As Eddie wrote about the other day, a few of the writers and community members at Sports Fan 4 got together to create a Fantasy Football League. Having not played fantasy football in a few years, it was exciting to get in a league with friends. I was pumped to talk some friendly trash talk and take my Ninja Narwhals to the league championship. What I didn’t expect was to have a commissioner who cheats!
Draft Day Drama
While talking it over with Josh a while back, he stated we’d be having a non-live draft, as everyone couldn’t take part in a live draft. I made my case that a live draft is better and more fun and anyone who couldn’t join in could still rank their players. And that’s the last I heard of it until Josh called me up two Sundays ago asking why I wasn’t in the live draft! Surprised that the draft was going on and that it had changed over to a live draft without warning, I jumped in at the 6th round to see that the computer had picked a decent team for me, but I would’ve done things a little differently [mostly not drafting Donovan McNabb] and wish I had been notified.
Figured it was a small communications hiccup, as the draft was announced in the forums, which I hadn’t checked. Let’s give 70% of the blame to me, and 30% to the commissioner for using a communication method not everyone was aware of or tracking (I later confirmed it was not just me who was unaware of the draft). While it’s my responsibility to keep up to date with the league news, it’s also the commissioner’s responsibility to ensure all the owners are on the same page. Moving on.
Trade Tantrums
After the draft ended, we all gave Josh a good ribbing for picking up Brett Favre, Brett Favre, Brett Favre in the last round. That and neglecting arguably the most important position in fantasy football, the running backs. At the time, it seemed Josh feel asleep at the keyboard, or had a unique strategy, as he didn’t pick up any elite running backs and instead went with a few decent but not great backs.
All was quiet for a little while with the league, and then a monster trade rolled through the wire. The proposed trade involved the team WinningWithDolphins giving up Maurice Jones-Drew [one of the top 5 running backs in the NFL] for Ricky Williams and Jeremy Maclin from the 4th and Long* team. Once I read this e-mail in my inbox, I immediately clicked on the veto button. Why you ask?
Well, it’s a completely unbalanced trade!
Ricky Williams is at best a fantasy football backup and Jeremy Maclin is an unproven rookie who might, might, rack up some points but now is a risk. Even if both these players have breakout seasons, they’ll still likely pale in comparison to the numbers Jones-Drew should produce week to week.
Luckily, our league was set up with vetoing to prevent such unfair (and highly suspicious) trades. After vetoing, I sent off an e-mail to the rest of the league and hit Facebook, Twitter and the phones to make sure the other owners were aware this trade was going down and to veto it. After the Draft Day drama, I didn’t want to leave such a league altering trade to chance.
The Commissioner Cheats
At this point, Josh accused me and the rest of the owners of being a-holes and threatening to remove the veto power of the league if we didn’t allow the trade to happen. The majority of the other owners agreed with me on the trade’s highly unbalanced nature and vetoed it as well.
And guess what happened next?
Take a look:
What a trade!
Note, the above image has been edited to remove irrelevant transactions. You can take a look at the full, un-edited, screen shot, to see there’s no screen shot shenanigans going on. Transparency FTW!
Now, here’s my main issues with what happened:
- No League Dialogue
- Dictatorship
- Future Follies?
- Who is Kenny?
- Draft Day Drama
- No Fun League
If Josh presented this change in league rules and the league agreed, I’d have zero issues. None.
Instead, Josh used a method only he has access to to change the league rules.
There’s nothing to prevent Josh from re-enabling the veto rule to prevent others from pushing such trades through.
The WinningWithDolphins team is owned by a character named Kenny whose name is apparently Matt. I don’t know him and can’t verify that it’s not just a shell team for Josh**. Conspiracies are fun!
With the above move, and especially considering the last point above, suddenly Josh’s draft day decisions make a lot of sense. If you knew you had another team you could easily poach players from, well, it would certainly make for an odd draft day.
The whole point of this league was to have fun. That fun is now dampened for me, as Josh injected a boatload of drama into the whole thing by unfairly helping himself via his role as a commissioner.
One final note, Josh went on to state that I was upset because this time I couldn’t e-mail the whole league to get them to veto his unfair, unbalanced, suspicious trade. And you know what, he’s right!
