Q: Hi - What a cool site. Here is our dispute. Team A (6-1 record) trades Dominick Rhodes - RB Indy; Roy Williams - WR Detroit for Team B (0-7 record) Marion Barber - RB Dallas; Chris Chambers - WR Chargers. What do you think?

A: Hi Bill. So let’s break this down by position since there are 2 RBs and 2 WRs involved in this trade.

The 0-7 team that is most likely mathematically eliminated from the playoffs at this point downgrades from Barber (787 total yards, 7 TDs) to Rhodes (199 total yards, 3 TDs) at RB and also downgrades from Chambers (226 total yards, 5 TDs) to Williams (232 total yards, 0 TDs) at WR?

This one isn’t even close. We smell a rat. Veto it immediately.

Q:  Trades in our league are subject to veto if it is determined two teams are “colluding”.We have a 5 bench league and last week I had 2 byes Bowe, and Miller while I also had Westbrook, Chambers, and Colston injured. Because of the injuries and byes I did not have enough WRs to fill my roster spots. The solution… to trade RBs to a team that was short on RBs in exchange for WRs with the understanding we would trade back after the week was over. I traded T. Jones and S. Morris for W. Welker, and E. Royal. When we tried to trade back the second trade was vetoed on the claim that we were “colluding”.

Since this trade made neither team superior at the expense of the other team (we both ended up losing last week any way) I didn’t feel like we were colluding, merely finding a solution to a problem. Either I would have had to drop a stud to the waiver wire or fail to fill a roster spot.

If I gave him an extra player from my bench and taken a player he had on a bye week I would consider that colluding, but not an even trade of active WR for active RB.

Does this fall into the category of colluding? I can understand why people think it is, but in the absence of a preexisting definition of collusion is it fair we be forced to keep the players?

A:  Hi Kenny.  Thanks for you inquiry.  The problem here is that the original trade qualifies as collusion just as much as the ensuing ‘trade back’, but the first trade seemed to slip through the system.

Unfortunately, there is no question that this an unethical transaction, and a prime example of collusion.  Just because your team and the the team you traded with got stuck in the middle of this two week transaction, doesn’t give you any legitimate recourse to have the second trade passed.

Q: Team A trades Matt Forte, Braylon Edwards, and Antonio Gates. Team B trades Felix Jones, TJ Housh, Greg Olsen and Jason Campbell. This seems awfully one sided to me. Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.

A: Hi Jason. At first glance, we agree that this trade is a bit one-sided. But lets take a look at the stats. Forte is clearly the best player in the trade with over 700 total yards and 6 TDs. As a RB replacement, team A is getting Felix Jones. Jones is currently injured and has under 300 total yards for the year. However, he should be back by week 11 at the latest, potentially in week 9, and has proven he can be a viable fantasy starter from week to week.

Now let’s look at the receivers. While Team B is clearly receiving an upgrade at RB, Team A gets the nod at receiver. Putting reputations and names aside for a second, Housh is outperforming Edwards this year with twice as many receptions, 150 more receiving yards and one more TD.

Gates, another big name player, actually has very similar performance to Olsen (same receptions and yards, Gates has an edge in TDs, 4-2).

So Team B gets a major upgrade at RB, a slight downgrade at WR, and a slight upgrade at TE. If that was the extent of the trade, then we would agree that this is lopsided. But team A is also receiving Jason Campbell wholse 1,426 passing yards, 7 TDs and 63.9 completion percentage have him ranked as a top 10 QB this season. Considering the fact that Team A lost Brady and is pinning their fantasy hopes to the arm of Kyle Orton, picking up Campbell is a smart move.

This trade has to stand.

Q: I just had a trade vetoed in my 2 QB, PPR league, but I think the trade is fair. I was offered matt schaub, Steve smith, and Ryan grant for JT O’Sullivan, Matt Forte, and Chris Johnson. Was this trade unfair or is it just sour grapes from my league mates since I’m in first place?

