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        the Gridiron >> the Red Zone >>  Starting Next season, FF gets a whole lot harder
        
(Message started by: Drugrunner on Sep 20^th, 2002, 12:15pm)

Title: Starting Next season, FF gets a whole lot harder
Post by Drugrunner on Sep 20^th, 2002, 12:15pm

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/business/DailyNews/NFLinjuries.html

Read the whole article, but here is certainly a standout comment

Quote:

One of many new wrinkles in the NFL injury game has been brought about by Congress' Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPPA. Starting next year, players will have the right to keep their injury status private. That means the league's weekly injury reports — in which players are termed "probable," "doubtful," and so on — will become illegal.

"There's no way that a coach will be able to hold a press conference to announce a player is sitting out the next three games with a torn ligament," says Dr. Pierce Scranton, a former team physician for the Seahawks whose book, Playing Hurt: Treating and Evaluating the Warriors of the NFL chronicles his 17 years with the Seahawks.

How hard is that going to make your Line up decisions?

Title: Re: Starting Next season, FF gets a whole lot hard
Post by ugley on Sep 20^th, 2002, 12:30pm

I am 100% sure Steg will find a solution. No worries mate. 8) [smiley=smileythumbsup.gif]

Title: Re: Starting Next season, FF gets a whole lot hard
Post by Venom on Sep 20^th, 2002, 4:43pm

What round will Fred Taylor go next year? [smiley=laugh.gif]

Title: Re: Starting Next season, FF gets a whole lot hard
Post by mcohen on Sep 20^th, 2002, 9:05pm

How annoying.

I cant help but wonder if the NFL will find some way around it. I suppose the law itself was not made to target the NFL in some way, and the NFL may find a way to make itself an exception, either by "encouraging" the courts not to enforce it on the NFL, or by having a special exemption formally passed.

Clearly, not only does this make it difficult for FF owners to figure out lineups, but it makes it tough for NFL coaches to prepare. How can Coach X prepare his team when he doesnt even know if five different opponents will be on the field, and that can make a big difference in the game plan.

This is as rediculous as suddenly allowing players not to reveal which team they signed with, so when week 1 rolls around we see who is on what team for the first time.

Three cheers for blanket government regulations!

Title: Re: Starting Next season, FF gets a whole lot hard
Post by ugley on Sep 20^th, 2002, 9:13pm

on 09/20/02 at 16:43:56, Venom wrote:

What round will Fred Taylor go next year? [smiley=laugh.gif]

depends on if he can still walk after this year. ;)

Title: Re: Starting Next season, FF gets a whole lot hard
Post by StegRock on Sep 21^st, 2002, 4:40am

Well, I am not going to get into the ethics or politics of this and what kind of regulations should or should not be enforced and/or implemented by the government, the league, individual teams or otherwise. We tend to criticize and make caustic (usually erroneous and over-exaggerated) statements about that which we do not understand and, truth be told, I, at this point in time for sure, do not know nearly enough about the issue to have an informed, intelligent "opinion" about it. Moreover, nothing I do or say will have any impact on the outcome. In very Stoic fashion, here's what I can do...

...One, thank Drugrunner for this GREAT find. This is some interesting stuff that we will have to deal with/adjust to if it in fact comes to fruition. Kudos, Drugrunner! [smiley=smileythumbsup.gif]

...Two, thank ugley for the kind words of support. [smiley=awwgee.gif] And, yes, I already have a (one) solution for fantasy footballers. "Armchair Sports Group" (ASG), the company who ran the "rotisserie" leagues I participated in from 1989 to 1996, always allowed for backup receivers to be put in when a starter has NO stats, receiving, rushing or passing (or kicking, technically). In 1997, when we started running the GBRFL on our own, we sided with "mercy" and decided to apply this standard across the board to ALL positions. So, if any one of your starters, 2 QB's, 3 RB's, 3 RC's (including TE's if so desired) and 1 PK, produces NO stats for a given week, it would revert to the next player on your list and so on. So, for us, this BIG potential change in the NFL will go by virtually and relatively seamlessly. I suggest that you all run this by your league commissioners as soon as possible. Get this suggestion in BEFORE your commish has to deal with the deluge of convoluted suggestions. One drawback, the way (free) "cookie-cutter" on-line services that I know of are set-up, they do not allow for such an option, at least not at present, and to make it air-tight is going to be a HUGE job for them that they may not be willing to take on. Actually, obviously, I think things are better with the "mercy" rule. It does not change how you draft a team or choose your starting lineup. It just makes you think about depth and your bench a little more, i.e., it makes you get into the game a little more deeply. YES, there is that extremely rare occassion when a guy's starting receiver plays but has an absolutely SHIT game and produces no stats and that owner ends up benefiting when, perhaps, he should not. But, the absolute rarity of such an occurrance does not even come close to outweighing the advantages. It really just brings another twist/dynamic/facet, that you need to consider, into the game. In any case, for those interested in how a lineup card for a set-up like this is done, feel free to follow the following link and click "Guests Click Here":
http://www.fantasyfootballer.com/line-upssubmissionform.htm.

...And, finally, agree with mcohen's implication that this may not even "come to pass" in the NFL. The NFL and its teams will do whatever it can to buck the implementation of HIPPA in the league. Their argument might even include what mcohen goes on to argue. Don't know how much water that will hold, though. It would just be said to be another thing coaches "across the league" would have to strategize around. More likely, they will point to more "immediate" player-safety issues and that if such laws were to have to be applied in a venue like the NFL, it would put players directly in harm's way. There are also obvious issues regarding the ability of a player to keep his injuries "to himself," so to speak. Coaches sooner than later know when a player is injured. What kind of (convoluted) rules would have to be passed to prohibit NFL coaches from exchanging that kind of information, at least "under the guise of" player safety, even if not in public press-conferences? How would regulating private intra-league, inter-team correspondences be gone about? That having been said, with some of the regulations I see implemented by the NFL, and professional and collegiate sports in general for that matter, who knows?!

Title: Re: Starting Next season, FF gets a whole lot hard
Post by ugley on Sep 21^st, 2002, 12:11pm

I can not imagine Vegas and the other gambling parts of the world will let this affect football to any significant degree. The injury reports are to much of a factor in setting the lines and odds on a game. Then again I have been wrong before.

Title: Re: Starting Next season, FF gets a whole lot hard
Post by mcohen on Sep 21^st, 2002, 3:23pm

My league, NAFFLIU [of which I am commissioner], has been operating with dynamic lineups since our second season.

Whenever a player is listed as questionable or is in some way possibly going to sit out the entire game, the owner is allowed to place a question mask next to the players name when he submits the starting lineup, and in brackets he tells me what player to substitue.

I then go through the game report and make the substitution if the questionable player doesnt play. This is also helpful for week 17, when some of the players on teams with their playoff position already determined might sit out.

This dynamic lineup system could easily cover the "is he even injured" question, if it does come up, so I agree with Steg, there is a pretty easy solution if you're willing to put up with the minor annoyance of it. However the difference is that the owner still has to be aware of the possibility, and must notify you in advance that player X in his lineup might not play.

Title: Re: Starting Next season, FF gets a whole lot hard
Post by mcohen on Sep 21^st, 2002, 3:29pm

One more note, NFL.com has "Gamebooks" for all the NFL games, and included in this gamebook is all the players that substituted in and out. So if a player played, but did not actually accrue any official stats, you can still find out. In NAFFLIU, even if a player played one down and made no statistic, it still counts as played.