us while he works to uncover every edge he can get.

Thanks to everyone who took part in both of these tournaments! Good luck to all of our competitors! Well, especially me in the Writers Tourney. I’m going to need it against these guys. I suspect we’ll have one or more players tournaments for at least the opening two rounds of the NFL Playoffs.

 
Team Defense / Special Teams Scoring Change

Unfortunately, the tournaments were not without a little controversy last week. Let me just say, that effective Week 15, blocked punts and blocked fields goals returned for a touchdown will be scored for the team defense/special teams unit. Anyone who had the Seattle defense against the Rams last Monday may have noticed they didn’t get credit for their blocked punt TD. This was both a programming and rules oversight, and will be corrected going forward. Our apologies to anyone negatively effected by that.

 
Cool Find From The Archives

I went digging for a file on my external hard drive which backed up my old, now dead, computer. And in fact, I think this is from my old, old computer, but I found something very cool. Original draft sketches of how I envisioned the Fantasy Throwdown website. There is one for the Lobby, the game screen (one and two) and a history page with notes.

They even have a date on them, October 2007, although there was a lot of talk about Throwdown leading up to that. Matt gets credit for the name, so initially it wasn’t even “Fantasy Throwdown”. These sketches definitely came after the initial concept was tossed around the table.

 
Okay, that is it for this week. Have a good one!