Before Josh’s rule change, we all had access to the same methods and were all on the same playing field. Anyone one of us could e-mail the league to promote our viewpoint. Now, Josh has all the power. The thing that really pisses me off is Josh accusing me of playing dirty by e-mailing the whole league (something we could all do!) while his rule change that solely benefits him and could only be done by him is … well, Josh, I’ll leave it up to you to explain what that is. But, here’s a nice guideline for how to be a good fantasy football commissioner, in particular note this tip:
5. League votes or commissioner review?
Trades can be a touchy subject. Most leagues allow the commissioner to set up trade reviews either by the commissioner or a league vote. Both have their pros and cons.
Most people who join in a public league prefer the league vote setting. The reason for this is fairly simple: they don’t trust you. And why should they? They don’t know you and for all they know you have two or three teams signed up using different e-mail accounts that can basically be your own little farm system. Also, it is not usually considered fair that commissioners get to approve their own trade proposals. In the case of public leagues, it is a better idea to set up trade approval by a league vote. People will feel much more comfortable with this.
In leagues that you form with your own personal friends I prefer the commissioner approval setting. This can be helpful in that trades can get approved in a much quicker fashion since there is no two-day time limit. Just remember one thing though. If you want to keep those friends, you had better be fair.
I will not sign up for a new league in which I don’t know the commissioner if he has trades set as commissioner approved. Most commissioners are honest people, and by most I mean at least 50%, but they’re not all honest and I don’t want to risk throwing a whole season in the toilet because of another person’s dishonesty.
In my eyes, it’s cheating by the commissioner, plain and simple. But what do you think? Did the commissioner cheat? Should 4th and Long* be penalized? You decide.
Did the Commissioner Cheat?
- Yes (86%, 6 Votes)
- No (14%, 1 Votes)
Total Voters: 7
Thanks to skipgo shannon for the cheat photo.
*To protest this team, I am referring to Josh’s team as 4th and Long* for the rest of the season.
**After writing this post, I confirmed that Kenny is real person. Still, conspiracies are fun so I left the post as is.
I voted yes. Now, I will tell you why.
I like Josh. He has commented on my site a couple times and keeps me coming back here. But after reading this, I see where this all came down as I play A LOT of fantasy sports and even have my own 4 Sport Boston.com fantasy league this year.
With that being said, changing the rules mid-season without a league vote is bad enough but to change the rules MID-TRADE is proposterous (sp? I dont care).
In my league, it is Commish decision and should be if it being run by someone who knows what they are doing but that decision has to be made before the season or at least not while a trade is up in the air. 98% of trades should go through as a commissioner vote and assuming this is as straight forward as you make it sound. This would be in the 2% anyway.
Also, your note to the league IS justified. A lot of owners dont look at their team outside of the Sunday/Monday time frame and with a 2 day veto time, no one would have seen that to veto it.
So, yes, there was cheating involved.
Agreed Craigga. Worse than it being mid-trade, the trade was actually rejected by the league, then vetoing was turned off, and then the trade was re-done and of course sailed right on through.
My main objections are the same as yours, no league vote on a rule change after the league started up. If there was no veto from the start, no problem. If we had a vote, no problem.
And for the record, I like Josh too. Have been friends with him for over a decade, but I have no problem calling out my friends for shady shenanigans, plus hope it’s a useful guide for future fantasy football commissioners.
Thanks for stopping by and giving your opinion.
Thank you both for your opinions. I wish some people had the opinion that it wasn’t cheating, albeit a d-bag move, I don’t think it was cheating.
Well Josh, why is it just a d-bag move in your eyes and not cheating?
I ask not to instigate, but to figure out if we all think the same thing and are just calling it different terms.
In my eyes, cheating is when someone either breaks the rules (e.g. having two teams) or abuses power. In this case, you don’t break any rules but you did abuse your power.
If everyone had trades line up that were getting vetoed, and you said it’s ridiculous, time to remove the veto, then it might be a d-bag move to remove the veto without a vote, but it wouldn’t necessarily be cheating.
Since you’re the only one who was hurt by the old rule, and the only one who decided on whether to change it, it’s an abuse of power = cheating.
Just my opinion.
Oh my….do I have to send you boys to your rooms with no dinner?
