[Brad K]

Originally Posted by JasonC23

I'm enjoying this thread immensely because I've been trying to figure out how best to balance regular season performance with the playoffs. My question is, how late in a particular season can I decide what, if any, playoff setup I want?

For example, take the 2 consecutive seasons in one of my fictional leagues shown below. In the first, Vancouver buried everybody, and I feel they deserve to win it all based on the regular season alone; why give anyone else a second, short-series chance to knock them off when they're clearly head and shoulders better than everyone else?

But in the second season, it would be a ton of fun to throw the top 4 teams into the playoff blender and see what comes out.

So, my question is, could I do that? Could I, as commissioner, decide that in year 1, there will be no playoff, but in year 2, there will be a 4-team playoff? Is that something the game can handle? If I do it correctly, would it be possible for everyone on Vancouver in year 1 to get the "champion" icon added to their profile, while in year 2, the players on the winner of the 4-team free-for-all would also get that "champion" icon?

I don't know what you can do in OOTP but your evaluation is 100% correct. In the first year no one deserves a shot at Vancouver. And in the second a four team playoff is justified.

Meanwhile for year one most of the people in this thread would be trying to figure out a playoff format with 4 or 6 or 8 teams where Vancouver would be guaranteed to win. I don't get it.