Thursday Lineups

You undoubtedly noticed that the Thursday night games began in Week 10 with a contest between the Broncos and Browns on November 6. The Thursday night tilts continue through Week 16, including three games on Thanksgiving.

I know this comes as bad news to those of you who don't get the NFL Network. That sucks, I know. Beyond that, what this also means the time is now to double-check the rules in your fantasy league regarding lineup deadlines. Specifically, this is a good time to make sure you understand the rules and lobby for a midseason change, if need be, before it is too late.

The thing to look for is whether your league rules allow you to make lineup adjustments until the first game of the week or until any given player's game. If the rules dictate that lineups must be set before kickoff of the first game of the week, it's time to get on the phone or start emailing your league members to get the rule changed. There is simply no excuse in this age of Internet league managers to force teams to set their lineups in stone on Thursday for those players who don't play until Sunday or Monday. That's an archaic rule left over from when we all used to score our leagues by hand prior to this Inter-web invention. Yet there are still some leagues out there that do things this way. Normally, I am against midseason rule changes; however, this rule is one that affects all owners equally and can and should be changed to the benefit of all.

And while you are digging around in the league rule book, check to make sure there are tie-breaker guidelines in place for playoff seeding as well as playoff games. It never ceases to amaze me how many times this gets overlooked. Not having tiebreaker rules established will inevitably lead to total chaos in fantasy leagues at the most important time of the season.