there's a playoff team here somewhere

four of my five teams made the playoffs, and in the two leagues with 4-team formats i am in the championship. one has a two-week playoff system, with semifinals from wk 14-15 and finals from wk 16-17. Personally, I could see some value in completing all playoff games by week 15.

The other two leagues offer a ridiculous format in which 8 of 10 teams made the playoffs. One of these was edited by the commissioner late in the season, with no warning. Confusing that league with the other 8 playoff team league, I initially thought I was misreading things and that the playoff format had not actually changed. Thus, I kept quiet, as no one else said anything. That is shocking to me; most of these guys know each other, from what I understand. I started playing with them last year via a friend who knew last year's commish. Maybe they were all as confused as I was. My 3rd-seeded team made the semifinal round, but if that hadn't happened, how lame would it have been? Playing a #6 team that shouldn't have been in the playoffs at all and losing? Wow.

The other thing that bothers me is divisions in fantasy leagues. If there are divisions, which serve absolutely no justifiable purpose, the playoffs should be straight seeded tournaments. We hear sports pundits talking about seeding as the best way to do real sports playoffs. However, in the real sports world you have some great geographic rivalries preserved and fostered by divisional groupings. Taking away the division champions' automatic playoff bid would take some of the fun out of those rivalries. Is there any reason at all to grant automatic playoff bids to division champions in fantasy? No, especially not in a public standard configuration league where you're playing with strangers and the arrangement is certain to be a one-year thing. The problems grow with the size of the league, a real tragedy since larger fantasy leagues are more challenging. How would you like to miss out on the playoffs despite having one of the best records in your hyper-competitive tough league just because you're unluckily in the strongest division? That just shouldn't happen.