Collusion?

[HNorseman]

I saw something last week in one of my OC leagues that I hadn't seen before, and I'm still trying to make sense of it. Here goes:

I was tied for first place with another team going into the final week. Neither of us, however, was #1 in Total points. I was 3rd, about 60-70 points out. So it looked like the only way I could finish in the money (and advance to the Championship round) was for me to win my game, and for the team I was tied with to lose his game. Fortunately for me (or so I thought), the team I was tied with was going against the High Scorer in the league. When I looked at the High Scorer's roster, I noticed that he had played L. Bell (who was on bye) the week before, while he had Justin Forsett on his bench. Forsett had a monster game that week, so he lost out on 30+ points. I can certainly understand that sometimes things happen during the course of a week, and even with the 30+ point hit, he was still up by a good margin in total points (even though his record was so-so). All he had to do was hang on to his 60-70 point lead with one more week to go, and he would be in a playoff with whichever team finished 1st in head-to-head (hopefully me) for the $1500 league prize.

Well, on Friday of the final week, I looked at his roster, and he STILL hadn't updated it from 2-3 weeks earlier. I mean, he was playing Jerick McKinnon (who had already been declared out), while he had Justin Forsett on his bench. I wouldn't normally say anything, but I really needed him to knock off the other 1st place team, so I sent him a nice email congratulating him on his strong season. I then asked him if he knew McKinnon was out and reminded him that the outcome of his game that week would have big implications for everybody involved. No response.

Sunday rolled around, and Jerick McKinnon was still in his starting lineup, netting him 0 points. The rest of his team didn't fare a lot better that week, so needless to say he lost, ending my playoff chances. I'm happy to report that the 4th place team in total points had a HUGE week and picked up 80+ points on him, knocking him out of the top spot (and a chance at the $1500 first place money or the $700 2nd place money).

Still, I was perplexed that the top scorer in the league would not change his lineup for the final 2-3 weeks. Was he that confident that his big lead would hold up? Was he in some exotic location and had no access to the internet? Was he in the hospital? Or even worse, was he dead? Through the years, I've seen plenty of teams out of contention who have stopped checking in, but never a team at the top of the heap. I hate to assume the worst, but perhaps there was some type of collusion going on. I mean, the top point scorer in the league is playing a team tied for first (record-wise) in the final week... Maybe they made a deal to split the 1st and 2nd place money if the former team would just take a dive?

Remarkably, the guy who hadn't submitted a lineup the last few weeks finally did so in week 14, just in time for the playoff round. So at least I know he hadn't died...

Sorry for the long-windedness. If you've made it through this story, and I didn't confuse you too much with my "this team" and "that team" references (I didn't want to name anybody), I'm curious as to what explanations you might offer up in this guy's defense...

[TR]

I saw something last week in one of my OC leagues that I hadn't seen before, and I'm still trying to make sense of it. Here goes:

I was tied for first place with another team going into the final week. Neither of us, however, was #1 in Total points. I was 3rd, about 60-70 points out. So it looked like the only way I could finish in the money (and advance to the Championship round) was for me to win my game, and for the team I was tied with to lose his game. Fortunately for me (or so I thought), the team I was tied with was going against the High Scorer in the league. When I looked at the High Scorer's roster, I noticed that he had played L. Bell (who was on bye) the week before, while he had Justin Forsett on his bench. Forsett had a monster game that week, so he lost out on 30+ points. I can certainly understand that sometimes things happen during the course of a week, and even with the 30+ point hit, he was still up by a good margin in total points (even though his record was so-so). All he had to do was hang on to his 60-70 point lead with one more week to go, and he would be in a playoff with whichever team finished 1st in head-to-head (hopefully me) for the $1500 league prize.

Well, on Friday of the final week, I looked at his roster, and he STILL hadn't updated it from 2-3 weeks earlier. I mean, he was playing Jerick McKinnon (who had already been declared out), while he had Justin Forsett on his bench. I wouldn't normally say anything, but I really needed him to knock off the other 1st place team, so I sent him a nice email congratulating him on his strong season. I then asked him if he knew McKinnon was out and reminded him that the outcome of his game that week would have big implications for everybody involved. No response.

Sunday rolled around, and Jerick McKinnon was still in his starting lineup, netting him 0 points. The rest of his team didn't fare a lot better that week, so needless to say he lost, ending my playoff chances. I'm happy to report that the 4th place team in total points had a HUGE week and picked up 80+ points on him, knocking him out of the top spot (and a chance at the $1500 first place money or the $700 2nd place money).

