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In-Game Fantasy Injury Substitution? (1 Viewer)

gsmayes

Footballguy
So, I started, Jay Cutler, who got me -0.6 points before being knocked out from the game. I'm probably going to lose because it, and I'm not alone in that.

Anyway, it got me thinking about a rule for in-game injury substitution in fantasy football. Say, each team gets one injury replacement per week. The player must be injured in the first half and not return for the rest of the game. You have to put some sort of time limit on this, so in my league say you have until the processing of waivers on Wednesday at 10am to make your substitution.

There are a couple problems I see in this. First, MFL doesn't seem to have a way to automate this in the settings, so it would have to be handled by the commissioner outside the system. Second, I can't seem to find an official in-game injury report from the NFL for the current week's games. You would need to have some kind of officially agreed upon record that lists when a player is injured, at what point in the game and whether or not he returns. I don't know if that exists.

This would make fantasy football more like real sports, take out some of the luck factor and make the game more fun. Come to think of it, I also had Eddie Lacy get knocked out of the game on the first play a few weeks ago. Anyone do this in their league?

 
Get used to it, with reduced practices/OTA's and such during the off season and all the rule changes that seem to be making defenders go lower on tackles means this is going to happen more and more. A ton of fantasy teams are getting killed by injuries this year, going to have to get used to it.

 
Had a league years ago that used an injury rule for QBs almost identical to that suggested by the OP. Pretty easy to figure out when players go out, especially the QBs, so it's not all that hard to use a rule like this.

Of course...some people will argue that this is what best ball leagues are for......

 
Had a league years ago that used an injury rule for QBs almost identical to that suggested by the OP. Pretty easy to figure out when players go out, especially the QBs, so it's not all that hard to use a rule like this.

Of course...some people will argue that this is what best ball leagues are for......
Or Team QB instead of a specific player.

 
I like the idea though, and would support this in any league. Much easier to implement than it appears

 
I've never figured out what that stupid shirt emoticon is supposed to mean.

Anyway, I've ran a league for 12-years now, so this isn't new to me. And I'm not complaining about this week or my team. I'd guess that this happens to everyone at least once a year. In real football, if your QB1 gets knocked of of the game, you don't have to direct snap to the RB the rest of the game. When your RB1 gets injured, you don't have to pass every play the rest of the game.

It really seems like a win-win to me. I don't think it should be limited to a specific position, and best ball leagues eliminate lineup decisions altogether.

 
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I've never figured out what that stupid shirt emoticon is supposed to mean.

Anyway, I've ran a league for 12-years now, so this isn't new to me. And I'm not complaining about this week or my team. I'd guess that this happens to everyone at least once a year. In real football, if your QB1 gets knocked of of the game, you don't have to direct snap to the RB the rest of the game. When your RB1 gets injured, you don't have to pass every play the rest of the game.

It really seems like a win-win to me. I don't think it should be limited to a specific position, and best ball leagues eliminate lineup decisions altogether.
its a tale worth telling again...but i am not the one to tell it.

"point to the shirt"

patience.

-biz-

 
I've never figured out what that stupid shirt emoticon is supposed to mean.

Anyway, I've ran a league for 12-years now, so this isn't new to me. And I'm not complaining about this week or my team. I'd guess that this happens to everyone at least once a year. In real football, if your QB1 gets knocked of of the game, you don't have to direct snap to the RB the rest of the game. When your RB1 gets injured, you don't have to pass every play the rest of the game.

It really seems like a win-win to me. I don't think it should be limited to a specific position, and best ball leagues eliminate lineup decisions altogether.
I agree. IN my league the backup QB had to be designated before the games, and the sub was automatic, regardless of the points either QB scored.

Would be easy to designate the backups in a message board thread

 
MFL has support as part of the normal starting lineup to let you name Backup players. But then it's manual when it comes to substituting them in, etc. But it would make who they name as their backup a regular part of the lineup.

For Commissioners -> Starting LIneup Setup. At the bottom: In addition to the listed starters above, allow owners to submit: _____ "backup" players.

