ghostguy123
Footballguy
Well of course it is not allowed currently.
I am wondering peoples thoughts on this type of addition to the rules.
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Commissioner Collusion - what say you? - Update - I’m playing the sketchy commish in the semi’s and Thomas is out (4 Viewers)
- Thread starter Judge Smails
- Start date
I am wondering peoples thoughts on this type of addition to the rules.
ratbast
Footballguy
I’ve stepped back and looked at it with an open mind. I understand the view point of the OP. However I really feel this was handled terribly by whomever cared to push it.
I suspect the sum of money was the factor. Is the commish a bad commish? Did he have similar gaffes in the past? If not this whole collusion calling out kind of ruins a good thing.
I have often considered presenting this promise exactly as this happened when I was trying to trade with an owner I was soon to play. I never considered that it would matter. But I do understand how it is viewed as collusion now. I have never been accused of colluding in over 25 years x2 leagues and 2 tenures as commissioner.
Simply put, it could have happened to me. So, and this is important, how was the accusation presented and how did the lie happen? Could the owners have talked prior to the investigation? Knowing that it was happening? I can see lying to avoid the drama.
So, could this possibly be just a simple “I didn’t know” and with a mob at their doorstep they tried to lie which in turn makes it seem like they knew it was wrong but really didn’t?
If this is a bunch of friends I’m sorry for you guys. Doesn’t seem like fun at all. Too big a pot maybe. We rule stuff like this with peer pressure but we play mostly keeper/dynasty. A bad trade gets ridiculed for years.
Good luck.
I suspect the sum of money was the factor. Is the commish a bad commish? Did he have similar gaffes in the past? If not this whole collusion calling out kind of ruins a good thing.
I have often considered presenting this promise exactly as this happened when I was trying to trade with an owner I was soon to play. I never considered that it would matter. But I do understand how it is viewed as collusion now. I have never been accused of colluding in over 25 years x2 leagues and 2 tenures as commissioner.
Simply put, it could have happened to me. So, and this is important, how was the accusation presented and how did the lie happen? Could the owners have talked prior to the investigation? Knowing that it was happening? I can see lying to avoid the drama.
So, could this possibly be just a simple “I didn’t know” and with a mob at their doorstep they tried to lie which in turn makes it seem like they knew it was wrong but really didn’t?
If this is a bunch of friends I’m sorry for you guys. Doesn’t seem like fun at all. Too big a pot maybe. We rule stuff like this with peer pressure but we play mostly keeper/dynasty. A bad trade gets ridiculed for years.
Good luck.
LOL. It's the most relevant fact in this case. Literally the single most important piece of information. It's the smoking gun that proves the guy agreed to tank the week to push the deal through.
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wlwiles
Footballguy
Please stop saying the guy tanked. Starting one player with a lower projection than another isn’t tanking. The guy didn’t bench Mahomes for Rypien, Kamara for Ballage, and Kelce for Dan Arnold all at once. He made one move, and it was never stated that he intended to hand his opponent an easy win.
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wlwiles
Footballguy
So if you’re projected to lose by 15 points and you sit a guy who should have a safe 7 pt floor for a guy with a 20 point ceiling but he ends up scoring 2, did you tank?
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Judge Smails
Footballguy
I really appreciate this take. I don’t know if they were caught off guard, but they (especially the commish) immediately dismissed it, said no way, you’re crazy, etc. Then after posting the improbability of starting Mattison over Thomas with rankings the commish said “it was a condition of the trade that I didn’t play Thomas”. Complete 180 after an hour of posturing. Once he admitted that several highly respected, pragmatic owners said that’s very wrong, not happened in 25 years in the league, etc. We said apologize, pay a fine and move on. He said BS, not apologizing for anything, and it got heated. The other owner who obviously demanded Thomas not be in the lineup remained quiet. I think a lot of the takes in here may be accurate. Probably thought he would win anyway. Didn’t think of the potential impact on other teams in the race. League is saying outcome doesn’t matter, condition should never have been made.
elshagon
Footballguy
You draw the line where it becomes unreasonable. Obviously everyone has different interpretations of what is reasonable. I would say that league should simply put in a new rule that all trades from now on must be presented to the league with any conditions clearly stated so owners can express their opinions of the trade. Reading what happened I'd say it's time to move on. It was weird to have a side condition, but it wasn't totally outrageous in my opinion.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
this seems to be the primary division in this topic as well.
