This week marked a black mark on fantasy football’s pristine face. Yahoo!’s fantasy football site, including their mobile apps went down Sunday starting around 12 noon, leaving multiple fantasy owners (including our own Rick Snee) out of luck, and costing some teams (including our own Rick Snee) a game when the fantasy season was down to five games and playoff positioning is vital.
Yahoo! Has issued a statement of apology for the matter, but quite frankly, it’s not good enough. While most people have their rosters set by Thursday night, a lot of people make adjustments on Sunday based off the early games, injury reports, game time decisions and just plain intuition fueled by Miller Lite.
These people were robbed of their ability to steal a game based off an adjustment (though this is a very low number of people). Now the real problem is the finances involved. Yahoo! Will claim that it’s for fun and there is no money involved in this for fun activity, some leagues have huge buy-ins, I have some friends that pay $1,000 per year to play. These people may have lost a chance to win or earn a chance to win in the playoffs based off a mistake that Yahoo! will not own up to, or offer an explanation.
However in their mind, I guess they don’t need to. It’s just a fantasy, after all.
Top five games you can bet on this week:
5. New Orleans Saints (-4.5) over Oakland Raiders
If Baltimore can hang 55 on this squad, what the hell do you think Drew Bree’s and co. will do?
4. San Francisco 49ers (pick ’em) over Chicago Bears
Running game trumps a bruised defense and pride.
3. Indianapolis Colts (+9.5) over New England Patriots
Too many points, and Andrew Luck looks like a chipmunk.
2. St. Louis Rams (-3) over New York Jets
Ladies and gentlemen, Tim Tebow.
1. Cleveland Browns (+8.5) over Dallas Cowboys
You lock it up.
This week: 5-0
The season: 22-17-1 (That’s 9-1 in last 10 games, make money off of me folks!)
SeriouslyPowerRankings
5. Pittsburgh Steelers (6-3)
Left for dead at 2-3, the Steelers are really a 8-1 team disguised as a 6-3 team. Field goal losses to the Titans (after a barely missed 54-yarder) and a fluke defensive collapse at Oakland put this team in a bad opening spot. With two if the next three against the purple birds, the AFC North winter is coming.
4. Baltimore Ravens (7-2)
This is a 5-4 team disguised as a 7-2 team. Ugly wins against Kansas City and Cleveland have only further proved that Joe Flacco is not elite, he is a human unibrow.
3. Atlanta Falcons (8-1)
Everyone was waiting for the ball to drop, their 8-1 record earns them the number three spot, but this team has first round playoff loss stench about it.
2. Chicago Bears (7-2)
Not going to hold anything against the Bears for losing a fight like that without Jay Cutler.
1. Houston Texans (8-1)
Turns out this “dome” team can travel, win ugly in bad conditions and beat Jason Campbell.