Gridstats Retro
Given everything
going on at the moment (and plenty of people with time on their hands) earlier
in "lockdown" I offered out a free startup to past and existing players who
wished to try a return to one of our games, and given quite a few people have
taken it up, particularly on Gameplan, it set the gears cranking.
Clearly people want
to play some games. How can one run Gridstats
when there’s no games being played?
So here’s the idea
- “Gridstats Retro”
 | Leagues are
comprised of eight teams (two divisions of four) – it makes them easier to
fill, and means we can concentrate on starters.
|
| Seasons are ten
games long (two against each team in your division, one against each team
outside) with two weeks of playoffs.
|
| Four
teams qualify for the playoffs, two divisional winners plus two wildcards
(who may be from the same division).
|
| The game starts
with the 1983 season (the first non-strike season of UK coverage of the NFL)
|
| Three
bidding rounds will start the game, with eight bids per team (not ten),
followed by one preseason round. |
| Each week we
take the real stats from an NFL week that season as follows:-
GS Week 1&5 = NFL Weeks 1-4; GS Week 2&6 = NFL Weeks 5-8; GS Week 3&7 = NFL Weeks
9-12; GS Week 4&8 = NFL Weeks 13-17. GS Week 9 is taken from one of the remaining four weeks of
the first half of the season, and GS Week 10 is taken from one of the remaining five weeks of the second half of the season.
The two playoff weeks will be taken randomly from the remaining seven weeks of the season! |
| No bonus
scores, we only count the actual scores (touchdowns and field goals).
|
| Each season
flows into the next (so after 1983, we move to 1984).
|
| As
usual, you are not restricted to players on the player list (particularly
useful towards the end of next season, as you know who the next season star
rookies will be). |
| Deadlines will
be weekly.
|
| Email play only
(no posting results).
|
| No Tipping
Competition (obviously).
|
| No
Conversions until 1994 |
| No Bonds (so
you can’t kick financial problems down the road).
|
| No
Playoff Bonuses (as we'll be using a real life NFL week with all teams
playing)
|
| “Roadtest”
rules will apply for the first season (i.e. I reserve the right to tweak any
rules as we go along).
|
| Strategies will
be used (thanks for the feedback).
|
Pretty much
everything else works the same. You’ll have more certainty about who the key
players are (John Riggins led the league in rushing TD’s, Lynn Dickey in
passing) but you won’t know for sure they’ll be scoring in any given week,
and only 12 of the 16 real life weeks will “count”. Backups will be more
important (so you’ll need squad depth) and the concentration of players means
more poaching. And you’ll have an idea of which players are heading towards
retirement, because you know when they retire, but also which players are worth
picking up, because in future seasons they'll be valuable (but please be
sensible, don't add Patrick Mahomes in the middle of the 1983 season).
