Controversy in our league

[rwren 2]

We switched from Yahoo to ESPN this season. 4 weeks into the season, we noticed that ESPN interpreted "points allowed" to the whole team, not just when the Defense is on the field. Yahoo only counted points scored against the actual defense. For example, the Jets gave up 24 points Sunday even though it was the offense that gave up 2 TDs to New Orleans on turnovers. Thus, Yahoo and ESPN interpret Defense "points allowed" quite differently.

 

We have our own set of rules that we vote on each year, but no where in our rules did we "interpret" how points allowed would be scored. In other words, our written rules don't make a case for either interpretation. So we are voting on the interpretation 4 weeks into the season. The Jets D owner is very unhappy that we are even voting on this because he would win by .9 . If we leave it the way ESPN has scored it, he loses by 4.1.

 

The vote is split down the middle as a few people always interpreted it the ESPN way, while others interpreted it the Yahoo way. If we end up going the Yahoo way (points allowed against the defense not the whole team), then the question is this. Do we retroactively adjust the scores from the past 4 weeks and adjust scores from here on out? If we decide to leave it the way it is, do we adjust the scores for the first 4 weeks?

 

If you're wondering why we didn't determine this before the season, it's because we were on Yahoo the past 6 years, and the thought never entered anyone's mind that ESPN would interpret it differently. Obviously, we can clarify our rules for next season which we most certainly will.

 

What are your thoughts beside "that's why Yahoo sucks", "You get what you pay for", "What? Are you in a 4 team league"?

 

Oh, one more thing. I;m the commissioner and I am the guy who will benefit with a win last Sunday if we use ESPN's interpretation. Very awkward situation.

[extrmmxer 2]

I think it's only fare to keep the scoring exactly the way it was with Yahoo. It appears you can do that. All you guys did was change from Yahoo to ESPN. The scoring should remain as if you never switched. Voting for league rules or scoring should be done before the season starts not during the season. You can't change the rules or scoring on the fly. It will cause WWIII.

 

My .02

[RaiderHaters Revenge 3,588]

I think you have to leave it as is, its quite possible other games the first 4 weeks could have been different as well, also waiver pickups etc. I am never a fan of changing a scoring or ruling during the season. Everyone is playing on the same scoring system, so I see it as fair (although I think its ridiculous that leagues ever use the "ESPN" points against crap)

[dbell9 0]

I was faced with this last year as well. I think you have to leave it as it is because you are too far into the season. Deal with it next year. It does suck. I wished ESPN changed it.

[robertd52 0]

You need to take the loss.

My league just switched to D scoring that only counts on what is scored on D or special teams (not offensive turn overs). Its a no brainer, it should always be that way in my mind.

 

Being as you guys scored the last 6 years that way, I think you have to go back and "fix" the scores for the last 4 weeks as well.

 

Itll be a good showing to your league that you are legit.

[PanicAttack 13]

My short answer is you got to leave it the way it is. If you go back and vote on rule changes now its hard to know if the way people are voting are influenced by the out come of said vote.

 

I can give you this example that just happened to me this last weekend. I have SF ST/D and as we all know they went off against STL. They scored 2 fumble recovery TD and 1 int for TD. However, I only got points for 1 on the fumble TD (got the fumble but not the TD). I was really confused on why so i looked at the rules and scoring system really hard and there it was 'fumble recoveries for TD 6 pts 1-110 yards'. Well one of the FR was in the end zone thus 0 yards and 0 points. Nothing I could do about it. When the scoring system was set up it should of been 0-110 yards. I could of bitched (commish is my best friend) but it is what it is.

 

Oh BTW this is fanball.

 

Just my $.02

[Dashow28 6]

I agree with everyone else at leaving it as is for now. Next year obviously change it to what your league wants. You can't change it now because like someone else said it could have affected other outcomes the prior 4 weeks. Then you'd have those owners upset and everything goes haywire. Just leave it as is.

[Darth Fumble 0]

Its a glitch, not a league issue.

