If you lived on the west coast and wanted to start Jaylen Warren in week 4, you had to be worried that he might not play due to a knee injury. Fortunately, all you had to do was check the inactives when they were released.
At 5 a.m.
On the east coast you had the luxury of sleeping in until 8 a.m. for the game in Dublin that started at 9:30 a.m. But either way, you had seven different times to check inactives in week 4: One Thursday, four Sunday and two Monday. With the games that secretive coaches play with the injury reports, you can't really afford to set your lineup and forget it. Usually you'll want to verify that players are actually playing, and that means checking in several times a week.
And it's not going to get any better.
For the next three weeks, the NFL has games scheduled in London, which means more rounds of super-early inactives. Later in the year, games in Berlin and Madrid are on tap. And Goodell just stated his goal is to have 16 international games a year. It's almost like he doesn't care about fantasy football managers at all.
Oh, if that's not enough, bye weeks start this week. So what are your options to manage your team effectively? Well, one option is to grin and bear it: Set your alarm and do a quick scan when the inactives are released. Hopefully some games won't affect you, so you might be able to skip a few.
Another is to simply remove a player who is iffy to play. If you have a viable option and don't want to get up just to check one guy, make the decision early. You're risking not having the best player in your lineup, but you might preserve your sanity.
You can also set specific alerts for players, and hopefully you can set it to get notifications if a guy is inactive. You might get dozens of others, of course. Companies and apps love to notify you about every little thing, so this might be an annoying solution.
That leaves the best alternative to simply checking your teams multiple times: The auto sub feature. The good news is that it allows you to designate a replacement for a specific player if he's inactive. In other words, you could have started Warren and slept soundly while the website subbed in a player of your choice when he was declared inactive. You can do it for any player if you have doubts. Just like that, you're covered.
Now the bad news: It's only available if you use Sleeper or (in a limited form) MFL. I'm not aware of any other service that offers anything similar, though I'm sure I'll hear about it in the comments if I'm wrong, which is cool. I hope more sites start using it, or leagues can find a way to implement it. Maybe teams can notify the commissioner in advance and they can make a manual change later if necessary. I know that's not ideal, but the current system can be a real challenge for fantasy managers. Something has to be done.
Right now, that "something" is on you to be vigilant. You'll have to either use the resources available to you or plan your week out in advance. Not every manager can check their lineups several times a day. If you can, great. But if you can't, you'll have to do your best with the information you have at your disposal. Target your most uncertain options and prioritize them when scheduling your roster changes. And hopefully, you'll end up doing better than switching Warren for Jameson Williams, which is what I did. I'm lucky it didn't cost me a game. But whatever you do, plan for it now because it's going to get worse before it gets better. Good luck this week.
Does your league have an auto sub feature, and have you used it? How do you feel about all the different days and times for games? Has it affected the way you set your lineups? Share your thoughts below.