But your league is 100% correct. The outcome didn’t matter. Nothing after the fact should matter as much as the collusion.
That the teams involved in the deal 1. executed condition of the deal (by benching Thomas), and 2. Lied about it makes it worse, but only peripheral to the fact that they made a conditional deal involving benching a perceived top player.
Arguing that Michael Thomas isn’t a top player in any format based on YTD or the hindsight that Brees got hurt is preposterous. MT was a top 5 pick for what he’s capable of when healthy. His floor and ceiling are both substantially higher than Mattison with a healthy Cook. Attempting to sugar coat that benching as some sort of personal choice and how dare we assert that it was anything but an owner’s freedom to set his own lineup is a disingenuous argument. Poll 1000 FF players prior to this deal. Ask them if they’d want to acquire MT. Then ask them if they successfully acquired MT whether they would bench him. 1000/1000 would want him & 1000/1000 would eagerly plug him into their lineups. as they say on FOX, C’mon man.
And it makes it just so much worse that the team getting MT didn’t need to win, and the team giving MT needed to win. The sole beneficiary of the conditional benching is the team giving up MT.
It is clear and obvious why benching a player as a condition of a trade is unethical, and many have pointed out the ramifications such a precedent would set. Many have also pointed out that such a deal is unprecedented, which lends credence to the notion that a specific rule would not need to be in place for this because it’s assumed that people won’t make collusive deals to cheat at FF.
And the bottom line, regardless of who won the game, whether Brees got hurt or not, or whether the owner’s intentions were pure as the driven snow, the fact remains that to get there, they colluded & the team getting Thomas tanked by benching him. As @davearm indicated, there aren’t degrees of tanking. Bench one good player or bench 10, it’s still tanking.
And the intent of the benching is irrelevant as well. Meaning, team MT could have still been “trying to win” and maybe he “thought he could win without MT”. None of that matters. Reportedly the MT owner would have started MT had that not been a condition of the deal, and MT is clearly much much much better play than Mattison regardless of what MT has done to date (and again; he’s been hurt so it’s irrelevant. He’s still MT. He didn’t have surgery to transform him into Ted Ginn). And, again, when confronted by the league, they lied about it.
I can’t believe this topic has gone a dozen+ pages. I also can’t believe that so many would not see this as glaringly obvious collusion.
It’s cut & dry. Any after the fact rationalization falls well short of justifying the actions of a league commish being involved in such an unethical deal. I’m all for giving people the benefit of the doubt. I like to see the good in people.
I’d previously mentioned the two brothers who tried to build a super team with a janky 5:4 deadline trade where the playoff bound team got 4 top players from the eliminated team. We’d played with these two for 5 years. They were our friends. At first when the deal went though I didn’t notice as I was at work. As commish, I started getting texts and emails from the league about it. And the emails I rec’d were congenial - apologetic even. “Hey, I don’t mean to make trouble and I can’t believe I’m saying this but I think X & X might be cheating” kind of thing. No one wanted to believe what we were seeing because these were our FF friends. One was a RL friend for decades. There’s a lot to a thing like this in terms of real world emotion and consequences.
But when faced with the ugly reality, we confronted them; they admitted it, and we kicked them out of the league in a 10-0 vote. After a couple of months, fences were mended with the one local brother. He apologized and we had closure. We remain friends today.
But it was what it was, and this shady conditional deal is what it is: collusion. And the league should name a new commish, because their commish just proved unworthy of that responsibility & trust.
