This league has proven, over the course of 4 seasons, to incessantly challenge the details of our league and the rules/settings we have in place. You don’t know you need a rule for something, until you need a rule for something. Some challenge flags were thrown this week in regards to how our bench swap went down. No one had any real issue with it, but discussions were had regarding the extraordinary, predestined coincidence that it resulted in a tie. Of course it resulted in a tie. Would you have expected anything else in this league?
I was really hoping that stat corrections would come in and impact this bench swap in one way or another, but we couldn’t be so lucky. Stat corrections have trickled in over the last few days, but nothing emerged for either Packer Cave or Schoolya’gain, so this matchup remains a tie (post bench swap). And because we haven’t officially addressed how to handle a tie when a bench swap is exercised, we appropriately default to current league rules/settings (ties are broken by total bench points).
Last season we were presented with a similar conundrum with Schoolya’gain and another one of Packerland South’s elite. A bench swap was exercised late in Week 6 after the stat corrections for that week had filtered in. However, the Constitution stated that the bench swap had to be used by the Tuesday night deadline. We never took the period for stat corrections in to consideration when originally designing the use of bench swaps, so, in good faith and integrity we appropriately defaulted to the current league rules/settings and did not allow the bench swap to be utilized. This identified a discrepancy in the process and we adjusted the Constitution to reflect these considerations in future seasons.
Numerous offline discussions this week have presented some good ideas and challenges to the way we treat matchup ties – whether a bench swap is utilized or not. Currently matchup ties default to the total bench points. We can set this up at any position in the Lineup (QB, Total RBs, Total WRs, TE, K, DEF or LB) with the exception of the FLEX position. That is the extent of what we can do. If using any one of the other positions in the lineup makes more sense than using the bench, state your case.
For matchup ties as the result of a bench swap, we can and should address these differently. I am on board with the proposal that any matchup ties as the result of a bench swap, like the one we had this week, would default back to the coached score, effectively making the use of the bench swap invalid. If you have a different opinion or viewpoint on this proposed amendment to the process, please state your case.
This and any amendment to the bench swap process would not take effect until next season. Of course, this will probably never happen again, but like I said, you don’t know you need a rule for something, until you need a rule for something. Lambeau wasn’t built in a day.
The Lombardi Three 
2 replies on “Challenge Flag – Ties”
There is nothing wrong with a tie. All you can do is utilize a decimal point system, which we do. After that, bench points, etc. are kind of nonsense. If you use bench points as the tie breaker, why not just load up your bench with QBs.
Good coaching extends past the Lineup. It is just as important to keep a healthy, loaded bench. I agree though that a tie can just be a tie. We don’t have to have tiebreakers. I’d be cool with that if that is what everyone wanted. I do want to see you load your bench with QBs though. Let’s see how long that lasts.