*DSFL HO Sux Lmap

[Memento Mori]

Code:

2835 words

Disclaimer: This article was written almost two weeks ago when the decision by DSFL HO was made. After I wrote what became the first draft of the article, while all of this was going on, a member of Austin’s war room asked for a trade (insert wild speculation over whether this situation had anything to do with it) and Orange County were in discussions with Austin and the player about trading for them. This article doesn’t paint Austin in a great light and so I held off posting it until the conclusion of those trade talks.

Let’s cast our minds back to just prior to the S23 offseason. DSFL HO was announced, and DSFL commissioner TomHanks proudly stated that DSFL HO would be “dedicated to making new user experience the best it can be”. Sounds great, right? I was a big advocate for a DSFL HO to be introduced – this isn’t a knock on the idea at all. The problem is the decision made by DSFL HO.

One specific instance I’ve recently been exposed to has prompted this, because I think the action taken by DSFL HO in this case is absolutely indefensible from a developmental league governing body. DSFL HO told a DSFL player who switched positions two updates prior and played preseason and week 1 at their new position that they have to switch back to their old position. As this wasn’t a punishment, neither the DSFL HO verdict or the appeals verdict will be made public and so I feel an obligation to publicise what has happened. Some of what I’ve said here will be known to players of the teams involved (Bondi Beach, Orange County, Austin), some has been hinted at by other public posts from WBF or others, but unless this article provokes a response from someone else this will be the most comprehensive public account of what happened.

As someone who was in Bondi Beach’s war room when we traded for WBF and Orange County’s WR when we traded for WBF, as well as being provided with plenty of screenshots and accounts from people on both sides, I feel this is an accurate account of what happened. You might not agree with my perspective on it, but the events I will recount are truth. It’s up to you whether you think DSFL HO, Austin or anyone else did something wrong. Personally, I think DSFL HO’s actions were totally wrong and that’s why I felt the need to publicise it.

Here’s some context, skip the next two paragraphs if you just want the juicy stuff:

This past offseason, Kansas City put S24 running back Sergio Kitchens on the trade block. Being from the S24 draft class means he has one more season of DSFL eligibility. Coming off a season where the then-Myrtle Beach Buccaneers had the #1 seed in the DSFL, the Buccaneers war room discussed trading for Kitchens (known henceforth as WBF as that’s his user and it’s fewer letters). One of our GMs, Thor, was teammates with WBF in SHL and with apparent confirmation that the S28 class would be an r/NFL class thought we could add a capped player in an attempt to make another run at the Ultimini before rebuilding in a bigger draft class next offseason.

Thor chatted to WBF prior to agreeing the trade (with KC’s permission, of course), who expressed his interest in playing for the Buccaneers and told Thor he’d happily swap to whichever position we needed most as he wasn’t particularly interested in playing in the ISFL after his DSFL eligibility was up. WBF was acquired via trade the next day and joined the team. Following the drafts and call-ups, we found we had 3 RBS and WBF, eager to make a positive impact, switched to linebacker in his November update post. His position switch was processed by his updater, the update team and adjusted in the sim. WBF played linebacker in the preseason, and in Week 1 of the regular season.

On Monday night, two hours before strats were due and with both our GMs unavailable we were contacted by DSFL HO to inform us that our submitted DCs for Week 2 were invalid. The reason? We had our linebacker WBF playing linebacker. DSFL HO informed us that they had been informed by Austin that they wanted to call up WBF as a running back, his previous position. As Austin had not consented to WBF’s position switch, the position switch was invalid. They quoted Rule III D. 1 as their justification. Below is an extract from a message sent by a DSFL HO member I’m keeping anonymous, to Bondi Beach’s GMs:

“Rule 3.D.1 states that a player’s ISFL GM MUST sign off on the position swap.” I didn’t add the bold or the capital letters, the emphasis is on the part of the original sender of the original message. You’d think, then, that Rule III D. 1 was very clear on this. It’s not.