A: Hi Gabe. This trade is absolutely fair. Schaub and O’Sullivan are the 13th and 14th ranked QBs according to ESPN so they cancel each other out.

Forte and Johnson are both better than Grant at RB. But from a fantasy perspective this has more to do with total TDs through the first 7 weeks which can be partially attributed to luck. Forte and Grant have the same yards per carry and Johnson, though a potential monster, is still in a platoon situation with LenDale White (who had 3 TDs of his own last week).

However, Steve Smith has averaged 100 yards and 1/2 TDs in each of his last four games. He is back and there is no reason to think he won’t have the most fantasy points out of anyone in this trade from this point on.

Trades should be vetoed when they are clearly unfair or if there is collusion involved, not just because other league members don’t like the trade, as in this situation. Both teams stand to benefit from this trade, it should not be vetoed.

Back by popular demand!    For the details on how I do the scoring you can refer to last’s year’s fantasy football expert reviews.    The basic goal here is review the experts’ weekly recommendations on who to start and who to sit, so we can collectively determine if we should waste or time listening to what they have to say.

First up, ESPN’s Matthew Berry (week 1 picks)

Recommended Starts:

QB - Favre, Roethlisberger, Kitna, Hassleback, McNabb, Rodgers
RB - Portis, T.Jones, R.Williams, Parker, White, C. Johnson, E.Graham, S.Jackson, Addai, Forte, McFadden, Young, Hall
WR - Cotchery, Coles, Ginn Jr, Holmes, R.Williams, Ca. Johnson, Burleson, C.Taylor, Driver, Galloway, Crayton, Bruce

Recommended Sits:

QB - E.Manning, Pennington, Schaub, Garrard, V.Young, Brees, Anderson, Delhomme, Rivers, P.Manning, T.Jackson, Cutler, Russell
RB - Perry, Watson, R.Brown, L.Johnson, R.Bush, McAllister, D.Williams, J.Stewart, Grant
WR - R.White, Evans, Curry

Based on my scoring system, Berry went 34 for 56 with his recommendations in week 1, 61%.  Not a terrible performance and the Talented Mr. Roto does get credit for taking riskier pics (you wont’ see LT or Brady anywhere on list).

Worth heeding his advice? - I think so, if you can handle all the 90210 references.

Q:  Help me!  I’m the commissioner of our ESPN fantasy league.

One of the players in our league (who happens to be my best friend) called me the day before our waiver deadline and asked me how to add and drop a player.  We switched from CBS to ESPN and everyone is having some sort of question on how to put people on the bench, draft players etc.  He did have some problems on draft night and I was with him  on the phone right up to the draft talking him through what to do.  We don’t exactly have  a computer savvy league here!  Anyway, I just had a voice mail message from him asking him to manually give him Eddie Royal (which he told me before the deadline he was going to pick up).  Apparently, he claims, his computer isn’t showing him the option of adding or dropping someone on his team.  He called his brother to help him and his brother (who is also in the league) and he determined that the problems was indeed his computer.  Now, I believe him, but someone else has picked up Royal (as every fantasy owner tried to do this week!).  This other player in our league did have a lower waiver wire ranking than my friend so my friend, had he been able to get his computer working, would have indeed been assigned Royal by the computers.  He’s not asking for special favors, but he did ask me as the commissioner to assign him Royal from this other player since he did call me beforehand declaring his intention.  However, everyone knows he is my good friend and I don’t want anyone to think there is favoritism happening here as well as I’m afraid that this might open up the floodgates for the 21st century version of the “dog ate my homework” excuse (the power was out at my house, my hard drive crashed, I forgot to pay my cable bill, my ISP was down).  What should I do:

A)     Tell him he’s hosed don’t want to open the floodgates for excuses.
B)      Assign him Royal and even see if the guy who originally  claimed him off waivers notices.  Friendship is thicker than even fantasy football.
C)      Have him contact the other player who has Royal and if he agrees then reassign Royal
D)     Pretend my computer has crashed and tell him I can’t do it but I really want to help him.

Love to hear from the experts as this is my first year as the commissioner!

