traj Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 I've been the commissioner of our league for 15 years but need some advice from fellow commissioners out there regarding our IR policy. We've always operated under the rule that you can only keep a player on your IR (3 spots) if they are questionable, doubtful or out. The questionable tag is really starting to wear on me. We stipulate that if your player is questionable going into the first game of the weekend (usually Thursday night) then it's ok to have him on your IR. The problem is that most practice reports aren't coming out until late Thursday afternoon and sometimes not until after the Thursday game has started. Many times a player who is questionable all week suddenly ends up as Probable and I have to rule on a 10 point penalty for that team. It causes a major headache for everyone. Anybody else deal with this issue? Required: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR, TE, Flex, K, Def Bench: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, TE, Flex, Def. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delicious_bass Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 I am commissioner of one league and co-commish of the other league I play in and we only allow a player to go to IR if they are actually IR. Takes the stress and questions out of the equation. I know you probably don't want to break tradition too much, but you said it yourself...its becoming a nightmare with all the players listed as questionable each week. Only going to get worse, too, IMO. Maybe bump your total roster limit by 1-2 spots so its easier for owners to accommodate injuries? Out of curiousity, are you required/limited as to the number of each position of players on your bench? For example, do you have to have a DEF on the bench? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevegrab Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 I think you may need to explain this better, because I'm not sure I understand the problem. (But then I've never played in a league with IR.) If the rule stipulates they can be on IR if they're questionable going into Thursday night, and they are why is there a penalty because later they are changed to probable. I've been commish in my league for 20 years, but we don't have an IR spot, though we've discussed it. I'd think with 3 IR spots you could have stricter rules if people are abusing it. Also if the player is put on the IR, can they be pulled off the same week and played? Somebody like Calvin Johnson, he's questionable again this week, would somebody place him on IR to add some depth, then pull him (and have to cut a player from the active roster) to use on Sunday. We have a very deep roster already (9 start, 9 bench, no roster limits by position) so we've never really felt the need to use IR. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satelliteoflovegm Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 I always said IR was for IR'd players only to avoid the problems you are having. Unless the system is automatic, you need to keep as many things cut and dry as you can for your own sake. I'd say you're stuck for this season. But if not, by your league's willingness to help you out, maybe change it to only IR players and/or add two spots to make up for it. I say you have to deal this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
traj Posted October 25, 2013 Author Share Posted October 25, 2013 Bass: Yes, we have required bench position spots and yes we do keep a defense. Steve: I usually don't give a penalty if I can see that the player was Q going in and Prob after game has started but it's not always very clear (different media sources, late practice reports). It's really just a headache. Yes, you could pull a player of IR and drop a player Sunday AM. Satellite: We use the IR mostly for guys that are injured for weeks at a time but not on IR. Typically if they are on IR, they are out for the season (we are not a dynasty or keeper league) unless they are on the new "able-to-return" IR. Thanks by the way for your input Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevegrab Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 I agree witht he basic premise of others that trying to do it based on questionable status stuff just makes it hard for you. We used to have something for the playoffs where we allowed teams to add a player temporarily (keeper and those not in playoffs cannot add players) to cover injuries. Used to do that using questionable status, but got rid of that and just allow it unconditionally so those teams can handle unexpected injuries including players that may be out but end up playing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
traj Posted October 25, 2013 Author Share Posted October 25, 2013 I should also provide an example. My own player Heath Miller was questionable all week and questionable yesterday all day. I kept checking him up until kick off because I thought I might have to drop him but he remained questionable into the 2nd quarter. This AM it shows him probable and the update time shows last night at 9:41pm. I wouldn't penalize one of the teams in my league for this so I won't penalize myself but you can see what a head-ache it can be. There is also the problem of lack of sufficient evidence to prove a case of when a player went from Q to Prob. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delicious_bass Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 (edited) Bass: Yes, we have required bench position spots and yes we do keep a defense. Steve: I usually don't give a penalty if I can see that the player was Q going in and Prob after game has started but it's not always very clear (different media sources, late practice reports). It's really just a headache. Yes, you could pull a player of IR and drop a player Sunday AM. Satellite: We use the IR mostly for guys that are injured for weeks at a time but not on IR. Typically if they are on IR, they are out for the season (we are not a dynasty or keeper league) unless they are on the new "able-to-return" IR. Thanks by the way for your input My first suggestion would be to do away with the regulation of bench position. That bench DEF spot can be better used for stashing a RB, WR, or TE, IMO. If you're an owner with a stud QB, carrying a backup QB may not be something you want to do all season. Open that up and it should help some. I would also say bump your total roster limit to 20. The extra space and flexibility should allow owners enough leeway to manage their teams through injury/BYEs/etc. Keep IR only for IR. Actually, since you said its a not a keeper league, IR really only pertains to players on IR designated to return. So you shouldn't have to deal with it too much if you stop allowing Questionable players to go on IR. Maybe only allow players designated as OUT on your IR? That is kind of a middle solution but I would add the stipulation that (if an owner puts a player listed as OUT on IR) that player cant play that week under any circumstances. What you want is to remove the situational nature of the system you use now because (obviously) it can be exploited and is causing extra work and headaches for you. My $0.02. Edited October 25, 2013 by Delicious_bass 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
traj Posted October 25, 2013 Author Share Posted October 25, 2013 Good advice. I'm hesitant to bump up the roster spots because it will add more rounds to an already lengthy draft day. We do like keeping that extra DEF especially for BYE weeks. Our DEF scoring rules allow a DEF that has a great day to put up quite a few points so they are more valuable in our league. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delicious_bass Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 Good advice. I'm hesitant to bump up the roster spots because it will add more rounds to an already lengthy draft day. We do like keeping that extra DEF especially for BYE weeks. Our DEF scoring rules allow a DEF that has a great day to put up quite a few points so they are more valuable in our league. Sure, its convenient to have that 2nd DEF waiting(like an insurance policy) when your BYE comes around. But the other 11 weeks it can be kind of a waste (unless maybe an owner is switching back and forth based on matchups). I never carry a backup DST. When mine is going on BYE, there is usually some other underperforming player I can dump to pick up another DST for that one week. If I don't have anyone I want to drop, I will play with no DST for one week to keep from dropping a valuable player that will help me more weeks. Now, in our scoring, DST gets maybe a handful of points (on average) each week. They can have big games, but its not nearly as common the other positions. If your scoring is different (sounds like that is the case) maybe that's not an option for you, though. Just throwing some ideas out there... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wpob Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 I am commissioner of a 25 year keeper league and we go by NFL designations - if they are put on IR (season ending or short term) you get a player at that position for the time the person on IR is out. If the player is out for any other reason, you can not pick up anyone on IR. That is what the bench players are for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustDoIt Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 (edited) I was in a league that you could put any player appearing on the injury report and place them on IR, however, a player on IR must remain there for 3 consecutive weeks before being activated. We never had any problems with this as the owner knows going into it they will be unusable for three weeks and it costs them an IR spot. Edited October 25, 2013 by JustDoIt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WashingtonD Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 (edited) My local league has done IR similiary to what the OP posted above. We have 3 IR slots, those can be for players that have season ending injuries, are on IR designated for return, or are just injured and unlikely to play. However, if one of those players that you have on IR is active for a game, you either lose that player or you lose a "conditional" player that you have defined ahead of time. For instance I currently have Jay Cutler, Julio Jones, and Danny Amendola on my IR In this league. I have no "conditional" player for Jones since he's out for the season, I have Mike Glennon as my conditional for Jay Cutler, and I have Roy Helu Jr as my conditional for Danny Amendola. If Amendola is active this week, I lose Helu. If I started Helu, I would lose his points this week as well. Edit to Add: We used to use an even more simliar system to the OP, saying if a player was Q/D/O they could be on IR, but with the changes in how and when that information is reported on NFL.com and the advent of the weekly Thursday night game we switched to the method above because it was cleaner and easier to adminster a player is ultimately either active or not. Edited October 25, 2013 by WashingtonD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
faceplant Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 My first suggestion would be to do away with the regulation of bench position. This. Let people use their bench as they please. If they want to store an injured player on the bench, more power to them. I've been in a few leagues where bench position was regulated and I found that there was a lot less trading and strategy invloved. Not that there isn't strategy in regulated benches, it just wasn't as fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