Nothing they meant or felt or intended changes that simple fact.
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NE_REVIVAL
Footballguy
Meh, put me on the 45%+ side who have no problem with this particular trade stipulation. Im trading away a guy who could blow up this week to the owner im playing against and I make the stipulation that I will do it if you don't play him against me this week? Thats what all the hubablub is about? Thats it? I think when questioned the owners should have been up front about it but I got no problem with it.
Reasonable fair minded people can disagree sometimes folks so lets not get nasty
Reasonable fair minded people can disagree sometimes folks so lets not get nasty
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DropKick
Footballguy
I think you're exaggerating this... the inability to play MT, for one game, was a strategic choice. Do you want the trade or not? Apparently, both sides were happy with the deal. As for keeping it secret... I don't think it is the kind on thing one would necessarily announce but isn't it kind of obvious when the blue chip player you just traded for is not in the line-up? Also, we know how much people in fantasy leagues love to whine and cry foul...Gally said:
The crux of the issue is what you can and can't do within the scope of a trade. This can be a challenge as I suspect most leagues don't have that spelled out in the rules... But is is NOT tanking (quite the opposite) and it isn't collusion; both teams are acting in their own self interest.
habsfan
Footballguy
If it was part of the transaction, part of one side's payment to the other side, is it okay that it isn't disclosed to the rest of the league? That's like trading a player for a draft pick or FAAB money and when the league asks about the pick or amount, I say "It's none of your business".
After reading this thread it is abundantly clear that whether or not a condition like this can be seen as ok or not ok. It's pretty close which is surprising to me. I am well on the side that this should never happen as it manipulates the integrity of playing your best perceived lineup every week. I think that is wrong.Meh, put me on the 45%+ side who have no problem with this particular trade stipulation. Im trading away a guy who could blow up this week to the owner im playing against and I make the stipulation that I will do it if you don't play him against me this week? Thats what all the hubablub is about? Thats it? I think when questioned the owners should have been up front about it but I got no problem with it.
Reasonable fair minded people can disagree sometimes folks so lets not get nasty
That being said,, If the owners making the deal really did not think there was anything wrong with the condition they wouldn't have lied about. They would have matter of fact said they did it because they didn’t think it was a big deal. I see that many feel this way so if you thought it was no big deal they treat it as no big deal. That did not happen as they lied about and tried to hide it. Then finally came clean. To me that means they fell on the side that it wasn't a proper condition.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
So what it the deal was “but if we see each other in the playoffs, you have to bench MT.”Meh, put me on the 45%+ side who have no problem with this particular trade stipulation. Im trading away a guy who could blow up this week to the owner im playing against and I make the stipulation that I will do it if you don't play him against me this week? Thats what all the hubablub is about? Thats it? I think when questioned the owners should have been up front about it but I got no problem with it.
Reasonable fair minded people can disagree sometimes folks so lets not get nasty
still cool with that so long as it was transparent to the league?
you don’t think anyone in the league would take issue with that as a condition of the deal?
Just asking a reasonable, fair-minded question here.
DropKick
Footballguy
It is exactly what happened. It is not an exaggeration.
Also, all conditions of the trade should be included in the acceptance for the public to see. There should never be hidden stipulations because that leads to shadiness. 100% transparency is necessary to avoid this exact issue. If they identified the condition at the start the league could have figured out which side of the coin they were for this type of deal and then no hard feelings.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
Agreeing to bench a top player is absolutely tanking.
Whether the intent of the deal is that the team benching MT is to tank or not, and regardless of whether goal of the team benching MT is to “throw the game”, in practice he is benching a player who’s much more likely to score more points. And it’s not close. Floor, ceiling, there’s simply no logic that can justify benching MT for Mattison so long as Cook is healthy. None.
They are starting a player that is clearly, obviously going to score less. That is the opposite of “trying to win”, which means they’re trying to lose. AKA, tanking.
This point really shouldn’t be debatable.
