Strange Plays for Week 4

This week saw the usual amount of interception and fumble return touchdowns, plus a few blocked kicks. As always, you can check the “Help > Strange Plays” menu item in your league for the complete run down each week.

Two of the more noteworthy plays this week involved a fake punt of sorts and a really, really long field goal attempt. First, the fake punt happened in the Jaguars game when they scored a 41-yard rushing TD on fourth down. They lined up sort of in a punt formation, even though they didn’t have a punter in the backfield as you would expect. Then Montell Owens took the long snap in the backfield and proceeded to score a long rushing TD on his first carry of the season. Pretty impressive play! But as we discussed back in Week 1 on a similar situation with a fake field goal, this is not scored as a Special Teams TD, because there isn’t any way to determine from a typical box score or from the stats that it was a non-standard rushing TD. You would have to use the Score Adjuster if you want this to count as something other than a regular rushing TD for Owens or for your Special Teams position.

The other interesting play that happened for the first time this season was a Missed Field Goal Return. It happened when Janikowski of the Raiders attempted a 76-yard Field Goal. Seriously. That is officially the longest field goal attempted in a game. Ever. Wow. And in case you’re curious, the longest successful field goal in NFL history is 63 yards. That was a feat accomplished most recently by Jason Elam about 10 years ago. But anyway, the attempt by Janikowski was short, and Cromartie of the Chargers fielded it near the goal line and returned it 26 yards before he was tackled. Some leagues are wondering how they can score those 26 return yards. Since that yardage doesn’t show up anywhere on a box score, there isn’t any automatic way to score it for your league. So you would have to use the Player Score Adjuster to track this type of yardage manually if/when it happens. We strongly recommend that you don’t try to score Missed Field Goal Return Yardage since it happens so infrequently and would be very difficult to keep track of on a weekly basis.  Note that there is a scoring rule in MyFantasyLeague.com for a Missed Field Goal Return TD, so if Cromartie had returned it all the way for a touchdown, then it can be scored automatically in your league if you have that rule set up.

Fumbles and Muffs

Fumbles happen all the time in the NFL, but they tend to be a source of confusion and arguments in fantasy football, because there are so many different types of fumbles and circumstances in which they can occur. Hopefully we can help clear up some confusion, especially in light of the muffed punt by DeSean Jackson in the Sunday night game. Many leagues are asking “was that a fumble” or “how should it be scored in my league?”  The short answer is: Yes, a muffed punt is also considered a fumble, so it will be scored as a fumble based on which fumble rules you have set up for your league.  Read on for more details…

Let’s start with the simple and most obvious occurrence of a fumble: an offensive player like a RB fumbles the ball, and the other team recovers it. Pretty simple and easy to explain and score this. But keep in mind that all sorts of potential fantasy football scoring events happen even on a simple play like this:

• The RB had a “Fumble”
• The RB had a “Fumble Lost”
• The defender (potentially) had a “Forced Fumble” (some fumbles are not forced)
• The Team Defense had a “Fumble Recovery”

There’s more, but those are the basics for the purposes of our discussion. So let’s say your league only has the rule defined as -2 points for each “Fumbles Lost (to Opponent)” and no other fumble related rules. This RB player would receive -2 points. But what if he fumbled and then recovered it himself? Or if he fumbled and someone else on his team recovered it? Or he fumbled and it went out of bounds? Or he fumbled and then the other other team recovered it, but then a penalty was called that nullified the whole play. All of those are instances where you could have seen a player fumble on TV while watching the game, but you wouldn’t see the points for “Fumbles Lost” appear in your fantasy football league, because he didn’t lose the fumble! Every week we have complaints or comments or issues raised by customers that swear up and down that they witnessed a player fumble, so why isn’t he being charged for that fumble!? The answer is “It depends on a lot of factors!”

The rule called “Fumbles” takes into account all fumbles by a player, no matter what. That means if they dropped the ball on a rushing play, or kickoff return, or muffed a punt, or bobbled a snap from center, it is considered a fumble. And it doesn’t matter if they recovered it or not. A fumble is the act of losing the ball.

Related to that is the rule called “Fumbles Lost (to Opponent)” which takes into account all fumbles lost by a player, no matter what. That means if they lost a fumble on special teams or on offense or on defense, then they are charged with a Fumble Lost. But only if the NFL opponent ends up with it. Otherwise it is not considered “lost”.

If you prefer to try to categorize the fumble and only penalize players for certain types of fumbles, then we have other scoring rules available as well:

• Fumbles on Offense
• Fumbles Lost on Offense

These are pretty self explanatory. They are your “standard” fumble plays that happen on offense.

