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Player Pink Slips
A Rule About Head-2-Head Wagers
You’ve probably heard of street racers putting up their cars as the prize in a winner-takes-all race (shoutout Vin Diesel). We borrow heavily from our drag racing friends and lay it all on the line, including some of our best players. This ultimate fantasy football Head-2-Head Wager pits you against your opponent where the owner who takes the L loses more than just the matchup.
How It Works
During the week leading up to their matchup, each of the two owners will place one of their own rostered players on the line. The winner of the Head-2-Head matchup will be rewarded with the losing owner’s pink slipped player.
To ensure some semblance of uniformity in determining which players should be put up as collateral, you should institute a rule that pink slipped players be within a certain range of the overall points rankings. We suggest a limit such that only players ranked between 50-100 in total season points to date be put up for wager. These players are typically mid-tier players who are ranked low enough as to not completely destroy the losing owner’s roster but still high enough to make it interesting and can perhaps be an integral player in the winning owner’s championship run.
After the owners come to an agreement on which players to put up and the results of their Head-2-Head matchup are final, the losing owner must forfeit their player to the winner. It is helpful to have a player in mind that you would like to drop in place of your newly acquired player. In most online fantasy applications, the Commish can then easily facilitate this transfer from within the league’s Commissioner Dashboard without any special maneuvering in the free agent market or via trade.
Are you confident enough in your team to put them on the line?
Nuts and Bolts
- Find a fellow owner to agree to gamble player pink slips on the week of your matchup. (Announce you and another owner are participating in this wager to the entire league so that sides can be taken and smack talk can begin.)
- Throughout the week of your matchup, come to an agreement with your competition about which specific players you will each put up as collateral.
- We suggest both owners put up a quality player while avoiding gambling superstar or bottom-of-the-barrel talent. Try to stay within the Top 50 – 100 players.
- Have an idea of a player from your roster that you would need to drop in order to provide room for your new player
- The winner of the week’s matchup is rewarded with the losing owner’s player.
- The league’s Commissioner can then use the Commissioner Dashboard features to realign the rosters of the two owners accordingly.
Change Ups
We love the idea of expanding the Pink Slips concept beyond individual Head-2-Head matchups and to the entire league. Choose a week, preferably early in the season, to be deemed Slips Week. Within each matchup, the competing owners come to an agreement on which player’s rights will be up for bet. Think about how intense these matchups would be if you parlayed Slips Week with another Head-2-Head Wager like Rivalry Week!
Maybe the stakes are not high enough for you in this scenario? Once the Pink Slips matchup is agreed upon, allow owners to freely select any player from their opponent’s team to steal if they win the matchup. You can continue the rule of a certain range of players to choose from, or if you happen to be running one of our Keepers rules, you can make those players off limits.