What do you call it when an owner starts a player he expects to score fewer points, and benches a player he expects to score more points?
Manster
Footballguy
This is an interesting look into the culture of different FF leagues. I've played with a few dudes, in the various leagues, who I believe would be on the side of "this is totally acceptable". Those dudes always found their way out of these leagues, one way or another......when there is money involved, and you have owners who skirt the line of ethics, it doesn't work, unless the whole league full of owners who feel the same......although, I can't imagine what a league like that would look like! I'm guessing it'd be guys trying to get other guys drunk and talking em into bad trades....stuff like that.
ratbast
Footballguy
It’s not tanking. You can’t even begin to justify that benching MT is tanking this year. It’s also ridiculous to expect it to be announced to the league. Either it’s within the rules or not. What does announcing it to the league change?
Ive stated that I see how it can possibly be considered against the rules but that’s it. No other aspects matter. It’s either against the rules or not.
Ive stated that I see how it can possibly be considered against the rules but that’s it. No other aspects matter. It’s either against the rules or not.
DropKick
Footballguy
No one lost on purpose. No one tanked. The fact that somebody once cheated in your league is irrelevant. He acquired Thomas in a deal with a condition he didn't play that week. He wouldn't have Thomas if not for the deal. He took a calculated risk that included less chance of victory for one week. Again, from the team acquiring MT, no different consequence than a bye week. He is playing for the whole season; not necessarily a single game.
Why people continue to point out that Thomas is a better fantasy option than Mattison is mind boggling. If you want to debate something, question whether the trade should/can have such a stipulation associated with it... That is what matters.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
that point isn’t worthy of debate - obviously conditional deals involving such after the fact roster moves are cheating.
It matters that Thomas is a substantially better play than Mattison because that’s the evidence of tanking. Obviously.
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Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
It matters because we know that the team obtaining MT didn’t need to win.
The team that dealt MT did need to win.
the team obtaining MT agreeing to bench the asset he went out of his way to deal for is only helping to improve the chances of winning for the team that dealt MT, and without hurting himself.
That’s all known. So you can use whatever definition you’d like. “Tanking”, “throwing the game”’, “deliberately not starting a clearly better player as condition of a shady trade agreement”.
the bottom line is the same for any description you want to sugar coat it with: The outlook for the team that dealt MT was substantially improved by entering into that agreement because he then did not have to face MT.
argue all you like about MT’s value, but it’s clear that both the team obtaining MT & the team that should have had to face MT BOTH though MT was valuable enough to risk a breach of ethics / decorum to make that a shady condition of the trade.
therefore, the team that agreed to bench MT was agreeing to play an inferior lineup in a game they did not need to win in order to give an advantage to a team that did need to win.
These are all known facts. And as laid out, they’re damning.
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ghostguy123
Footballguy
Regarding the roster it's the same as trading a player for future picks. It's also not like no compensation is being given.
And as for your rule the player would remain on the team for the rest of the year, so more than 3 weeks.
I have definitely traded a player away during the season and then traded back for the same player in the offseason. I didnt plan it that way originally but it ended up just being a rental for the other guy
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Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
In dynasty I’ve seen this happen a couple times.
The only time anyone has ever taken issue is if it’s within the same season.
But getting say, Larry Fitzgerald or some other aging asset who might have 1 more season in them (the player in the last deal like this that I can remember) then dealing back to balance a trade in the offseason or following season isn't a problem in my opinion. Assets are assets once the season is over.
Generally speaking, in-season trade-backs or BYE week rentals are frowned upon in redraft leagues. The implication is that there’s a condition to the deal (much like what’s at issue in this topic) that was not made apparent to the league & that other teams didn’t have available to them.
The rule is not for the rest of the season. Its for three weeks. The intent is the bye week rental prevention. We removed the 3 week requirement for the off season because you aren't playing games so the intent of the rule is no longer in play.
There have been many times a player has been traded back to the original team in season in my leagues. Dynasty trades can get crafted in many different ways.
