CommishRx Advice: “Help! Having Draft and Need to Replace Owner Going to Jail!”

Fantasy Advice  – The Commish is here to help. Send your question to: reginaldjfantasy@outlook.com

"I’ve got a problem. Our draft and party is this Sunday. One of our members is now in jail … it’s a long story. I’m working to find a replacement, but might not have someone by Sunday. I don’t want to do the draft for my team and the other team. I’ve had some of the guys volunteer to do it but I’m not sure they should. Have any tips for my crisis?"

Yikes! Talk about friends in low places.

It might help to split this into two separate missions. The person you get to draft doesn’t necessarily have to be the same person you eventually bring in as an owner. That would surely be the best-case scenario. However, your first priority is to make it through your draft.

With that in mind, let’s talk about your options:

You – You’re correct. You shouldn’t do it. That’s a major conflict of interest. Not only that, it would be, in my opinion, incredibly hard to focus on making good decisions for both teams. One of them would suffer. You don’t want it to be your team. You also don’t want it to appear that you sandbagged the draft for the other team.

Appearances do matter in this regard, especially since you’re the commissioner,

Other members – Nope. The same reasoning holds true. That would also be a conflict of interest. Can you be sure they wouldn’t be drafting as well as they could for the other team?

Third-party player – Do you know someone else who plays fantasy football? Have them be your draft surrogate for the day. I have a very, very short list of folks I’d call if I needed to replace an owner. On the other hand, I know plenty of gamers who I could recruit to just do my draft.

Smarty Pants #1 – Do you have a smart friend? Or, a friend of a friend, who couldn’t care less about your fantasy league? They might not watch football, but they might geek out using a cheat sheet (from your fantasy site of choice).

This is definitely not the best option, but you wouldn’t have to worry about them getting lost on the concept of drafting. They’d understand drafting the best player available according to the sheet.

It’s a bonus if they are a video gamer. Real gamers are viciously competitive. They want to win. They may find it exciting just to “win” the draft and move on. Geeks rule!

Smarty Pants #2 – This person will geek out using a cheat sheet too, but the difference is that you know that they actually do watch football. They have knowledge of the game. This person, along with “third party” would be the best recruiting options for a new owner.

Drafting Service – You can actually pay someone to do your draft for you. Problem is, you can’t be sure if they really know what they’re doing. You’ll have to put in some time to vet the “right” service. Google “fantasy draft service.”

Automated Draft Assistant: This might be what you would give to someone like Smarty Pants #1 to use instead of a cheat sheet. The best of these services support many of the major fantasy platforms like Yahoo!, NFL.com, ESPN.com and My Fantasy Leagues. They will sync with these sites, follow along with your league’s draft  giving you real-time advice.

Ask Liz Loza – Liz, a Yahoo! fantasy writer saved the day for an expectant mother who went into labor the same day she was to have her draft. Liz reached out to the mom via Twitter and offered to do the draft for her, and she did. Cool, huh?

I’m having a little fun here, but you do need help. It won’t hurt to ask. You might be pleasantly surprised.

I hope I’ve helped in some small way. Please let me know how it works out for you.

Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all of your DFS needs and our continuing Commissioner RX series. Remember, if you have a question, send it to reginaldjfantasy@outlook.com. You could be featured in one of the articles!