Fantasy Football Today - How to Resolve Your Fantasy Season (01/04 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  We offer suggestions for Fantasy managers and commissioners who are wondering how to settle Week 17 matchups. You could declare co-championships. You could use Week 18 scoring. You could wait even longer to decide the outcome. We have a number of options for commissioners to consider. Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, welcome to Fantasy Football today. It is Wednesday morning and we, just like every other football fan out there, we are continuing to think about DeMar Hamlin. He is constantly in our thoughts and we are hoping for a speedy and full recovery for him. That is never going to change. That is always going to be the most important thing for us and honestly for everyone involved, every football fan, every

listener, every viewer of our show and any show. We are continuing to think about him at all times. I'm Adam Azar. I'm joined by Dave Richard and Heath Cummings today. And we've been getting a lot of questions from people asking how to resolve their fantasy leagues. What should they do? It's obviously been a hot topic of conversation in the fantasy community. And I think we are being called upon to help. So that's what we're going to try to do today. We're going to offer a lot of solutions. We're not going to tell you what to do.

There is no playbook for this. So you as a commissioner or a league member, have a discussion with your league and figure it out. But we're going to offer some potential solutions here. And here's what we know right now. The Bills-Bengals game has been postponed, and we're still not sure if it will be played. So that's a wrinkle there. The Bills host the Patriots in Week 18.

The Bengals are at the Ravens. And we're going to discuss in just a moment if there's a possibility that if the Chiefs win on Saturday, if the Bills or the Bengals won't have that much to play for on Sunday, so that could affect what you end up doing as well. All right, guys. So let me start out with this.

If you are the commissioner of any of your leagues, do you want to talk about what you're going to do? And I'm happy to start. I know this is an uncomfortable show for us, so I don't want to put anyone in a tough spot. Yeah. Heath, I know you're commissioner of a few leagues. Do you want to talk about what you will be doing?

Yeah. Before I want to say anything, I just want to echo what you said. Continual prayers for DeMar Hamlin, for his family, for his teammates. There have been a few things around this that have made me proud of this community. The outpouring of love to his charity. I want to just give all the props in the world to those people who were out on the field and saved his life.

I had CPR certification two decades ago, and I've got a little free time coming up here in a couple weeks, and so I'm going to go get recertified in that and I think everybody else like there's going to be maybe some disagreements within your league within people who are playing for the same championship I thought Joe Bryant did a really nice job in his recent email that he sent out and he said you know first off be kind to your commissioner and let's try to make the decision that keeps the league together the decision that that doesn't um doesn't result in any hard feelings let's remember what the like we've all gotten a pretty good lesson last week of what the important thing is um and this this fantasy championship i know we spend a lot of time on it but let's let's try to just keep everybody together um i have two leagues that i commissioned. One, it didn't matter at all. The other one, I'm giving Dave a chance to change my mind on the show today before I make my final ruling because Dave's involved in the championship game. I've talked to the other person. I think communication between the score is the score,

and whoever's ahead is the champion. And if I look at the score and I can't tell who would have won, then chop up the pot. Okay, so the champion is then just sort of a nominal thing because you're splitting the pot if it's anything in doubt. Well, I don't know. I mean, I think for a lot of leagues the champion the champion thing means more to people than the couple hundred dollars does so um but i just think like the precedent that we have from the past and if this happened in any other week we would just have to have the score be the score and so that that's the way that i'm

proceeding but again open to hearing other ideas um i think that's pretty much what we just had happen in our other leagues um where the pot was chopped in a couple of places um but that's how i'm handling it okay so again that is declare the champion just based on the score is the score. It is what it is. And split, but split the pot. If it's, if it's an 80 point game and someone has Stefan Diggs remaining,

you're not splitting the pot. If it's a 10 point game, you are basically right. Okay. Well, I mean the two examples, the one I was involved in, I had three defensive players.

The other guy had Joe Burrow, and I had a six-point league. We split the pot. You split the pot. You were declared the champion, right? That is correct. And you split the pot. Right. I was not the commissioner in that league, so I didn't declare myself.

That was Jamie. Jamie did a lot of – Jamie ended the leagues. Jamie was the commissioner of four leagues, and he ended them. We're going to talk about playing into Week 18, but that's what Jamie decided to do. If Dave had not asked for me to hear his side, I would have already done that in the other league that I commissioned as well. Okay, Dave.

It would be over. You're in the finals in one of those leagues, so go on. I'm in the finals. It's our dynasty league, and it's a league I care about winning. There's a lot of prestige in the office, I feel like, when you win our dynasty league. And yes, this seems so trivial and so stupid, given all the circumstances that are happening right now in the NFL.

