Now that you've made it past the headline, I just want to preface this entire article. My intent is not to discuss what should or should not have happened with regards to Phillips' eligibility. I'm sure we all have opinions about the decision, but today I'm going to be exploring what impact (if any) Phillips' position swap had on fantasy scoring this season. I thought it was one of the more interesting events that occurred this season, and I've been sitting on this idea since four a couple of months now, but obviously I couldn't fully examine the ramifications of the fantasy scoring in total until the season concluded. I certainly can't control what is posted in reply to this thread, but my hope is that it does not devolve into finger-pointing or laughing at the expense of other teams or users. Let's all be kind to each other, as I think it's pretty clear no one was involved in any sort of nefarious TPE scheme. Now, if you don't have any idea why I'm being so melodramatic...
Prior to the start of Season 27, Jeffrey Phillips had been a unique sort of player who was well known by ISFL Fantasy Football players. After playing for the Dallas Birddogs in their inaugural season, Phillips was frequently the #1 Tight End in the league from a fantasy perspective. This was due in large part to Orange County's penchant to line him up at one of the starting Wide Receiver positions in certain formations--because of his role in the Otters offense, he could be relied on for more yards in the passing game despite his Tight End designation in the sim (think New Orleans era Jimmy Graham). This configuration worked well for the Otters for several seasons, and now we fast forward to the start of Season 27. After the ISFL draft, Orange County had a glaring weakness in their roster. Their best running back was Ace Savage, a player they had just secured from the Norfolk Seawolves in the first round. Although Savage was earning TPE at a great rate, his approximately 250 TPE placed him at a severe disadvantage when compared to other running backs in the ISFL. Up until a few days prior to the start of the season, it appeared that Orange County really intended to ride out the season with Savage as their lead back.
Just two days prior to Week 1, Jeffrey Phillips posted a position swap from Tight End to Running Back. So it appeared that Orange County would find an answer to their backfield issue after all, but it did come with a bit of a price. Because the position swap was posted on Monday, the ensuing update where Phillips would become a runningback would not occur until the following Saturday with 25% of the regular season already completed. As I understand the situation, part of Phillips' position swap would be paid by his Season 27 contract, so the late timing makes sense when his contract deposit is taken into consideration. From a logistical 'on field' point of view, everything was processed without issue and Season 27 continued unabated. However, this position change had some significant consequences in the meta-fantasy football league. Fantasy drafts were already well underway (and some were probably even finished) when Phillips' position swap was made public, and much drama ensued over Phillips' fantasy eligibility. In the end the fantasy team decided that Phillips would be ineligible, and his fantasy owners would replace him with another eligible player.
Below is a timeline of all the fantasy data I could accumulate regarding when Phillips was drafted--
Of course, the elephant in the room is that all of the users that drafted Phillips have players on the Otters with the exception of moonlight (who is the user behind Otters famed QB Franklin Armstrong). While I was not able to find any instances where Phillips was drafted by a user not affiliated with Orange County, there are a handful of Otters that did not draft Phillips--Blasoon, Laser (who is technically OCO-adjacent, but it felt appropriate to include him as I included moonlight in the above list), ReverendOReilly , and RotticusScott. Also, user Guunar (whose player is the aforementioned Ace Savage) did not draft Phillips but didn't have the opportunity as he was in the same group as speculadora. All in all, Phillips was drafted by 11/16 users affiliated with Orange County. This seems high, but without data surrounding draft rates of other players by users on the same team, it would be remiss to suggest that this was some kind of aberration. Perhaps an idea for another media article... Moving onto the fun part, let's see how these teams ended the season!