 

Your league always did "Defensive Points Allowed" (which is how it is scored in our league as well)

 

The error is on the commish for

 

A. not catching it before the league changed sites - assuming that it was the commish guiding the transfer

B. making it a league issue to be voted on instead of taking responsibility for the glitch and fixing the error.

 

Of course, now that it is a league issue, you made your bed so sleep on it. Whenever something like this comes up to a vote, you've just opened a whole can of worms that can't be put back. Whatever your league votes, is how it ends up (obviously, the two guys who are directly affected by this should have to obstain, but I bet their votes cancel out)

[nobody 2,044]

I'd leave it as is. Too late to fix it now. If someone came to me as commish and wanted to retroactively change scores, I would say that no rule is called out therefore the default league scoring is then the rule.

[RaiderHaters Revenge 3,588]

My short answer is you got to leave it the way it is. If you go back and vote on rule changes now its hard to know if the way people are voting are influenced by the out come of said vote.

 

I can give you this example that just happened to me this last weekend. I have SF ST/D and as we all know they went off against STL. They scored 2 fumble recovery TD and 1 int for TD. However, I only got points for 1 on the fumble TD (got the fumble but not the TD). I was really confused on why so i looked at the rules and scoring system really hard and there it was 'fumble recoveries for TD 6 pts 1-110 yards'. Well one of the FR was in the end zone thus 0 yards and 0 points. Nothing I could do about it. When the scoring system was set up it should of been 0-110 yards. I could of bitched (commish is my best friend) but it is what it is.

 

Oh BTW this is fanball.

 

Just my $.02

 

see that I see as something that should be changed immediately and give back scoring etc. This isnt a rule as a whole, but an error in commish input, that makes no sense, I cant see anyone arguing the other side

 

its tough to change league sites, though for little ###### like this, we moved to from fanball after 5 yrs there to MFL, and I told the guys (im commish) that week one scoring is not official till I review it to make sure everything is set right. we also had it set for total points against by default, but they knew it was gonna be changed if scoring incorrectly, and it changed the outcome of 2 games. people understood.

[De Novo 0]

I think you have to leave it the way it is... the scoring is the scoring, unless specifically stated prior to the season. The only time I changed the scoring mid-season was due to a typo in Field Goal scoring (somebody was getting double-counted for FG between 40 and 41 yards).

[Knowsome Bobarino 0]

Wow, what a mess.

 

I'd leave it as it is for the rest of the season, but then going forward make it clear that you will be following the yahoo scoring again next year. Too many problems arise when you start making changes retrospectively as well and changing scoring formats mid-season.

 

Explain to everyone that even though it's not what you may have intended it to be, that everyone has been playing with the same scoring format, so therefore, no one should be able to bawk about getting screwed.

[llano 0]

My recommendation --

First, you have to figure out if any matchups over the past four weeks other than yours would have had different outcomes.

Then, you have to let everyone in the league know exactly what those games are.

Also, if you Total Points Scored throughout the season has any relevance in your league, you need to make sure everyone sees how that would be affected.

Then, you just open it up for a vote.

If only your game was affected, I'd suggest both you and the other owner recuse yourselves from the vote.

Also, I think there are three options for the vote -- Make rule change applicable for the whole season (and adjust points going back 4 weeks); Make rule change applicable for the remainder of the season only; don't change the rule until next year.

League vote is easiest -- since your game is affected, you should not have lone say; also it is fairest (and easiest for you) for all to vote since it affects the entire league.

[WhiteWonder 2,172]

as far as i know there is nothing you can change in ESPN scoring to accomodate your old Yahoo scoring..

 

I had a similar issue and in an e-mail respnse, was told by ESPN that they count any points scored against your team. So far I have found nothing the the league manager tools to fix this or to make an exception for turnovers resulting in scores.

 

So you either need to accept the new ESPN rules or maunually update the scores each and every week.

 

 

If you find a way to set scoring following the guidelines you want, please let me know

[jkil22 1]

Here is the answer to your problem.

