Another commish problem

[alchico]

If he has a laptop and he was having trouble submitting his lineup couldn't he have used the laptop to see if your site showed his starters? Or made a phone call?

He thought it went through and didn't feel the need to check it.

As for fairness to the league with a team getting a win against no starters how fair will it be that same team loses if YOU submit a lineup that may or may not have matched what the OWNER TRIED to submit and that lineup out scores him? It's actually pretty obvious in the case

 

There is really only 1 fair solution, the guy who did not get his lineup submitted, loses.

 

One thing that could help in the future would be to change your rule governing owners who fail to submit a lineup. Change it to read that a lineup HAS to be entered EVERY week even if the same as last week and failure to submit a lineup will result in a forfiet.

I don't feel their should ever be forfiet, unfair to the rest of the league

 

 

I know you are trying to be fair and leaning over backwards to ensure that you are....but sometimes being a Commish brings hard and harsh decisions.

I agree 110% with this, commishes have a thankless job and i think everyone should have to be one at some point in their fantasy career. Then they wouldn't be so quick to judge.

 

If you were to allow a lineup to be submitted after the games were played...where is the fairness to the guy that submitted his on time?

 

Blitz has it right.... the two non-submitters receive a loss.

 

 

Just an added note that if available, I have all of the cell phone numbers of all the commishs' I'm in leagues with just in case. He shoud have at least tried to make a phone call and/or leave you a message somewhere.

He thought it went through, no need to check or call.

 

I was in a league once where we had a deadbeat owner and he failed to submit a lineup for 3 weeks before it was caught (1st week it was a K 2nd week a D, 3rd week multiple starters, he was getting previous weeks lineup) Just so happens it was during the bye weeks and 3 owners got wins due to this. Once we figured it out we took control of the team and found a new owner. You guessed it, he played me the next week and i lost, i would have easily won with his bye week problems. It cost me a playoff position at the end of the year and needless to say i wasn't too happy, based on the fact that 3 teams got free wins.

I guess i'm just all for making it as fair as possible for all teams over the course of the season.

I guess the only fair thing do at this point, since it isn't specifically addressed in the rules, is to give him a loss. Fix the rules for next year and move on. I don't like it but that's the way it has to be.

[Furd]

If he tried to submit but there was a hangup, I would enter what he tried to put in. Otherwise if no attempt was made, I would give a zero.

 

Once you get subjective, you start down that slippery slope. An owner runs a risk if he/she waits until the last minute to submit a lineup. An owner has the option of submitting the lineup in advance. He/she can change it later. How many times have you received a lineup for the next week's games on late Monday night or Tuesday morning?

 

There are two circumstances where I, as commissioner, would submit a lineup for a team: 1) if the owner set me an email that was sent at a time prior to the kickoff of the first games or games at issue; or 2) I received a timely call from the owner and I could enter the lineup for the owner or at least write it down.

[gbpfan1231]

It happened once about 10 years ago. The guy was (and still is) a notorious dimwit. We gave him the lowest possible score from each position on his roster. Different circumstance because it was, and still isa total points league. The dope who didn't submit his lineup is still in the league (drafted a monster team this year) and we went ahead and put a rule on the books to cover it (we went with the lowest possible pointson the roster). Of course the rule is named after him.

I assume you are talking about yourself?

[Jrick35]

I was in a league once where we had a deadbeat owner and he failed to submit a lineup for 3 weeks before it was caught (1st week it was a K 2nd week a D, 3rd week multiple starters, he was getting previous weeks lineup) Just so happens it was during the bye weeks and 3 owners got wins due to this. Once we figured it out we took control of the team and found a new owner. You guessed it, he played me the next week and i lost, i would have easily won with his bye week problems. It cost me a playoff position at the end of the year and needless to say i wasn't too happy, based on the fact that 3 teams got free wins.

I guess i'm just all for making it as fair as possible for all teams over the course of the season.

I guess the only fair thing do at this point, since it isn't specifically addressed in the rules, is to give him a loss. Fix the rules for next year and move on. I don't like it but that's the way it has to be.

 

I find it interesting that you seem to disagree with every point I made and yet in the end did exactly what I was recommneding, no points for the team who did not submit a lineup, which of course is the same as a forfiet.

 

Oh well, at any rate it was the correct choice.

 

I have been the commisioner of my local for almost 10 years and we have gone over eery possible scenario, believe me when I say there is more to it than what I am posting here but basically, no lineup no points.

