FFB Ethics / Fair Play Questions

[CharlieDontSurf]

Question 1:

One of the teams in my league offered a trade of Randy Moss + Dallas Clark for the other teams Antonio Gates. The team offering Moss was stacked at WR.

Now this trade was offered right before the regular season started. The two discussed it over AIM, either prior to the trade being offered on cbspsortsline or right after, and the team with Gates wasn't interested in accepting it at that time.

The trade offer was never withdrawn or rejected by either team and was left as an active offer to the the other team on the cbs site. Couple weeks go by. Trade is still available and has yet to be withdrawn despite Moss going off.

The 2nd team accepts it after the 2 week of the season concludes.

On CBS trades can only be accepted or withdrawn..otherwise they are active trades that show up in yellow above your trade screen.

So is the 2nd team accepting the open trade after initially turning it down cheating? angel shooting? gamesmanship? or standard given the other team never withdrew the trade?

Often people will offer trades and even if the person thru email or aim says not interested...they other team will leave the trade out there in case the other party trades their mind.

So what say you SE?


2. Question

A team is going against an opponent who's defense is on bye.
There are only 5 or 6 defenses available on the market. The waivers go through and the team with the defense on bye never adds a new D. So the other team drops several bench players and picks up all the other defenses.

So now there are no available defenses to start besides the one he has which is on bye. This could be similar to players adding all the available starting qbs/wrs and then dropping them on saturday when waivers won't allow u to pick one up until the next tues etc.

Fair? Gamesmanship? Standard?

[capone0]

1-Guy is an idiot for not withdrawing trade.
2-If it isn't against the rules why not do it. Most ESPN leagues have player counts. That also really isn't that effective of a strategy unless your bench is really bad. D's score 7-12 points in my leagues and wouldn't be enough of a reason to drop all my skill players from my bench.

[g-bebe]

question 1: completely fair.

question 2: it's a jerk move, but it's still fair imo.

edit: i said cutthroat but fair to both, actually. it'd be good etiquette to ask the guy if he still wants to do the trade, but in fantasy sports, itz all bout da gold trophiez.

[bluef0x]

1: Depends on the league. If it's a bunch of friends or old guys that don't know that much about the online setup, I think it's extremely lame. CBS should have an auto-decline after 4-5 days...

2: Who cares, the person that dropped everyone for 7 defenses is retarded.

[.Alex.]

1. Angleshooting - The second team explicitly rejected the trade so I'd say it should be considered dead. I also think that in general, trades should be confirmed by both parties again right before completion. What if I propose a trade for Manning, the next day he gets hurt, and the other guy immediately accepts before I get a chance to rescind?

2. Standard - This is a fairly common and accepted strategy in fantasy football. Not much different than picking up Brian Leonard this week even if you already have 5 RBs on your team.

[DonkeyKongSr]

For the second question, couldn't he pick up one defense, drop it, pick up another, drop it, pick up another...etc, until all are on waivers and only one roster spot is needed? That would be a dick move that I'd call cheating by taking advantage of a flaw in the rules. A team/player that is on a roster for only a matter of moments shouldn't go onto waivers. If he cleared roster space for every defense, then whatever, it's lame, but he made a major sacrifice.

[IrishHand]

1. The guy who got boned is an idiot who was lazy and paid the price.

2. Completely underhanded - your rules or league setup are deficient if this is possible. Every league I'm in has position maxes (2 team defenses, in this instance) to prevent garbage like this.

[dkgojackets]

Is it really worth risking someone else picking up your bench position players to keep the other guy from having a defense? Defenses usually don't get that many points, especially the bottom seven in the league.

One seems standard. Its player ones fault for not withdrawing.

[IrishHand]

[ QUOTE ]
Is it really worth risking someone else picking up your bench position players to keep the other guy from having a defense? Defenses usually don't get that many points, especially the bottom seven in the league.

[/ QUOTE ]

Guess it depends on the depth of the league. I play in very deep leagues where this sort of thing would give a guy a significant advantage. Agree though that in a standard league it's probably irrelevant - though I still feel it's underhanded.

[THAY3R]

I would like to clarify some things re: #1.

A) On CBS, the only way to see if you have a trade pending is by actually going to the trade screen. It is not something visible on your team page, nor something someone would be aware of unless he had played in CBS leagues before.

B) The trade offerer after week 1 made fun of the other person for not accepting the trade when he had the chance. Other person said nothing about the trade still being pending, and simply defended his position for not wanting to do the trade.

C) When the trade was accepted, trade offerer IMMEDIATELY gave a WTF and objected to the trade, and stated he had absolutely no intention of making the trade at the current time. I feel this should have some say in the matter, especially in a league with friends.(Although granted, there is money on the line, additional money on the line between the 2 teams.)