 

If this was the first time that anyone from your league used a defense that had it's offense commit a turnover that was returned for a touchdown and thus the defense lost points due to the ESPN scoring system, then yes I would change the system so it matches your prior scoring system used under yahoo (if that's even possible). BUT since 3 weeks of games went by I would wager that someone has started a defense which lost points due to an offense turnover returned for a touchdown and no one said anything about because they 1. didn't notice, 2. it didn't effect the outcome of the fantasy football game, or 3. they figured that was the rule and accepted it. No matter what the reason a precedent was set and you should not change the rules but keep the ESPN rules in place. Now the argument may be that no one noticed that this scoring change occured but the fact remains a precedent was set after the first time it happened and no objection was raised, it does not matter if anyone noticed it or not.

 

So:

 

1. If this is the first time it happened change the scores and go back to the yahoo scoring system.

 

Or

 

2.If it happened before in any of the prior 3 weeks to another teams defense, even if it was not notice or did not effect the fantasy football games outcome, cite that a precedent had been set and the ESPN scoring system will be followed this year and make no changes.

 

 

1 final note: If you have any owners who did not play in last years league then you should not change the score or scoring regardless if another situation matching this one did or did not happen prior to week 3.

[rwren 2]

Thanks for all the thoughtful responses. Unfortunately, there wasn't really any way to know prior to the season. Yes, I,m the commish and I set up the league, but we matched up all of our rules against what ESPN settings would accommodate and even had to scrap a rule because ESPN wouldn't. Our rules as they were written specified how many points would be awarded for defensive points allowed, but we didn't interpret what "Defensive" means because we never thought we had to. ESPN interprets it as points allowed by the whole team and they claim the NFL does statistics the same way. They also claim that the whole team concept is standard in fantasy football.

 

Anyway, there were guys in our league who were surprised that any site would only count against the defense. There is even one guy in our league who has been with us for 7 years and he never noticed the past 6 we spent in Yahoo. Once I realized that not all owners shared the same interpretation of "defense", I put it up for a vote. Our league voted to adopt ESPNs interpretation which meant to keep things the way they were. But then the owner who lost the game complained that we should retroactively adjust the scores from weeks 1 to 4 to reflect Yahoo. One other owner suggested it as well, so I threw that up for vote too. For the record, I voted with the angry owner on both occasions even though I stand to lose my game. Now here I am as 5 people have voted to adjust the previous scores and two more votes means I will end up losing my game.

 

Sucks being the commissioner sometimes. Oh well, I might lose my game, but my conscience will be clear and when I win the championship, there will be no asterisk by my name.

[nobody 2,044]

They also claim that the whole team concept is standard in fantasy football.

 

I always thought that too, and I've been playing for 10 years. I was surprised at all the responses making it seem like that wasn't the norm.

 

I probably would adjust the scores too since guys were crying about it. FF is supposed to be fun first and foremost anyway, but I think you are getting shafted.

[IAMWood 6]

Didn't take the time to read all the posts before me so if it has been settled sorry. Anyway,

 

this is your solution:

 

1. It should be changed to the way you have always scored it for the last 6 years starting in week 4. Everyone should have thought that was the case since no rule change was voted on before the season.

 

2. you shouldn't change any scoring except week 4 since you should have a rule that everyone is responsible for their score and once a new week starts, all scores are set in stone, if no one caught it, it is their own fault for not checking their score. If you have a scoring issue, it should be resolved that week. that was one nice thing in the olden days of doing scoring by hand, everyone would double check their own to make sure commish wasn't mistaken.

 

3. rule should be changed for the intent, I seriously doubt it was written that all scores would count against defense, anyone thinking that, since it had been same for 6 years, would need to show proof of why they thought that had changed.

 

good luck

 

[thekid65 0]

I've always been of the opinion, that when a turnover occurs, the defense then becomes the offense, and vice-versa. It really is a team concept as I see it.

 

However, with that being said, I'm also of the opinion that if you guys have been playing the same way for numerous years, and there was no discussion about any scoring changes, that you should continue to play the way that your accustomed to. I've commished an ESPN league for 5 years, and it really wont be very difficult for you (commish) to make scoring adjustments. If you guys, as a league, vote to accept the ESPN scoring system as it is..then it should only apply to games that happen after the league vote, and all previous games should be adjusted.