Rule III D. 1 actually reads: “One (1) time per career a player may choose to switch positions. If a player chooses to switch to a new position they must have their GM post in the ISFL GM area that the player is officially switching positions.”

This is quite different to what Bondi Beach’s GMs were told. This rule doesn’t state that a DSFL send down must have their ISFL GM consent to a position switch, and doesn’t imply that the reason why the ISFL GM must post in the ISFL GM area is to demonstrate their consent for the switch. When I was a GM, I thought that our position switches had to be posted there so that the simmer wouldn’t miss them. This message was the first I’d heard of consent being required.

This rule clearly wasn’t written with the DSFL in mind. Plenty of DSFL players switch during their rookie DSFL season, before they are attached to an ISFL team, because Rule III D. 3 states that DSFL rookies can switch once for free. How could their GM post in the ISFL GM subforum when only ISFL GMs can see this subforum? If I was in HO, I’d interpret this lack of clarity as being a byproduct of the rulebook (understandably) focusing primarily on the ISFL, rather than as suggesting that ISFL teams have ultimate control over what users in the DSFL do with their player. DSFL HO is supposed to operate in the interests of the DSFL, and ruling that DSFL players should have less agency and control over their players seems completely counter to that. The fact that this is the side they lean towards when faced with a lack of clarity is extremely worrying to me.

Protests from the Bondi Beach GMs were met with the following response from the same HO member:

“[the context of the situation]… don’t change clearly written rules”

As demonstrated above, the rule being referenced is obviously not “clearly written”. It’s clearly open to interpretation. With two hours (two hours where both our GMs were unavailable as due to timezones, they were working) to create new strats and DCs, we decided to appeal DSFL HO’s ruling that Rule III D. 1 states that “a player’s ISFL GM MUST sign off on the position swap”. We composed and sent this to the appeals team during one GM’s lunch break. In addition, we asked that given that DSFL HO had given us 2 hours while our GMs were unavailable to submit new strats, any forced changed to WBF’s position be delayed until at least after the deadline for strat/DC submission. This request was denied by the appeals team.

I’m going to go back in time 4 days, now. 4 days prior, one of Austin’s GMs reached out to WBF about calling him up to the ISFL. WBF’s response to being told that Austin still held his rights was, and I quote, “Wait what lol”. WBF was not under the impression that he had a valid contract with Austin. It’s a whole other issue, but he actually didn’t have a valid contract with Austin. If you take a look at his contract thread, the contract isn’t valid because it was edited after he accepted and he never re-accepted. We spoke with ISFL HO about this, who recognised that while the contract was invalid they had no intention of releasing WBF from it. WBF told them then, and following that conversation, that he did not want to be called up.

Returning to the events of Monday, one of Austin’s GMs then reached out to WBF to inform him that they’d like to call him up to the ISFL. WBF politely informed them again that he’d like to remain in the DSFL, as Bondi Beach had made a trade for him and he’d only played 1 game for us.

One of our GMs then received a message from an Austin GM saying that they’d decided to call up WBF.

Our appeal was rejected by the appeals team, setting the precedent that your GM can veto your position switch if they want*. Again, this hasn’t been made public, and one of the reasons I wanted to write this is so that people are aware just how little control they actually have over their own player’s career.

DSFL HO inserted themselves into this situation late on two fronts, ruling that the position switch must be reversed a full update cycle later (and after approving two sims worth of Buccaneers DCs with WBF at linebacker) and making this ruling two hours before another sim’s DCs were due. Interpreting the rule literally leads to an outcome that doesn’t make sense (as players who play for a team where neither GM has access to the ISFL GM area would be unable to legally position switch), so either some interpretation or a rewriting of the rule is required.

Finding themselves in this situation, they interpreted the rule in a way that would hurt the experience of a DSFL player (counter to their stated goal) and instead acted in the interests of an ISFL team. In my view, DSFL HO’s intentions were wrong and so was their conduct in making demands of Bondi Beach’s GMs that were unreasonable given the short notice. When it was pointed out that our GMs were unavailable, another anonymous DSFL HO member (who is in the war room for another DSFL team, totally no potential conflict of interest there) said they’d decide our DC if it wasn’t changed in time.