If you only allowed it for QBs, then set it to 1, put in a QB with your lineup. And of course write in your league rules when they would be used. Or you could, say, set it to 4 and then let each owner specify one QB, one RB, one WR, and one TE (though it wouldn't enforce the position limits). Or maybe you just have 3 backups with owner's choice what positions to set, and they only replace players of their own position or eligible flex, etc.

 
Had a league years ago that used an injury rule for QBs almost identical to that suggested by the OP. Pretty easy to figure out when players go out, especially the QBs, so it's not all that hard to use a rule like this.

Of course...some people will argue that this is what best ball leagues are for......
Or Team QB instead of a specific player.
Yeah, although sometimes team QB doesn't make sense (such as in dynasty leagues, where there's a lot of player movement in the offseason).

One possible compromise would be to have individual quarterbacks, but also have a rule that says if you start a QB and that QB starts a game for his team, you get all points scored by all QBs on that team for that specific game. For instance, if you own Vick and he leaves at halftime, you get all of Vick's points from the first half and Foles' points from the second half, but if Vick is still injured next week, you can't still start Philly's QB unless you also own Foles.

 
Adam Harstad said:
Hu-Tang Clan said:
renesauz said:
Had a league years ago that used an injury rule for QBs almost identical to that suggested by the OP. Pretty easy to figure out when players go out, especially the QBs, so it's not all that hard to use a rule like this.

Of course...some people will argue that this is what best ball leagues are for......
Or Team QB instead of a specific player.
Yeah, although sometimes team QB doesn't make sense (such as in dynasty leagues, where there's a lot of player movement in the offseason).

One possible compromise would be to have individual quarterbacks, but also have a rule that says if you start a QB and that QB starts a game for his team, you get all points scored by all QBs on that team for that specific game. For instance, if you own Vick and he leaves at halftime, you get all of Vick's points from the first half and Foles' points from the second half, but if Vick is still injured next week, you can't still start Philly's QB unless you also own Foles.
This is a good idea, but the problem happens at other positions too. I may lose a game today where I started Foster. I actually own Tate in that league. Using a sustitution rule, Tate would have been my no-brainer designated backup at RB.

 
Adam Harstad said:
Hu-Tang Clan said:
renesauz said:
Had a league years ago that used an injury rule for QBs almost identical to that suggested by the OP. Pretty easy to figure out when players go out, especially the QBs, so it's not all that hard to use a rule like this.

Of course...some people will argue that this is what best ball leagues are for......
Or Team QB instead of a specific player.
Yeah, although sometimes team QB doesn't make sense (such as in dynasty leagues, where there's a lot of player movement in the offseason).

One possible compromise would be to have individual quarterbacks, but also have a rule that says if you start a QB and that QB starts a game for his team, you get all points scored by all QBs on that team for that specific game. For instance, if you own Vick and he leaves at halftime, you get all of Vick's points from the first half and Foles' points from the second half, but if Vick is still injured next week, you can't still start Philly's QB unless you also own Foles.
This is a good idea, but the problem happens at other positions too. I may lose a game today where I started Foster. I actually own Tate in that league. Using a sustitution rule, Tate would have been my no-brainer designated backup at RB.
Not too much you can do about it at other positions. QB is unique because at any given time there's only one on the field per team, and there's only one per team that you'd consider starting. Makes it easy to use a "Team QB" position (or, as in my example, a de facto "team QB" to cover injuries).

Using your Foster/Tate example, what happens if Foster leaves at halftime. Do you get all of Tate's stats? What about the stats he accrued prior to halftime, when Foster was healthy? Would you go through by hand and calculate exactly how much of Tate's production occurred before and after Foster's injury? What if your backup wasn't Tate, but an RB in a completely different game, such as Woodhead?

For QB, there's an easy logistical solution. For RB, there's not, and WR is even worse, still. The one nice thing is that, since QB is typically the highest scoring position, it's also the position that would benefit the most from a "designated backup" rule.

 
So, I started, Jay Cutler, who got me -0.6 points before being knocked out from the game. I'm probably going to lose because it, and I'm not alone in that.