• Fumbles on Special Teams
• Fumbles Lost on Special Teams

These are a little trickier, because the definition of a “Special Teams” is a whole separate topic for fantasy football purposes. But in general, Fumbles on Special Teams refers to any situation after the ball is punted or kicked off. And a “muff” is considered to be a fumble for fantasy football scoring purposes. So for our specific example of DeSean Jackson in the Sunday night game, he tried to catch a punt, but it bounced off his chest and the punting team recovered it. In the play-by-play the NFL refers to it as a “muffed punt”, but for fantasy football statistical purposes, it is considered to be a special teams fumble and special teams fumble lost. If your league had the generic “Fumbles” or “Fumbles Lost (to Opponent)” set up, then he would be penalized for this. If you didn’t want that to happen, then you would have to change your rules to use the “Fumbles on Offense” type rules instead.

• Fumbles on Defense
• Fumbles Lost on Defense

These are also tricky, because it can be fuzzy differentiating between a special teams play versus a defensive play. But in general terms, Fumbles on Defense happen only after a turnover happens first. For example, if a QB throws an interception, and then the defender fumbles it while running it back, that would be a fumble on defense. Clear as mud!?

One final note about these various fumble categories. Our live stats feed doesn’t categorize the fumbles and fumbles lost into offensive versus special teams versus defense until after the game is final. So during the live stats feed, all fumbles and fumbles lost are lumped into the general “fumbles” and “fumbles lost” categories. Then after the game is final and official stats are issued, the fumbles are broken out into “type” or when they happened (offense or special teams or defense).

Bye Week Carryover Points

This week is the first “official” week where several NFL teams have a BYE instead of playing a scheduled game. Of course, week #2 was the first BYE week thrown at us unexpectedly when Hurricane Ike caused the Ravens at Texans game to be canceled (postponed) at the last minute. But from here on out, there are as many as 6 NFL teams scheduled for a bye each week until Week #11, when the full slate of weekly games resumes.

In any case, these bye weeks can cause various issues from a fantasy football perspective. Most leagues actually just deal with the issue by having deep rosters. So this week, for example, when the Colts, Lions, Dolphins, Patriots, Seahawks, and Giants are resting, you would have to start replacements for those players on your fantasy football team as well. That’s where roster depth comes in. Ideally, your league allows enough roster spots as needed.  A typical league starts 8 players and drafts 16, so you have plenty of options on your bye weeks to fill a lineup.

Our philosophy is that bye weeks are just another strategy inducing aspect to the game of fantasy football!  It even can encourage trades and roster changes on a weekly basis, which is generally a good thing that gets the team owners in your league to communicate and interact more often.   So we strongly recommend that you deal with them by not having any special rules to help with bye week replacements.

However, MyFantasyLeague.com does have an option that lets you carry over the scores from the previous week for players on a bye. You can set this option on the “For Commissioners > Setup > General Scoring Setup” screen.  Some leagues use this to allow teams without enough depth on their roster to use players that are not playing during a bye week to receive points anyway.  The other option, if you have other unique rules in your league, is to use the “Player Score Adjuster” to award points as needed to players on a bye week.  This can be used if your league has special rules just for the QB or Kicker position on a bye week, for example.

MyFantasyLeague.com Home Page Redesign

We’re excited to announce a new look to our home page today!

Check out MyFantasyLeague.com for our new design and our new emphasis on fresh content that will be updated several times each day.

You can still search for your league from the main page as always, and we’ll keep it up-to-date with the latest news about MyFantasyLeague.com as well as the latest fantasy player news from our various sources.
We’ll have more details and news about our redesign in the near future as well!

Team Quarterback

The QB position is arguably the most fragile position in football, so there are often times when a QB is injured early in a game and never comes back in to finish the game.  This is not a drop dead issue for “real” football teams because they bring in a replacement.  But for fantasy teams, it can mean the difference between a win and a loss if your QB goes down in the first quarter before he accumulates any meaningful stats.  The most obvious example is Tom Brady in Week #1.

Because of this “problem”, some leagues have adopted the “Team QB” concept.  Instead of drafting and starting an individual QB like Brady, they instead draft and start the “New England Team QB”.  So in the first game when Brady was injured, a fantasy team that had the Patriots Team QB still finished with respectable stats because Matt Cassel played three and a half quarters and went 13 of 18 for 152 yards and a 51-yard touchdown to Moss.

