Offline Fantasy Football Draft Roster Incorrectly Loaded

Q: We play in an auction league where every team gets 100 dollars to bid on players that they want to have on their team.  We also do a silent auction during the season for free agents

Do to scheduling issues we held our auction early this year, right before the first round of pre-season games. During the auction a team won Shonn Green.  When the commissioner filled in everybody\’s roster he inadvertently left Shonn Green off that players team.  A whole month transpired before the first days of free agent acquisition started.  Another player in the league noticed that Shonn Green was available in free agency and won him in the free agent auction.  The first team still hadn\’t noticed that a player was missing and also filled in the empty slots on his roster with other free agents.  Then the first round of games started, and around kickoff time for the Sunday night football game Shonn Greens original owner finally noticed that he was missing from his team.  He notified the commissioner, and the commissioner sent out an email saying he was sorry for the error and he would be moving Shonn green from the team he was currently on to the team he was originally supposed to be on, and reimbursing the money that was spent in the free agent auction on him.

I have multiple issues with this.  I feel that there was way more than enough time for the first team to notice that a player was missing. I believe that every team should be responsible to check their roster and make sure all the players they drafted are there shortly after the draft.  On top of that, the original team filled up his roster with other players during free agency and if he has rights to Shonn green as well, he would have had more players on his team at the start of week 1 than the league allows.  This would give him an illegal lineup and he should be forced to forfeit his game.  The team that acquired Shonn Green in free agency also looses out because he bid on Shonn rather than other players, and now a player that he would have originally went after, might have been won by some other team in the league.

Our commish states that we have no rules on the books that cover this issue, and he was forced to make a ruling so his original ruling should stand.

Im I totally out of line for thinking that Shonn\’s original owner should be responsible for noticing the mistake and taken the proper steps to get it fixed before free agency started.  Or if he still does have the rights to Shonn green he should then have to forfeit his week one game?

A: Well, you are definitely not out of line for expecting one of your league owners to be held accountable for his roster.   But you also have to concede that there are multiple guilty parties here, and the original mistake that set this whole issue in motion, was the commissioner’s fault.    We believe this original mistake should supercede that owner is questions lack of awareness

Without pre-establish rules addressing any scenario, there is going to be some “grey area” issue that occur throughout the season.   But there is nothing grey about the fact that once a player is selected in an offline draft, the commissioner has an obligation to place the drafted player on the correct owner’s roster.

Do we think that any self-respecting fantasy owner should, given a month, notice an error with their roster.  Absolutely.   But you have to put this on one person or the other, and the issue would not exist without the commissioner’s oversight.    Our recommendation would be to place Green back on the roster of the team who drafted him, reimburse the other owner who picked him up as a FA, and either do your draft online next year or get a more competent commissioner.   Two other thoughts, the team who drafted Green should have no control over which player is dropped from his roster to make room for Green.   It should be the first player he acquired after the draft.   They also should not be reimbursed for that FA pickup as a penalty.  Call it negligence.