Anyway, it got me thinking about a rule for in-game injury substitution in fantasy football. Say, each team gets one injury replacement per week. The player must be injured in the first half and not return for the rest of the game. You have to put some sort of time limit on this, so in my league say you have until the processing of waivers on Wednesday at 10am to make your substitution.

There are a couple problems I see in this. First, MFL doesn't seem to have a way to automate this in the settings, so it would have to be handled by the commissioner outside the system. Second, I can't seem to find an official in-game injury report from the NFL for the current week's games. You would need to have some kind of officially agreed upon record that lists when a player is injured, at what point in the game and whether or not he returns. I don't know if that exists.

This would make fantasy football more like real sports, take out some of the luck factor and make the game more fun. Come to think of it, I also had Eddie Lacy get knocked out of the game on the first play a few weeks ago. Anyone do this in their league?
No.

#### happens.

Fantasy Football is rarely like real football anyway. Whether the player's team wins or loses doesn't matter one bit. Quarterbacks are one of the least important positions. The offensive line doesn't even exist. Entire team defenses have very little value. Players can gain points and be seen as performing well for a bad play that loses yards.

Sometimes you guys get hurt, and sometimes it's early in the game when it REALLY hurts.

That's the way the ball bounces.

 
Adam Harstad said:
Hu-Tang Clan said:
renesauz said:
Had a league years ago that used an injury rule for QBs almost identical to that suggested by the OP. Pretty easy to figure out when players go out, especially the QBs, so it's not all that hard to use a rule like this.

Of course...some people will argue that this is what best ball leagues are for......
Or Team QB instead of a specific player.
Yeah, although sometimes team QB doesn't make sense (such as in dynasty leagues, where there's a lot of player movement in the offseason).

One possible compromise would be to have individual quarterbacks, but also have a rule that says if you start a QB and that QB starts a game for his team, you get all points scored by all QBs on that team for that specific game. For instance, if you own Vick and he leaves at halftime, you get all of Vick's points from the first half and Foles' points from the second half, but if Vick is still injured next week, you can't still start Philly's QB unless you also own Foles.
This is a good idea, but the problem happens at other positions too. I may lose a game today where I started Foster. I actually own Tate in that league. Using a sustitution rule, Tate would have been my no-brainer designated backup at RB.
Not too much you can do about it at other positions. QB is unique because at any given time there's only one on the field per team, and there's only one per team that you'd consider starting. Makes it easy to use a "Team QB" position (or, as in my example, a de facto "team QB" to cover injuries).

Using your Foster/Tate example, what happens if Foster leaves at halftime. Do you get all of Tate's stats? What about the stats he accrued prior to halftime, when Foster was healthy? Would you go through by hand and calculate exactly how much of Tate's production occurred before and after Foster's injury? What if your backup wasn't Tate, but an RB in a completely different game, such as Woodhead?

For QB, there's an easy logistical solution. For RB, there's not, and WR is even worse, still. The one nice thing is that, since QB is typically the highest scoring position, it's also the position that would benefit the most from a "designated backup" rule.
You have to specify conditions in your rules. For the league I did this with QB's it was simple:

"If your starting QB left the game due to injury in the first half, and did not return to the game, the backup QB is automatically inserted in his place. The backup QBs stats will count, regardless of whether he outperforms the starter. Players who are listed on the NFL injury report are ineligible to have a backup designated."

IN other words....the backup gets his stats for his whole game, the guy who got hurt counts for nothing. It's a simple replacement, regardless of the actual points either one had scored.

That was almost 20 years ago, and I could use USA today pretty easily to figure out the injury subs. Would be MUCH easier today. With the way the NFL reports injuries now though, would probably change the injury report part to players listed as Questionable or worse on Fridays. The idea there being if you start a guy who is known to be gimpy with a groin pull, you've accepted that risk, and don't deserve to be bailed out. That's very different from losing your player to a concussion on the opening drive.

 
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So, I started, Jay Cutler, who got me -0.6 points before being knocked out from the game. I'm probably going to lose because it, and I'm not alone in that.

