Rules Help! Please (1 Viewer)

[Bolitar]

Please excuse the desperate nature of the title.

In the league I am the commissioner of we are having a problem. Our rules state that the Defense gets points based on the points scored against the defense. I think it has always been assumed that means if an Int or Fumble is returned for a TD, it does not go against the Defensive team.

However, years ago when I put the info into the website (Fanball), apparently I did not differentiate between All points allowed and Defense points allowed.

Now, one of the semifinal games came down to the Eagles D. He was down by 23. The Eagles D scored 16. He checked it out, and it should have been 23 based on the D only giving up 4 points rather than 10 (Int returned for Cle). He would have won,

My problem is this - Nobody (how I do not know!?) has ever noticed this before. In the past 3 seasons it has occurred 25 times (once to me in huge blowout - so I wouldn't have cared anyway). I always start the season's first week by telling people to check the scores and let me know if anything is incorrect.

I am leaning towards saying "no change in the score". It has been done this way (though wrong) for 3 years, can't change now. It will be cleared up for next year though.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. I have to make a decision soon.

Thanks

 

[bigums]

I think you already have the right idea. Regardless of what the printed rules say, you've played under a set of rules all season that counted all points. Change it in the offseason.

 

[houndirish]

You can't change the rules now simply because someone noticed a loophole that has gone undetected or ignored in league history. As mentioned, fix it in the offseason but don't overturn your scoring system because an owner decided to do an audit. Unless of course you want every score of every week in the past also challenged.

 

[beavers]

The exact same thing happened in my league that I commish. I set up defensive TD's and special team TD's to get 6 pts. What happens is when a special team scores a TD, it's counted 2x. The owner against the Pats def almost lost because of it. I noticed it in week 4 and it was too late to change.

Sometimes it benefits you and sometimes it doesn't. I say keep as is and change next year. Everyone had the opportunity to read the rules at the beginning of the year.

 

[Marked]

After further review, the play (score) stands as called.

Fix it for next year.

 

[puckalicious]

You can't change the rules now simply because someone noticed a loophole that has gone undetected or ignored in league history. As mentioned, fix it in the offseason but don't overturn your scoring system because an owner decided to do an audit. Unless of course you want every score of every week in the past also challenged.

If you are going to change it for this week, you have to go back and change every score for the last 3 years and re-do past playoff seeding and winners/losers too.

 

[PosterNutBag]

I agree ... change it in the future, but the way the league has been administered before this week needs to stay the same.

 

[tones]

So the owner reported the scoring problem to you as he/she was instructed at the beginning of the season. The rules state the following "Our rules state that the Defense gets points based on the points scored against the defense". That seems pretty specific to me that the owner is correct regardless of your assumptions - that may or may not be just you. I hate to open a can of worms for all the past incidents but ALL OF THE OTHER OWNERS had the same chance to read and report a scoring problem and they didn't. Why penalize this owner for YOUR assumptions?

I'd change it or at least put it to a vote for all the other teams not involved in the game.

 

[Flipper Rules]

So you have a rule in place that you are going to ignore because everyone else has ignorned up until now?

The guy who has his score wrong has every right to ask that the scoring be calculated the way your rules say.

Obviously you can't go backwards, especially into prior seasons. But this is the current week, and his complaint is legitimate. Teams with incorrect scoring in the earlier part of the season missed the boat when they had their chance. I'd say once a week is in the books, then it's in the books. But that's not the case here.

 

[Phurfur]

Please excuse the desperate nature of the title.

In the league I am the commissioner of we are having a problem. Our rules state that the Defense gets points based on the points scored against the defense. I think it has always been assumed that means if an Int or Fumble is returned for a TD, it does not go against the Defensive team.

However, years ago when I put the info into the website (Fanball), apparently I did not differentiate between All points allowed and Defense points allowed.

Now, one of the semifinal games came down to the Eagles D. He was down by 23. The Eagles D scored 16. He checked it out, and it should have been 23 based on the D only giving up 4 points rather than 10 (Int returned for Cle). He would have won,

My problem is this - Nobody (how I do not know!?) has ever noticed this before. In the past 3 seasons it has occurred 25 times (once to me in huge blowout - so I wouldn't have cared anyway). I always start the season's first week by telling people to check the scores and let me know if anything is incorrect.

I am leaning towards saying "no change in the score". It has been done this way (though wrong) for 3 years, can't change now. It will be cleared up for next year though.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. I have to make a decision soon.

Thanks

Rules are rules! If you don't follow them they are useless.

 

[dirty_martini]

No real opinion on the situation at hand. Damned if you do and damned if you don't at this point. Couple of things to keep in mind for the off season rewrite. Are punt returns, blocked FG returns, Kickoff returns scores against the Defense? How about fake punts or fake FGs that result in TDs? Do you have an all scores are final at XX time regardless of any changes to the official scoring after that deadline? Do you specify which stats are considered official? And if I may, I recommend you keep it simple on this and change the rule to points scored against team.

