LEAGUE DISCUSSION
Zane’s questionable Week 13 lineup.
I hate that it’s come to this but since multiple people have talked to me about it, we need to have a league-wide discussion about Zane’s lineup in Week 13.
The Line-Up
The players in question are Austin Hooper and Wayne Gallman.
Austin Hooper hasn’t played in three weeks, nor has he been practicing with the team or had any reports that he might play. Furthermore, this is the second week in a row that Zane started him.
As for Wayne Gallman, LeSean McCoy and Darrel Williams both had significantly higher projected points in Yahoo. And projected points or not, Gallman hasn’t received more than 2 rushing attempts since Week 4 filling in for an injured Saquon Barkley.
The Intent
Speaking with Zane personally, it’s pretty clear that this was an honest mistake / lack of effort. This is his first year playing dynasty, so it’s understandable that he wouldn’t be used to staying on top of fantasy football when in normal leagues there’s not much reason to care if your team is out of the playoffs.
The Impact
Unfortunately, this isn’t a normal league so honest mistake or not, this has had serious implications on the standings. Jeff winning pushed him up to 9th place and the 6th overall pick. If Jeff had lost, he would be 14th and have the 1st overall pick. For Zane, losing moved him from 9th to 12th. It also moved Mikey down to 13th and Bunger to 14th. On top of the draft order being impacted, it also impacts entry into the Chumpion and Bunghole brackets for Jeff and Mikey. For clarity, here’s what the standings would look like if Zane had started Fant and McCoy and won:
The Solution
This is where I need help. Although there is the anti-tanking measure, the penalty for that is Zane’s 1st Round Pick. This being his first year with the league, I don’t want to crack down on him like that. Plus, as mentioned, I don’t think Zane was tanking, he just wasn’t paying attention.
One solution I can think of is a one-time lineup revision that subs in Noah Fant and LeSean McCoy for Austin Hooper and Wayne Gallman for Week 13 which would adjust the matchup accordingly. The problem with this is that I absolutely don’t want to set a precedent for “fixing” lineups. This isn’t the first time someone has forgotten or made a bad lineup decision. It’s just the most egregious/impactful one that I can recall.
Alternatively… we can just do nothing. Like I said, this isn’t the first bad lineup, and I plan on revising the penalties for stuff like this in the offseason to hopefully keep stuff like this from happening. However, that does leave four people (Jeff, Zane, Mikey, Bunger) with varying levels of impact.
Regardless of what the decision is, it needs to be made ASAP. So let’s discuss.