Still, I was perplexed that the top scorer in the league would not change his lineup for the final 2-3 weeks. Was he that confident that his big lead would hold up? Was he in some exotic location and had no access to the internet? Was he in the hospital? Or even worse, was he dead? Through the years, I've seen plenty of teams out of contention who have stopped checking in, but never a team at the top of the heap. I hate to assume the worst, but perhaps there was some type of collusion going on. I mean, the top point scorer in the league is playing a team tied for first (record-wise) in the final week... Maybe they made a deal to split the 1st and 2nd place money if the former team would just take a dive?

Remarkably, the guy who hadn't submitted a lineup the last few weeks finally did so in week 14, just in time for the playoff round. So at least I know he hadn't died...

Sorry for the long-windedness. If you've made it through this story, and I didn't confuse you too much with my "this team" and "that team" references (I didn't want to name anybody), I'm curious as to what explanations you might offer up in this guy's defense...

All those scenarios u suggested are plausible...I'm glad he missed out on chance at league prizes.

[chriseibl]

Sounds like most likely scenario is he simply stopped paying attention to his fantasy team... not sure you'll ever know why. A 60-70 point lead isn't really that safe. Heck, I had a 79 point lead in one league going into Week 13 for $10k and lost by 79.3 to get nothing. That was with me trying my hardest but making some unfortunate lineup decisions.

The distant second most likely scenario is that he preferred to play the other team in the championship because he thought the other team would be easier to beat in a championship. That would be surprising, disappointing and unfortunate for you but is, in my opinion, his right to do what he wants with his points lead if he's doing it in his own best interest. Additionally, it really would be in his best interest to score as many points as possible because of the implications that could have in the overall championship and carrying your season average in.

Collusion to split the pot seems least likely (unless you have reason to think they know each other). I think you did the right thing by e-mailing him. It's just sucky the guy didn't set his lineup.

[kjduke]

Doesn't sound like collusion. Does sound like he was incapacitated or otherwise tied up.

[Jim Christie]

Yeah, probably out of commission; who needs a championship and $1500 anyways; play all year, in the money and just forget the last few weeks. Yeah, nothing fishy there

[David U Kennedy]

Smells very fishy. I think that owner needs to at least give an explanation. Maybe he had some serious turmoil in his life?

[JETS SB]

Not collusion. He was leading the league and in line for $1500. Why would he purposely not set his lineup the last 2 weeks to split $1500, when he was already in line for likely the full amount and a chance at an overall? Not fishy at all.

[HNorseman]

Not collusion. He was leading the league and in line for $1500. Why would he purposely not set his lineup the last 2 weeks to split $1500, when he was already in line for likely the full amount and a chance at an overall? Not fishy at all.

I wouldn't say the $1500 was "likely." His record was only 7-5, so he was out of contention for best record. There would have definitely been a playoff for that money. And it wasn't like he had a vastly superior team (my team beat him by 30 points a month earlier), so who knows? I would say it was pretty much 50-50. I still think it's possible that $1100 looked better than $700 to both parties. And both were in line for the overall championship round already (top 15%), so that wasn't an issue.

Perhaps I'm just being paranoid about the whole thing. Or bitter. After all, I finished out of the money. I've just never seen somebody at the top play inactives and byes for the last 2-3 weeks of the season before... And maybe if there had been some kind of reply to my email, I would feel a little differently.

[HNorseman]

Sounds like most likely scenario is he simply stopped paying attention to his fantasy team... not sure you'll ever know why. A 60-70 point lead isn't really that safe. Heck, I had a 79 point lead in one league going into Week 13 for $10k and lost by 79.3 to get nothing. That was with me trying my hardest but making some unfortunate lineup decisions.

The distant second most likely scenario is that he preferred to play the other team in the championship because he thought the other team would be easier to beat in a championship. That would be surprising, disappointing and unfortunate for you but is, in my opinion, his right to do what he wants with his points lead if he's doing it in his own best interest. Additionally, it really would be in his best interest to score as many points as possible because of the implications that could have in the overall championship and carrying your season average in.

Collusion to split the pot seems least likely (unless you have reason to think they know each other). I think you did the right thing by e-mailing him. It's just sucky the guy didn't set his lineup.

Interesting strategy. I hadn't even thought of that as a possibility, but it makes sense. Who knows?

[KenGill]

Not collusion, but incompetence.
Every year we talk about solutions to this problem.
The most obvious solution is to have the system remove any bye week players and/or IR players from all lineups.
It's not going to fix everything - nor should it - but it would be a good start.
And it should certainly be something that is attainable by the IT group.