QFL1 Playoff Pool Controversy & First Weekend Results

What would a QFL1 post-season be without a good controversy? We haven’t known such a situation in years. This time around the issue involved Scott (hopefully it won’t infringe on his campaign for Commissioner) picking one of his beloved Patriot players who was NOT on a QFL team. Oooh, juicy you might think, but, the resolution brings to mind the lameness of QFL4.

But first a look at the standings thru one weekend.

Analysis From Pope Paul.

Shades (Saints) and Ted (Eagles) are done. Between so many teams
taking Brady, Green-Ellis, Woodhead, Welker, Branch, Graham and the
Pats D, several teams are covered and will continue to drop out of the
tournament as the playoffs progress. For instance, although they are
not mathematically eliminated yet, Hans and Ian are pretty much done.
Although Rishi is currently leading, and he was the only one to pick
top tier running backs Rice and Mendenhall, with four players already
out, he needs a lot of help to hold on. There are four Pats heavy
teams: Shane, Scott, Jay and Paul. Shane looks to have the most upside
of them with Forte and Wallace still alive. However, he will need the
Pats to score enough points without the help of Woodhead, who he left
off his roster. Likewise, Jay needs the Pats to do well and Tony
Gonzalez to go off, be he must hope Deion Branch doesn’t for any
chance to win. If the Pats make it to the Superbowl, Scott’s all Pats
and Paul’s mostly Pats rosters will be in a great position. Although
Paul is somewhat happy that Garcon and Hartley gave him a 21 point
cushion prior to the Colts and Saints’ early elimination, you better
believe that there will be a lot of yelling at the television every
time Shane Graham and the Patriots line up for a field goal of 31
yards or greater during the rest of the playoffs. Barron and Benny
have a unique Falcons/Steelers thing going on that might pay off for
one of them, especially if the Falcons and/or Steelers do well.
Finally, the good news for Seth is that he made an all Packers
strategy and the Packers won on the road in the wild card game, but
the bad news is that he didn’t realize that the Packers would only
throw to their 6th and 7th best wide receivers and pound the ball with
their third best running back during the playoffs. For any chance to
win the pool, Seth needs the Packers to continue to win on the road
while earning more than 32 fantasy points each week.

The controversy and resolution so lame it makes you sick as described in email chain.

From Paul Jan 9.

Just put the playoff pool entries into the spreadsheet. Only one
 controversy this year which directly impacts Scott and my entries
 (we basically have the same roster except for one position player and
 our kickers):

Scott is attempting to play Aaron Hernandez, who was cut in Week 15
 and cleared waivers the following week. The post-season playoff
 rule,which recently was revised to incorporate several Commissioner
 interpretations, states that “any player on any active roster,
 practice squad, injured reserve, or any player who has been cut but
 has not passed through waivers is eligible.”

 It is my understanding that a player in the free agent pool can only
 be used if he was cut after the final free agency deadline since
 there is no other way to determine his fair market value. But because
 invalidating Hernandez might affect the outcome of Scott and my
 entries, I wanted to defer to Comp Comm for guidance.

From Shane Jan 9.

I actually thought about using Hernandez too but didn’t because he was ineligible based on my reading of the playoff pool rule. I felt he was ineligible before I submitted my roster and I still believe that to be the case.

From Scott Jan 9.

 Shit.  I thought Duggan still had him.  When I was looking a players
 on A.S.S. I was looking at salaries, forgetting that A.S.S. sucks and
 doesn’t clear the salaries from players when they clear waivers.  I
 saw the $2 salary and assumed he was still on Duggan’s roster.  It’s
 especially stupid because I actually wanted to play Gronkowski, but
 saw that he had a zero salary and wasn’t on anyone’s roster.

 I don’t think there is any question that he is ineligible.

 The question is; am i screwed or do I have the option of subbing in
 someone who hasn’t played yet (e.g. someone else on the Pats).  It’s
 pretty obvious what my strategy was.

 I would completely understand if it is determined that I should just
 be screwed.  It’s clearly my fault.

 Although, I have a vague memory of something similar happening last
 year and feel like maybe we let that guy make a sub.  If that’s the
 case I would like to ask for the same treatment.  Let me do some quick
 research and see if I can find it.

Scott continues in another email.

The only thing I could find was evidence supporting the fact that
 players cut before the final week of free agency are not eligible for
 the playoff pool.  Hernandez was cut week 15 and so is not eligible.
 If he had been cut in week 16 then he would have been eligible since
 we don’t play in week 17 and therefore the guy couldn’t be picked up
 and played.  Although, we should make sure the constitution is
 specific about that, because we could technically allow free agency
 through week 17 in case someone wanted to take a flyer on a guy for
 next year, but that would mean that guys cut in week 16 wound NOT be
 eligible.

 Anyway, the emails I found referenced a playoff roster violation
 involving Vinatieri, but I couldn’t find the original emails for that
 case because that predated my switch to gmail.  Does anyone have
 access to email from that far back so that we can see if there was a
 precedent that could be applied here?

 In case, the precedent was to allow a sub who hadn’t played yet, I
 will list Brandon Tate as my sub.  I think it’s only fair to sub
 another marginal NE player since it could be argued that subbing a
 player from another team might be because of next week’s matchups
 (which we now know).

Scott the next day Jan 10.

We should probably get a final ruling on this before Paul send out the
 update tonight.

 Assuming no one can find the resolution to the seemingly similar
 Vinatieri incident a few years back, how should we handle this.

 Paul seems to be recusing himself and I obviously need to do the same.

 Should this just go to a comcom vote?