Anyway, it got me thinking about a rule for in-game injury substitution in fantasy football. Say, each team gets one injury replacement per week. The player must be injured in the first half and not return for the rest of the game. You have to put some sort of time limit on this, so in my league say you have until the processing of waivers on Wednesday at 10am to make your substitution.

There are a couple problems I see in this. First, MFL doesn't seem to have a way to automate this in the settings, so it would have to be handled by the commissioner outside the system. Second, I can't seem to find an official in-game injury report from the NFL for the current week's games. You would need to have some kind of officially agreed upon record that lists when a player is injured, at what point in the game and whether or not he returns. I don't know if that exists.

This would make fantasy football more like real sports, take out some of the luck factor and make the game more fun. Come to think of it, I also had Eddie Lacy get knocked out of the game on the first play a few weeks ago. Anyone do this in their league?
No.

#### happens.

Fantasy Football is rarely like real football anyway. Whether the player's team wins or loses doesn't matter one bit. Quarterbacks are one of the least important positions. The offensive line doesn't even exist. Entire team defenses have very little value. Players can gain points and be seen as performing well for a bad play that loses yards.

Sometimes you guys get hurt, and sometimes it's early in the game when it REALLY hurts.

That's the way the ball bounces.
Anything that can reduce the luck factor should be considered. And let's face it, losing a healthy player early in the game to a fluke injury is simply bad luck (or good luck when it's your opponent).

You might not like the idea, but the point is that it is possible to design an injury sub rule that works, yet still asks owners to submit a lineup.

 
Uhhhhhh... fantasy is 10% skill 90% luck. Some of the luck is good, like when your rb3 puts up Rb1 numbers. Some is bad, like when your qb goes down early. Just deal with it like the rest of us have been doing for years.

 
Agree nothing you can do about it. Besides some of the ideas thrown around in the thread, another is that your fantasy game is broken into halves. So you submit your lineup prior to kickoff and locks at 1:00. Then you have to start those guys for the first half but you can make any changes to your 2nd half lineup in case of an injury. So if your QB gets hurt, you can plug in another QB on your roster for their 2nd half stats as long as you have another fantays QB on your roster playing at that time. Maybe you can have a rule where you get the option of playing the real life backup QB of your starter if you dont have a fantasy QB that is playing at the same time.

Im grasping at straws i know but that would be a little realistic giving an owner some type of way to salvage something.

 
Yeah, people aren't going to like this idea but I'll throw it out there anyway: Designate 1 "Substitute" player from your bench at each position (or maybe only the QB position). You are allowed to take half the points from any substitute for any reason after the fact. Not ideal (or even close to ideal) but it acts as an easier way to use bench players in an emergency than complicated first half/second half calculations.

So, I started Foles yesterday and declared Dalton as my Substitute. I get half (rounded down to the nearest point or hundredth of a point, depending on your league scoring system) of Dalton's points because they exceed Foles' total.

EDIT: And you limit injury substitutions to 1 per week. So I am not also allowed to substitute Reed for Witten at TE and Helu for Morris at RB.

 
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renesauz said:
Adam Harstad said:
Had a league years ago that used an injury rule for QBs almost identical to that suggested by the OP. Pretty easy to figure out when players go out, especially the QBs, so it's not all that hard to use a rule like this.

Of course...some people will argue that this is what best ball leagues are for......
Or Team QB instead of a specific player.
Yeah, although sometimes team QB doesn't make sense (such as in dynasty leagues, where there's a lot of player movement in the offseason).

One possible compromise would be to have individual quarterbacks, but also have a rule that says if you start a QB and that QB starts a game for his team, you get all points scored by all QBs on that team for that specific game. For instance, if you own Vick and he leaves at halftime, you get all of Vick's points from the first half and Foles' points from the second half, but if Vick is still injured next week, you can't still start Philly's QB unless you also own Foles.
This is a good idea, but the problem happens at other positions too. I may lose a game today where I started Foster. I actually own Tate in that league. Using a sustitution rule, Tate would have been my no-brainer designated backup at RB.
Not too much you can do about it at other positions. QB is unique because at any given time there's only one on the field per team, and there's only one per team that you'd consider starting. Makes it easy to use a "Team QB" position (or, as in my example, a de facto "team QB" to cover injuries).

