The recent decision by the NFL to add Thursday night games into the regular season mix, starting in Week Nine, has created some angst for National Fantasy Football Championship (NFFC) participants, as well as players all over the fantasy football landscape.
The longstanding NFFC rule of a single Free Agency Allocation Budget (FAAB) period on Friday nights was already under fire as a result of the Week Two "forced bye" due to the hurricane-related events in Texas. Due to the late decision by the NFL to not play the Cincinnati-Houston game, owners without defenses and kickers missed their only chance to compensate.
In the NFFC, where no trades are allowed for collusion reasons and there is no open free agent period, this FAAB interval is the only way an owner can improve his or her team post-draft.
To address the initial concern, one leading idea was to institute a second FAAB period on Sunday morning; however, that also does nothing to address the problem of Thursday games.
So, what can be done? There was no shortage of ideas.
Institute a third FAAB period ending on Wednesday? Go with Friday-Sunday until Week Nine and then go to Wednesday-Friday through Week 13? How about Friday-Sunday and then Wednesday-Sunday starting when the Thursday games begin? What about just doing Wednesday-Sunday for the entire season?
Additional options surfaced about making the Sunday pickups premium-priced and making Thursday game pick-ups the only valid choices on Wednesday, along with concerns over whether Sunday morning is too late to deal with personal schedules or processing snafus.
Some other considerations include keeping a player on a roster all week. In other words, a player dropped on Wednesday cannot be picked up on Friday. Same taboo in dropping a Wednesday-acquired player on Friday. Both of these would seem to make sense.
Yet, when all was said and done, this nugget was offered by one individual: “I don't see how the Thursday game should impact the waiver period at all. I still see nothing wrong with just having it on Friday. If your only Defense or Kicker or QB is playing Thursday, leave him on the bench. Pick up someone on Friday to plug in on Sunday instead.”
Of course, that would only work if the game software would allow one to submit an incomplete or “illegal” lineup for Thursday and fix it prior to Sunday, which it already does.
Sometimes the simplest and best solution is the one right under your nose.
One of the strengths of the NFFC is the willingness of its founder and leader, Greg Ambrosius, to accept and sift through feedback from his community and ultimately make good decisions to make a great game even better.
While Ambrosius hasn’t made a final ruling, it seems that doing nothing may just be the best answer.
Brian Walton’s work can also be seen daily at stlcardinals.scout.com.