I really don't see how you can do anything other than these two options:
- Go with the NFL official scores (zero)
- Go with what happened in the game until it was cancelled
Allowing someone to choose another player, or the league average, or another week, creates a situation which advantages the person whose player didn't finish the game. If Higgins got knocked out on that play and the game continued, would you let Higgins' owner choose another player to sub in after the fact?
If not (and I really hope you wouldn't), you can't let them choose someone to sub in after the fact, here, either.
Our league had this discussion before the 2020 season when there was a lot of COVID uncertainty; what happens if your player is out with COVID, or a game gets cancelled because of COVID? The answer was clear: Nothing happens. You pays your money, you takes your chances.
There's plenty of debate on the main thread on this topic, so there's no need to go through the same points.
I do think zeroes are just fine if there was previous discussion (ideally documented) explaining that's exactly what would happen in this situation. Even if that discussion didn't take place, I can definitely see how that's going to be the right default decision for a number of leagues. Draftkings, yahoo public league, high stakes leagues with strangers run by a bookie, leagues composed entirely of contract lawyers, and many others. Zero, "thems the breaks" makes perfect sense for these and many other leagues.
In my personal experience within longstanding home leagues amongst mostly friends, NOBODY -- whether they were winning, losing, or had no dog in the fight, was advocating for "just take a zero".
If this situation went in a different way, do you think the average person would feel good about cashing in on an auto-championship with full payout because somebody died when they had a narrow lead in a fantasy contest that was up in the air? You don't think it's possible that both parties would rather have the fantasy season end with actual football, after reaching agreement on a fair replacement score, rather than accepting an asterisk championship?
I can't see how someone can't see more than those two solutions.
Big kudos to
@Joe Bryant with some fantastic advice when this whole thing went down.
My league is a friends and family league, been running for 25+ years, and no one had a serious suggestion other than the two above. And as I said, we'd specifically discussed a similar scenario prior to the 2020 COVID season. To be relevant to this thread, which is about what to do in the future, I don't think there's any moral justification for giving someone points in the case of their player's game getting cancelled, if we don't give them points in any other scenario where their player gets a zero for situational reasons.
Sure, it doesn't feel great to win a game that way. I'm sure if you were playing in a playoff league and you beat the guy who started Purdy you don't feel great about it. But that's the game. If you're not going to give the Purdy owner a do-over I don't see why you'd give the Burrow owner a do-over.
That's fair. For me, the takeaway from all of this was that there were different leagues with different backgrounds, past precedent, previously established bylaws, and lack thereof. Within this rainbow of league dynamics, there was an endless array of scenarios of where exactly did the fantasy matchup stand at the point of the cancellation. Which offensive players, IDPs, and DSTs were affected? I just don't think there was any one size fits all solution for all leagues. If there absolutely had to be? Official NFL week 17 results say zero probably had to be it, but why?
Let's take these two options:
1) official NFL scoring for week 17 says zero
2) whatever stats were accumulated in the game prior to the cancellation
If Team A was trailing by 2 points at the start of the game and had Burrow playing, I would sincerely hope that Team B conceded the match (given the TD pass to Boyd) regardless of NFL official scoring for week 17. IF Team B doesn't concede and latched on to Rule 1, I would assume that your inclusion of Rule 2 indicates that you would rule in favor of Team A (favoring Rule 2) if you're the commish in this situation?
I would assume that you're going that way because it's the right, fair, and just ruling, in my very subjective opinion. Yet such a ruling is going to fly in the face of anyone "going by the book", which says that everyone in that game recorded a zero.
I am curious for anyone who holds firmly to Rule 1 as the universal truth, if Team A and Team B both agree that Team A is the rightful winner and Team B concedes, are you overruling that mutual agreement and proclaiming that Team B is the champion? After all, that's what the official NFL stats are saying, and Team B would technically prevail as the rightful champion in the court of law.