New software, leading to drastic rules changes costs team dearly

[Greg Ambrosius]

In every year I have ever played at the NFFC you were able to not start a position if you wanted not to. For example you have 1qb and he is playing Thursday. Thursday rolls around you want to get a different qb on Friday instead of playing him. You could do that by benching him and leaving qb spot open. If you didn't address it, you took a zero. Well, they didn't think of this when developing the new software so all of a sudden the season gets here and we have a new set of rules, even though they weren't listed in the rules. This year you were forced to play that qb. Couldn't have an open spot on roster for some reason. Competition allows it as it should. You want to take a zero, that is your right.

So here we are entering Monday night the last week. I am in 4th in points. No shot of getting up to 3rd. However, I have a shot to have clean best record if John Rozek loses his match. Who is he playing? The team that is third in points, Michael Edelman and Scott Kaplans shared team. They have Jordan Reed and trail in their match by 5.3. So in a bizarre twist, they need to lose their match to make the playoffs, and I need them to win it to make it. They should be able to bench Jordan Reed. Software was never fixed to allow this like years past, just new rules made up on the fly. That is really really bad in my opinion. Hopefully this is addressed for next year, and if not at least make the faulty new rules clear in the rules.

Thanks for the discussion here and I'll try to explain our reasoning and our software the best I can. There isn't a new set of rules in the NFFC, but let me explain our setup and our reasoning for all to understand and then hopefully we can decide if future changes are needed or not.

So it's true that the software didn't FORCE you to set a legal lineup each week in the NFFC in the past, but we certainly did our best to ENFORCE it. Every week before Friday FAAB we got an email from STATS that told us who had illegal lineups. Those owners cut a TE or a K or a D on Wednesday and needed to pick one of those positions up on Friday to have a legal lineup. Tom would then contact those owners via email or phone to make sure they picked up those players to have a legal lineup. Almost every time those owners knew what they were doing and created a legal lineup. I don't remember a single instance where someone purposely had an illegal lineup to help another owner (collusion, in other words). And I also don't ever remember anyone saying they were trying to have an illegal lineup to help themselves that week.

So two reasons for the change: 1) This also happened a lot in baseball, and as you know, there can be benefits to not having a legal lineup in that sport (a second catcher can hurt you more than help you at times). We had to do the same thing in baseball when this happened and it became a weekly chore to make sure every NFBC lineup was legal. We created the new software to deny free agent claims if you didn't have a legal lineup after Sunday's FAAB run and instead negated any cut that would force an illegal lineup. The same software is used in football, where the disadvantages of an illegal lineup are not the same and we have two FAAB periods. So admittedly maybe we should have tweaked this a bit to allow open spots after the Wednesday FAAB run. But 2) It also prevented anyone from tanking with an illegal lineup, something we were enforcing manually before and now could automatically have done. In the case above, if someone purposely set a starting lineup without a QB and it affected a h2h title for another team who needed that team to win, we could really have some troubles. At least in the case above, Mike had a chance to pick up a non-playing position player at the start of the week and decide to start him or not. That would be HIS decision with a legal lineup.

We can certainly discuss if we're doing it right by forcing folks to have a legal lineup or not, but I see more problems than solutions by letting people start illegal lineups in any sport. Again, if someone needs to get a zero from any position it's pretty easy to do that while still having a legal lineup. But again, if this is such a critical change that is needed let's discuss it.

But I totally agree with you on the Thursday game and having only one player at that position when you DON'T want to have him in your starting lineup. We should address that with the software for football. We definitely didn't consider this when requesting these stipulations for all sports. Football is definitely different than baseball, so we should address this. That's on me, Tom and Darik.

Hope this helps and if I'm missing anything let me know. We certainly didn't try to change the software and have a new set of rules. We just tried to automatically make sure everyone had a legal lineup each week, but a tweak of the software on Wednesday's FAAB run makes sense. Hope this helps and good luck to all the rest of the way.

[Route C]

This is a different rule but I'd love to be able to drop players on Friday FAAB that have played on Thursday. Other than the software capability I'm not sure why we don't do it. Owners who are active on Friday FAAB don't need a lengthy discussion here as to why this needs to happen. Obviously that player couldnt be in your lineup that week.

Jeff, so the reason we don't allow players from the Thursday game to be dropped is that it gives owners additional players for that week to evaluate and possibly start. In other words, if you decide to keep a player on your roster for the Thursday Night Game, don't start him and then he gets hurt it allows you to see how he played, cut him and add another player to your roster for that week, basically giving you 21 rostered players for that week.

Now we can debate whether that reasoning is correct or not -- and I know we have in the past -- but that's our reasoning for not allowing Thursday cuts. I'm not even sure if it's a software ability or not (when we were with STATS that is), but I know we didn't want to give owners more players than others during a given week. If you really wanted to cut that player without getting a free look at him during the Thursday game, you definitely could have done that during the Wednesday FAAB period. So the Thursday game gave you a free look that others who don't have players in that Thursday Night Game didn't have.