WBF has written his own media which hints at what happened, but people will only know the details of just how determined DSFL HO was to hurt a DSFL player’s league experience in order to benefit an ISFL team if someone writes about it publicly. So here you are. In fact, one DSFL member went as far as to tell Bondi Beach’s GMs that the ““real” victim” was the Austin Copperheads.

To conclude: It’s important to recognise that this situation isn’t all DSFL HO’s doing, and it wouldn’t be a hit piece if I didn’t include shots at other parties involved. Austin didn’t have to bring this issue to DSFL HO, and I think the fact that they were willing to negatively impact another user’s experience in the league so that they could add a RB3 with 250 applied TPE to their roster is absurd. He might have got 2-3 carries per game.

Thor reached out to an Austin GM I’m leaving anonymous (doesn’t work as well when it’s Austin’s GMs rather than DSFL HO as there’s only two of them), stressing that he believed that WBF would quit the league is Austin forced him to play for them at a position he didn’t want to play. As you might have worked out from the fact that Austin called up WBF, Orange County traded for him and sent him back down to Bondi Beach, the idea that their actions left a user considering quitting the league was no big deal to Austin in comparison to whatever small impact that a 250 TPE player getting 2-3 carries per game would’ve had on their winning percentage. Austin made it into the final four when I was a free agent and this experience has left me so incredibly relieved that I didn’t sign with them, because I unquestionably would’ve left the team over it.

What makes matters worse is the price they were willing to trade WBF for. We traded them a S26 linebacker who hasn’t logged into the site since before the trade was posted. His last post was accepting a contract from OCO, on the day of ISFL Week 6. He wasn’t holding out, we just couldn’t get hold of him because he’s not very active. If WBF’s 250 TPE RB build was secretly incredible and calling him up was well-worth pushing him out of the league, why were Austin willing to trade him for a player who will likely never play for them? It’s not like WBF was some random guy either, his previous player played for Austin from their inception in S16 until S22. That’s why he wanted to go back there and why they traded for him after the S24 draft. And yet they treated him like dirt.

I really struggle to understand the rationale here unless it was an extreme case of sunk cost fallacy and they thought it’d be better to call up WBF as their RB3 even with all those negative consequences than to accept that the trade to bring WBF’s most recent player to Austin didn’t work out. In Austin's defence, though, they didn't ask DSFL HO to handle the situation like this. Rather, they went as far as to specifically ask DSFL HO not to force us to make any changes to our Week 2 DC and to process it all after the Week 2 sim. While I think the way they treated WBF was pretty bad, they had nothing to do with how Thor, NTG, WBF et al were treated by DSFL HO.

The appeals team could have pointed out that rule III D. 1 does not state what DSFL HO say it states, and ruled that if DSFL HO wants to interpret it in this way then they need to pass a proposal to change the rule. They could have sided with the player against their ISFL team and DSFL HO, but they didn’t.

ISFL HO (and maybe the budget team? I don’t know whether the budget team has the power to enforce the rules in a situation where ISFL HO chose to ignore them) didn’t enforce the contract rules set out in section II D., releasing WBF from having to play for Austin and letting him play for Bondi Beach. But they didn’t.

Witnessing this situation has left me really disappointed and angry. We all signed up to be a part of a league where we could control our player, but DSFL HO and the appeals team has now set the precedent that unless you do everything in your power to wrestle control back from your GM (sign 1 year contracts or contracts with options every season, include NTCs and other clauses), your GM controls your player and their career. DSFL HO enforced what I think is a ridiculous interpretation of the rules considering that they are supposed to act in the interest of the DSFL and its players, while ISFL HO (though their role in this was minute compared to DSFL HO) chose not to enforce the rules.

