ASK THE EXPERTS appears weekly from training camp through the Super Bowl with answers to a new question being posted Thursday morning. How the guest experts responded when we asked them: How should fantasy leagues handle tricky positional issues?
DAVID DOREY
While it is hard to go against whatever the official position designation is from league management software, call me a purist but I much prefer to have players considered to be in the position that they are playing. Hinton was a QB this week (and only this week). Taysom Hill is a quarterback currently. It's contrary to the spirit of the game to take advantage of a technicality rather than field a fantasy team the same way that everyone else in the league is. You must have fairness in any league.
Dorey co-founded The Huddle.com in 1997. He's ranked every player and projected every game for the last 23 years and is the author of Fantasy Football: The Next Level. David has appeared on numerous radio, television, newspaper and magazines over the last two decades.
JUSTIN ELEFF
Every league is hosted somewhere, and in my view that means the decisions are made above the league level. In ESPN leagues Taysom Hill was in fact a tight end from the start of the season until one week too late, and because that ended badly Kendall Hinton was never a wide receiver (when Yahoo let you use Hinton at receiver, the joke was on you). The advantage of deferring to the host in these situations is that the host is neutral; it could not care less who will win your league, because it does not care at all. Play by the rules of the host you signed up with, and if you feel aggrieved (a) you can always switch to some other host for 2021; but (b) really, get over yourself. None of this is happening to you personally.
Eleff hosts the Fantasy Index Podcast, available in the iTunes Store now. He has worked for Fantasy Index off and on all century.
SAM HENDRICKS
As a commissioner myself I see two ways of handling it, both of which should be spelled out in the rules before the season starts. Otherwise a loophole opens up and questions about ethics come up.
1) Players position designations are fixed for the season and they either a) accrue fantasy points from all categories or... b) only accrue fantasy points from categories specific to their position -- i.e., some leagues say only QB positions can accumulate passing fantasy points (passing TDs, passing yards, INTs etc.). or...
2) Players position designations can change once they have played a game at that new position. In which case multiple player designations are allowed and a player may be both a QB and a WR (Kendall Hinton) but only after they play one game at the revised position.
It happens people. Get over it. Cordarrelle Patterson has been a WR despite some RB and QB play all year. Marques Colston was listed as a TE in his rookie year despite playing WR! Knowing the rules and using them to your advantage is a legitimate tactic. Just as benching a player and starting a bye or injured player instead of someone who could lose you points on MNF when you are ahead by a point and your opponent is finished is a legit tactic.....not that I am bitter.
Hendricks is the author of Fantasy Football Guidebook, Fantasy Football Tips and Fantasy Football Basics, all available at ExtraPointPress.com, at all major bookstores, and at Amazon and BN.com. He is a 25-year fantasy football veteran who participates in the National Fantasy Football Championship (NFFC) and finished 7th and 16th overall in the 2008 and 2009 Fantasy Football Players Championship (FFPC). He won the Fantasy Index Open in 2013 and 2018. Follow him at his web site, www.ffguidebook.com.
SCOTT SACHS
The commissioner needs to have more power to adjust administrator settings on the hosting website to deal with position eligibility and scoring. Truthfully, I haven't been a commissioner in years, so I defer to more knowledgeable experts.
Sachs runs Perfect Season Fantasy Football, offering LIVE Talk & Text consulting. He has multiple league championships including 2 perfect seasons. Scott is a past winner of the Fantasy Index Experts Poll and a 2-time winner of the Experts Auction League.
ANDY RICHARDSON
Many if not most fantasy teams are at the mercy of the fantasy site hosting their league. The problem comes when that site makes decisions for leagues that it shouldn't have made in the first place. Some sites listed Taysom Hill as a tight end. I sort of understand the rationale; he's occasionally used as a receiver. But they created the ensuing controversy by not simply listing him as a quarterback, which Hill's employer has done all along. So with Kendall Hinton, even though he played quarterback for Denver last week, he was a wide receiver on their roster, and that's how he should have been listed in fantasy leagues. To me, it's not complicated: list players at the position their own team does, and any ensuing controversy can be easily defended. Why should any commissioner try to improve on the classifications of NFL teams? There's simply no need for fantasy leagues to be making their own decisions in this area. If they do, it will be controversial either way.
Richardson has been a contributing writer and editor to the Fantasy Football Index magazine and www.fantasyindex.com since 2002. His responsibilities include team defense and IDP projections and various site features, and he has run the magazine's annual experts draft and auction leagues since their inception. He previews all the NFL games on Saturdays and writes a wrap-up column on Mondays during the NFL season.