[SteelBunz]

Al....I was in a league once with a deadbeat owner. Not only did someone else draft for him, but he set his first week's lineup and never changed it through the entire year. (Showed up as "no lineup submitted....previous week's lineup in use".) No WW movement...nothing. No return emails or PMs....nothing.

 

Sad part was....that team made it to and won the SB.

 

We aren't going to name the team or league here.

[HowboutthemCowboys]

Never ran into this one myself, but I think the guy who failed to enter a lineup gets a loss and a zero for the week. Seems harsh, but it seems the closest to fair that you can get in this situation.

I only read to post #5. I agree.

[Footballjoe]

I am a member of the league with the problem. I was not happy when I saw that 2 teams did not submit a line-up. I do feel better that at least they tried to submit their lineup though. As stated the draft finished very late, however it was mostly scrub players being drafted. I entered my lineup well in advance with the playres I had. I think that zero pts need to be awarded. If no line is set for this week then new owners need to be found or the commish should set the lineup based on the best available players.

[TheShiznit]

I am a member of the league with the problem. I was not happy when I saw that 2 teams did not submit a line-up. I do feel better that at least they tried to submit their lineup though. As stated the draft finished very late, however it was mostly scrub players being drafted. I entered my lineup well in advance with the playres I had. I think that zero pts need to be awarded. If no line is set for this week then new owners need to be found or the commish should set the lineup based on the best available players.

 

Question:

 

Why would it not be fair to submit a lineup for week one based upon draft order, but if a lineup is not submitted for week two...then it is all of a sudden ok to use draft order then? That creates an unfair advantage for the week one opponents. This is certainly tough...but I think whatever is done for week one should be done in all weeks. And since in all weeks there would theoretically be a lineup submitted....then so should it be for week one.

 

Al....take a public vote of the owners who did submit a lineup for how to handle this...that would give you 10 members in a 12 team league. Then, propose a rule for next year. I think your original idea is the best.

[ts]

FWIW moving forward, this is the rule on the topic from my local league:

 

Should a team not submit a legal lineup for week one of the season, the league office will complete a lineup for that team, selecting appropriate position players in reverse order of draft position.

 

..not sure if that helps your immediate situation, but food for thought for next year.

[Footballjoe]

Question:

 

Why would it not be fair to submit a lineup for week one based upon draft order, but if a lineup is not submitted for week two...then it is all of a sudden ok to use draft order then? That creates an unfair advantage for the week one opponents. This is certainly tough...but I think whatever is done for week one should be done in all weeks. And since in all weeks there would theoretically be a lineup submitted....then so should it be for week one.

 

Al....take a public vote of the owners who did submit a lineup for how to handle this...that would give you 10 members in a 12 team league. Then, propose a rule for next year. I think your original idea is the best.

 

 

It may not have been mentioned but this is a 32 team league. It almost did not make it this year. My suggestion about submitting the lineup was if the Commish has to take over the teams from here on out until (if ever) a new owner is found. Bottom line is nothing will be completely fair but whatever the commish decides I think will be accepted with little disagreement.

[alchico]

I find it interesting that you seem to disagree with every point I made and yet in the end did exactly what I was recommneding, no points for the team who did not submit a lineup, which of course is the same as a forfiet.

 

Oh well, at any rate it was the correct choice.

 

I have been the commisioner of my local for almost 10 years and we have gone over eery possible scenario, believe me when I say there is more to it than what I am posting here but basically, no lineup no points.

I disagreed with every point you made because this situation isn't about owners being deadbeats or lazy. The point i have been trying to make is you are penalizing the rest of the league by giving him a zero. It gives a FREE win to a team, an advantage no one else has. It could have playoff ramifications down the road. I just happen to feel very strongly that all teams should have a valid lineup each and every week and then let the chips fall where they may.

The reason i came to the same conclusion as you is i realized that rules are rules and if you don't have one to cover the situation your stuck.

[CrazyOne]

Interesting. Setting aside the actual circumstances here, there are a number of issues. 2 teams get a free win if zero points, that affects outcomes down the road. If you *did* have lapsed owners, giving zero points and a loss for the first week won't help you find any new ones. For that matter, if they weren't lapsed owners, they might become so if you take that hard a line.