But this article is titled “DSFL HO Sux Lmap”, not “Austin, DSFL HO and ISFL HO Suck Lmap”. Because while I don’t like the justification for their actions, I can understand why they did what they did. The way that DSFL HO acted is completely beyond me, and, with our appeal brushed off and a late apology to Bondi Beach from the DSFL commissioner, I have no reason to believe that the next time they’re faced with an unclear situation, they’ll act differently.

There are no good ways of holding HO to account. I’d love if we could work towards some kind of system where HO was accountable to the userbase, because there’s no appetite (at least within HO) for elections to HO, and I recognise why that wouldn’t be ideal. Right now, if the actions of a member of HO are totally intolerable, the only thing the userbase can do is make noise and spam the forums/discord until the HO member in question steps down or is asked to step down by the rest of HO. That’s really unpleasant, and not good for either side. Maybe a giant rambling hit piece will make them reconsider their actions, or maybe they’ll continue making ridiculous demands of DSFL GMs and putting the wishes of ISFL teams ahead of DSFL players. We’ll have to wait and find out, I guess, because there’s not much we can do about it. All we can do is talk about it.

* The appeals team has since publicised their ruling on this, here. Attopax also responded to specific points made by myself and AdamS later in the thread, stating: ”There are a few interpretations of the rule that could be reached through logical means. The interpretation that the ISFL team can't "approve" or "deny" the position switch is certainly one of them.

To be clear, Appeals Team didn't uphold the interpretation on whether a GM can "approve" or "deny" a DSFL position switch. The simple fact of the matter is even if the rule interpretation is that ISFL GMs only need to be told so they can post it.... even that didn't happen. So, either way... the rules weren't followed, so the same outcome is reached which is why their decision is upheld.”

[.simo]

Applied

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Why does the ISFL hate WBF so much? Lmap.

[Oles]

Anyone who says austin is a victim in this situation can kindly shut up. Austin went out of their way to screw a player over who wanted to play in the dsfl at a new position. Austin's decision was as anti-player as you can get in a league that is all about facilitating player interaction. I know looking at what happened my opinion of Austin right now is about as bad as it can be.

[zaynzk]

I personally believe that everyone sucks except me

[Frostbite]

I personally believe that everyone sucks except me

I personally believe everyone is cool except you


Gottem

[siddhus]

Am interested to hear any of the Austin’s Gms POV cause always good to hear both sides of an issue

[zaynzk]

I personally believe that everyone sucks except me

I personally believe everyone is cool except you


Gottem

Frost Sux Lmap

[r0tzbua]

Applied

[gucci]

Only one issue I see with this here: The DSFL is not an inactive league, it's a development league. If the player didn't want to play in this league then he should've retired. Considering that everyone (not just BBB) seems to treat the rule we put in place to make sure inactives wouldn't cause drama in the DSFL anymore (because they are supposed to be auto-retired) like an obstacle, the only thing this has shown me is that DSFL GMs still don't understand their jobs. You keep people active and engaged while developing them for their ISFL teams. If you aren't doing that, you aren't doing your job correctly. Any winning that should result is icing on the cake and you can brag in the dick-swinging contest that DSFL twitter seems to be.

Thor has no right to position change a player that doesn't belong to his team anymore. A player that should've been auto-retired for being inactive in the DSFL in my personal opinion (not by rule). You are a minor league GM, I understand that you make the decisions that are best for your team, but after their true rookie season, they are essentially on loan from another team and you have no power to decide that player's future without the consent of their ISFL team. You weren't fulfilling the terms of the agreed on development of their player so they called off the loan, shit happens when you aren't doing your job right.

I also don't agree with how Austin handled their part in all of this since I don't necessarily believe Kitchens meant a thing to them or their testing, but I sure as hell do understand how the actions of BBB management would have pissed them off.

Anyway I see fault on both sides for how it got to this point, but it never should've been an issue in the first place and the entitlement of the BBB war room aand management continues to shock me through the many seasons and iterations that it takes.

[Frostbite]

Ooo I can bring out the popcorn now