The CFFL has had its share of controversies over the years, but most of them were minor enough that I don’t really remember them. One time in the early years an owner submitted his keepers after the deadline had passed and I had emailed out the draft worksheet. Even though it was late I accepted his list and re-sent the worksheet with his keepers on it, which ticked off the owner who had the #1 pick and thought he would land one of the late keepers. That guy let me know it too, and I realized I had screwed up. I won’t mention names but the deadline misser is long gone and the ticked off owner is still with us.
But that was nothing compared to the most controversial event in CFFL history. It happened in week 15 of the 2009 season. The first round of the CFFL playoffs, where winners finish in the money and losers write a check. In a close contest, Schizophrenia edged out defending champs Deep Snappers 96-93.5 to advance to the semi-finals. The website posted the “final” score on Tuesday morning and I set the week 16 matchups.
Not so fast my friend. On Wednesday, the NFL made a scoring change. They ruled that a TD pass from Kurt Warner to Anquan Boldin was actually a lateral, which changed it from a TD pass to a TD run. Boldin’s fantasy score didn’t change but Warner’s did, dropping four points for the lost TD pass. Take a wild guess who had Warner in week 15. Yep, it was Schizo. The subtraction of the TD pass lowered Schizo’s score, and gave the game to Snappers 93.5-92.
I didn’t know it had happened until I went to the website on Wednesday and saw that it now showed Schizo losing in week 15 but still advancing to the semis. Once I sorted out what happened I knew we had a problem. The CFFL rules didn’t specifically address it either, so a ruling was needed. Either we accept the correction and change the playoff result, or we keep the original scoring and disregard the NFL’s final scoring decision. Fortunately that’s why the Commish gets paid the big bucks.
It was my belief then (and now) that CFFL scores should always reflect the accurate NFL stats, even if the stats change after the fact. So my ruling was that the scoring correction would hold, and that Snappers was the winner.
As you might expect Schizo’s owner flipped out, and I didn’t blame him. Someone was going to get screwed no matter what and unfortunately it was him. I suggested to the other owners that we waive Schizo’s transaction fees for the year, which appeased him a little.
At the next year’s draft we debated the issue of when CFFL scores should be truly final, and the league voted that going forward the Tuesday morning results would be final. Any changes after the fact would be reversed by me. That’s the reason I recap each score in the R&C, so that we have a record of the Tuesday score in case it changes later. For a while I would periodically look back at previous scores to see if anything had changed. Once in a while I would find one and reverse it back out, but it would always be for one point here or there. We never had an entire TD pass go away, other than in the 2009 playoffs.
At some point I stopped looking back at prior scorers and made it everyone’s responsibility. So if any of you ever notice a scoring change, let me know and I’ll take care of it.
BTW the Warner-Boldin highlight is still online (UPDATE: not anymore). Judge for yourself whether it was a lateral or a forward pass. I can’t tell. http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-game-highlights/09000d5d8151d37f/Anquan-wins-it
Epilogue: four years later, Schizo’s owner missed the keeper deadline and I published the draft worksheet. He came back the next day and said he forgot about the deadline because he had been up taking care of his baby. Having learned my lesson once before, I told him sorry but a deadline’s a deadline. He got so pissed that he quit the league less than a week before the draft, and his twin brother quit too. After a minor scramble, and a brief contemplation of having a 10 team league for a year, we were able to replace the two whiners with my brother-in-law and a returning Steve K. I don’t count it as a league controversy, as it was a net gain for all of us.
Ruminations & Cogitations 
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