 

[Kruppe]

Your league scoring rules are available for all to see. So you have a written rule that says one thing and your league scoring rules which say something different. These 2 rules contradict each other. In this case you should continue scoring based on the way you have been scoring for the past 3 years and fix your problem in the offseason.

For those who say it's a rule - the scoring is set up based on rules that have been in place for 3 years and not contradicted before. What makes one rule more valid than the other? I would say the rule that has been in use for the past 3 years superceeds the rule that was written but never enforced.

 

[Black]

I think you leave it, since retroactively changing rules stinks.

You (and everyone) should definitely have a rule 'summary' in your league rules, but have a caveat stating that the rules are set by your <online provider> and that those rules remain fixed during the regular season (and that the owners should review them for correct-ness prior to kickoff week 1).

 

[renesauz]

So you have a rule in place that you are going to ignore because everyone else has ignorned up until now?

The guy who has his score wrong has every right to ask that the scoring be calculated the way your rules say.

Obviously you can't go backwards, especially into prior seasons. But this is the current week, and his complaint is legitimate. Teams with incorrect scoring in the earlier part of the season missed the boat when they had their chance. I'd say once a week is in the books, then it's in the books. But that's not the case here.

MOst leagues have a rule stating that scores are final at some point BEFORE the following weeks games. To correct this score in no way puts you on the hook for anything that came before it (right or wrong).

Most guys here are saying to go with what the website scored. I disagree strongly. You have written rules and bylaws for a reason. WRITTEN RULES SHOULD ALWAYS, I REPEAT, ALWAYS, TAKE PRECEDANCE OVER AUTOMATED SCORING SYSTEMS.

The fact that nobody ever noticed before is immaterial...it's their own fault if they had a W or L in that time for not paying attention and bringing it to your attention.

In your initial writeup, you made it clear what the intent of the scoring rules was (not to punish the DSt scoreing because of fumble/interception returns). So...not only do have a written rule dictating scoring, but the intent of that rule has been clear (presumably to more then just you, or the guy would never have complained!)

Go with your rules...fix the scoring. The guy who then loses has no legit gripe because it's in the rules. If you don't fix the score...the other guy has an even bigger gripe. If you have something in your rules about when scores become official....nobody else can gripe either.

 

[renesauz]

Your league scoring rules are available for all to see. So you have a written rule that says one thing and your league scoring rules which say something different. These 2 rules contradict each other. In this case you should continue scoring based on the way you have been scoring for the past 3 years and fix your problem in the offseason. For those who say it's a rule - the scoring is set up based on rules that have been in place for 3 years and not contradicted before. What makes one rule more valid than the other? I would say the rule that has been in use for the past 3 years superceeds the rule that was written but never enforced.

But the settings for automated scoring do NOT constitute a "rule". They are just settings for a cpomputer which were clearly inputed wrong. I think this is where a lot of posters in this thread are messing up....and it goes straight to the heart of the problem. Put it this way...say on week 1 the settings were for 60pts/Td...would you leave it alone then too?The written rules are there for a reason...and the written rules ALWAYS take precedance over automated scoring systems. Whether the mistake is found year 1 week 1, or in year 3 week 15 is immaterial.

 

[Bolitar]

Thanks to everybody who posted an opinion. I have been reading these and going back and forth myself.

In the end, I may have been convinced to change the score the way it is supposed to be according to rules. It is in the books this way. I inputted it wrong at the site.

The player with the mistaken score let me know the problem within minutes after the game was over, easily within any deadlines for making changes (our league does not have a written one - go by when the website makes an update - about 10 am Tuesday morning).

 

[Phurfur]

Your league scoring rules are available for all to see. So you have a written rule that says one thing and your league scoring rules which say something different. These 2 rules contradict each other. In this case you should continue scoring based on the way you have been scoring for the past 3 years and fix your problem in the offseason. For those who say it's a rule - the scoring is set up based on rules that have been in place for 3 years and not contradicted before. What makes one rule more valid than the other? I would say the rule that has been in use for the past 3 years superceeds the rule that was written but never enforced.

and once a rule is not enforced, other rules do not have to be enforced. The league rules have priority over any web site settings unless the rules refer to the website for scoring rules.

 

[daveR]

Thanks to everybody who posted an opinion. I have been reading these and going back and forth myself.In the end, I may have been convinced to change the score the way it is supposed to be according to rules. It is in the books this way. I inputted it wrong at the site. The player with the mistaken score let me know the problem within minutes after the game was over, easily within any deadlines for making changes (our league does not have a written one - go by when the website makes an update - about 10 am Tuesday morning).