But I would feel kind of bad if I was awarded the victory without actually winning. I've, I've, I've got a player left in Joe burrow, uh, Marone Berkson who beat me in two other leagues. And I'd like to take one from him.

Still has Josh Allen still has Joe mix. And he could win. It's a close game. I would imagine that our matchup would fall under the split, the pot category that you talked about where it's so close. You can't make, there's no discernible way to tell that I would definitely win or that Mehron would definitely win. And so you would split the pot there.

To me, you can split the pot, but I still would want to try and find a way to end the competition. And the suggestion that I have for that is that the next game where the Bills and Bengals players play meaningful snaps, let's call it relevant snaps. So not a game where they're arresting their starters. Just whenever that next game is,

Marone gets credit for Josh Allen and Joe Mixon. I get credit for Joe Burrow. We don't count what happened on Monday. And that's how a winner is crowned. And there are people who do care about splitting the pot. And some people, you know, might like to have that extra money. My situation's a little bit different. I don't mind splitting the pot in this case. I don't mind your solution at all, Heath. I think, I think your solution is actually the best default plan of all. And that if a commissioner encounters any static with his fellow managers, then you default to what Heath said.

I love it. Because then you're just saying, look, it is what it is. We're going to split up the prize pot. Whoever wins is whoever wins. I think that's the most fair thing to do. But if the two people want to extend the season, for lack of a better term, I don't have a problem with it as a commissioner to let them do it, as long as it doesn't mean that I have to spend an hour bookkeeping and keeping track

of all the numbers. I'm pretty sure a fantasy site can do that. Ours certainly can. And if so, if there's two fantasy managers that want to extend the game and they agree to extend the game i'm okay extending it and if they want to play for the prize as stated before the season started let them play for it okay so let me follow up with this question here from sam in our chat uh who dictates when the snaps are meaningful because you could see an argument of oh is this the game that counts is this the game that counts is Is this the game that counts? Is it the playoff game? So how do you determine which game counts toward

those players' points? Just off the top of my head, it goes without saying that if Josh Allen plays the first series and then he takes a rest, that's not relevant snaps. If he plays a half, I think that that's

relevant. I would probably say that that, or close to a, I think that that's relevant. I would probably say that that, or close to a half at least, that's relevant. I disagree. I think that's too – I mean, I feel like if you're going to go that angle, you should just do – Is that too gray? Yeah, I think so. If you're going to go that angle, you should just either do week 18 and that's it or just do their playoff game.

You know their playoff game is going to count. Okay. Why don't we do that then? Why don't we call it their first playoff game? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, I know. It could take a long time, but you're going to get meaningful snaps.

Yeah, I don't. Again, I think I just did not see in this. I don't know how using fantasy points for my playoff game in January is more within the spirit of the game than any, like that's, it's really outlandish. Well, so that's why I think the point of this show is,

you know, we're going to give a ton of suggestions, right? We're not going to tell you what to do. But we might help you land on what you want. You hear one that, oh, that makes sense. Because I was just going to, what I'm going to do as commissioner, I think, and I'm going to make my determination after talking it out with you guys today,

commissioner of both of the podcast leagues. Now, thankfully, there's no money involved in these leagues. So that takes a little bit of the pressure off. One of the leagues is a 10-point game with Tee Higgins remaining. So I can't just give the Tee Higgins. I mean, that's a toss-up to me. That's a split champ, or I think I'm just going to use the Week 18 score. That's what I was leaning on at the beginning of the show. the show say all right week 18 counts for the bills and the bangles that's it you apply their week 18 score to the week 17 fantasy matchup whoever wins wins the other one is uh a 63 point game in a six point per passing touchdown league

full ppr and the team that's down 63 has josh allen and jamar chase and i think a lot of people would look at that and say all right i'm just going to declare a winner here, but I'm not because it's happened. You know, Josh Allen scored 38 or more points four times. Uh, uh, Jamar Chase, I think a score 28 or more points three times, something like that. So it's realistic enough that they could combine for that. So I feel like let's just play out. I'm right now leaning on let's just play week 18 for the Bills and the Bengals, whatever those teams score, whatever those players score,

add it to the week 17 score. Forget about what happened in the first nine minutes of the week 17 games. So Tyler Boyd's touchdown, Joe Burrow, wouldn't count. That's what I, see the difference, Heath, between, you know, what would ordinarily happen if this were week eight and a game got canceled and you would just take the zeros

is that because of the way people play fantasy football, we just happen to have this sort of free week in week 18 where nobody's really counting it. So I'm going to use that to my advantage, and I'm leaning on just using the week 18 score for the Bills and Bengals and applying it to week 17 so like I in the situation like Dave's where I'm the Commissioner one thing that really bothers me about that is we

we're not gonna get into speculating about it, but we are very uncertain how much the Bills and Bengals will play. It could be the entire game. It could be none of the game for some of the players. It could be half the game. We have very, very much no idea. You're talking about for week 18? Right. Agreed. So just using week 18, especially in a game where one of them has Joe Burrow and the other one has Josh Allen, what if one of those teams chooses to play their starters the entire game and one chooses to not play them at all or play them one series?

