If a trade is in question I think it's reasonable to ask owners to explain themselves. If they have legitimate arguments I think you've got to let it stand. One year I remember being the commish in a league where an owner traded away some high drafted player for some week one ww flash in the pan. I grilled them both as they're friends and it was suspicious. Anyhow, they had good reasons even if I disagreed so I let it stand. By the end of the season the ww flash in the pan turned out to be a stud.Pick some other shady tactic then, because that's just one example of some one circumventing the spirit of the rules by claiming "doing X" is not specifically against any rule so it should be fair game.
Maybe I can't stand "Joe" because he wins the league too much (and that jerk also churns the waiver wire every week), so I send an unsolicited offer of my DeAndre Hopkins and Todd Gurley to "Bob", who is playing Joe for the last playoff slot (I'm already eliminated), for his Rod Smith and Chris Hogan and Bob accepts. The rules state "no trades will be vetoed unless there is collusion" and there's a toilet bowl so teams not in the playoff chase can still make trades. The rules lawyer will argue there was no collusion therefore this trade MUST stand per the rules. Joe cries whines like a baby, even though he's ok with being a roster churner.
Now of course that's a more extreme example but my point is shady behavior begets shady behavior. There are hundreds of grey areas in any set of rules. A good commissioner will sometimes have to step in and try to reign in shady but technically legal behavior.
It seems we are going in circles here though - once again if something like this happened in one of my leagues, it's just not for me. If you see nothing wrong with it then that's fine as well.
Some leagues will not overturn a trade where someone accidently hit accept and notifies the commissioner right away, some leagues will. Different strokes and all that.
Excellent post. Could not agree more.Pick some other shady tactic then, because that's just one example of some one circumventing the spirit of the rules by claiming "doing X" is not specifically against any rule so it should be fair game.
Maybe I can't stand "Joe" because he wins the league too much (and that jerk also churns the waiver wire every week), so I send an unsolicited offer of my DeAndre Hopkins and Todd Gurley to "Bob", who is playing Joe for the last playoff slot (I'm already eliminated), for his Rod Smith and Chris Hogan and Bob accepts. The rules state "no trades will be vetoed unless there is collusion" and there's a toilet bowl so teams not in the playoff chase can still make trades. The rules lawyer will argue there was no collusion therefore this trade MUST stand per the rules. Joe cries whines like a baby, even though he's ok with being a roster churner.
Now of course that's a more extreme example but my point is shady behavior begets shady behavior. There are hundreds of grey areas in any set of rules. A good commissioner will sometimes have to step in and try to reign in shady but technically legal behavior.
It seems we are going in circles here though - once again if something like this happened in one of my leagues, it's just not for me. If you see nothing wrong with it then that's fine as well.
Some leagues will not overturn a trade where someone accidently hit accept and notifies the commissioner right away, some leagues will. Different strokes and all that.
There are two different situations here.This goes back to what people were talking about earlier in the thread. Maybe you try forcing an opponent into picking up a worse streaming option. Then they have a Trubisky vs Tampa blow up and now you've lost a backup all for nothing. Is it dumb to make this gamble for a few reasons? Sure. Is it unfair? I don't think so.
In both scenarios you're being unsportsmanlike by grabbing a player you have zero intention of starting with the sole purpose of keeping them from your opponent.There are two different situations here.
One is picking up a specific player to block someone from getting him. Nothing wrong with this. It is a strategy and has a purpose.
The second move is roster churning...picking up as many FA's as possible and rotating them to try and use up all the available players so someone can't get anybody. This is the unethical and problematic move that goes against the purpose of the FA system. This is the unethical play that is being identified as a problem.
Yes but you're actually KEEPING him.In both scenarios you're being unsportsmanlike by grabbing a player you have zero intention of starting with the sole purpose of keeping them from your opponent.
Disagree they are the same and unsportsmanlike. In one scenario you are picking up ONE player. The one you think is the best option and keeping him for the week to prevent that ONE player from being picked up. That is essentially why you pick up any player to add to your roster. You are always picking up players to prevent other teams from having them.In both scenarios you're being unsportsmanlike by grabbing a player you have zero intention of starting with the sole purpose of keeping them from your opponent.
In my league, we hold a waiver wire once a week prior to Thursday game during regular season and the waiver ranking is always reset after MNF to reflect the latest win/loss/tie standing. I had a few owners who complained about this rule but ultimately, my whole league likes this format and do not like "rushing to the keyboard" and make excessive FA pick-ups.I don't want to get into my league specifics with the players or anything, but let's say there's an owner in your league who is short a certain position as they're hoarding some of these recent injury situations and waiting for clarity until later in the week. An owner who is in his division but not actually playing him this week is picking up and dropping players at that missing position off the ww before Sunday with the sole purpose of 'locking' them into a waiver period and ultimately leaving the first owner without any players to pick up and he will be forced to take a goose egg in what should be a very close matchup.
I think it's an interesting strategy but I admittedly question the sportsmanship of it. (Note I am neither team in this scenario and it largely leaves me unaffected). What are people's thoughts on stuff like this? If you're a fan, what other tactics are there that you implement?
