League Members,
After reviewing nearly a decade of SCUFFLE history, I’d like to submit the following proposals for consideration beginning with the 2026 season.
Before outlining the proposals, I want to acknowledge that SCUFFLE has been a lot of fun to be involved with. The league has created a unique fantasy football experience because of the many features that set it apart from traditional leagues.
These proposals are not intended to criticize what SCUFFLE has been. Rather, I believe we’ve reached a point where the league would benefit from discussing whether some aspects of the structure still serve the goals we want them to serve.
I am presenting two separate proposals. While I personally support both, I believe they address different issues and should be voted on independently. Owners may support one proposal, both proposals, or neither proposal.
Proposal #1: One Championship Path
Over the years, we have seen multiple examples of teams with double-digit wins missing the playoffs while teams with losing or .500 records qualified. While these outcomes were consistent with the league rules, they raise an important question:
Should playoff access be determined primarily by current-season performance, or by where a team happened to be placed before the season began?
Examples include:
• In 2021, two 5-9 teams qualified for the playoffs while a 9-5 team was left out.
• In 2024, a 4-10 team qualified for the playoffs while a 10-4 team was left out.
• In 2025, two 7-7 teams qualified for the playoffs while a 10-4 team was left out.
These examples highlight how divisional placement and previous-season performance can have a significant impact on playoff access. While that was part of the original design, it can also lead to situations where strong teams are excluded from championship contention because of where they started the season rather than what they accomplished during it.
Every owner should begin Week 1 with the same path to a championship.
One of the benefits of this structure is that every owner begins each season with a fresh opportunity to earn a playoff spot and compete for a championship. The advantage should not come from where a team happened to finish the previous year, but from the work an owner puts in during the current season. The owners who consistently succeed are typically the ones who draft well, manage their FAAB budget effectively, identify value on the waiver wire, make smart roster decisions, and stay engaged throughout the season. Those are the competitive advantages that should separate teams, not playoff opportunities that are partially determined by where a team finished the year before.
Proposed Changes to League Structure
Eliminate Divisions
Gold, Silver, and Bronze divisions would be retired in favor of a single 12-team division. (Naming rights to the champion?)
Every owner would begin each season on equal footing, with no inherited advantages or disadvantages based on previous-year results.
Best 6 Records Make the Playoffs
Playoff qualification would be determined solely by regular-season record.
The six teams with the best records would qualify for the postseason.
Randomize the Additional Three Regular-Season Games
Each team would continue to play every other team once during the regular season (11 games).
The remaining three games would be randomly generated before the season begins.
This creates a neutral schedule for all owners and ensures no team enters the season with a built-in scheduling advantage.
Benefits of Proposal #1
• Every owner starts the season on equal footing.
• The six best regular-season records earn playoff berths.
• Current-season performance becomes the primary focus.
• The league remains competitive from Week 1 through Week 14.
• Success is determined by drafting, roster management, waiver decisions, and season-long engagement.
Ultimately, I believe this proposal creates the cleanest possible championship structure while preserving the competitive elements that make fantasy football enjoyable.
After nearly a decade of SCUFFLE, I believe the Premier League-style format has reached a point where its influence on playoff access outweighs the benefits it provides. SCUFFLE has reached a point where the simplest solution is also the best one: one division, one playoff race, and one championship path for all 12 owners.
Should we eliminate divisions and send the six teams with the best records to the playoffs?
- No (63%, 5 Votes)
- Yes (38%, 3 Votes)
Total Voters: 8
Loading ...Proposal #2: Rewarding All-Play Performance
One of the best features of SCUFFLE is the All-Play system.
Unlike head-to-head records, All-Play minimizes schedule luck and measures how a team performs against the entire league each week.
Under the current structure, All-Play largely serves as a future-facing metric. It influences division placement and future playoff opportunities, but provides little direct reward during the season in which the achievement is earned.
This proposal would create an immediate reward for season-long excellence.
