Every season, fantasy owners struggle with game time decisions. In week 1 this year, players like Kevin Walter and Matt Cassell were listed as Questionable, but the team put them on the inactive list just prior to the game. Even tougher, Shonn Greene and Steve Breaston were listed as probable, but ended up inactive. Owners of these players may not have had time to make appropriate adjustments.

Since the NFL teams have a depth chart with backup players to account for the inactive players, why shouldn't fantasy teams have the same thing? If would be nice to have a system on MFL where each team managed a depth chart, instead of submitting starting lineups, such that if a player listed higher at a position was inactive, did not play, or was on bye, the next player below him would automatically slide into his fantasy team’s active lineup? Both inactive and did not play status show on the NFL gamebooks (http://www.nfl.com/liveupdate/gamecenter/54475/NO_Gamebook.pdf), so it's possible that the "statistic" could be imported.

I’ll use my team in league 42533 for example:

Starter rules: 1 QB / 2 RB / 2 WR / 1 TE / 1 FLEX / 1 K / 1 D

Fictional Fantasy Depth Chart

QB1: Ben Roethlisberger
QB2: Jason Campbell

RB1: Ryan Grant
RB2: Ray Rice
RB3: Larry Johnson
RB4: Ahmad Bradshaw

WR1: Marques Colston
WR2: Derrick Mason
WR3: Devin Hester
WR4: Percy Harvin
WR5: Austin Collie
WR6: Muhsin Muhammad

TE1: Tony Gonzalez
TE2: Tony Scheffler

Flex1: Larry Johnson
Flex2: Devin Hester
Flex3: Percy Harvin
Flex4: Ahmad Bradshaw
Flex5: Austin Collie
Flex6: Muhsin Muhammad
Flex7: Tony Scheffler

K1: Lawrence Tynes

D1: Indianapolis Colts

If all my players played, my lineup would be:
QB Roethlisberger
RB Grant
RB Rice
WR Colston
WR Mason
FLEX Johnson
TE Scheffler
K Tynes
D Colts

But what if, say, Mason was injured in pregame and didn’t play or was inactive. Then automatically, Devin Hester would move to WR2 in my starting lineup. To add even more depth to this, what if Mason was injured in pregame because he and Rice collided in a pre-game drill, leaving both injured and unable to play. Then automatically per the depth chart, Johnson would start at RB2, Hester would start at WR2, and Harvin would start at FLEX. This could automatically help owners manage bye weeks in the same manner.

I don't know the feasibility of this, or if anyone else has ever suggested it. But I think it would be a great change from the traditional way of lineup submissions.

Thoughts, comments, questions?

I'd imagine the biggest criticism you'd get about this, is that it's kind of a crutch for people, especially about bye weeks.

It's basically a fantasy football commandment that if you start a player on a bye week, you deserve the zero. You shouldn't have the site automatically substitute an active player just because you were too lazy or ignorant to submit that week's lineup or check your players' schedules. I know there's the options, but I'd be surprised if the majority of people weren't against hand-holding.

As for injuries, it does suck if you have a player be declared inactive just prior to kickoff, but the way it is in my league is that you either better be checking up to kickoff if you really want to start a player that is at risk of being inactive, or if unable to be at a computer, make sure you have another owner/friend who you can get to help you out by signing in for you and resubmitting your lineup.

This is obviously subjective, but the kind of auto depth chart-based system you suggest just seems to be at least a little too much of a crutch for owners and would no doubt be exploited by the especially lazy ones. There's a lot in fantasy football that just comes down to rough luck, and it's kind of better that way.

What you have basically is that the lineup is a hybrid of MFL'a option to have your starting lineup set via the Highest Scoring Players. TTUTT - Not keen on the idea in a head-2-head League, takes the "coaching" out of the equation. (like what Evo said).

Yea, I'd say you might as well do a "best ball" type league at this point if that's what your owners want to do. MFL offers that options and the best players each week are automatically chosen as the starters.

Late inactives suck but it's a part of the game. I wouldn't play it any other way.

MFL does allow you to submit up to a specified number of "backup" players. We institituted this feature this year.

Our rules are fairly strict: You must specify a backup player, as well as the starter who is being backed up. The starter must play the same position as the backup. There is a limit of one backup per week.

If and ONLY if the starter has NO stats for the game, the Commissioner will make the substitution after the fact.

It's not automatic, but it does give owners a little reassurance when someone on their roster is a "game-time decision."

(It worked for one owner already this year when Welker was unexpectedly benched in Week 2.)

You still have to be a diligent manager, and monitor who is hurt. We had one owner who specified Gore as a backup for LT in Week 1, and then let his lineup roll over for Week 2. The backups don't roll over. LT was out, and Gore had the game of his life. Too bad, so sad for him; had he explicitly made the backup declaration, things would have turned out much differently.

Lazy owners drive me nuts! That's not why I suggested this. As an avid fantasy football and father of three (4, 3, and 1), I don't have the luxury of sitting at my computer before the games to make roster adjustments as inactive information comes in. I can't be the only one!

It would still require roster management to make it work. And I'm only suggesting it as an option.

You've got that option... all you have to do is institute the rule.

Every lineup has a comments section; you could have each owner specify their non-starter "depth chart" in the comments.

Each week, have each owner check their own weekly results. If they find a started who didn't play, they can alert the commissioner, who can then make sure it was due to no play time (not no carries or catches), and then make the appropriate substitution after-the-fact. (When a player doesn't play in a game, a "blank" shows up on their individual page report, rather than a zero. Contrast Derrick Mason with Mike Sims-Walker in Week 5, e.g.)

Sure, it's not automatic... but if your three toddlers are keeping you busy between 12:30 and 1:00 on a Sunday afternoon, it's a viable alternative. That's the cool thing about MFL -- you have enough commissioner controls to institute such a rule if you want to.

I personally think this would be a great addition...but only if it's done right.

I've wanted to see a depth chart added, if only for visual purposes, to give a bit of realistic flavor to our rosters.

As a league that allows subs (in case of late scratches), it would be a big help.

However, I'm also against the idea of an owner to be able to "set it & forget it". And I mean BIG TIME against it!

But, with the levels of customization already available in just about everything else, I don't see why something like this couldn't be set up with enough options to make it work for any league's individual rules. Not only that...but I think there are enough existing rules options that are already in place that could work in conjunction with this. For example, we already have the option of not allowing an owner to start a player who's on bye. That alone would force an owner to stay on top of his team.

That's just one example, but it seems like it'd be pretty doable. I'd welcome it.