Again, right or wrong -- and we can discuss it -- that's the reasoning.

Greg I appreciate the explanation. I do see the logic behind the initial decision however I'd like to offer an alternative thought process. We call this a game of skill which means as players we have strategic choices that give us a better chance to win if used properly. I see the ability to cut a Thursday player on Friday as part of that strategic process. It's hard to prove that an owner would have a significant advantage not available to other owners because there's " a chance" a Thursday player is injured. Shoot we always say injuries are a part of the game. Why not let that thought rule here and let the owners actually benefit for once from an injury to a rostered player.
I started to research the Thursday games to see how many times an injured player would even show up in this scenario. I just don't have the time to do it right now. Even so, anyone with a player on Thursday has an equal shot that their player gets injured just like every other game. I think that's enough common ground that we can agree no one can sustain an unfair advantage here no matter how the luck of the draw plays out with injuries.
AS a player I would rather have as much roster control as I can get even if one of my opponent gains a "free look" on Thursday.

I played in a league with Chad for the 1st time this year and I realized he's an absolute genius at Friday FAAB usage. I'm not ashamed to admit that I learned a lot watching him and there is a definite strategy to be exploited on Fridays. Please consider this change would greatly increase the quality of the game. I appreciate yours and other players thoughts on this.

Thanks

[Sandman62]

Jeff, one other thought (which I'm sure you realize, but just to have it out here)... It's not just injuries that may occur on Thurs that affect this; it's the fact that owners who drop a Thurs. player on Fri. got to see the result of that player's game that week before doing so.

Now, we can debate whether or not, over the course of the season, we might all have that same opportunity in somewhat equal frequencies. But the fact remains that in any week that someone drops a Thurs. player on Fri., they had an advantage that the rest of their league did not have that week: they got to run TWO players through one roster (not lineup, of course) spot.

IMO, I prefer to keep each week on a level playing field. IOW, we all have to drop players BEFORE we see them play that week.

[Route C]

Jeff, one other thought (which I'm sure you realize, but just to have it out here)... It's not just injuries that may occur on Thurs that affect this; it's the fact that owners who drop a Thurs. player on Fri. got to see the result of that player's game that week before doing so.

Now, we can debate whether or not, over the course of the season, we might all have that same opportunity in somewhat equal frequencies. But the fact remains that in any week that someone drops a Thurs. player on Fri., they had an advantage that the rest of their league did not have that week: they got to run TWO players through one roster (not lineup, of course) spot.

IMO, I prefer to keep each week on a level playing field. IOW, we all have to drop players BEFORE we see them play that week.

In that case there should be no more drafts on the 2nd weekend. After all those players got a live look at a minimum of 18 players including K and D.
If someone gets injured in the 1st game those who drafted the 2nd weekend had an enormous (depending on the player) advantage over the field in an overall contest. As long as we're doing that....we're kidding ourselves to call it a level playing field.

[Cocktails and Dreams]

Very good point. I am in the camp of preferring the flexibility. If it is an advantage, so what? Use it then. If you think adding a worse player that plays Thursday, knowing you can drop him Friday, is better than adding a better player that goes Sunday, do it then.

I really hate this rule Thanksgiving week with three Thursday games. I have played at places that also have them locked, but the mainstream competition to the nffc does have thix flexibility available. Hell, one of them you can even add guys Friday that played Thursday. That may be taking it too far, but it is interesting.

[ChiTwn]

A suggestion for next year.

Can we get the league standings/live standings to update a bit faster? A bit frustrating when live scoring is updated, but then you are just guessing how it affected league standings.

[Cocktails and Dreams]

Yes it is ridiculously slow. No idea where you ever really stand.

[Greg Ambrosius]

A suggestion for next year.

Can we get the league standings/live standings to update a bit faster? A bit frustrating when live scoring is updated, but then you are just guessing how it affected league standings.

Yeah, the Live Scoring/Standings was behind during the late afternoon games yesterday. Sorry about that. I'm not quite sure why there was a lag yesterday during the late games. We'll look into it. Hopefully it's quick as can be tonight. Good luck everyone in the final game of the 2018 NFFC season.

[eliasond]

The overall standings pages were 10-15 minutes behind for all games all weekend long for the entire playoffs. One thing that would help is if the overall standings pages had a column for the current week's score. Then at least we could compare the standings with the live scoring page to gage where we are at any given time. Some contests had such a column and others didn't and only showed the total score for the playoffs in a column.

[ChiTwn]

A suggestion for next year.

Can we get the league standings/live standings to update a bit faster? A bit frustrating when live scoring is updated, but then you are just guessing how it affected league standings.

Hopefully it's quick as can be tonight. Good luck everyone in the final game of the 2018 NFFC season.

It was still far behind for Monday night's game. At least 20 minutes if not more.

Hopefully, next year it will match live scoring.