LOL. To be clear, me and Josh are still friends, and I think everyone else in the league is still on friendly terms and having fun with the league.
This type of border-line, grey area “is it cheating or is it not” philosophical debates that fascinate. Obviously, the rest of the league is on one side and the two owners involved in the trade are on the other, so thought it’d be nice to get some un-biased opinions from the web.
un-biased? With evidence like that?
Is there other evidence?
that we both wanted to make the trade
It’s assumed, hence the trade. Can’t think of a trade where both sides didn’t want/agree to the trade…what is that evidence of?
That the league players abused the meaning of the veto in order to prevent a team from acquiring a player that would possibly make his team better than theirs. The fear of losing made people reject a trade that two parties were willing to make.
The veto is there to prevent unfair/suspicious/slanted trades.
That’s all it’s there for. We used the veto to prevent a trade that exchanged a great player for two scrubs. It doesn’t matter that he wanted the scrubs, it’s still an uneven trade.
Just in case you didn’t notice, I have the most points so far this week.
Well, IMO, that Pats fumble recovery by the Special Teams should count for at least15 points.
Here’s my 2 cents and this has already been beaten to death by Adam. The MAJOR problem with what went down was the way that the rule change went about. I think Josh knew that that lopsided trade would get vetoed every time so did what he thought he was allowed to do as commish. However, we as managers and GMs of our own team should have some sort of say in any type of rule change, especially when said rule is changed right after the commissioner’s trade was vetoed by the other owners.
I propose the trade be null and void and all players sent back to their original teams.
“we as managers and GMs of our own team should have some sort of say in any type of rule change”
Precisely.
I don’t think that’s necessary. Plus the kid probably wouldn’t even want to make the trade back. I know I don’t want to.
BTW
Week 1
Willis McGahee – 19.50
MJD – 18.30
“I don’t think that’s necessary.”
No kidding.
An actually relevant statistic:
Week 1
MJD – 18.30
Ricky Williams – 11.80
Jeremy Maclin – 0.00
Net: + 6.5 to 4th and Long*
Drew Brees – 37.32
Adrian Peterson – 37.80
Those are my relevant statistics. You’re going down Josh!!!!
P.S. – Removing the veto mid-trade is totally not cool Josh.
I never claimed to be cool.
Hey SportsFan4,
This trade has been proposed to you in SportsFan4 (580827).
Ninja Narwhals
Laveranues Coles
Cedric Benson
4th and Long
Maurice Jones-Drew
You can accept, reject or counter this offer by going to your team page (if you do not see detail about this trade on the page, then it has been cancelled by the manager who originally proposed it).
Thanks Adam, I knew you’d come through on that once I put MJD up on the block.
I’d be dumb not to try.
MJD scored the most fantasy points in week 3 with 32.70
I’m suffering in a Yahoo league due to a cheating commissioner as well. I’m currently in a league where the commissioner was caught cheating (his E-Mail is psmart1729@yahoo.com). Once caught cheating he disabled all members from any form of chat or E-Mail. Recently he disabled everyones ability to change their line up or add remove players except for himself obviously.
I have send numerous E-Mails over the past 3 weeks to Yahoo concerning this matter; however they have not contacted me or addressed the situation. I will not utilize Yahoo Fantasy Sports in the future or endorse their services due to them not getting involved and resolving this situation. Everyone in my league (except the commissioner) is extremely frustrated over this situation and it appears that Yahoo would rather have one person happy rather than numerous happy customers.
Dont know how i stumbled on this, but this guy Josh is a complete cheater, and (expletive). This was the stupidest thing I have ever read, you can look at the first few lines and tell that this idiot is a f’n liar. Go f yourself jackass
I absolutely believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion. I also understand what I did could be considered a dirty move by turning off the veto.
However, I did not re-instate the veto afterward to prevent others from making trades either, resulting in two players (step-brothers) trading AP and Drew Brees to one team to make a “super-team”.
I’m glad you feel strongly about this, but please attempt to refrain from using profanity on this site. I edited your comment for content to fit the type of site we run here. Do not be discouraged from speaking your mind, just please attempt to monitor the language. Thank you.
Correction: a “super-awesome-undefeatable-greatest-of-all-time-team”.