 A:  Hi Rich.  Your concerns about “opening the floodgates” are definitely warranted and you don’t want to set that kind of ‘he said, she said” precedent in your league - especially in week 1.

The safest solution is to chalk up the computer issues to bad luck, as adding Royal to your friends team is really not fair for the owner who already picked him up.  Hey, its not like luck doesn’t play an integral role in fantasy football anyway.  Career-ending injuries, blown coverages, and unfortunate weekly match-ups are all luck related occurrences that have a significant impact on your fantasy record.

That said, the more diplomatic approach is to realize that while your league needs to adhere to a set of rules, it is a league among friends.  This makes your dilemma an issue of trust, and so the final decision should be worked out between to the two owners most affected - your friend and the owner who picked up Royal.  If that owner trusts that your friend did in fact try to pick up Royal - and was prevented only by computer issues beyond his control - then he may decide to allow you to make the switch.   It really needs to be up to the owner who picked up Royal though.

Going forward, to prevent such issues in the future, you should set a standard that no more exceptions will be made regarding free agent pickups.  If a given owner is having computer issues, then it is his or her responsibility to get to another computer and enter their waiver requests.  That isn’t too much to ask considering most leagues clear waivers twice a week, giving each owner 3-4 day to ensure their free agent requests are entered successfully.

As a side note, Royal looked great, but it was only one game.   With the return of Brandon Marshall in week 2, there is a good chance that we’ve already seen Royal’s best performance of the season, so it is recommended that you position this as not a life or death situation.

Q:   The trade: Team 1:  Matt Ryan;  Team 2:  Willie Parker

Team 2 has “personal reasons” for wanting Matt Ryan.  We have 1 starting QB in our 12-team league.  Team 2 does not currently have a backup QB, though guys such as Jeff Garcia and Trent Edwards are currently free agents.  Team 2’s other RBs are Frank Gore, Lendale White, and Rudi Johnson.  Team 1 has Tomlinson but not much else at RB.  Parker was the 13th overall selection, while Ryan went 144th.

As you can imagine, the trade was immediately vetoed.  But several owners are in favor of letting it go through, so long as the two owners entered into it honestly, which they apparently did.  Should the trade go through?

P.S.  It may be changed to Lendale White.  Should that trade go through either?

 A:  Hi Jordan.  While this trade may have been made ‘honestly’, the owners in your league still have a responsibility to manage their teams in a logical fashion.   Otherwise, they will throw off the balance of the league.   The veto should stand.   If you begin to allow uneven trades in your league for ‘personal reasons’, you’ll never be able to argue collusion on an equally unfair trade down the road that may have more dishonest intentions.

Of course, your league owners should absolutely be allowed to let personal biases influence their roster.   But that needs to be taken care of in the draft, where all other owners can benefit equally from, say, picking Matt Ryan at 20th overall.

Parker could still be a top 10 back, especially if Mendenhall refuses to hold on to the football, while Ryan could easily be replaced by a waiver wire QBs.

There are a lot of concerns about White this season but he’s going on average 60th overall on ESPN drafts, while Ryan isn’t even listed in the top 200 (Parker is 20th by the way).  That trade isn’t fair either.

Hope this helps.  Enjoy opening day!

Q:  So, how would you handle this scenario?  We have someone in our work league who had a death in the family. He has been gone since Thursday 8/21.  Our draft is scheduled for tomorrow(Wed) and obviously the season starts on Thursday.  It is looking more and more like he will not be here tomorrow for our draft.  Here are some of the options that have been brought to the table.