Don't do it. Wait until the season is over. It's been three years; precedence has been set.

 

[Kruppe]

You can call it website settings if you want but in the leagues I play in these settings can be looked at by anybody in the league and they find them under the heading "Rules". I do not dispute that there is a contradiction between these 2 rules but to say 1 is a rule and the other is not is playing semantics. The scoring rules have been in place and visible to all for 3 years. It may or may not be something that was incorrectly entered by the commish 3 years ago but to say that after 3 years it is all of a sudden not a rule is something I would have a problem with.

The wording in the OP implies that the written rule may not be as clear as it is being made out to be ("I think it has always been assumed that means...")and that is even further reason to stick with the status quo and not change the score. I can tell you from my experience as a commish that if the written rule was clearly stated and the scoring rule was wrong I would hear about it fast -there's no way it would last 3 years before I caught it or it was brought to my attention.

 

[renesauz]

Thanks to everybody who posted an opinion. I have been reading these and going back and forth myself.In the end, I may have been convinced to change the score the way it is supposed to be according to rules. It is in the books this way. I inputted it wrong at the site. The player with the mistaken score let me know the problem within minutes after the game was over, easily within any deadlines for making changes (our league does not have a written one - go by when the website makes an update - about 10 am Tuesday morning).

Don't do it. Wait until the season is over. It's been three years; precedence has been set.

There is no precedent. Precedence can only be set when a ruling is rendered. Just because nobody noticed before doesn't set ANY kind of precedent.

 

[Futeki]

So you have a rule in place that you are going to ignore because everyone else has ignorned up until now?

The guy who has his score wrong has every right to ask that the scoring be calculated the way your rules say.

Obviously you can't go backwards, especially into prior seasons. But this is the current week, and his complaint is legitimate. Teams with incorrect scoring in the earlier part of the season missed the boat when they had their chance. I'd say once a week is in the books, then it's in the books. But that's not the case here.

MOst leagues have a rule stating that scores are final at some point BEFORE the following weeks games. To correct this score in no way puts you on the hook for anything that came before it (right or wrong).

Most guys here are saying to go with what the website scored. I disagree strongly. You have written rules and bylaws for a reason. WRITTEN RULES SHOULD ALWAYS, I REPEAT, ALWAYS, TAKE PRECEDANCE OVER AUTOMATED SCORING SYSTEMS.

The fact that nobody ever noticed before is immaterial...it's their own fault if they had a W or L in that time for not paying attention and bringing it to your attention.

In your initial writeup, you made it clear what the intent of the scoring rules was (not to punish the DSt scoreing because of fumble/interception returns). So...not only do have a written rule dictating scoring, but the intent of that rule has been clear (presumably to more then just you, or the guy would never have complained!)

Go with your rules...fix the scoring. The guy who then loses has no legit gripe because it's in the rules. If you don't fix the score...the other guy has an even bigger gripe. If you have something in your rules about when scores become official....nobody else can gripe either.

A perfect response.

 

[Phurfur]

Thanks to everybody who posted an opinion. I have been reading these and going back and forth myself.

In the end, I may have been convinced to change the score the way it is supposed to be according to rules. It is in the books this way. I inputted it wrong at the site.

The player with the mistaken score let me know the problem within minutes after the game was over, easily within any deadlines for making changes (our league does not have a written one - go by when the website makes an update - about 10 am Tuesday morning).

Don't do it. Wait until the season is over. It's been three years; precedence has been set.

So you will then set a precedent of not enforcing your rules. I disagree anyway this is the first time it was brought up there is no precedent here. If something is done wrong for 3 years it doesn't make it right.

 

[Great White Hope]

The score should be changed to what your written rules say.

 

[ravnzfan]

1st...no matter how hard we try to cover everything, there will always be an instance where some how, some way, a play is or isn't scored the intended way we've set our rules up for

I always refer back to..."what was our intent"...when I set the rules up, and then let common sence prevail on where we go w/the situation

to have let a wrong go unchanged when no one has asked about it does not set that as "the way" we should handle a problem that has been brought to our attention

the intent has all along been to score "points against the defense"...not "total score against"

to take it to the extreme...

what if we somehow went thru the whole season w/o noticing TD's were being scored 5, instead of 6...

w/in minutes of the game being final, an owner email you and says "hey, funny thing---TD's were only scoring @5, intead of 6....fix this and I win, as it is now, I lose"

it's the same thing

obviously less chance of the "what if" senario to play out, but had it---the intent all along was to score TD's @6, so you'd fix it (your mistake when inputing scoring)

after all, it doesn't change a bad outcome when you don't fix such an error----you'd actually be allowing the wrong outcome by not fixing the problem