traj Posted October 25, 2013 Author Share Posted October 25, 2013 I would like to move away from the regulated bench. The problem is with teams stashing multiple players at one position and diluting the Free Agent pool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Country Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 Good advice. I'm hesitant to bump up the roster spots because it will add more rounds to an already lengthy draft day. We do like keeping that extra DEF especially for BYE weeks. Our DEF scoring rules allow a DEF that has a great day to put up quite a few points so they are more valuable in our league. He didn't say to disallow the second defense, the suggestion is to eliminate the forced positions of the bench. Let owners manage their teams as they see fit. If that means carrying 3 QBs and no backup defense, so be it, up to their individual tastes. As for IR, I've never seen a point for it in a non-keeper league, and additional roster flexibility could alleviate this a bit if you eliminate it. Eliminating it also makes owners manage their team a bit more and make the tough decision about if they carry that injured player for a while or drop them for someone else. Obviously, as you have seen, the problem is that other than the players in the Thursday game, the official injury reports don;t come out until after your deadline, so it really is a near impossible situation to manage. As for your source, you should use whatever site you host your league on as the official source for injury designation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Country Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 I would like to move away from the regulated bench. The problem is with teams stashing multiple players at one position and diluting the Free Agent pool. That's not a problem - that's called roster management. Could also foster trades. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Def. Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 Is there something special about how players are acquired that forces the Q tag to be determined on Thursday? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevegrab Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 He didn't say to disallow the second defense, the suggestion is to eliminate the forced positions of the bench. Let owners manage their teams as they see fit. If that means carrying 3 QBs and no backup defense, so be it, up to their individual tastes. Exactly. In our league (9 starters[QB/2RB/3WR/TE/K/D] 9 bench) we have no positional requirements. Most teams don't carry 2 K, D or in some cases TE, they'd rather use the depth for other positions. But since we do charge ($2) per add some cheap owners draft backups at every position to avoid spending extra money later. Some owner will have 3QB, some have 6RB with only 4-5 WR. I have Witten at TE, my backup was Fred Davis who was hurt then pushed out by Reed. I dropped Davis when adding some other position and I still don't have a backup TE, will probably just grab somebody for one week when DAL has their bye. As far as it being bad because players stash too many at one position, well that is part of the strategy, and every owner has the chance to have a deep bench at the positions they need it. I have great WR, so the bench isn't needed much there. But I have mediocre RB, so I'm always adding somebody off waivers hoping to get the hot guy. If I was limited to only 4RB (2 start 2 bench) it would be much harder for me to manage my team. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archiebonker Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 We just brought in the IR rule after 9 season this year. But I had to deal with this too and decided to just have guys that are actually out that can go into the IR spot. I did ask MFL if they could make a system where you can regulate how long a player is on IR. I think that would solve alot of our problems. Make it, so a player can only be on IR for 2 weeks or so. It would at least keep guys from trying to hold on to players that are injured. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MustOfBeenDrunk Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 change the IR to two spots only for IR or Out then start a taxi of 2 spot for any player ( usually used for players on a bye ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keggerz Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 (edited) We stipulate that if your player is questionable going into the first game of the weekend (usually Thursday night) then it's ok to have him on your IR. The problem is that most practice reports aren't coming out until late Thursday afternoon and sometimes not until after the Thursday game has started. fwiw, this is when official injury report designations are released by the league: Wednesday for Thursday games Friday for Sunday games Saturday for Monday games. Official designations are OUT (which there are times when a team will rule a player OUT early), Doubtful, Questionable and Probable. If you see a player listed as D,Q or P on a site prior to Friday for Sunday or Monday games those are not official designations...they're either based off of the previous week's injury report or conjecture. For Sunday games the way the NFL releases practice reports is that on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday they'll release a report that says if a player Did Not Practice, Limited Practice and Full Practice...they also designate what the injury is...and like I said there are some occasions where they'll list a player OUT early...but that's all you get daily until the Friday report comes out that has all the practice breakdown by day and the final injury report designation. Edited October 25, 2013 by keggerz 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanTheMan_5 Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 In my 12 team league we eliminated the IR designation all together and instead just went with deeper benches. Have had no complaints for 5 years about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archiebonker Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 We are in a 16 team league. Tried to open it up a bit and brought in the IR. But guys drafted guys hurt and are holding on to them all season long. I'd like to come up with something that makes the bidding for these players more fun. Instead of sitting there doing nothing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dcat Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 I was in a league that you could put any player appearing on the injury report and place them on IR, however, a player on IR must remain there for 3 consecutive weeks before being activated. We never had any problems with this as the owner knows going into it they will be unusable for three weeks and it costs them an IR spot. Fantastic idea. THanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.