 Also, regardless of the outcome of this, I’d like to suggest that in
 the future we make the deadline 24 hours before the first game.  Not
 only so that we can catch errors before they matter, but also so that
 the commissioner can distribute the rosters in advance of the first
 game, which would be nice.

From Paul Jan 10.

In 2008, Benny used Vinatieri, who similarly was off a roster after
 Week 4. While there was some communication about it being illegal and
 there was a lot of discussion about Ted’s ploy to load his playoff
 roster with seven position players (and no kicker), the lengthy and
 pithy email string never comes to any resolution about how to handle
 either situation (although it appeared that if Ted would have advanced
 in the playoff pool, he most likely would have forfeited kicker points
 (which he did not name) and either his highest payed player or his
 highest scoring player).

From Paul again Jan 10.

I searched the rest of my email archive (since 2005) and could not
 find another example of an illegal player being named (since “active
 roster” was interpreted to include PS, IR and recently cut players,
 these sorts of situations have usually resulted in findings of no
 violation. Also, I don’t believe I was on the comp comm and I used a
 separate work account in 2005-07, so there may have been one of these
 situations for which I do not have a record). In 2008, there is no
 indication whatsoever that Benny was offered the opportunity to name
 another kicker when he improperly named Vinatieri, and Comp Comm was
 going to take a pretty hard-lined stance with Ted, counting only six
 of his entries. Although admittedly, Ted’s situation was
 distinguishable because it was a salary cap issue.

From Scott Jan 10.

Acknowledging that I don’t get a vote in this, I’d just like to say
 that although this was a stupid mistake and clearly was my fault and
 no one else’s, I feel like denying a replacement player would be a
 particularly harsh penalty.  Based on what Paul said about he and I
 having the same roster except for the kicker and one position player
 (presumably Hernandez), it essentially amounts to disqualification.

 I could understand this if the player in question was on a team who
 already played, but I don’t see how I am gaining any advantage
 whatsoever in replacing Hernandez with Tate.  I also don’t think that
 there is much of a question about who I would have played if I had
 realized that Hernandez was unavailable.  I submitted an all Patriots
 line up and the fact that I was going to play Hernandez in the first
 place even though a) I he hasn’t played in 4 weeks, b) during that
 time Gronkowski has established himself as the go to TE and c) I
 didn’t even need to play a TE and could have chosen a stud WR or RB
 from another team, clearly demonstrates that I was committed to an all
 NE line up and would not have played anyone from a team who was
 eliminated this weekend.

 Ultimately, I think this a clear violation without a clear punishment
 and that it’s the commissioner’s decision to rule on punishments.
 However, he has recused himself and so I think comcom should vote on
 this.  My non-vote opinion is that a $20 fine would be fair, but I
 will abide by a comcom vote without protest.

Shane Jan 11.

There is no doubting Scott’s intent to field an all New England lineup. He’s
 been doing it for years and is the biggest NE homer in QFL Nation.

 However, the question for me is whether Scott submitted a valid playoff
 roster by the deadline and he clearly did not. Like I said on Sunday, i came
 very close to making the same mistake until I realized that Hernandez and
 Gronkowski were free agents who had cleared waivers and were therefore
 ineligible based on the playoff roster rule so i went in another direction.

 I think Scott is one of the hardest-working members in the QFL but I don’t
 want to set a precedent where we allow people mulligans in cases where they
 didn’t comply with the rules. I vote that there is no fine and that Scott
 simply forfeits that roster spot in his playoff lineup.

From Paul Jan 11. No fine is bullshit.

 I do not think a fine is even an issue. No fine.

 Without any other guidance, as Commissioner, I am forced to make some
 sort of ruling here. If my tournament entry was not affected, I do not
 think there is any way that I could allow Scott to add a replacement
 player under the Constitutional language “a regular starting line-up
 of 8 players is selected BEFORE the playoffs.” While I understand his
 points, his proposed remedy would create ridiculous precedent. Quite
 simply, if I ruled otherwise, there would be nothing stopping an owner
 from starting an invalid player next year in order to cherry-pick a
 second round match-up. I know that Scott is going all Pats and he is
 proposing to use Tate instead of seeking a better player on another
 team, such as Mike Wallace or Forte, but what about future situations
 where a third string receiver on the same team is not available (such
 as 2008, when Benny illegally started Vinatieri)? Also, what do we do
 if the mistake is not discovered right away? I mean, the only reason I
 discovered the violation when I was creating the spreadsheet is
 because I, like Shane, knew that Hernandez was ineligible. Here, I am
 at a disadvantage for reporting the violation immediately instead of
 waiting for the Pats game when there would be no fair way for another
 player to replace Hernandez.

 Nonetheless, because I am put in a peculiar situation here, I agree
 that if at the end of the tourney, if Tate’s points are the difference
 between Scott beating me, I will split the pot with him. I am offering
 this in order to resolve this unique situation. From this point
 forward, however, any points for an illegal player will be forfeited
 with no opportunity for a replacement player. Of course, if the Pats
 win the Superbowl and Graham and Tate do not cover the 21 point head
 start I have on Scott, I’m keeping the whole pot. And of course, by
 making an issue of this, Scott has so overwhelmingly jinxed the
 Patriots that there is no way they are even going to win a game in the
 playoffs, much less the Superbowl, so none of this really matters.

From Scott Jan 11.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that you are the King
 Solomon of the modern age.  I respect and accept your ruling without
 reservation.  Thank you for being a stand up guy.

 And while I do hope that your kicker and mystery position player are
 both already eliminated and Shayne Graham throws several fake field
 goal passes to Brandon Tate for TDs delivering me half the prize
 money, I will nonetheless (or maybe only a little bit the less) be
 happy for you should you win it all.

 Go Pats!

 This is the lamest post ever.