Writing a post has become an annual tradition.  I'll write it once sometime during the late spring or summer, and then we'll forget about it until next year.  But this year I'm inspired in early May - which, surprisingly, is actually earlier than last year if you'd believe that - to write a post because I'm in a weird position.

I'm league champion.  

I've avoided talking about it to pretty much anyone since I won because I know the way I did it rubbed some people the wrong way (foreshadowing!), and I recognize that fact.  It's not the best path to travel, but it's the path I chose nonetheless.  And because of that, there's two things I get to do as league champion: pick who I play in Week 1, and pick the name of the last place team in the league.  In this case, that's Brock.

Choosing who you play in Week 1 is something I instituted in the league to reward the league champion, and it's a fun little wrinkle for me when setting up the schedule.  Unfortunately I don't get to pick divisions.  That distinction goes to the division winners from the year prior, so Dan and Danny will draft those, and then pick their division names (foreshadowing!).

But honestly, between you all and me, I never imagined myself in this position of getting to pick who I play in week 1.  And, just because I'm me and have spent years breaking down stats, I don't think there's a more appropriate way to choose my opponent than using stats.  So here's what I want to do.

1. Take Week 1 points scored for the last four seasons
2. Rank all players by those points scored
3. Pick either the best or the worst points scorer

And here's what the results yield, in reverse order:

10. Jeff
9. Jose
8. Katarya
7. Sean
6. Tim
5. Danny
4. Baron
3. Bryan
2. Dan
1. Joe

Surprised?  Baron has slowly been moving back to his winning ways, but the fact that Joe has had the best scoring average over the last four seasons in opening games might surprise you.  Well I'm not one to back down to a challenge.  I see you Joe.  Week 1 it is!

As for Jeff's team name, only one thing made sense: making the dumbest pun I could using LoL terminology.  Therefore, next year Jeff your team name will be: Rekklessly Gank My Bottom Lane.  Logo to come. I also reserve the right to change that before the season starts.

Hope you enjoy it!

Now onto the business end of this post.  

Since this last season ended, I've been giving a lot of thought to what we can do, as a league and using ESPN's tools/rules, to reduce two big things that have been bothering people:

1. Tanking
2. Creating super teams by trading money away

Seeing the reaction a lot of people had in GroupMe chat after I made those trades with Tim and Joe was probably the most reaction I've seen from our league as a whole in quite some time.  So it's a sensitive subject and something I think people would want to see addressed.  

We've already discussed moving the trade deadline up, and that's been universally agreed upon.  It's a definitive measure to try and combat possible tanking by forcing league players to make a decision earlier in the season whether they'll be buyers or sellers - and would conceivably make decisions like mortgaging the future for this year (or vice versa) harder to come by.  

However, I look at that as just one thing that could be done to prevent crazy tanking or money trades.  Because, if I'm being frank, it wouldn't totally deter me from trading money.  All I would do is make the decision to say I'm either all in or out earlier in the season.  If you want me to be totally upfront with you, the bulk of my thinking these last five or so months has been: How do I prevent myself from doing what I've been doing?  

And so I've come to two suggestions that I would like to propose we look at and try.  I want to preface this by saying that I've spoken to about half the league to try and vet out some wrinkles with these proposals and to get general feedback.  I'm going to frame the rule changes into four parts - what the current rule is, what the proposes rule is, what the factual consequences will be, and what my hopeful and desired consequences will be.  Without further adieu:

• 4 teams make the playoffs
• Playoff matchups are two weeks long
• Playoffs begin Week 13 and end Week 16

• 6 teams make the playoffs
• Top 2 seeds get a bye
• Playoff matchups are one week long
• Playoffs begin Week 14 and end Week 16
• Higher seeded teams are given a point advantage

• Regular Season matchups extend to Week 13 instead of Week 12
• Playoff matchups decrease from two weeks to one week
• A bye week is added for the top 2 teams to qualify for the playoffs
• Higher seeded teams go into their matchups with a point advantage

• Increasing playoff entrants means more teams involved for a spot until the end of the season
• This would potentially lead to fewer trades for future money/assets as more teams would consider themselves contenders later into the season
• One week playoffs could additionally prevent owners from trading money if they view a one week playoff as too risky to mortgage the future on
• Having bye weeks would also mean that owners are competing for a top two spot, thereby adding a layer of incentive for owners late into the season beyond making the playoffs
• Giving higher seeds a set point advantage rewards teams that performed the best in the regular season
• A longer regular season allows for more opportunity for owners to play later into the regular NFL season before their season ending