That seems far less equitable. But we should talk about this, how much they're going to have to play in Week 18. Are they going to be locked into playoff spots? Because I think personally, based on the emails I'm seeing, I don't know if using the Week 18 scores will be the most popular solution, but I do think it will be among the most popular. So, Dave, what do we know about the Chiefs? If the Chiefs win, if they win on Saturday, which they probably will, against the Raiders,

what does this mean for the Bills and the Bengals and how meaningful that game is, those games? Well, their Week 18 games? Yes. If the Week 17 game is called a no contest or a tie, it almost renders their games meaningless if the Chiefs win. Well, that's not true. They could possibly be playing for the two or the three.

It could determine the two and the three. No one can get the one seed. And the division would be open. The Bengals would win their division. Yep. And so then the teams would have to then decide how much do we care about two versus seven or three versus six. And my guess is that just given the way that the last two days have played out, these teams won't care that much about it.

And so I think the better solution is what you said when I brought up relevant snaps. Take their first playoff game and use that as your replacement for the stats in week 17. I don't mind that at all. You know that the players will play their best and the starters will play a lot in playoff matchups. I would lean toward that. If you do wish to extend the fantasy season, use the first playoff game, not whatever happens in Week 18.

And so I think that they probably will play in Week 18 because the difference between the two and the three seed could be a home game or a road game. If the two of them, if the Chiefs lose and then it's Bills, Bengals, and the AFC Championship game, you're going to obviously want the two seed. But you're right in the sense that we don't know and that is the that is the concern of using the week 18 strategy the other concern is let's say you do what Dave is suggesting and you say all right we use it the playoff game the first NFL

playoff game that they play which I think think is actually, I know it's unusual, but I don't think it's bad. I just have to wait. Well, what if someone gets hurt before then? You know, then I think that's kind of, you just have to kind of deal with that. It's like a player getting hurt in the first quarter and, you know, you get two points, whatever.

But so you have to think about that. Also, let's talk about what if they do play the game? What if they make up the game at some point? Then do you just use that game? And apply it to week 17? As far as using points from future games, that is the only one that kind of makes sense to me. Now, again,

I think we could run into the same thing, um, where it's not an important game to one of them. That I wonder, that I feel like would be less, uh, maybe. I was thinking about that. If they both, yeah, it could be. It could be. It could be. Especially considering the fact that they would be playing during a week that the rest of the playoff teams have off. And so it might be worth it to them to rest guys

like everybody else gets to rest. And if they're going to do that, then the NFL might as well just call the game a no contest. All right, so those are some options on the table. We'll go through more. I also think that the most important thing here is being understanding and don't throw a fit. Don't make this harder on your commissioner.

It's more complicated if your commissioner is in the final. I think if your commissioner is in the final, don't make a unilateral decision here. Please get other people in the league involved. Put it up to a vote be fair i i think that's part of why i like the split decision more than i do the week 18 or playoff stats is i just think like someone who is winning losing their fantasy championship three weeks from

now or two weeks from now because of games that a team played long after the fantasy season was over sits much more wrong with me than just calling it split champions for a year that's fine i think that's you know i'd i'd rather it be played out i'd rather actual i'd rather these guys play a game and it count, but I understand where you're coming from and people are going to have different opinions on it. So another thing you should do, by the way, is talk to the two managers. And this is what I'm going to do before I make any decision. Talk to the two managers that are involved. And if they can agree on what should happen, then you shouldn't have even listened to the first 17 minutes of this podcast,

right? I mean, if the two of them say, okay, here's what we should do, then do it and just be done with it. Then if they disagree, you can go to a contingency plan. Right. And don't put people in, like, in my personal opinion, in the podcast league, it's a 63 point game. If you are the person who's down 63, you should just concede. Not with Chase and Alan, to me.