A) Find a replacement (clearly a d*ick move but necessary for the league to move on in a time of crisis).
B) Call off draft and first week of the NFL season (sucks… especially for those without other leagues)
C) Draft after opening day but before Sunday, allow the points played on Thursdays game to stand for whoever drafts these people.  (Seems awfully difficult to do in a fair way)

D) Have another person draft for the member who is out. (very difficult to do when there is money at hand)
E) Have the league draft as a committee for the member who is out. (again very difficult to do when money and personal biases are involved)

A:   Tough situation, it is at times like this that we truly begin to understand how important draft day is.   Here are our thoughts on the proposed solution:

A.  If you choose this option,  you have no soul
B.  Not having a fantasy team to root for in week 1 is not an option either, might as well be you that croaked
C.  As long as you can find a league that would count week 1 stats this appears to be the best option.   Most leagues won’t do so however, if you enter the roster after Thursday
D.  This option is a close second if the kin of the departed can find someone who is not close enough to care about the death, but close enough to invest 4+ hours into drafting a team in which they will have no interest
E.  This option would be very hard to coordinate

Q:  Let me start by stating that there are a couple of things that lead to this problem, that has people already threatening to quit the league.  But let me give you some quick background first.  This is the second year for our 6 team league, it has a 1st place prize of $600 plus free agent money.  Since last year we have changed commissioner and the online service we used.  Through this change over some minor scoring changes occurred.  We all had the ability for 2 weeks prior to look at the league scoring setup and immediately before the draft we were all able to look over the scoring and required to sign off on it.  I for 1 noticed the change from 0 points per reception to 1 point per reception and drafted accordingly.  Now 2 days after the draft others have realized that this minor change means that WR’s  are now potentially much more valuable than RB’s.  So there is now a push to either go back to 0 points per reception or change RB’s from 1 point per 10 yards, to 2 points per 10 yards, or some other such scoring alteration to enable RB’s to get similar point totals to WR’s.  The problem that some of us have with this is that we picked our team based on this point setup, my draft strategy was based on the increased value of WR’s, so I ranked WR’s higher on my draft board.  As a last resort solution we have offered to redraft with the old scoring system in place, but the people on the other side of the issue aren’t interested/able to redraft on the upcoming holiday weekend.  So we are at an impasse and I am looking to you for an impartial opinion.

Thanks for the help,  The Silver Foxes

A:  Hi Scott.  This truly is a tough situation.  Changing to a PPR format is a major shift, as evident in the fact that most fantasy football experts/magazines make a point of mentioning how their player rankings vary substantially in PPR leagues.  Here are our thoughts.

First, you can’t redraft, that’s not even an option if you could make it work with your schedules.  It’s a money league and your owners have already showed their hands so to speak in revealing which players they value most.

Second, it is true that any owner could have checked the league rules, but this is not the first year of your league.   A major change, such as adding PPR, needs to be clearly explained to all owners prior to the draft, if not voted on through a democratic process.  If there were no message board posts citing this rule change than the fault of your dilemma rests on the shoulders of the commissioner, regardless of the fact that he/she is new to the role.

Finally, since the rule change obviously affected draft strategy, a common ground must be found.   You can’t go back to 0 points per reception, but increasing RB receptions to two points overvalues RB in this format (and is thus, almost the same thing as going back to 0 points).  We recommend you find a middle ground and give RBs 1.25-1.5 points per reception.   You should be able to assign partial points and if not you can just bump everything up a few decimal points (so 1 pt = 100 pts; and 1.25 pts = 125 pts).

Its not a great solution, but a great solution doesn’t exist in this scenario and we feel this will give you the best shot to appease all parties.

Good luck and obviously next year you need address these issues with all owners prior to the draft.

Q:  Dear ffdisputes,

There was a trade in our league between two teams where Chris Perry and Muhsin Muhammad were traded for Roddy White.  I’m thinking this trade may actually be fair because Chris Perry might be starting with Rudy being on the trading block, and the team that he was traded to already had Rudi Johnson (He is actually the one who inquired about the availability of Chris Perry).  Is this fair?

A:  Hi Eric.  This trade is absolutely fair, a standard 2 for 1 trade in which Team A is receiving the best player involved (Roddy White) while Team B is receiving depth in a passable receiver and a running back with strong upside.

If this trade was Randy Moss for Perry and Muhammad the disparity would be too great, but White, while a solid WR, doesn’t make this an uneven trade.

Thanks for the inquiry!