 

If it were me, I think I would have to conclude that the overall integrity of the league is more important than punishing the two teams who didn't submit a lineup. And yes, that means that the integrity of the league (as far as fairness, being able to keep owners or find new owners, playoff seeding later because of the win or loss this time, etc.) is more important than the precise written rules which may not have anticipated the situation in question. This would be a time for inserting an emergency rule change to add "If no lineup is submitted for Week 1, lineup will default to draft order." And maybe every league should have a catch-all rule: "We have endeavored to cover all possible scenarios in our rules, but any situation that should arise which is not expressly covered in these rules will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis." Something like that.

 

I am the commish (not the original one, but have been for several years now) of a 10-team roughly work-based redraft league with a $100 entry fee. It has a core of about half long-time participants, a couple more at least 2nd or 3rd year participants, and usually a newbie or two each year. We don't have this rule listed in our league, but if it did happen (and it sorta did last year although I hadn't considered the lineup aspect of it, only the sudden auto-draft when we had never had anyone auto-draft before) I would default to the draft order and all our owners would say "Yeah, that's reasonable".

 

This league is run as a benevolent dictatorship. We don't put things up for vote. If there's a decision like this to deal with, I deal with it, maybe also consulting with one other long-time player (who was commish for a while) who works in the same office. The guys are reasonable and respect it. We have fun. Heck, they continued to play even as three years in a row I took the largest portion of the prize money. After that finally included winning the SB (we have an equal prize for total points, as the league originated as points-only way back when, and that is the prize I took 3 years in a row, along with 2 SB loser prizes before finally winning the SB by a tiebreaker, LOL) I put up a league poll asking if I should retire since I was dominating so well. They all said no. Then the next year, I failed to make the playoffs, of course....

 

Default the lineups to draft order and say this should have been the rule and you'll have it in the actual wording of the rules from now forward. The reason it's not in the rules is because the scenario wasn't envisioned, not because it's a bad rule. Reasonable owners should ultimately respect this choice, even the one who loses his matchup because of it.

[KOKIDKOKID]

This may not be feasible, BUT...is there any reason that the two owners who did not submit a lineup couldn't play each other and the owners who did submit lineups could play each other? The 2 teams who did not submit a lineup could then have their lineups submitted based on draft order.

 

KO'd

[untateve]

As commish, you have to follow the rules of the league or you end up creating a sh storm. A couple of years ago, during an mfl draft, one owner selected a player he did not want. He immediately e-mailed me and posted on the message board that he made a mistake. I, being a benevolent and loving commish, went in and fixed his pick, giving him the player he wanted--mind you no one else had selected to this point. However, the player that was eventually selected was one that had been targeted by another owner. We had no rule for this and I really saw nothing wrong with what I did. However, this incident led to this rule:

 

Troglodyte Cousin Rule: During the draft, once an owner selects a plaver via MFL, he remains on that owner’s team until the draft is over and add/drops begin. It does not matter if your troglodyte cousin stumbles into your computer as you are drafting and you end up selecting a linebacker--he's your player until we enter into add/drops. No take backs, no oops, no nothing. It's black and white--you hit select and the player is yours.

 

And by the way, we are not an IDP league.

 

Fast forward to this year. Using mfl, one of our owners pre-selects [Jackson, Steven I FA RB] as his first round selection. Everyone knew he screwed up and one owner asked if we were going to fix this. Sadly, I could not. Even more sadly, I will likely lose to this team this year because I am cursed in that league.

[BeeR]

The team in question DID try to submit a lineup. He was on the road and did so from his laptop.

Our rule is if the site thing isn't working, email. If 'net connection not working, CALL your lineup in. This was poor planning on the league's part not to cover this, but still it was his responsibility to get a lineup to you somehow (how hard is it to think of calling? Wait let me guess, his cell phone didn't work).

 

Still, the most generous thing would be give him lowest possible score w/the players he has - but I think he should get a zero.

 

As for "but the team he plays gets a 'free win,' " tough. That's like whining because you play a team on the week their players go off. ie luck of the schedule draw and not relevant to the decision.

[alchico]

Thanks CrazyOne

This is (bolded and underlined part) exactly what i have been trying to say but you have a much better way with words than i do. I still havn't decided what to do and will probably put it to the league for resolution.

Hey, do you want a job as asst commish, pay isn't great but the headaches are plentifull.

 

Interesting. Setting aside the actual circumstances here, there are a number of issues. 2 teams get a free win if zero points, that affects outcomes down the road. If you *did* have lapsed owners, giving zero points and a loss for the first week won't help you find any new ones. For that matter, if they weren't lapsed owners, they might become so if you take that hard a line.