Personally, I don’t like the idea of a “Team QB“, because it takes away from some of the fun and skill of identifying good backups and stashing them away just in case the first string QB does get injured or is benched for some other reason.  But for some leagues, it is a way to simplify roster management and makes it easier to deal with injuries.  Some leagues even use the “team” concept for the “Team Kicker” or the “Team Punter” or the “Team Tight End“.  We support all of these positions in MyFantasyLeague.com.  And for those that want to get their feet wet with IDPs (Individual Defensive Players), we also support a “Team DL” and “Team LB” and “Team DB” position, which allows you to group all of the stats together for all of the Defensive Lineman on the entire NFL team, for example.

Anyway, getting back to the Team QB in particular, for those leagues that do use it, some clarification is in order.  The spirit behind the Team QB concept is that you are trying to avoid the loss of a player and his stats in mid-game.  Therefore, the Team QB position just adds up all of the stats for the Individual Quarterbacks on the team.  It does not add up all of the passing stats by all players.  So when Ronnie Brown (RB, Miami) throws a Passing TD like he did this past week, it does not count towards the Team QB stats.  Other examples would include a trick play where a fake punt results in a passing TD by the punter.  He is just considered the punter on that play, even though he happened to throw a TD.  If a league was using individual QBs, then the QB would not receive those stats.  So keep that in mind if you are using the Team QB position in your league.  It covers you for injuries or poor performance when the QB is replaced by the backup QB.  But it does not give you bonus stats for trick plays or passes and TDs by players at other positions.

Strange Plays for Week 3

This week was relatively calm compared to the first two weeks of the season with regard to unusual plays in the NFL.  There weren’t any blocked kicks of any variety this week. but there were two different Safeties scored.  The Saints scored a standard one when Andre Hall was tackled in the end zone.  But the Eagles scored one in a unique way by forcing Roethlisberger into an intentional grounding call while he was in the end zone, which results in a Safety.

The only defensive TDs were scored from run of the mill interception returns and fumble recoveries.  One issue about these types of TDs that is worth noting for leagues that penalize the passer or the fumbler when their turnover is returned for a TD…  There are some stats for a few specific scoring rules that aren’t updated live during the games.  Specifically, if you award negative points for a quarterback that throws an Interception which results in a defensive touchdown by using the “Interceptions Thrown Returned for TD” rule, or you award negative points for a player that fumbles and results in a defensive touchdown by using the “Fumbles Lost Returned for TD”, then those stats won’t be updated until the game is final.  Our stats provider, as well as any standard box score, does not include that information during the live stats feed.  The other significant stats that aren’t updated live are the various types of fumble stats.  If your league uses the standard “Fumbles” and “Fumbles Lost” rules, then they are updated during the games as they occur.  But if you use the specific fumble types, such as “Fumbles on Offense” or “Fumbles on Special Teams” or “Fumbles on Defense”, then those won’t be updated until the game is final and our stats provider has had a chance to break out the fumbles into how and when they happened.  Just something to be aware of when comparing live, unofficial scoring to the final, official stats after the game.

Getting back to the strange plays, perhaps the biggest oddity of the week was caused by Ronnie Brown scoring no less than 5 touchdowns against the Patriots and handing them their first regular season loss since before the 2007 season.  And one of them was a Passing TD in addition to his 4 Rushing TDs!  We’ll discuss these “out of position” type of touchdowns in more detail here in our blog tomorrow.

Not too late to start a league!

Even though it’s already the start of Week #3, there’s still time to create a fantasy football league on MyFantasyLeague.com.  If you’re switching from another service, you can enter all of your scoring rules, rosters, and starting lineups for the first couple of weeks,  and then all of your scores and standings will be updated retroactively.  And if you’re considering starting a late league, we have you covered there as well.   You can select any week to be your league’s starting week, so if you had to miss the first week or two for whatever reason, you can still run a legaue for the rest of the season even though some initial weeks were skipped.  Just use the “For Commissioners > Setup > General Scoring Setup” screen to specify your league’s starting week.

And if you’re having issues with your current league management site, and you need a 2-week free trial to see what our service is like, just ask and we’ll be happy to set you up with that as well.

Better Injury Updates

Starting this week, we’ve teamed up with Rotowire.com to offer more timely and more accurate player injury updates for your fantasy football league.  Previously, we relied on the NFL official injury report, which isn’t released until Friday evenings, and the NFL “practice reports”, which really isn’t very helpful with true injury information or the status of players.  All of this led to various issues for leagues that were looking for updated injury information earlier in the week.  From a fantasy perspective, the NFL injury report just wasn’t very useful because it is released so late in the week, and the practice report just wasn’t very informative because there are so many reasons that a player may not have participated in practice.

