Damar Hamlin collapsing on the football field was one of the scariest moments in NFL history. An NFL player making a routine tackle, standing up and then going completely limp after going into cardiac arrest.
The event was so traumatic that both the Bengals and Bills agreed the game should not continue. Thankfully, Hamlin survived that night and has made remarkable progress in his recovery.
The other layer to this story is how Fantasy Football commissioners should handle their leagues if that Monday night game was set to determine who claims first place.
Here was the situation in my league entering that Monday night game in Cincinnati:
As you can see, “Mike’s Primo Team” led by 27.76 points with Tee Higgins remaining. My team, “Drive For 28”, had Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase remaining and was projected to win by a narrow margin. Keep in mind the payout scenario in this league. First place receives $1500, while second place gets just $300, a massive difference.
Next, there was a text exchange involving me, Mike from “Mike’s Primo Team” and the commissioner, Jacob:
This is only a portion of the conversation, but you sort of get the gist here. I asked Mike what he thinks is a fair way to decide who wins. He replied “Want to do 50/50?”. I agreed and thought everything was settled.
Then 2 days later, the commissioner replied saying he will have a ruling Monday, January 9th at 5pm (which never happened by the way). I was surprised by this because Mike and I agreed each splitting $900 was fair, if the commissioner was so insistent on not using stats from another Bengals game.
I then stayed silent awaiting a ruling until this past Friday, when I texted the commissioner suggesting that since we don’t have a ruling yet, let’s use the stats for Burrow, Chase and Higgins from the Divisional Round game against the Bills, the same opponent as the Week 17 canceled game, to decide the winner. Here’s how that exchange played out:
To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I texted the newly crowned winner, Mike, and this is how that conversation went:
As you can see, no response. Mike took the money and ran. Just like that, after 2 days of silence, I lost.
No 50/50 split, no getting the chance to use stats from Ja’Marr Chase and Joe Burrow. The ultimate deciding factor according to the commissioner was I didn’t have another receiver on my bench to replace Chase, so therefore I lost. If I would have been prepared for this unprecedented scenario, I absolutely would have made sure to have a backup WR. But it was the Fantasy Championship. My team was set. What did I need a backup WR for who was never going to play?
For additional context, if we would have used stats from any of the Bengals games following the Damar Hamlin incident, here’s how the scoring would have gone:
Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase: 35 points
Tee Higgins: 1.7 points
Difference of 33.3 = Drive For 28 wins
Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase: 45 points
Tee Higgins: 9 points
Difference of 36 = Drive For 28 wins
Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase: 41 points
Tee Higgins: 5.8 points
Difference of 35.2 = Drive For 28 wins
In all 3 of these scenarios, my team wins. But for some reason which I will never understand, the commissioner was unable to make a single compromise and I lost out on $1200. You really can’t make this stuff up.
Lucas Frankel Sports 