 

If it were me, I think I would have to conclude that [b]the overall integrity of the league is more important than punishing the two teams who didn't submit a lineup. And yes, that means that the integrity of the league (as far as fairness, being able to keep owners or find new owners, playoff seeding later because of the win or loss this time, etc.) is more important than the precise written rules which may not have anticipated the situation in question. [/b] This would be a time for inserting an emergency rule change to add "If no lineup is submitted for Week 1, lineup will default to draft order." And maybe every league should have a catch-all rule: "We have endeavored to cover all possible scenarios in our rules, but any situation that should arise which is not expressly covered in these rules will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis." Something like that.

 

I am the commish (not the original one, but have been for several years now) of a 10-team roughly work-based redraft league with a $100 entry fee. It has a core of about half long-time participants, a couple more at least 2nd or 3rd year participants, and usually a newbie or two each year. We don't have this rule listed in our league, but if it did happen (and it sorta did last year although I hadn't considered the lineup aspect of it, only the sudden auto-draft when we had never had anyone auto-draft before) I would default to the draft order and all our owners would say "Yeah, that's reasonable".

 

This league is run as a benevolent dictatorship. We don't put things up for vote. If there's a decision like this to deal with, I deal with it, maybe also consulting with one other long-time player (who was commish for a while) who works in the same office. The guys are reasonable and respect it. We have fun. Heck, they continued to play even as three years in a row I took the largest portion of the prize money. After that finally included winning the SB (we have an equal prize for total points, as the league originated as points-only way back when, and that is the prize I took 3 years in a row, along with 2 SB loser prizes before finally winning the SB by a tiebreaker, LOL) I put up a league poll asking if I should retire since I was dominating so well. They all said no. Then the next year, I failed to make the playoffs, of course....

 

Default the lineups to draft order and say this should have been the rule and you'll have it in the actual wording of the rules from now forward. The reason it's not in the rules is because the scenario wasn't envisioned, not because it's a bad rule. Reasonable owners should ultimately respect this choice, even the one who loses his matchup because of it.

[CrazyOne]

Our rule is if the site thing isn't working, email. If 'net connection not working, CALL your lineup in. This was poor planning on the league's part not to cover this, but still it was his responsibility to get a lineup to you somehow (how hard is it to think of calling? Wait let me guess, his cell phone didn't work).

 

Yeah, we have this rule too. We use MFL (and back before about 5 years ago used Sportsline) and I can't remember the last time we had an emailed lineup, let alone a called in one. I think we have had a defaulted lineup from previous week in the middle of the season, maybe once or twice.

 

I could see a problem here though in that if it's the last minute and this owner hasn't had the foresight to put the number somewhere that doesn't need a net connection to find it, that won't work too well. I'm not sure that would occur to me; I'm used to highly reliable net connections.

 

I just don't understand the hard line. FF should be fiercely competitive, sure, but also it should be friendly and fun. They're not mutually exclusive. In my league in this scenario there would be more overall outcry if I gave people zero than if I gave them a default lineup.

 

Of course, one little detail for the OP commish: the ideal time to handle this would have been Sunday (or Thursday even, depending upon how your lineup deadline rules work). Dealing with it after the week's games are concluded makes it that much harder, as you can see. Unfortunately, you had to learn this part the hard way. Thinking about last week our draft is very late (Tues after Labor Day) then we have a lineup deadline right away for that Thursday game. One thing I know I do is check to see that lineups are set. If anyone actually hadn't set their lineup, I would have contacted them before the ultimate lineup deadline on Sunday. Not sure if you tried to do this.

 

But still I guess in the end I don't see what is achieved by giving people zero points for the week, except resentment on their part. To me, it is anyone else in the league who would be whiners if they want the rules to be that inflexible. This is Fantasy Football, not kindergarten, even if the talk here may often make it seem like the latter. ;-)

Edited September 13, 2008 by CrazyOne

[untateve]

Thanks CrazyOne

This is (bolded and underlined part) exactly what i have been trying to say but you have a much better way with words than i do. I still havn't decided what to do and will probably put it to the league for resolution.

Hey, do you want a job as asst commish, pay isn't great but the headaches are plentifull.

 

However, I would argue that you risk the integrity of the league if you bend the rules in this situation. It is a certainty that some type of issue will arise in the future and if you bend on this one you will likely hear, "But last time you bent the rules for Line-up Boy, why won't you bend them for me. I have a really good reason, too. This league is so unfair."