Proposed All-Play Incentives
Increase League Dues from $20 to $40
The first $20 per owner would continue to cover the league website and operating expenses.
The additional $20 per owner would create a league-wide prize pool.
12 Owners × $20 = $240 Prize Pool
Reward Both Championship Success and Season-Long Excellence
At the conclusion of the season:
• League Champion: $80
• Top-4 All-Play Finishers: $40
The league champion receives the largest payout for winning the title, while the Top 4 All-Play finishers earn back their league dues ($40) by demonstrating consistent success throughout the regular season.
Instead of using All-Play to influence future playoff opportunities, this proposal rewards All-Play directly through cash payouts during the season in which the achievement is earned.
Benefits of Proposal #2
• All-Play performance receives an immediate reward.
• Season-long consistency is recognized.
• Owners have meaningful goals beyond playoff qualification.
• The league rewards both championship success and regular-season excellence.
Final Thoughts
I have intentionally presented these ideas as two separate proposals because they address different aspects of the league.
Some owners may support moving away from the current divisional structure but prefer a different approach to league dues and payouts. Others may like the idea of rewarding All-Play performance while preferring to keep the current league format. By separating the proposals, owners can evaluate and vote on each idea independently.
My goal is not to diminish what SCUFFLE has been over the last decade. Rather, it is to start a conversation about whether our current structure still aligns with what we want the league to reward moving forward.
The final question I would ask before casting your votes:
Should where a team starts the season determine its access to the championship, or should that be determined by what the team accomplishes during the season?
Should we increase league dues from $20 to $40 and give payouts to the champions and top-4 finishers by All-Play Record?
- No (56%, 5 Votes)
- Yes (44%, 4 Votes)
Total Voters: 9
Loading ...© 2026, Tim Matuszak. All rights reserved.
Proposal 1
Point taken that we’ve been doing the Premier League thing for a while. It’s been both fun and frustrating at times and I understand the discussion.
a) It’s worth noting that the 2025 Dream Team and 2021 Banthas were both mid-to-bad teams that had inflated records from playing against weaker competition. It’s like arguing that a Minor League team with a better record than a Major League team is more deserving of a playoff spot. This argument really hurts the proposal overall.
b) Conversely, the 2024 GIMB got hosed.
c) The one division idea is a non-starter, IMO.
d) If there is momentum to do so, I would be okay with moving away from the Premier League format if we adopt two modifications of Proposal 1.
—-Playoffs = 3 Division Winners get Seeds 1-3 and Seeds 4-6 are determined by total Points Scored. Alternatively, some leagues are adopting an additional “Game Against the Median” each week. In that model, teams can earn 1 win against their opponent and a 2nd win if they are above the median for the week. So teams go 2-0, 1-1, or 0-2 each week. If we do that, then I can see the top 6 records going to the playoffs.
—-Divisions will need to be shuffled every year based on the previous year’s All-Play such that:
Division 1: Champs, 6th Team, 7th Team, 12th (last) team
Division 2: 2nd, 5th, 8th, 11th
Division 3: 3rd, 4th, 9th, 10th
The annual division re-alignment would partially solve the problems that precipitated the move to Premier League anyway.
—-Schedule goes back to pre-Premier League 2 games w/in division (6 games) and 1 game against all other teams (8 games).
Current vote = NO
Vote if to modifications are added = Sure
I appreciate the thoughtful response. What stands out to me is that, while none of the ideas you propose are bad ideas—division winners plus wild cards, points-for qualifiers, game against the median, annual division realignment, and schedule balancing—they also reinforce the central point of Proposal #1: we’ve reached a stage where we keep adding rules and mechanisms to compensate for issues created by previous rules and mechanisms.
My proposal takes the opposite approach. Rather than continuing to adjust the system, it asks whether the simplest answer might be the best one: one league, one standings table, and six playoff spots earned through current-season performance.
