Running Fantasy Football thread

Two things.

1. You could have been in my league, cause one of our owners got put away for a year for his fourth DUI, but PhilaYank jumped at the chance.

2. In theory, I am the Patriots, yet I am only 6-3. I should be 7-2, but I totally blew it last week and had Adrian Peterson on my bench with Lynch starting, or I would have won.

But, I did start the season 0-2 despite my team.

With Harrison, here is my lineup. We start 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 K, 1 defense.

Brady, Kitna, Tomlinson, Peterson, Lynch, Turner; Cha. Johnson, Ro. Williams, Ma. Harrison, L. Evans, M. Colston; Er. Johnson; Jo. Brown; Bears defense.

Not too shabby. I hope I win this league, because I owe the owner - of said league - money from fantasy baseball.

 

last-minute advice needed to confirm my lineup choices:

At QB, I'm starting Hasselbeck over Palmer.

At flex, in a league where we get 0.5 points per reception in addition to yardage and TD points, I'm going with Burress and Chatman while leaving Gore and Mason on the bench.

 

I think the state-wide gene pool for West Virginia is deeper than my WR depth chart. Usually, I'd be starting a combination of Randy Moss, Andre Davis & Laveraneus Coles. Instead, Ted Ginn, Jr. and Joshua Cribbs are my starters. If it weren't for return yards, I'd be more fucked than Britney Spears at an open bar party.

 

Come on, Tony Romo. I need you, baby.

 

To take a break from the usual lineup questions, what do you guys do about absentee owners?
We have guy who's been in our league for years, but just doesn't seem to give a fuck this year. Or he's just out and out tanking and colluding with our league commissioner.
He's had several weeks where he's had players out on byes that he left in the starting lineup (one week he actually won with three players out). He had Steven Jackson in his starting lineup even though it was well known Jackson was hurt and out for the week. And he's made a couple fishy trades with the commish, including one at the deadline this week.
Absentee guy traded Carson Palmer and a decent running back (I forget who) to the commish for Manning and Rudi Johnson. It wasn't an awful trade, but it was the second trade these two have pulled off in the last three weeks. The other was a five-player deal whose highlight was Jackson for Portis.
So it's obvious Mr. Absentee still has some interest, but he's just not updating his lineup. Since the trade went through at 6 p.m. Friday, he hasn't updated it yet and he's down two players this week (a QB, which would be Manning, and a flex player).

I don't mind so much this week since I play him and could desperately use an easy win. But how would you guys handle this? Freeze his lineup? Fine him? Kick him out of the league? Throw a blanket party? Or just kick 'em in the nuts until he does something?

 

Sweet, I'm up against the guy with Tom Brady this week. He is stuck using David Garrard!

 

I pray that it is my week to play him.

 

How do you know that guy isn't paying attention at all and the commish is completing trades with himself?

If I knew the guy was going to play next year, then I'd use commissioner privileges to set his lineup for him. If he was going to be out of the league anyway, I'd kick his ass out midseason.

Nothing sucks more than the guy that doesn't set his lineup, handing out easy wins left and right.

 

This is all dependent on the commish not backing him, but here goes my $0.02 worth. I wouldn't have let an absentee owner go this far, but earlier in the season, I'd have the commish e-mail him to wake up. A week later with no discernable changes, freeze his roster (including all trades). If the mope doesn't do anything after that, he gets the boot and you start auctioning off his players to the remaining teams (worst to first or highest bidder). Simple as that.

 

There's no easy answer on this until after the season. You can't kick him out midseason or auction off his roster - that's not fair to the guys who already had to play him. But were he to make the playoffs, THEN I'd freeze him out and move everyone below him a spot up and reward the next owners with playoff spots.

 

We had a discussion in our league about it a few weeks back, and it was decided -- in a close vote -- that if he wasn't updating the lineup to just let it stand. The reasoning being, it's not fair to reward him for not doing what he's supposed to. If it continued, though, (maybe for three weeks in a row) he'd start forfeiting games and be out of the league next year. He's 2-7, so he's not making the playoffs. So there's no carrot to be dangled there.

It's a tough situation, because the guy has been in our league for years and he's usually a good owner. That's the reason we've given him the benefit of the doubt so far. He's checked in on the message boards once in a while, so he's still around. Just not doing what he should.
I don't know what's going on with him, whether it's personal issues or what. And I understand shit happens and you might not be able to do a lineup one week. But this is obviously a pattern.

The commish thing also worries me. Our commissioner is a pretty stand-up guy, to the point we've waived his entry fee in exchange for running the web site and taking care of most of the little stuff. But I'm starting to wonder if he is taking advantage of this situation, like Angola said.

 

You can't do a thing to the guy. It's all up to the commissioner, like PhilaYank36 said. But it's a tricky situation for the commissioner and the league members. And I've dealt with it nearly every single season in the last seven years. ...

I've run baseball and basketball leagues for the last few years, and in almost every season, one or two guys would ultimately bail out or forget (really, they do sometimes forget) to check their teams. I, like most commissioners, invite my friends into the league every year, and it bit me in the ass repeatedly.

A couple years ago, I had this dead-beat roommate who just stopped checking his baseball team during the third week of the season -- after he took Craig Biggio in the second round and Roger Clemens in the third. Subsequently, he finished last in the league; he was a total waste to play, a sure 16-1, 15-2, 14-3 week (depending on the pitching categories) for whoever played him. The fuck ended up cutting communication with me for five weeks before he moved to Wyoming, and I've heard from him once since. The next season, he wasn't invited back. Problem solved.

But there are those good friends who you've had all your life who just want to play, and that's when it becomes difficult to stand up and put the league's benefit in front of your own. After that whole debacle, and after two of the 10 managers in the basketball season ended up quitting, I finally made a clause, saying, "If you do not check your team, you will not be allowed back." There was no problem last baseball season and none so far -- although it's very early -- in the basketball season.

The commissioner needs to put his foot down and not allow those kinds of players back.

As for the trading, a decent commissioner wouldn't trade with those owners; he or she should lock their rosters or block all trades and suspicious drops. If I were you, this would be my last go-round in that league. It sounds like the commissioner is a bit crooked.