Rules to allow backups (1 Viewer)

[GregR_2]

I was hoping to make use of MFL's option to allow backup players. The website's feature just has the website allow you to specify a number of players as backups when setting a lineup. It is then up to the league to define offline what the criteria are for a backup being used, determine if they are met, and for the commish to manually change the lineup and recalculate the results accordingly.

I'm fine with all that, but I thought up some abuse for the feature and was wondering if anyone else has been down this road and has suggestions on how to craft rules to use the feature without allowing the abuse. First, it's important to note that players can be moved in and out of our lineups until their own game starts, at which point they are locked either in or out. The way I was looking to use the backup is that the backup only scores if the starter got a DNP (did not play) or was marked as Inactive in the NFL.com Gamebook.

So here's the situation. You have a backup in an early game, and starters in a late game. The backup RB goes off for 200 yards and 5 TDs, but the starters haven't played yet. The website would allow you to go switch out one of your starters for another late game player who is out or doubtful or otherwise is more likely to meet the criteria by which the backup would be used, in the hopes to get the points from the backup whose results you already know.

The same issue is there of course if the backup does absolutely nothing. Rather than gamble on your injured starter who was doubtful figuring your backup would cover well if he sat out, maybe you remove him and stick in a RB you wouldn't have otherwise played since he's likely to play and can't do worse than the backup who faltered.

I think the ability to change your lineup for players whose game hasn't started is more important than having backups, so I don't want to just disable that option. I prefer not to restrict people from changing starters just because the backup has played already, both because I think owners should have that flexibility, and because I don't want to have to comb the transaction logs each week to see if anyone did just that.

Anyone have any ideas how to implement backups without hitting this kind of problem? While I don't necessarily think my owners will use this kind of loophole, I have thought that before of people and been thoroughly disappointed by the reality.

 

[MarcO]

good grief. why level the playing field for owners who aren't paying attention? I could see having a backup for a player that gets injured during the game and cannot continue but not for 50/50 game time decision injuries - that is why you draft a deep team and have a bench.

 

[GregR_2]

good grief. why level the playing field for owners who aren't paying attention? I could see having a backup for a player that gets injured during the game and cannot continue but not for 50/50 game time decision injuries - that is why you draft a deep team and have a bench.

Actually what you said is the exact opposite of the reason to have them. We're not looking to cover everyone whose player may be injured. Everyone is at the same risk there.What we're looking to do is to not require everyone to have to sit at a computer 5 minutes before kickoff so they can find out who is playing and isn't, just in order to have a level playing field. 1/3 of our league or more frequently attend NFL games and don't have access to last minute info. Even moreso, the guys from the league tailgate together and that's the kind of thing we want to encourage, not discourage. Other people travel on weekends and may not have computer access during the time that news comes out.The reason for having backups like this is exactly analogous to why leagues queue up waivers during NFL games instead of having FCFS waivers during the games. I don't know about you, but I don't want a key part of success in a league to be based on who has the least amount of life to be able to sit at a computer while games are underway so they can immediately grab players whose value increases due to injuries or how the game is unfolding. We want everyone to have a reasonable chance at the info before transactions are made.Since we can't queue up lineup decisions with gametime decisions coming at the last minute, this is a way to accomplish the same goal of not making your ability to sit online at the right 10 minutes of the week, be a major factor in success.

 

[RandyDB]

Best ball. No need to tweak your line-ups at the last minute.

Instead of submitting starting lineups, starting lineups are automatically determined by the system based on the best-scoring players on a franchise roster?

No

Yes

 

[rjduncan19]

What we're looking to do is to not require everyone to have to sit at a computer 5 minutes before kickoff so they can find out who is playing and isn't, just in order to have a level playing field. 1/3 of our league or more frequently attend NFL games and don't have access to last minute info. Even moreso, the guys from the league tailgate together and that's the kind of thing we want to encourage, not discourage. Other people travel on weekends and may not have computer access during the time that news comes out....Since we can't queue up lineup decisions with gametime decisions coming at the last minute, this is a way to accomplish the same goal of not making your ability to sit online at the right 10 minutes of the week, be a major factor in success.

You could just change your league rules to more survival style -- just automatically give people points for the highest 2 running backs, highest QB, etc.[rest of ideas will assume you start 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 DST, 1 PK].Or give the owners some level of choice -- e.g. you have 5 running backs on a roster, but you can select 3 of them to be considered for 2 spots. Or introduce a flex position, but only count that flex position if he outscores the 3 in his position. This allows for 1 "backup" player across the 3 positions most prone to game time decisions (who really cares if a kicker is a game time decision, just get a new one).E.g. I have Brian Westbrook as my RB1 (and spend a lot of time praying). My RB2 is Cedric Bensen. Week 2 he is a gametime decision, so I set my flex player to be Corel Buckhalter. I get the highest two points of Westbrook, Bensen, and Buckhalter.Some other team has Randy Moss who still has a bum hammy in week 5, so he uses the flex position to play other WR.Anything too complicated will have loopholes. Unless you are playing for serious cash just simplify.