Objectively speaking, not a great performance on aggregate. Only two of the users managed to finish on the podium, with Nhamlet and Memento Mori earning 1 TPE each. However, this alone is not sufficient to conclude that Phillips' ineligibility decision "cost" them their season. To make that determination, we'll need to measure how their team would have performed in a couple of different scenarios. First up, let's examine what the final standings would have looked like if 'no decision' was made. In other words, what would the outcome have been had the users been allowed to play Phillips where they drafted him without any modifications? For this scenario, I'll use the following format--
Nhamlet - Zee Rechs / Jed Podolak - 265.0 - +16.2 - 2316.7 - 3rd - 0
Memento Mori - Leeroy Jenkins / Killian Chambers - 177.8 - +103.4 - 2345.5 - 2nd - +2
rapideagle - Rando Cardrissian - 167.9 - +113.3 - 2248.6 - 3rd - +1
gwdjohnson - Cobra Kai / Jameson Vermillion - 190.3 - +90.9 - 2298.8 - 4th - 0
Thor - Jameson Vermillion / Julio Tirtawidjaja - 99.7 - +181.5 - 2249.5 - 4th - 0
Lime - Zee Rechs - 217.1 - +64.1 - 2103.7 - 6th - 0
moonlight - Ace Savage - 123.0 - +158.2 - 2157.4 - 5th - 0
speculadora - Gunner Thorbjornsson - 155.4 - +125.8 - 2032.2 - 5th - 0
While every user improved in total fantasy scoring and most improved their group ranking, we only see a total of 3 TPE gained between two users (2 for Memento Mori, 1 for rapideagle). For what it's worth, this result also coincides with a loss of 2 TPE from LB3737 and 1 TPE from SwankyPants31. This is undoubtedly the 'best case' scenario for the users that drafted Phillips, but I'm not sure it's the ideal scenario. In a perfect world Phillips' position swap would have been known prior to the start of any fantasy draft, and he would been taken much higher. In this scenario, I'll substitute a given player's score with the score corresponding to the nth-best FLEX player, depending on where they were drafted. That's probably a bit confusing, so I'll explain the first example on the list. Nhamlet drafted Phillips as the 32nd FLEX player in their group's draft and ended up with a combination of Rechs and Podolak instead. Let's instead assume that the draft proceeded 'perfectly' and Nhamlet instead drafted the 32nd-best FLEX player, Garfield Despacito Jr., with that pick instead. Here, we'll replace Nhamlet's FLEX player with Despacito Jr. and recalculate the group rankings and TPE. This will cause some users scores to increase while others will decrease. This is largely attributed to free agency--of course no drafts proceed perfectly, and some players taken after the draft will perform far better than players who were drafted.
User - Old Player - Old Player Point Total - Replacement Player - Replacement Player Point Total - Point Differential - New Finishing Point Total - New Standing - TPE Gain/Loss
Nhamlet - Zee Rechs / Jed Podolak - 265.0 - Garfield Despacito Jr. - 209.5 - -55.5 - 2245.0 - 3rd - 0
Memento Mori - Leeroy Jenkins / Killian Chambers - 177.8 - William Alexander - 209.3 - +31.5 - 2273.6 - 3rd - 0
rapideagle - Rando Cardrissian - 167.9 - Joseph Petrongolo - 205.9 - +38.0 - 2173.3 - 4th - 0
gwdjohnson - Cobra Kai / Jameson Vermillion - 190.3 - Friedrich Vequain - 211.9 - +21.6 - 2130.1 - 5th - 0
Thor - Jameson Vermillion / Julio Tirtawidjaja - 99.7 - Heath Evans (ha!) - 214.4 - +114.7 - 2182.7 - 5th - 0
Lime - Zee Rechs - 217.1 - Heath Evans - 214.4 - -2.7 - 2065.3 - 6th - 0
moonlight - Ace Savage - 123.0 - William Alexander - 209.3 - +86.3 - 2085.5 - 6th - 0
speculadora - Gunner Thorbjornsson - 155.4 - Joshua Campbell - 234.5 - +79.1 - 1985.5 - 5th - 0
Interestingly, there is no change in awarded TPE for this set of users under these parameters. While some users could argue that being unable to draft Phillips at all harmed their chances of earning TPE, this should at least be definitive to conclude that the decision to draft a replacement level player and the scenario where Phillips position swap was known prior to the start of fantasy drafts can be viewed as net neutral.
As a bonus, I also want to touch on the nine users who drafted Ace Savage. They were most likely swayed to do so by Frostbite's seasonal fantasy rankings, wherein he ranked Savage as the 15th best runningback. Of course, these rankings were created prior to Phillips' position swap, and Savage's ranking was predicated on the idea that he would be the primary ball carrier in Orange County. I expect that the users who drafted Savage did so with the impression that they would be receiving #15 RB output, so let's replace Savage with the 15th-best running back (Mai Fukushū) by adding 61.6 to their final score (or a prorated portion of 61.6 if Savage was dropped in free agency) to see how their results change using the same method as before. This is a little less robust than the previous analysis as it requires a bit more guesswork (e.g. would the user have dropped Fukushū at the same time they dropped Savage)--I'm using my best judgment in those cases, but take this part with a grain of salt.