I am not sure what you are referring to when you said its the same as trading for future picks. Are you equating MT to a future pick? If so, it would be if he was injured or on bye but it changes when you are being told you cannot play him to give an advantage to the other team.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
I mentioned that earlier. Ironically, while a complete d-bag move between friends, it would have been more ethical to the league than the conditional deal they actually agreed to.
ghostguy123
Footballguy
ghostguy123
Footballguy
"I'll give you JJSS and Lindsay for Thomas and Mattison"
"Pass"
"I'll give you JJSS and Lindsay for Thomas and Mattison, and tank for you this week by benching Thomas and starting Mattison"
"Deal"
Not complicated. Sorry to hear you're struggling to keep up.
DropKick
Footballguy
DropKick
Footballguy
You're main point is that Thomas is a better fantasy option than Mattison... something nobody has contested. You're crushing it, all right.
Please be cool.
My main point is that offering to tank a week in order to push a deal across the finish line is bushleague, and this group was right to call these two bozos on it.
If everyone agrees that Thomas is a better fantasy option than Mattison, then the tanking conclusion is a slam dunk.
DropKick
Footballguy
No one said he threw the game... he didn't play Thomas as that was a condition of the trade. Debate whether such a stipulation is ethical if you like.. but he still tried to win.
The Future Champs
Footballguy
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
I’m saying it. He didn’t need the W, so he agreed on a condition to not field his best lineup. He admitted he would have started MT had that not been a condition.
therefore he clearly was not trying to win the game.
it’s a binary. There are only two options here. He’s either trying to win the game or he’s not trying to win the game. There’s no grey area nor is there a 3rd nebulous option where he “tried to win” with a lesser lineup. That would be a preposterous assertion, so out of respect I’ll assume you’re not making it.
Since the purpose of playing FF is winning games, in essence, in practice, in reality he threw the game.
Calling it anything else is putting lipstick on a pig, as grandpa used to say.
No, he did not. You’re assuming his intention was to win. but we don’t know that was his intention.
All we know is
1. he didn’t need the W.
2. his opponent did need the W
and
3. to obtain the player he wanted via trade he agreed to a condition that forced him to start a less potent lineup.
#3 is him explicitly taking action to not try to win. To the contrary, it is the opposite. Again; if he’s not trying to win, then he’s trying to lose.
You keep attempting to make this a situation where somehow he was trying to win by benching the top asset he literally just traded for, and again as granddad used to say; that dog won’t hunt.
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DropKick
Footballguy
A opinion different than yours constitutes trolling? Such a 2020 attitude.
My contention is the guy trading for Thomas & Mattison got the better end of the deal and was willing to meet his trade partner's request to not use Thomas against him that week. He weighed the short and long term consequence of the deal and was still willing to make the trade. No evidence that he didn't do his best to win the game, sans Thomas.
For the record, I'm not the only "troll" that thinks this way. Calling this collusion or tanking is missing the point. No one lost on purpose. Not being able to use the player was part of the terms. Question the ethics of the trade, if you like, as it certainly starts one down the slippery slope.
DropKick
Footballguy
You mean by not playing Thomas, a player he wouldn't have if he didn't meet the trade demands?
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
So you’re ok with collusion in attempt to throw a game to the manager who needed the W.
noted.
plenty of evidence he didn’t do his best to win the game. He benched Thomas. That’s the evidence. Open and shut. Impossible to ignore.
The terms were unethical precisely because of the conditional roster move.
These aren't mutually exclusive. The team that dealt him MT needed a win. The team getting MT agreed to bench the asset he just acquired in order to NOT field his best lineup.
the fact is that the reason their malfeasance was exposed was precisely because their league-mates noticed MT was on the bench, and that was a red flag because obviously team MT was not putting their best team on the field.
Which is, by any definition, tanking.
You ignored my earlier question, so I’ll ask it again: what if the condition was that if they met in the playoffs he had to bench MT.
You still cool with that? All good? No red flags there?
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