But let's just let them play it out and then see what happens. If they want to, yes. Right? If they want to play it out, you know it's still a long shot. It's not like waiting three weeks to watch them play a game matters. Or two weeks. So in your, this scenario, and we're trying to keep everybody happy, you reach out to the two managers.

The guy who's ahead by 63 says, it's over. The guy who's down by 63 says, let's play it out. We're playing it out. You're playing it out. So it's not an agreement. No way.

What do you mean no way, Dave? I don't think that – I don't know if that's the right thing to do because now you're giving into one side and not the other. You've got to make them come to some sort of agreement. No, you don't have to make them come to some sort of agreement. I think based on the conversation we're having right now, it's pretty clear it's going to be hard to get everyone to come to an agreement here. So I'm saying if you can get them to come to an agreement, great. Then you're off the hook.

If not, then you've got to start thinking about these alternate scenarios and you've got to maybe put it up to a league vote if you want, or you've got to make a tough decision as a commissioner. But I don't see how it's unfair personally. I don't see how it's unfair to a team that's ahead by 63 points to let Jamar Chase and Josh Allen play another game, even if that's in two weeks in the actual NFL playoffs, and just count their points. What's less fair to me is not even allowing the possibility of

Josh Allen and Jamar Chase to play a game to make up those points. That's less fair. In fact, if I were the guy in first place, you're saying don't split the pot. You're saying just give him for it. No, I, I, I want to see it play out personally,

but that's, you know, that's why we're going to give you all these different options. If you want to see it play out, I actually kind of agree with Dave that the playoff game might be better than week 18, but you could also say, right, you could do this and this would be,

I'll let you guys talk in a second. I'm sorry. I'm hogging the mic. You could do this. You can say, all right, guys, this is what we're going to do. Let's forget about the 63-point matchup. Let's say it's a 30-point matchup, and, you know, it's very close, you don't know what's going to happen, it's a 10-point matchup, whatever. This is what we're going to do. We're going to either use week 18, or the first playoff game, or the week, or if they make up the game. We'll determine it

at a future date, but we have to be in agreement that week. We have to say, okay, they're going to be playing their guys. This one counts. If we can't agree with that, our default is going to be to use the playoff game, the NFL playoff game.

Okay? So the first time that we agree that these guys are going to be playing, that they're not going to be playing for a half and then coming out, that's when we're going to use those scores and apply them to week 17. If we can't agree that this is the week,

okay, then we'll wait until maybe they're going to play the makeup game. If we can't agree that that game counts, then we'll wait until the NFL playoff. And the first NFL playoff game is the last time we can kick the can down the road. Does that make sense? It all makes sense.

That's what I'm going to suggest for the two podcast leagues. That's my default. I disagree with your default. I think just as a fantasy commissioner who has already

put in a lot of time and effort to run the league. My default is it's over. And I think that's what Heath's default is too. I don't want to speak for Heath, but I will talk to Heath. Heath, if I came to you and I said,

no, the dynasty league, I don't want to play it out. It's over. I'm in the lead. And Marone comes to you and says, no, I want to play it out.

And we just can't come to an agreement, what would you do? I would name you the champion and split the pot evenly. Okay. If you're a commissioner, I think that should be the default because it makes it a little bit easier on you. It doesn't create – it'll create someone being unhappy, but you can let the fantasy managers know that before they get to have their say. So in your situation, I'm taking what I just talked about with Heath, I'm bringing it to your situation. Instead of laying your default out after the managers decide, you tell them before they decide, here's what's going to happen if you guys disagree.

Okay. I like Heath's default better than your default. Others watching and listening might like your default better than Heath's default. But let those league managers know what's going to happen if they disagree. Okay. If they disagree, we're playing in the playoffs. Or if they disagree, it's over and it's done and you split the pot. Yeah, I agree.

And I think that's the most fair thing you can do. But you got to let them know before they decide. And if it were me as the commissioner, I would say, all right, if you guys can't decide, it's just over. And we're moving forward to next year. Okay, yeah. So I think that's a good idea.

And I think what I said kind of sounded complicated, but I'm just going to sum it up. There are three potential times where if you want to count a future score and apply it to week 17, there are three potential times you could do it. You could do it for the week 18 games for the Bengals and the Bills and only those teams. And by the way, you do not count anything

that happened in the first nine minutes of the week 17 game. So you can do it in week 18. You can do it if they play the makeup game or, you know, resume this game. Or you could do it in the first round of the NFL playoffs just for the bills on the bangles. Are you saying that you are not offering people in your leagues, the option of just splitting the championship?

No, if they, if that's what they want to do, if the two of them want to do it, then I'll split it. It's fine. Then I'll declare co champs. Okay.