Using your Foster/Tate example, what happens if Foster leaves at halftime. Do you get all of Tate's stats? What about the stats he accrued prior to halftime, when Foster was healthy? Would you go through by hand and calculate exactly how much of Tate's production occurred before and after Foster's injury? What if your backup wasn't Tate, but an RB in a completely different game, such as Woodhead?

For QB, there's an easy logistical solution. For RB, there's not, and WR is even worse, still. The one nice thing is that, since QB is typically the highest scoring position, it's also the position that would benefit the most from a "designated backup" rule.
You have to specify conditions in your rules. For the league I did this with QB's it was simple:

"If your starting QB left the game due to injury in the first half, and did not return to the game, the backup QB is automatically inserted in his place. The backup QBs stats will count, regardless of whether he outperforms the starter. Players who are listed on the NFL injury report are ineligible to have a backup designated."

IN other words....the backup gets his stats for his whole game, the guy who got hurt counts for nothing. It's a simple replacement, regardless of the actual points either one had scored.

That was almost 20 years ago, and I could use USA today pretty easily to figure out the injury subs. Would be MUCH easier today. With the way the NFL reports injuries now though, would probably change the injury report part to players listed as Questionable or worse on Fridays. The idea there being if you start a guy who is known to be gimpy with a groin pull, you've accepted that risk, and don't deserve to be bailed out. That's very different from losing your player to a concussion on the opening drive.
So now people risk having their team lose/score fewer points, because they are forced to automatically substitute a backup in, even though the starter finishes the game with more fantasy points?

That sounds super duper.

 
renesauz said:
Anything that can reduce the luck factor should be considered. And let's face it, losing a healthy player early in the game to a fluke injury is simply bad luck (or good luck when it's your opponent).


You might not like the idea, but the point is that it is possible to design an injury sub rule that works, yet still asks owners to submit a lineup.
You want to reduce the luck factor?

1. Best ball. No starters and bench. Your best producers are counted. Simply hit the optimal lineup tab (yahoo has one, not sure on other sites) and that's your scoring lineup.

2. No head to head matchups. Too much variance and luck in how your opponent happens to do. Total points at the end of the season, or total points each week with the top 50% getting a W and the bottom 50% getting a loss.

3. Auction drafts only, no serpentine/snake drafts, too much luck in the draft positioning.

4. Deeper benches. This way you can have a built in backup for every position. Since it's best ball, just make sure you have more players at every position than can be scored, that way one guy getting hurt won't be counted against you, really.

 
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Zealots used to have a backup QB rule, allowing to score backup QB points if your starting QB left the game. It proved more trouble than it's worth, and was eventually removed.

For language where QB needs to leave due to injury, I think it's too vague. There are a lot of cases where a QB is banged up and not playing well, and it can be hard to tell if he left the game due to injury or performance.

 
These solutions all sound like big hassles under ideal circumstances, and if the commish is less than 100% diligent and on top of things they are going to create new problems.

Nobody ever posts the OP after winning because of such an injury.

 
renesauz said:
So, I started, Jay Cutler, who got me -0.6 points before being knocked out from the game. I'm probably going to lose because it, and I'm not alone in that.

Anyway, it got me thinking about a rule for in-game injury substitution in fantasy football. Say, each team gets one injury replacement per week. The player must be injured in the first half and not return for the rest of the game. You have to put some sort of time limit on this, so in my league say you have until the processing of waivers on Wednesday at 10am to make your substitution.

There are a couple problems I see in this. First, MFL doesn't seem to have a way to automate this in the settings, so it would have to be handled by the commissioner outside the system. Second, I can't seem to find an official in-game injury report from the NFL for the current week's games. You would need to have some kind of officially agreed upon record that lists when a player is injured, at what point in the game and whether or not he returns. I don't know if that exists.

