Did The Commissioner Cheat?

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:

1. No League Dialogue

If Josh presented this change in league rules and the league agreed, I'd have zero issues. None.

2. Dictatorship

Instead, Josh used a method only he has access to to change the league rules.

3. Future Follies?

There's nothing to prevent Josh from re-enabling the veto rule to prevent others from pushing such trades through.

4. Who is Kenny?

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!

5. Draft Day Drama

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.

6. No Fun League

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.

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.

Tagged as: cheating, Jeremy Maclin, Maurice Jones-Drew, Ricky Williams, trades

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