[alchico]

Our rule is if the site thing isn't working, email. If 'net connection not working, CALL your lineup in. This was poor planning on the league's part not to cover this, but still it was his responsibility to get a lineup to you somehow (how hard is it to think of calling? Wait let me guess, his cell phone didn't work).

 

Still, the most generous thing would be give him lowest possible score w/the players he has - but I think he should get a zero.

 

As for "but the team he plays gets a 'free win,' " tough. That's like whining because you play a team on the week their players go off. ie luck of the schedule draw and not relevant to the decision.

 

I don't want to continually defend the owner in question because the Big picture is the reason i feel the way i do. But he DID think he submitted a lineup. He went to MFL on his laptop, hit submit lineup and assumed it went through. For whatever reason it didn't, he didn't check it and here we are.

Please, please Quit bashing the owner. He didn't call or email because he thought it went through.

[cdrudge]

I don't want to continually defend the owner in question because the Big picture is the reason i feel the way i do. But he DID think he submitted a lineup. He went to MFL on his laptop, hit submit lineup and assumed it went through. For whatever reason it didn't, he didn't check it and here we are.

Please, please Quit bashing the owner. He didn't call or email because he thought it went through.

You have (or had) two choices: retroactively submit a lineup on their behalf or submit no lineup and give them 0 points. Regardless of the reason why a lineup wasn't submitted, it wasn't. There is no "right" or "wrong" answer as doing either can be justified and would be appropriate in many's eyes.

 

You are the commish and unfortunately it falls on your shoulders to make the final decision. Make it and live with the consequences that may or may not happen. You can't make everyone happy 100% of the time, but you are the commish and the rest of the league, by continuing to play in the league, have accepted your position and along with it, must accept your decision.

[MothAudio]

We have a "absentee owner" clause in our rules. If an owner leaves or is inactive during the season the other owners [minus the one they are opposing] would set the lineup. Then they would not be invited back next year.

 

We have a rule stating it's the owners responsibility to set their line up each week. Weather or PC issues aren't valid excuses - set your line up early. If an owner would contact me before the fact that thay might have an issue than that would be different but don't come crying to me after the fact that you lost power or your PC died and you couldn't fix your line up. I'll help out if I can but the burden is on you!

Edited September 13, 2008 by MothAudio

[HowboutthemCowboys]

Please, please Quit bashing the owner. He didn't call or email because he thought it went through.

not bashing Al, but every time I submit a lineup,, I double check to make sure it's what I wanted. We're all busy, there's really no excuse.

Like the others have said, if you bend the rules this one time, you'll have to bend them every time from here on out.

Sorry you're in this situation. Good luck.

[Down Goes Frazia]

my thoughts exactly.

 

 

You submit a lineup that ensures a loss for the team not submitting. Not submitting a lineup shows lack of committment to the league....and should not result in a win when the Commish has to step in.

[Ursa Majoris]

2 teams failed to submit a lineup for week 1. Our rules state a lineup MUST be submitted each week or you get the lineup for the previous week. Since this was week 1 there is no previous lineup. In 1 matchup it doesn't affect the outccome but in the other it will.

Putting aside the reasons for not submitting, what would you do?

Since the rules don't specifically address this my only recourse would seem to be to set the lineup according to draft picks until all positions are filled. I've seen this done in several leagues over the years. The rules do stress that a lineup must be submitted to make it fair to all the teams over the course of the year.

I've tried contacting the owner of the team that will lose to the drafted lineup but have not received a response. Do i go to the league and see what they want to do or do i make the decision on my own?

Haven't read all the responses but the piece I've bolded above is grossly unfair. Why should someone lose to a team that didn't set a week one lineup? The rules clearly state a lineup must be submitted and although you get last week's lineup for all other weeks, week 1 is a special case. In OUTRAGED we specify that if there is no lineup submitted in week one, it's a zero.

[jaxfactor]

FWIW moving forward, this is the rule on the topic from my local league:

 

Should a team not submit a legal lineup for week one of the season, the league office will complete a lineup for that team, selecting appropriate position players in reverse order of draft position.

 

..not sure if that helps your immediate situation, but food for thought for next year.

 

I really like this idea, especially the reverse order so the team probably loses but still gets some points. I would consider putting this in your league rules for next year Al.