This would make fantasy football more like real sports, take out some of the luck factor and make the game more fun. Come to think of it, I also had Eddie Lacy get knocked out of the game on the first play a few weeks ago. Anyone do this in their league?
No.

#### happens.

Fantasy Football is rarely like real football anyway. Whether the player's team wins or loses doesn't matter one bit. Quarterbacks are one of the least important positions. The offensive line doesn't even exist. Entire team defenses have very little value. Players can gain points and be seen as performing well for a bad play that loses yards.

Sometimes you guys get hurt, and sometimes it's early in the game when it REALLY hurts.

That's the way the ball bounces.
Anything that can reduce the luck factor should be considered. And let's face it, losing a healthy player early in the game to a fluke injury is simply bad luck (or good luck when it's your opponent).

You might not like the idea, but the point is that it is possible to design an injury sub rule that works, yet still asks owners to submit a lineup.
Why, so that whoever is best at running spreadsheets will win every week? Most of the fun of any game is the uncertainty in the outcome. If you could remove all the luck from fantasy football, you'd end up with a pretty boring game.

 
An idea I liked from another owner... Just elect a wr/rb/te as a substitute player. If you have an injury at qb/rb/wr/te allow the sub to be put in. Sure its nots perfect, but its simple. I'd rather take Edelmans 5-7 points instead Cutlers -.6 even if its not as good as a true backup qb point output. Adds a safety net while not being best ball and if you have multiple injuries much like a real team you're still likely to lose.

 
renesauz said:
Adam Harstad said:
Had a league years ago that used an injury rule for QBs almost identical to that suggested by the OP. Pretty easy to figure out when players go out, especially the QBs, so it's not all that hard to use a rule like this.

Of course...some people will argue that this is what best ball leagues are for......
Or Team QB instead of a specific player.
Yeah, although sometimes team QB doesn't make sense (such as in dynasty leagues, where there's a lot of player movement in the offseason).

One possible compromise would be to have individual quarterbacks, but also have a rule that says if you start a QB and that QB starts a game for his team, you get all points scored by all QBs on that team for that specific game. For instance, if you own Vick and he leaves at halftime, you get all of Vick's points from the first half and Foles' points from the second half, but if Vick is still injured next week, you can't still start Philly's QB unless you also own Foles.
This is a good idea, but the problem happens at other positions too. I may lose a game today where I started Foster. I actually own Tate in that league. Using a sustitution rule, Tate would have been my no-brainer designated backup at RB.
Not too much you can do about it at other positions. QB is unique because at any given time there's only one on the field per team, and there's only one per team that you'd consider starting. Makes it easy to use a "Team QB" position (or, as in my example, a de facto "team QB" to cover injuries).

Using your Foster/Tate example, what happens if Foster leaves at halftime. Do you get all of Tate's stats? What about the stats he accrued prior to halftime, when Foster was healthy? Would you go through by hand and calculate exactly how much of Tate's production occurred before and after Foster's injury? What if your backup wasn't Tate, but an RB in a completely different game, such as Woodhead?

For QB, there's an easy logistical solution. For RB, there's not, and WR is even worse, still. The one nice thing is that, since QB is typically the highest scoring position, it's also the position that would benefit the most from a "designated backup" rule.
You have to specify conditions in your rules. For the league I did this with QB's it was simple:

"If your starting QB left the game due to injury in the first half, and did not return to the game, the backup QB is automatically inserted in his place. The backup QBs stats will count, regardless of whether he outperforms the starter. Players who are listed on the NFL injury report are ineligible to have a backup designated."

IN other words....the backup gets his stats for his whole game, the guy who got hurt counts for nothing. It's a simple replacement, regardless of the actual points either one had scored.

That was almost 20 years ago, and I could use USA today pretty easily to figure out the injury subs. Would be MUCH easier today. With the way the NFL reports injuries now though, would probably change the injury report part to players listed as Questionable or worse on Fridays. The idea there being if you start a guy who is known to be gimpy with a groin pull, you've accepted that risk, and don't deserve to be bailed out. That's very different from losing your player to a concussion on the opening drive.
So now people risk having their team lose/score fewer points, because they are forced to automatically substitute a backup in, even though the starter finishes the game with more fantasy points?