I also think it’s worth noting that your response doesn’t really challenge the existence of the problem. In fact, I think we largely agree that there have been years where playoff access has been influenced by factors other than what happened during the current season. We simply disagree on how to address it.
For me, the question isn’t whether a particular 10-4 team deserved to get in over a particular 7-7 team. It’s whether playoff access should continue to be influenced by where a team was placed before Week 1.
In a league that already has keepers, contracts, salaries, FAAB, auctions, and All-Play records, I think there is value in having a playoff structure that every owner can understand at a glance: one league, one standings table, and six playoff spots earned during the current season.
Proposal 2
Having won 3 championships and earning a total of jack squat, I support this proposal. The champion + 4 all-play leaders is an interesting twist on most payout structures.
Current vote = YES
I don’t particularly care for one division to rule them all. The scheduling would be far less elegant and I like having divisions with their own personalities. I think it works out great that we play division rivals twice and everyone else once. I noticed that MFL has it set up this year so that you open with your 3-game division run and close with that same 3-game division run. That will be super epic for playoff determination down the stretch.
If we were to go away from the relegation-style, then I would want something similar to what Adam said – division winners go automatically, and the next three teams are seeded based on All-Play record (or points, they are closely correlated anyway) regardless of division.
Keep in mind, no matter what playoff format we choose, someone is going to get hosed or make it in “undersevedly” almost every year. What I like about our current system is that everyone knows what it takes to get into the playoffs from the outset. If you’re in the Gold, don’t finish in last. If you’re in the Silver, finish in the top-2, and if you’re in the Bronze, win the division. And I’ve scored a ton of points in the past and finished in last place in the Gold because the competition was so much stronger. And if you finish 10-4 in the Bronze and miss the playoffs, I guess the consolation prize is the #3 pick in the draft (or better).
However, I think that if we were to go a more traditional 3-division setup with all-play or points scored, then I don’t think it’s necessary to do whatever division randomization Adam was suggested. It could be fun to have the division winners host a “draft” for the teams they want in their divisions the next year. Sure, you might try to draft a weak team into your division, but if you’re not careful with your strategy you might end up with the Pirates or Colliders in your division (just kidding, they’d be the drafters). I could imagine it being a fun event to have the “division” draft where the previous division winners name their new divisions and start picking teams.
Otherwise it could be fun to completely randomize it, like our draft lottery.
As for rule proposal #2, I guess I don’t really need extra payouts to enjoy the league, personally. I see it as a good addendum to Tim’s first rule, so that we’re still doing something with all-play record, but I’d rather use any extra money to fund a trophy (and transportation thereof). JONATHAN MARCOT WEHRE ARE YOU AND WHERE IS OUR TROPHY?
I like Adam’s suggestion for division realignment. Currently a No for Proposal #1 but would be good with realignment.
I don’t want to lose and lose money more than I want to win and win money. You get a bonus point if you can make sense of the sentence I just wrote.
I hear you, and I understand exactly what you’re saying lol. If I went back through league history and applied the payout structure I’m proposing, I’d probably be down somewhere around $500 myself.
That said, every year we all throw in a few bucks just to keep the machine running. This league requires a lot more attention, involvement, and year-round management than the average fantasy league. I’d be lying if I said that having bragging rights alone is enough motivation to invest the amount of time this league requires, especially when many of the owners are people I’ve never met and probably never will.
I’m not really looking at Proposal #2 as a way to make money—just as a small token to recognize and reward the owners for the time, effort, and attention it takes to be successful in a league like this, while also ensuring that All-Play performance remains meaningful in the proposed structure.
This is why I’m so mad about the trophy going missing! I kid you not, the best thing about this league was having that trophy sitting in my living room!
For real. The money aspect is cool, but the BA trophy in my office would be ideal. I’d have had it for two straight years! Maybe I’ll just buy my own and keep it forever Marcot-style. I’ll even add plates for winners after me and just not ship it.