User - Amount Added - Previous Season Total - New Season Total - New Standing - TPE Gain/Loss
H0PPY75 - 61.6 (never dropped) - 1835.6 - 1897.2 - 6th - 0
PMoney - 55.9 (dropped in W6) - 2291.0 - 2346.9 - 2nd - 0
SchwarzNarr - 78.4 (dropped in W8) - 2213.9 - 2292.3 - 2nd - +2
moonlight - 61.6 (never dropped) - 1999.2 - 2060.8 - 6th - 0
Vaelynn - 61.6 (never dropped) - 1723.5 - 1785.1 - 6th - 0
Blasoon - 61.6 (never dropped) - 2029.6 - 2091.2 - 6th - 0
Amulos - 61.6 (never dropped) - 1638.6 - 1700.2 - 6th - 0
DatSmolBoi - 61.6 (never dropped) - 2175.5 - 2237.1 - 4th - 0
Guunar - 61.6 (never dropped) - 1973.2 - 2034.8 - 5th - 0
Oh! And speaking of grains of salts, I guess this bears mentioning. There are loads of fantasy users who intentionally do not draft the 'optimal' team. Many people prefer to draft their friends and teammates, which is a perfectly fantastic way to play fantasy football. I bring that up to say that any criticism along the lines of "Well, this user wouldn't have drafted in the way you suggest because they only draft their teammates." is perfectly valid and falls outside the realm of what I'm trying to accomplish.
I'm trying to toe the line between discussing my feelings on the ruling that was given versus what should be done in the future to prevent additional incidents, so I'll try to offer this up as a reminder. I think it's important to remember that this type of thing will be exceedingly rare. It requires several moving parts to fall into place in exactly the right way--the player in question must be swapping from a fantasy-eligible position (or else they would not be on the list of draftable players), the player must be swapping to a fantasy-eligible position (or else there is no benefit to the team with insider information, and the 'harm' is dispersed throughout the rest of the users evenly), and the team must essentially act in a self-injurious manner as the player must swap after fantasy drafts begin and miss some number of games at his new position. I'm quite certain that Orange County would rather have had Phillips at RB for the first four games of the season than for some users to maybe have a chance at a couple extra TPE. Essentially, my advice to the fantasy team would be to do nothing as the overall impact to TPE turned out to be minimal, and I don't think it is likely to happen again.
tldr - Phillips ineligibility didn't make a huge difference. Three people reserve the right to get upset over 1-2 TPE based on my assumption-laden, theoretical analysis, but that right is forfeit if they ever miss another TPE task again in their career. Remember to love each other.
Prior to the start of Season 27, Jeffrey Phillips had been a unique sort of player who was well known by ISFL Fantasy Football players. After playing for the Dallas Birddogs in their inaugural season, Phillips was frequently the #1 Tight End in the league from a fantasy perspective. This was due in large part to Orange County's penchant to line him up at one of the starting Wide Receiver positions in certain formations--because of his role in the Otters offense, he could be relied on for more yards in the passing game despite his Tight End designation in the sim (think New Orleans era Jimmy Graham). This configuration worked well for the Otters for several seasons, and now we fast forward to the start of Season 27. After the ISFL draft, Orange County had a glaring weakness in their roster. Their best running back was Ace Savage, a player they had just secured from the Norfolk Seawolves in the first round. Although Savage was earning TPE at a great rate, his approximately 250 TPE placed him at a severe disadvantage when compared to other running backs in the ISFL. Up until a few days prior to the start of the season, it appeared that Orange County really intended to ride out the season with Savage as their lead back.
Just two days prior to Week 1, Jeffrey Phillips posted a position swap from Tight End to Running Back. So it appeared that Orange County would find an answer to their backfield issue after all, but it did come with a bit of a price. Because the position swap was posted on Monday, the ensuing update where Phillips would become a runningback would not occur until the following Saturday with 25% of the regular season already completed. As I understand the situation, part of Phillips' position swap would be paid by his Season 27 contract, so the late timing makes sense when his contract deposit is taken into consideration. From a logistical 'on field' point of view, everything was processed without issue and Season 27 continued unabated. However, this position change had some significant consequences in the meta-fantasy football league. Fantasy drafts were already well underway (and some were probably even finished) when Phillips' position swap was made public, and much drama ensued over Phillips' fantasy eligibility. In the end the fantasy team decided that Phillips would be ineligible, and his fantasy owners would replace him with another eligible player.
