We all play fantasy football and we all end up with injuries its part of the game but can it be fixed? In the NFL, if a starting running back gets hurt the back up comes in and the game moves on. This isn’t the case in fantasy football, if a player of yours goes down, no more points for you!!
Its all part of the game but it can be really frustrating and it can ruin your season because as we know every week counts. So while it sucks when you lose a player that week or longer is there anything we can do about it? Lets go over the possible options and we will end with our solution.
Do Nothing and expect the same
Chalk it up to its part of the game, even though most injuries are luck avoiding injury prone players is a strategy that you take on, even if it means passing on players like Jamal Charles and going low risk. This isn’t a solution but the most likely outcome as millions play fantasy and the rules probably aren’t changing.
Draft team positions
Changing the game completely. Forget drafting players, take the entire squad. Lets look at the most important position in real football, Quarterback Instead of drafting Tom Brady you get the Patriots QBs, you get Pretty Boy Jimmy and who ever the hell Jacoby Briskett is. This allows you the protection of injuries for your key players.
This also changes your strategy for running backs, the new trend in the NFL is going running back by committee, so this also takes care of that and injuries. Tough to start Gio Bennard because if Jeremy Hill gets hot the Bengals will roll with Hill and it fucks your week up. Not anymore take the whole Bengals RBs position and collect all the points. This is unrealistic but a fun idea to play around with.
WR is the tough one in this day in age but it would make for some interesting draft strategies and it would really shorten those 3 hour draft days.
Designated Sub
The first two likely won’t ever happen but now we are getting to the good stuff. Each week you set your sub position much like a starting position. If your designate a WR then if your starting WR gets hurts and is ruled out before halftime and has under 7 points, your sub gets automatically input into the lineup and the points are replaced.
If you pick a WR sub but your RB gets hurt, thats the way the cookie crumbles and you are out of luck. You do not have to set a Sub but if you do this change will happen automatically and can’t be reversed. So if your sub gets less then you starter who got hurt, too bad. Doing the FLEX is too easy so your FLEX can’t be included in this.
This option has some real legs, shout out to Doctor Spence for this idea (and for having this whole conversation via text this morning at work).
Live Sub
Here is the final solution and the AVS pick for how to solve the fantasy injury question. Live sub is simple, you can make a live edit to your team. You will combine the two scores of your players when they are actually in the lineup. Change at half time, you get one half of each player and so on. What is the catch here? You only get 2 a season. So use them wisely, or not at all. This puts the ball in your court to draft well and have a good bench but also be forced to pay attention, this sub must happen by you unlike the auto option above. Twice a year should help if your big players go down and it won’t ruin your season.
Let us know your thoughts about what new fantasy rules you would like to see, injury related or not.
Also published on Medium.