Um, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm the commissioner, but I'm not here to make, to push my decision on them. So if that's what they want to do, then fine. Then I'll declare co-champs. Okay. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm the commissioner, but I'm not here to push my decision on them. So if that's what they want to do, then fine. If they want to play it out and it's a free league,

I mean, I feel like I could just play it out, but whatever. That's up to them. But now it's a little more complicated, guys, if your semifinal is week 17 and you were already planning on playing in week 18. I think, Heath, you offered a pretty solid solution, if I remember earlier. Well, I think it's the same solution for me.

It's over. But if there's a dispute over who would have won a game, and I would say I would definitely not put the 63-point game in this one, but the 10-point game with T. Higgins, I would, there's absolutely no reason you can't have a three-way championship you can just say whoever scores the most of these three points wins the championship in week 18. okay in week 18 or in the first round of the playoffs well no this these are leagues that play through week oh that's your championship next week and you can just say you know what he was down by 10. He had T Higgins.

Now, I think there has to be some sort of agreement there. Because again, my default is the score is the score. But I think if everybody agrees, we can just have a three-way championship.

What about a four-way? What happens if the other matchup wouldn't be any different than a three-way? Okay. So let me give you a couple more or a few more options here that I just saw people floating around.

You take the score that you currently have in Week 17. You use the projections that existed for that game, and you apply those. I mean, I personally hate this one, but I saw people mention it. I do not like that one. Nope. And the same thing with using their season-long averages or something like that? I do not like that one. And the same thing with using their season-long averages

or something like that? I do not like that one either. Agreed. You guys will let them play Madden against each other. Using bench players? Say, okay, I'm going to put in this guy for my Bill or Bangle, and what do you think about that? Using players that were already on your bench.

When I talked to Mehron, who's the other person in the matchup with Dave, that was one of his responses at first was, can I just put guys in from my bench? And he had Geno Smith and Alexander Madison. And I said, you know what? I think that makes more sense than projections. It makes more sense than average, but you would still lose.

So we didn't do that. I don't like the bench thing personally because I feel like you made a start-sit decision. And I could see just people benefiting from it. In fact, that's what someone suggested in our podcast. They said, look, I'm down 10 with Higgins, but I have Mike Evans on the bench. I was like, well, you benched Mike Evans. I can't really let you win because of that.

I don't like that idea personally. It's probably my second favorite idea, but. Okay. Um, and you, I mean, you could just play a two week final and say,

all right, let's just play another week and add it to the score. What do you think about that? And not just for bills and bangles, but for your entire roster. Just, I like that better than just doing it for bills and bangles. Yeah.

What if you have Barkley though? You know, what if you have Barkley, though? What if you have Fournette? Or Brady. Nothing's perfect. No. I don't think I like that one. Okay. Well, I have the most difficult one to explain to the managers in the championship,

but I will try to do my best. So what are you going to say? I'm going to say this is what I think we should do. We should use points from a future game and apply them to week 17. And I'm going to say the three options for what that future game could be.

And then I'm going to say, or if you guys want to just split the pot or if you have a solution that you both agree on, then we'll go with that and override my suggestion. Otherwise, let's play it out and see what happens. That's what I'm going to say. All right, anything else you guys want to add? I would be disappointed if the commissioner

made a hard and fast ruling without consulting me. As a finals member? Right. Yes. Oh, if I finish in ninth place, of course they're not going to consult me. As a finals member. Right. Yeah. Yes. Participants. Oh, if I finish in ninth place, of course they're not going to consult me.

Come on. Yes. I think that the only thing I would add to that is if your commissioner does consult you but then makes a decision you don't like, that's different. Agreed. You might just have to eat it.

Right. As long as he talks to you and hears your point of view, then I think you have to be mostly okay with what he decides yep you gave me the chance to express myself and we did it in a very public forum and uh i don't i can't i can't be mad at you for whatever you decide okay thanks guys uh not an easy show uh hope it was helpful i know y'all had a lot of questions, so I hope that answered some of them. As of now, you know,

Start, Sit on Thursday and Friday are the scheduled episodes. We'll keep you posted on that. Hopefully we'll be doing our normal stuff, but obviously Damar Hamlin is what really matters now, and let's just hope we get some great news today. Thanks to Dave and today. Thanks to Dave and Heath. Thanks to Thomas for producing for all of you in our fantasy community, our listeners,

our audience, our viewers for being part of it. And, um, and, uh, you know, we're all in this together. So we will, uh, we will talk to you tomorrow, hopefully on fantasy football today.