Below is a timeline of all the fantasy data I could accumulate regarding when Phillips was drafted--
- January 23rd, 2:50 PM - DrunkenTeddy receives Season 27 contract of $3M
- January 23rd, 10:16 PM - Group 25 - speculadora drafts Phillips in the FLEX position with pick 4.4 (22nd overall pick, 21st flex-eligible player)
- January 23rd, 10:49 PM - Group 8 - Thor drafts phillips in the FLEX position with pick 6.6 (36th overall pick, 29th flex-eligible player)
- January 24th, 9:59 PM - Group 9 - Lime drafts Phillips in the TE position with pick 6.3 (33rd overall pick, 29th flex-eligible player)
- January 25th, 10:55 AM - Group 31 - Eldorian drafts Phillips in the FLEX position with pick 6.3 (33rd overall pick, 29th flex-eligible player)
- January 25th, 1:21 PM - Group 13 - moonlight drafts Phillips in the FLEX position with pick 7.3 (39th overall pick, 33rd flex-eligible player)
- January 25th, 4:00 PM - Group 19 - Revolution5 drafts Phillips in the FLEX position with pick 8.3 (45th overall pick, 33rd flex-eligible player)
- January 25th, 6:47 PM - DrunkenTeddy posts position swap from Vertical Threat TE to Receiving Back RB ($2M paid by the user, $2M paid by Orange County)
- January 25th, 7:22 PM - Group 12 - Memento Mori drafts Phillips in the FLEX position with pick 7.1 (37th overall pick, 33rd flex-eligible player)
- January 25th, 10:08 PM - Group 6 - Nhamlet drafts Phillips in the FLEX position with pick 7.3 (39th overall pick, 32nd flex-eligible player)
- January 25th, 11:15 PM - Group 14 - rapideagle drafts Phillips in the FLEX position with pick 9.6 (54th overall pick, 36th flex-eligible player)
- January 26th, 10:49 AM - Bayley makes a rules clarification in the Fantasy Discord server regarding how Phillips picks will be handled and preventing future selections of Phillips
- January 26th, 11:35 AM - Group 15 - scorycory attempts to draft Phillips in the FLEX position with pick 8.4* (45th overall pick, 34th flex-eligible player)
- January 26th, 12:44 PM - Group 16 - gwdjohnson attempts to draft Phillips in the FLEX position with pick 6.4 (34th overall pick, 31st flex-eligible player)
- January 26th, 1:43 PM - Bayley makes another rules clarification that all Phillips picks are ineligible and advises players that selected Phillips to choose a different player
- March 4th, 4:27 PM - The final fantasy update is posted, confirming Z-Whiz as the winner of Group 16.
Of course, the elephant in the room is that all of the users that drafted Phillips have players on the Otters with the exception of moonlight (who is the user behind Otters famed QB Franklin Armstrong). While I was not able to find any instances where Phillips was drafted by a user not affiliated with Orange County, there are a handful of Otters that did not draft Phillips--Blasoon, Laser (who is technically OCO-adjacent, but it felt appropriate to include him as I included moonlight in the above list), ReverendOReilly , and RotticusScott. Also, user Guunar (whose player is the aforementioned Ace Savage) did not draft Phillips but didn't have the opportunity as he was in the same group as speculadora. All in all, Phillips was drafted by 11/16 users affiliated with Orange County. This seems high, but without data surrounding draft rates of other players by users on the same team, it would be remiss to suggest that this was some kind of aberration. Perhaps an idea for another media article... Moving onto the fun part, let's see how these teams ended the season!