As former commish in dynasty PPR league, I can attest this experience. Because of some people's cleverly exploitation of loopholes, we had to make several rule changes to close them in the following off-season activities. Unfortunately, this sometime caused a several turnover in owners.My second biggest pet peeve as a commish is teams purposely trying to circumvent the intent of a rule because of some loophole that wasn't specifically identified when the rules were being created. I don't mind being creative to find advantages (exploiting a scoring rule for example) but I can't stand owners that know an intent of the rule and find a way to go around the intention of the rule to gain advantages. Typically it only happens once and then the loophole is closed but the fact someone is trying to go around a rule when they know the purpose of it is very frustrating as a commish.
The biggest pet peeve is not paying the franchise fees on time.
I do not like this option. As commish I love it when the team owners are fighting and clawing for each little advantage they can get. At this point in my league things are so competitive that people pick up players (especially rbs) when there is even a hint that they might have value. Heck several years ago when there was word that a rb was about to be brought in for a tryout by detriot ( kevin Johnson maybe ?) I picked him up on a flyer and he ended up blowing up for a couple of weeks. You dont get that level of participation with roster move limits.We have weekly and season long roster change limits to prevent this type of thing on a large scale. But even then you get situations you can't predict.
We had a situation like this last year in my 16-team league. Guy made a trade and then 2 days after the Zeke Elliot suspension came down he wanted it reversed, turned out he was drunk when making the deal. Long story short, he was mad at me and when I needed a Bye week QB that week, he cycled all of his roster moves to blank out all the FA QBs. Needless to say I had to undo all the moves, reset their status, and then kick his ### out of the league.
There's a massive difference in the two. Doing something just to hurt another team should be against the rules.I strongly disagree with you guys, but to each their own. I agree it's important to ensure everyone has a fair and reasonable opportunity to grab players. I think insta-churn is awful and bs.
But beyond that? If that criteria has been met then it's fair game, imo, and I think people are trying to draw a distinction when there's no real difference between holding a guy all week or a day, as both are done with the sole purpose of improving your odds of making an opponent lose.
Yes I often find it funny how people start threads looking for "impartial opinions" because they have "an open mind and want some other thoughts on it", but then argue against everyone (usually the majority) who doesn't see it their way. Usually it's Lonestar who is doing that lately.Why are you doing this? You're obviously here looking for people who side with you.
I think most of the disagreement here is based on the fact that something can be "fair" but yet "unethical". You may be right that the act of churning rosters is not "unfair". Anyone can do it and if your league doesn't have a specific rule against it then it is "fair" to do. However, just because something is fair doesn't mean it is the proper thing to do.Cool, ignore that first part but feel free to address any of the second part which you've just angrily dismissed twice now. It kind of feels like you're making my point. It just makes us angry and we don't care to discuss how it's actually unfair, because when we start to explore the details it's hard to defend it as actually being unfair. Because it isn't. It's just breaking traditions, but unconventional doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong or bad. I went through the same thing at first so I understand where you're coming from.
Perfectly said.I think most of the disagreement here is based on the fact that something can be "fair" but yet "unethical". You may be right that the act of churning rosters is not "unfair". Anyone can do it and if your league doesn't have a specific rule against it then it is "fair" to do. However, just because something is fair doesn't mean it is the proper thing to do.
Most people that are opposing your view are opposing it based on ethics. Churning rosters for the purpose of preventing people from having an opportunity to sign a needed free agent is unethical. I would not want to play in leagues that allow this to take place whether it is written or unwritten in the rules.
to me it goes beyond ethics. If churning is allowed you effectively require a team to roster both a kicker and a defense (and a qb for that matter) by the time the waiver wire has run. So you have a kicker or defense on a bye week yup there goes your waiver wire priority (even if you are sitting in spot 1) Other option is to take a zero or make sure you are at the computer when FCFS opens (ours is at 4am) contrast that with having a sensible no churning rule in place where people can play matchups with their kickers and defenses (and in some cases qbs) all because some jackhole locks every kicker and defense (and any other players he so chooses) just because there isnt a written rule. disclaimer.....the above is the SIMPLEST reason why churning isnt allowed. It could be used by any player for any reason and would absolutely ruin the game.I think most of the disagreement here is based on the fact that something can be "fair" but yet "unethical". You may be right that the act of churning rosters is not "unfair". Anyone can do it and if your league doesn't have a specific rule against it then it is "fair" to do. However, just because something is fair doesn't mean it is the proper thing to do.
Most people that are opposing your view are opposing it based on ethics. Churning rosters for the purpose of preventing people from having an opportunity to sign a needed free agent is unethical. I would not want to play in leagues that allow this to take place whether it is written or unwritten in the rules.
That's a perfectly reasonable rule. But if there's no rule, fair game?
I didn’t read the entire thread, but this. If you pick up a player off the waiver wire, and you cut him before his next game kicks off, he’s a free agent and is able to be picked up by any other owner. No waiver period involved.We have rules dedicated to prevent this type of roster churning.
Its a dirt bag move... Not sure why you can't differentiate between low class and poor sportsmanship. They go hand in hand.Exactly. This is why I'm not understanding the criticisms of it being low class (though I myself even questioned the sportsmanship of it). If the players are all available to everyone, what's the problem? Both owners made a decision they felt was going to be in their best interest to improve their chances of making the playoffs. They aren't colluding.
Thread title is "messing with your opponents"... and the question still has to be asked...Yes I often find it funny how people start threads looking for "impartial opinions" because they have "an open mind and want some other thoughts on it", but then argue against everyone (usually the majority) who doesn't see it their way. Usually it's Lonestar who is doing that lately.