 

[Mungo Burrows]

First of all: Yes, people will abuse that loophole if you don't close it. All season long.

I don't see how you close that loophole unless you explicitly restrict changing the starter after the backup's game occurs if you want to use the backup's score . If you change the starter after the backup's game has started, it invalidates the backup. I can't think of any other way to do it. You are free to change the starter all the way up to kickoff, it just means you can't rely on the backup if you do it after the BU's kickoff. That's tantamount to making the BU a starter after his game starts because you can always stick in an inactive player.

Owners must submit their request to the commish to use the backup's score along with a copy of their transaction report to show they did not change the starter after the backup played. Of course you will have to verify it yourself to make sure they didn't somehow fudge the report, but in a good league it should be enough deterrent to prevent someone from trying to sneak one past you.

Edit to add: At some point, someone may realize that they could always put an inactive player in their lineup during the week and leave him in until the backup played, and then decide whether to keep the BU score (by keeping the inactive player in the lineup) or roll the dice with their regular starter, but just let people know they will not be welcome back in the league if they try that kind of junk.

 

[LAUNCH]

In the league I am the commish for we have an injury provision. If the player is questionable or doubtful you can call in a backup player. If the starter records a stat he is locked in otherwise it goes to the backup player. We have our lineups set at 12:00pm on Sunday, but with this flexibility there is no real worry about the Shannahan's of the world causing you to miss a RB because Mort reported it wrong.

LAUNCH

 

[rawdog]

We have the same rule as Launch, but don't even bother with the injury report. We start 2 QB, 3 RB, 4 WR, 1 TE and each week you can earmark 3 of them, regardless of injury status, as replacebale if they do not play (gamebooks on NFL.com is the criteria). The catch is you have to declare wh othe backup is for each of these earmarked players. So, for example, on the message board, an owner would post: Kitna (Losman backup), Portis (Betts backup), Chambers (Bruce backup).

It's a fantastic rule, b/c you can actually have a life Sunday morning, plus, and more importantly, if Mike Holmgren doesn't know 32 hours from Monday Night Football whether Shaun Alexander is playing, how can you?

Out of the 10 owners in our my league, 9 love it, one guy hates it (ironically enough, he's the one guy who's actually won a game on it, when Tiki got Jacobs subbed in for him in '05).

 

[SSOG]

I think the ability to change your lineup for players whose game hasn't started is more important than having backups, so I don't want to just disable that option. I prefer not to restrict people from changing starters just because the backup has played already, both because I think owners should have that flexibility, and because I don't want to have to comb the transaction logs each week to see if anyone did just that.

If you have conditional lineups, then there's absolutely no reason why people need to change their starters after the morning-game kickoffs. The only reason I can think of why someone would want to change their lineup between the morning games and the afternoon games is because of an injury concern. Since backups eliminate injury concerns, that's no longer an issue. Lock all rosters as soon as the first game kicks off on Monday. The loophole will still exist if the conditional guy plays on Thursday or Saturday while the guy he's backing up plays on Sunday, but that's such a limited situation that I'd just leave it. Besides, it should be pretty easy to manually check in those limited situations to see if there are any shenanigans, which lets you write out a rule specifically stating that if you set a conditional lineup the starter becomes locked at the same time as the backup.

 

[Dt's Mules]

1st - I hate the backup player rule. If you have depth on your team, you should be able to avoid these situations altogether...but a league I'm in has it.

Here is our rule:

Basically, the rule will be (if passed) that if you use the reserve option, the starters protected by the reserve player and the reserve player are frozen (can't be changed) with the kickoff of the earliest involved player. So if the reserve plays on Thursday and the starter on Sunday, both are frozen at the Thursday kickoff. To add some flexibility to this, you will be able to decide how many of the starters are protected by the reserve player (you can pick all three starting WRs, or just one or two of them). Depending on schedules, you may want to limit who is protected by the reserve in order to avoid having to make the roster decision so early.

and is the MFL you are talking about: myfantasyleague?

 

[GregR_2]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I think the combination of allowing the backups to backup either everyone or just a subset of players at the position, combined with locking backups and associated starters as soon as any of them start their game, will probably work.

More work for me in checking the transaction logs, but I'll put the burden on the owners to verify their own games. I'll probably add in some sort of penalty for any teams found to have violated the rule even if it isn't found out until after the fantasy game's result was final, so there is less incentive to try to get away with it.

 

[TinHat]

if the starter plays you get his numbers

if he doesn't play, you get the backup's stats

all lineups due at kickoff of the first game

simple, easy and accomplishes the goal

...and it's more like real football

 

[videoguy505]

, that's kind of what I've done in the past.

Assign each position a backup (1 RB for both starting RBs, 1 backup QB, etc). If the "starter" doesn't play, or does but scores 0-2 FP due to in-game injury, sub in the backup, and get half the backup's points.

This allows for someone who gets injured in the beginning of a game to be subbed for as well, while still not being "best ball". If McNabb goes down on the first series, Andy Reid doesn't have to play the rest of the game with only 10 guys on the field.