- Nhamlet - 3rd place - 2300.5
- Memento Mori - 3rd place - 2242.1
- rapideagle - 4th place - 2135.3
- gwdjohnson - 5th place - 2108.5
- Thor - 5th place - 2068.0
- Lime - 6th place - 2039.6
- moonlight - 6th place - 1999.2
- Revolution5 - 6th place - 1937.9*
- speculadora - 6th place - 1906.4
- scorycory - 5th place - 1856.8*
- Eldorian - 5th place - 1696.9*
Objectively speaking, not a great performance on aggregate. Only two of the users managed to finish on the podium, with Nhamlet and Memento Mori earning 1 TPE each. However, this alone is not sufficient to conclude that Phillips' ineligibility decision "cost" them their season. To make that determination, we'll need to measure how their team would have performed in a couple of different scenarios. First up, let's examine what the final standings would have looked like if 'no decision' was made. In other words, what would the outcome have been had the users been allowed to play Phillips where they drafted him without any modifications? For this scenario, I'll use the following format--
- User - Self-explanatory, the users as described above.
- Player - The player that was actually chosen instead of Jeffrey Phillips by the user. If multiple users appear here, it is because the initial player was dropped later in the season for the second player.
- Player Point Total - The Player's season-ending total.
- Point Differential - Phillips' season-ending total (281.2) minus the season-ending score of the drafted player. This will be positive if Phillips outscored the drafted player.
- New Finishing Point Total - The user's actual final score plus the Point Differential.
- New Standing - The user's new finishing position after accounting for the New Finishing Point Total
- TPE Gain/Loss - Any change in TPE resulting from the user's New Standing.
Nhamlet - Zee Rechs / Jed Podolak - 265.0 - +16.2 - 2316.7 - 3rd - 0
Memento Mori - Leeroy Jenkins / Killian Chambers - 177.8 - +103.4 - 2345.5 - 2nd - +2
rapideagle - Rando Cardrissian - 167.9 - +113.3 - 2248.6 - 3rd - +1
gwdjohnson - Cobra Kai / Jameson Vermillion - 190.3 - +90.9 - 2298.8 - 4th - 0
Thor - Jameson Vermillion / Julio Tirtawidjaja - 99.7 - +181.5 - 2249.5 - 4th - 0
Lime - Zee Rechs - 217.1 - +64.1 - 2103.7 - 6th - 0
moonlight - Ace Savage - 123.0 - +158.2 - 2157.4 - 5th - 0
speculadora - Gunner Thorbjornsson - 155.4 - +125.8 - 2032.2 - 5th - 0
While every user improved in total fantasy scoring and most improved their group ranking, we only see a total of 3 TPE gained between two users (2 for Memento Mori, 1 for rapideagle). For what it's worth, this result also coincides with a loss of 2 TPE from LB3737 and 1 TPE from SwankyPants31. This is undoubtedly the 'best case' scenario for the users that drafted Phillips, but I'm not sure it's the ideal scenario. In a perfect world Phillips' position swap would have been known prior to the start of any fantasy draft, and he would been taken much higher. In this scenario, I'll substitute a given player's score with the score corresponding to the nth-best FLEX player, depending on where they were drafted. That's probably a bit confusing, so I'll explain the first example on the list. Nhamlet drafted Phillips as the 32nd FLEX player in their group's draft and ended up with a combination of Rechs and Podolak instead. Let's instead assume that the draft proceeded 'perfectly' and Nhamlet instead drafted the 32nd-best FLEX player, Garfield Despacito Jr., with that pick instead. Here, we'll replace Nhamlet's FLEX player with Despacito Jr. and recalculate the group rankings and TPE. This will cause some users scores to increase while others will decrease. This is largely attributed to free agency--of course no drafts proceed perfectly, and some players taken after the draft will perform far better than players who were drafted.
