Well I don't think the answer is fussing at Bonscott on the FBG forums. He is just trying to answer the questions, I know he does so on MFL message boards as well as he has helped me many times, but I don't think he works for MFL.
I can't speak for anyone else, and thankfully I wasn't affected by any of the position switches so no 'fussing' or frustration on my part... But Bonscott was simply inaccurate about MFL following the NFL.com position designations. Everyone is welcome to their opinion on this topic or any other, and I don't ask for much, but if Bonscott was going to present something as factual, I just ask that he have the facts straight.
Agreed. To me it read as if he was just making excuses. Unacceptable as they are. Which is what I find MFL to be doing.
People can fuss at me, that's fine. Perhaps I mis-spoke which I can from time to time when typing in a hurry.
Honestly there really is no true official depth chart/roster list. MFL syncs up to Rotoworld depth charts, whatever they may be. I believe they are about as accurate as any other site but certainly an argument can be made.
NFL and team sites are certainly not "official" either. However, what I was pointing out here was with both players the overwhelming evidence in almost any depth chart or roster listing you can find and MFL is matching that. Right or wrong.
Suggs was the poster child of this in years back. Is he a LB or DE? After a big contract he was actually listed by the NFL as "LB/DE" as per his contract so that he could get more money. But obviously fantasy sites need to choose one or the other. I don't recall the year but he was listed as a LB by most sites including Rotoworld. The guys here at FBG (Brammel, Bloom and such if I remember correctly) actually got with both Rotoworld and MFL and reviewed game tape and found he played about 60% of his snaps with his hand down, as a lineman would. And thus they switched him to a DE for many years while other sites stuck with the LB designation. That all changed of course a couple years ago when the Ravens changed their base defense and he's been a LB with no question ever since.
In today's world of so many hybrid defenses it becomes more and more difficult to tell with some players, are they a DL or LB? And now many teams are shifting to a 4-3 after many years of the 3-4 ruling the roost that it's becoming an issue again as so many teams transition. We are all at the mercy of this of course.
My leagues make this really, really simple: Whatever MFL says is a players position that is what it is, period. You have to have a "bible" of some sort. And knowing the NFL.com and team sites like to play games with a players position certainly doesn't make them reliable in any way. So you have to go with something so why not go with the simplest which is usually not a problem anyway. But here's the thing...MFL allows you to manually change up a players position. So if you or your league don't agree with something then simply change it. No harm, no foul. In my leagues we don't open that can of worms and there are never any complaints. In fact the owner of Kikaha dropped him now that he's a LB and didn't complain at all about it.
As for MFL excuses...not really sure what you want them to do when they are just following what most sites list the guys at. I would certainly never look to Yahoo, ESPN or CBS as any kind of authority for anything fantasy. MFL goes to Rotoworld, Rotowire and Elias (who do the official NFL stats each week) for their info. Much of this we don't even have access to, unless you have a few tens of thousands of bucks to pay for the data.
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