That sounds super duper.
You're being a little obtuse here. If you don't have a viable backup, don't list one. Since it only applies to first half injuries, viable backups would outscore the starter 80% of the time anyway.

 
So, I started, Jay Cutler, who got me -0.6 points before being knocked out from the game. I'm probably going to lose because it, and I'm not alone in that.

Anyway, it got me thinking about a rule for in-game injury substitution in fantasy football. Say, each team gets one injury replacement per week. The player must be injured in the first half and not return for the rest of the game. You have to put some sort of time limit on this, so in my league say you have until the processing of waivers on Wednesday at 10am to make your substitution.

There are a couple problems I see in this. First, MFL doesn't seem to have a way to automate this in the settings, so it would have to be handled by the commissioner outside the system. Second, I can't seem to find an official in-game injury report from the NFL for the current week's games. You would need to have some kind of officially agreed upon record that lists when a player is injured, at what point in the game and whether or not he returns. I don't know if that exists.

This would make fantasy football more like real sports, take out some of the luck factor and make the game more fun. Come to think of it, I also had Eddie Lacy get knocked out of the game on the first play a few weeks ago. Anyone do this in their league?
No.

#### happens.

Fantasy Football is rarely like real football anyway. Whether the player's team wins or loses doesn't matter one bit. Quarterbacks are one of the least important positions. The offensive line doesn't even exist. Entire team defenses have very little value. Players can gain points and be seen as performing well for a bad play that loses yards.

Sometimes you guys get hurt, and sometimes it's early in the game when it REALLY hurts.

That's the way the ball bounces.
post of the thread.

 
All of these injuries are really hurting my enjoyment of the NFL, which is hurting my enjoyment of fantasy. Not even just with my players. I don't own Doug Martin but when I saw news of his injury I got really bummed out.

 
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I think the problem is commissioner headache. If there was a way to do it easily and automatically, I think many leagues would be more apt to do it.

Scoresheet Football (which I have one team in; the system has many flaws, like lineups locking on Thursday and only one waiver claim a week) has it setup so that backups automatically come in depending on position. For RB, fewer than 6 touches, and for everyone else (including IDP) if they generate no stats, regardless of their status in game. This has been very nice on occasion, especially since it lets you say, start Jimmy Graham this week but not be too upset if a game-time decision becomes a "sit". The backup automatically rolls in.

However, it also means teams occasionally get screwed, because sometimes players just don't perform. This week I lost to a team starting Bilal Powell at flex, because Powell had fewer than 6 touches...so his backup at flex was Michael Floyd, who scored many more points. I also once won a game where my opponent's WR caught a single pass in the last minute of play after zeroing out all game...and thus kept a much, much higher scoring player on the bench.

 
MFL has support as part of the normal starting lineup to let you name Backup players. But then it's manual when it comes to substituting them in, etc. But it would make who they name as their backup a regular part of the lineup.

For Commissioners -> Starting LIneup Setup. At the bottom: In addition to the listed starters above, allow owners to submit: _____ "backup" players.

If you only allowed it for QBs, then set it to 1, put in a QB with your lineup. And of course write in your league rules when they would be used. Or you could, say, set it to 4 and then let each owner specify one QB, one RB, one WR, and one TE (though it wouldn't enforce the position limits). Or maybe you just have 3 backups with owner's choice what positions to set, and they only replace players of their own position or eligible flex, etc.
My dynasty league has been doing this for years. It is set to 4 and owners designate 1 QB, 1 RB, 1 WR, and 1 TE. If a player doesn't play in the second half, the sub can be used. The onus is on them to inform the Commish when a substitution is required. The request must be made before the next waiver period. It also works for those players that aren't certain to play. Set your lineup beforehand and go have a nice Sunday, even if it doesn't involve every waking second watching football.

It isn't perfect but it works great and is easy to implement. It certainly makes more sense than the team not having the position filled for most of the game. Imagine watching the Bears without a QB for the rest of the game after Cutler went down.

 

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