User - Old Player - Old Player Point Total - Replacement Player - Replacement Player Point Total - Point Differential - New Finishing Point Total - New Standing - TPE Gain/Loss
Nhamlet - Zee Rechs / Jed Podolak - 265.0 - Garfield Despacito Jr. - 209.5 - -55.5 - 2245.0 - 3rd - 0
Memento Mori - Leeroy Jenkins / Killian Chambers - 177.8 - William Alexander - 209.3 - +31.5 - 2273.6 - 3rd - 0
rapideagle - Rando Cardrissian - 167.9 - Joseph Petrongolo - 205.9 - +38.0 - 2173.3 - 4th - 0
gwdjohnson - Cobra Kai / Jameson Vermillion - 190.3 - Friedrich Vequain - 211.9 - +21.6 - 2130.1 - 5th - 0
Thor - Jameson Vermillion / Julio Tirtawidjaja - 99.7 - Heath Evans (ha!) - 214.4 - +114.7 - 2182.7 - 5th - 0
Lime - Zee Rechs - 217.1 - Heath Evans - 214.4 - -2.7 - 2065.3 - 6th - 0
moonlight - Ace Savage - 123.0 - William Alexander - 209.3 - +86.3 - 2085.5 - 6th - 0
speculadora - Gunner Thorbjornsson - 155.4 - Joshua Campbell - 234.5 - +79.1 - 1985.5 - 5th - 0
Interestingly, there is no change in awarded TPE for this set of users under these parameters. While some users could argue that being unable to draft Phillips at all harmed their chances of earning TPE, this should at least be definitive to conclude that the decision to draft a replacement level player and the scenario where Phillips position swap was known prior to the start of fantasy drafts can be viewed as net neutral.
As a bonus, I also want to touch on the nine users who drafted Ace Savage. They were most likely swayed to do so by Frostbite's seasonal fantasy rankings, wherein he ranked Savage as the 15th best runningback. Of course, these rankings were created prior to Phillips' position swap, and Savage's ranking was predicated on the idea that he would be the primary ball carrier in Orange County. I expect that the users who drafted Savage did so with the impression that they would be receiving #15 RB output, so let's replace Savage with the 15th-best running back (Mai Fukushū) by adding 61.6 to their final score (or a prorated portion of 61.6 if Savage was dropped in free agency) to see how their results change using the same method as before. This is a little less robust than the previous analysis as it requires a bit more guesswork (e.g. would the user have dropped Fukushū at the same time they dropped Savage)--I'm using my best judgment in those cases, but take this part with a grain of salt.
User - Amount Added - Previous Season Total - New Season Total - New Standing - TPE Gain/Loss
H0PPY75 - 61.6 (never dropped) - 1835.6 - 1897.2 - 6th - 0
PMoney - 55.9 (dropped in W6) - 2291.0 - 2346.9 - 2nd - 0
SchwarzNarr - 78.4 (dropped in W8) - 2213.9 - 2292.3 - 2nd - +2
moonlight - 61.6 (never dropped) - 1999.2 - 2060.8 - 6th - 0
Vaelynn - 61.6 (never dropped) - 1723.5 - 1785.1 - 6th - 0
Blasoon - 61.6 (never dropped) - 2029.6 - 2091.2 - 6th - 0
Amulos - 61.6 (never dropped) - 1638.6 - 1700.2 - 6th - 0
DatSmolBoi - 61.6 (never dropped) - 2175.5 - 2237.1 - 4th - 0
Guunar - 61.6 (never dropped) - 1973.2 - 2034.8 - 5th - 0
Oh! And speaking of grains of salts, I guess this bears mentioning. There are loads of fantasy users who intentionally do not draft the 'optimal' team. Many people prefer to draft their friends and teammates, which is a perfectly fantastic way to play fantasy football. I bring that up to say that any criticism along the lines of "Well, this user wouldn't have drafted in the way you suggest because they only draft their teammates." is perfectly valid and falls outside the realm of what I'm trying to accomplish.
I'm trying to toe the line between discussing my feelings on the ruling that was given versus what should be done in the future to prevent additional incidents, so I'll try to offer this up as a reminder. I think it's important to remember that this type of thing will be exceedingly rare. It requires several moving parts to fall into place in exactly the right way--the player in question must be swapping from a fantasy-eligible position (or else they would not be on the list of draftable players), the player must be swapping to a fantasy-eligible position (or else there is no benefit to the team with insider information, and the 'harm' is dispersed throughout the rest of the users evenly), and the team must essentially act in a self-injurious manner as the player must swap after fantasy drafts begin and miss some number of games at his new position. I'm quite certain that Orange County would rather have had Phillips at RB for the first four games of the season than for some users to maybe have a chance at a couple extra TPE. Essentially, my advice to the fantasy team would be to do nothing as the overall impact to TPE turned out to be minimal, and I don't think it is likely to happen again.
tldr - Phillips ineligibility didn't make a huge difference. Three people reserve the right to get upset over 1-2 TPE based on my assumption-laden, theoretical analysis, but that right is forfeit if they ever miss another TPE task again in their career. Remember to love each other.