Most leagues that have any type of fantasy IR rules need to be able to make their injury moves early in the week and then allow waiver moves later in the week.  Therefore, as of yesterday, we will now use Rotowire.com as our official source of player injury information. This will result in more timely and accurate injury information for your league since the injury information for players will be updated constantly instead of just once a week on Friday nights. The same injury designations will still be used for players (IR, Out, Doubtful, Questionable, and Probable), so you can still use the same fantasy IR rules that your league used previously.

Players that are injured on Sunday and Monday will now be updated much sooner with an injury status.  Therefore, the old Wednesday night “practice report” designations will no longer be used at all.  But players that have a bye week will still have an injury designation even during their off week. We’re confident that this new injury information will be much more timely and useful from a fantasy football perspective compared to the previous reliance on the official NFL injury updates, and excited to partner with Rotowire for this information!

Lateral Confusion

This week there were more than enough strange and unusual plays, so it’s worth posting yet again to identify and explain some of them.

In the high scoring Monday night game, there was plenty of action, including a 98 yard Kickoff Return TD as well as a 0 yard Fumble Recovery TD in the end zone.  So again, make sure all of your TD distance rules start at 0 yards and go all the way up to 110 yards.

The other exciting and confusing play happened as the game ended, with a failed “hook and ladder” attempt.  McNabb threw a pass to DeSean Jackson, who then tossed it back to Hank Baskett, who then tossed it back again to Brian Westbrook.  It ended poorly as Westbrook was driven out of bounds.

A much more significant (and unplanned) lateral happened in the Colts game, when Manning threw a long pass to Gonzalez for 58 yards down to about the 18 yard line.  As he was in the process of being tackled, Gonzalez pitched it back to Reggie Wayne, who then ran it in for an apparent touchdown.  The play was challenged and Wayne was ruled down at the 1 yard line.  So what could have potentially been a very controversial touchdown for fantasy football leagues turned into a less significant but still confusing play.

Most fans who watch the play assume that the player who received the lateral (Reggie Wayne in this case) should get some rushing yardage as part of his stats for the game.  But that’s not how it works for a lateral.  He does receive credit for yardage on the play.  But not rushing yards.  Instead, the yardage after the lateral is considered a “continuation” of the play, so it is considered to be receiving yardage.

If you break down the individual stats for the 3 players involved for just that one play, it would read as follows:

Peyton Manning:  1 pass completion for 75 yards

Anthony Gonzalez: 1 reception for 58 yards

Reggie Wayne: 0 receptions, but 17 receiving yards

And if Wayne would have scored the TD, it would have been considered a 76 yard passing TD for Manning and an 18 yard receiving TD for Wayne, even though he still wouldn’t have received credit for a reception on the play.  Strange but true.

If the play would have started as a rushing play, such as a handoff to Addai, and then he had tossed a lateral to Wayne, then any yardage after that would be considered rushing yardage for Wayne.  Clear as mud?

Strange Plays for Week 2

This Sunday, there were a few notable plays that happened for the first time this year.

Darren Sproles of the Chargers had the first Kickoff Return TD, and it was a long one. He fielded it in the end zone and returned it 103 yards for a TD. Just a reminder to make sure you have your Length of TD rules set up with a range of 0 to 110 yards, since all of the various Return TD types can be over 100 yards if they start in the end zone.  Reggie Bush of the Saints had a Punt Return TD, but there were two of those last week already, so hopefully your rules already account for these plays.

The Lions scored a Safety without doing much because Derrick Frost, the Punter for the Packers, mishandled the snap on a punt attempt and let the ball go out of the back of the end zone.

Another first time event this week was a Blocked Punt TD when the Titans blocked a punt attempt by Kyle Larson of the Bengals. Keith Bulluck blocked it and then fell on it in the end zone to score the touchdown. Note that if you set up your Team Defense scoring to include the Number of Defensive TDs rule, it only includes Interception and Fumble Return TDs by default. So you’ll want to add the Blocked Punt TD and Blocked Field Goal TD rules if you want this TD to be included in your team defense scoring, or you can add the Number of Defensive and Special Teams TD rule, which includes all of these types: Interception and Fumble Returns TDs, Blocked Punt and Field Goal TDs, and Punt and Kickoff Return TDs. And this is another example of a 0 yard TD, so make sure your “Length of” TD type of rules start at 0 yards instead of 1 yard.

There were actually two of these types of blocked kick scoring plays on Sunday. Jason Baker also had a punt attempt blocked by Darrell McClover, and then Brandon Lloyd of the Bears recovered it and returned it for a 9 yard Blocked Punt TD.

Last but not least, this week was the first time some 2 point conversions were successfully executed. The Colts scored a 2 point rush when Dominic Rhodes carried it in. Then the Chargers, Chiefs, and Broncos each scored a successful 2 point pass.