[KingofBeer 0]

If you can't change the scoring rules on EPSN to reflect your old rules, which I don't think you can, then you definitely shouldn't change any scores. Counting defensive TD's became your leagues scoring by default once you switched to ESPN.

[R8RMick 242]

As a commish in this situation, you've got to find all options on the table, spread them out to your league managers, and let them vote. Allowing all points scored against a team, via turnovers etc. is a joke.

 

You argue, how is it fair for points to be counted against a team's defense when the offense turns the ball over and it is taken back to the house? Well, what if the player was tackled on the one yard line and the defense actually did give up the TD, being backed up against their own goal line? How is that any more fair?

 

Team Defense/ST scoring is like Arena Fantasy Football. IDP's are the way to go.

[jpcdds 21]

Leave as is... you'll just be opening the biggest can of worms possible. You can't retroactively go back and change the rules... regardless if they were different than what you expected. why did no one notice prior to this week? someone should have... If you do change... only do it going forward. backtracking will be ugly...

[TimHauck 1,801]

IIRC, Yahoo doesn't count special teams TD's for defenses either, but ESPN does. Are you trying to take that away as well? If so, I would say you can't change that part of it, because it clearly says "D/ST"

[greatmartini 0]

Leave it as is...always sucks to change things mid-season. I use CBS, and the first bylaw listed on my rules states, "CBS scoring is final. I will not change any screwy points/plays."

 

Every so often, points are awarded where they shouldn't be and sometimes corrected later in the week. My rule states that I will not go in and manually adjust scores. Everyone knows this and while I occasionally get a gripe, all I do is point to my bylaw #1.

[sirensong 111]

were it me, i'd keep the standard ESPN scoring, because it was absolutely public knowledge before the season started. no one in the league has an excuse for not having checked the rules section of the league's homepage. by changing back to the yahoo rules, you essentially give the player a pass for his carelessness. this punishes every other team in the league.

 

the only time i've ever seen a rule change in-season was actually this year. we had a new commish who hadn't set up the waiver order prefs, which defaulted to constant--you kept your priority number all season. we changed it back to standard rotation, and announced the change the day before the WW cleared. the only reason we did this is because it was fair for everyone. i can't imagine any other rule change that would be fair to do once the season started.

[PurplePrideViking Kingdom 0]

We switched from Yahoo to ESPN this season. 4 weeks into the season, we noticed that ESPN interpreted "points allowed" to the whole team, not just when the Defense is on the field. Yahoo only counted points scored against the actual defense. For example, the Jets gave up 24 points Sunday even though it was the offense that gave up 2 TDs to New Orleans on turnovers. Thus, Yahoo and ESPN interpret Defense "points allowed" quite differently.

 

We have our own set of rules that we vote on each year, but no where in our rules did we "interpret" how points allowed would be scored. In other words, our written rules don't make a case for either interpretation. So we are voting on the interpretation 4 weeks into the season. The Jets D owner is very unhappy that we are even voting on this because he would win by .9 . If we leave it the way ESPN has scored it, he loses by 4.1.

 

The vote is split down the middle as a few people always interpreted it the ESPN way, while others interpreted it the Yahoo way. If we end up going the Yahoo way (points allowed against the defense not the whole team), then the question is this. Do we retroactively adjust the scores from the past 4 weeks and adjust scores from here on out? If we decide to leave it the way it is, do we adjust the scores for the first 4 weeks?

 

If you're wondering why we didn't determine this before the season, it's because we were on Yahoo the past 6 years, and the thought never entered anyone's mind that ESPN would interpret it differently. Obviously, we can clarify our rules for next season which we most certainly will.

 

What are your thoughts beside "that's why Yahoo sucks", "You get what you pay for", "What? Are you in a 4 team league"?

 

Oh, one more thing. I;m the commissioner and I am the guy who will benefit with a win last Sunday if we use ESPN's interpretation. Very awkward situation.

 

 

you have to stick with the rules set by espn. you cant go back and redo games that are already finished.