Hi everyone, I want to tell everyone about my investigation into the matters that have caused the firestorm of chat activity. Here are facts, as presented to me by the parties involved.

Billy complained on the chat about his cap problems, so Grandad offered to help him figure out a way to get out cap trouble. He looked through the roster and provided recommendations privately to billy. At some point, Grandad thought billy was lost and was being taken advantage of by other owners and offered to help coach up billy, which billy accepted. However, at some point, it became "easier" to "show" billy how to do things instead of telling him. So, as we all know, billy gave Grandad his log in and Grandad logged into his account to make changes to billy's game plan. I'm not sure how often this happened during the preseason, but it did. My understanding is that the logging in did not go beyond helping billy set the game plan.

I have communicated privately with involved parties. I personally believe Grandad's intent was only to help billy improve his gameplan. There was no intent to run a whole season playing two teams as shadows of each other or anything. While of course it looks bad to have one owner having the ability to control two teams, it is my belief that there was no intent to "game" the league or "cheat" the league by doing this. They have both promised that there will be no more shared log ins going forward. Grandad has also offered to resign from the league, if that's what people want.

As you all know, I am a very soft league admin. We don't have a lot of rules and we almost never boot people. I just want people to have fun and play fair. We didn't boot people who did punt blocks. We didn't boot people who played WR at kicker. As long as those people communicated with me and explained the situation, I always gave them a warning and a pass. The only guy I remember booting was a manager that seemed to be intentionally sabotaging his cap and not responding as to why he was doing all these crazy moves. Grandad and Billy have communicated. They get what people don't like - the appearance of collusion. I won't call it actual collusion because the facts have shown anything like that yet. They agree not to do it going forward.

I'm hoping we can all be forgiving and move forward with the league as we get ready to start the regular season. I've come to know many of you and would hate to lose anyone, yes, even billy, as owners in this league. I think where intentions are pure, we can move past things. Grandad was just trying to help billy - I truly believe that. He did it in a way that was wrong. He's apologized. Can we move on?

Let me know your thoughts in this post or in private by PM. As noted, if this is unacceptable, Grandad has offered to leave the league, so that is on the table if many in the league can't live with him here after what happened.

I have no issue with either of them staying or going, and norm I like the way you run the league.

I actually enjoy having billy in the league. It's entertaining. But he has to understand that he needs to run his own team, with true effort in being competitive, in whatever strategy he feels he wants to.

My biggest problem with Grandad is that this started with Grandad accusing the rest of the league of cheating (billy trades), I believe X3r0 specifically, then blatantly cheated by logging into billy's account and basically setting up his team to Grandad's preference.

I also believe it was most likely done with best intentions for billy. But still intentionally wrong and against the rules.

That being said, can't wait to lose to Grandad with Billy's team tonight :D :D :D

I think it's pretty blatant what happened (even with purest intentions), but I respect the way Norm runs the league. I've always been more hardline on rules, about the abuse of the FL Hitch, punt blocks, etc. and now this. If it were my league, I wouldn't want to allow it.

But it's not my league.

I defer to Norm's reasoning.

I do not think billy will go 16-0 and win a championship. In fact, he might be more competitive which was the desired effect to begin with. How it came about is highly questionable though.

The intention to help was okay, the way how it was done was unacceptable.
I appreciate how you, Norm, try to mediate this situation and will be fine with every decision from your side or the community.
This should be taken as a warning to both, Billy and Grandad.

To Waitwut I'd like to say, please stay, take your trade block back and be a good competitor like you were in the seasons I've been in this league.

I am apology for my past actions for joking around. To be honest I was totally clueless with game plan, and obsessive with Wrs and qbs with trading away draft picks for useless players that have no good value or impact ti the game until GBD show me the rope and I actually learned something from all his private messages. We do communicated with each other in daily basis compare all the season I have played that run stupid game plan with no strategy and pray the game match go to my favor.

I understand all the consternation with the method Ive used to help Billy and to try and get his team to at least an average competitive level. I have signed on for others before, but very rarely.

I wasnt accusing anyone of cheating on the trades with Billy, it was EXPLOITATION, as bad as any exploitation that occurs in trading or overides/DBs on DL, all WR at RB, etc.

So, as mentioned, it saved me a lot of time showing Billy the changes and giving him the notes as to what was done and why, as opposed to me giving him in-depth instructions and then checking to see if he was able to get them done. You all can review the Phoenix transactions to see what changes were made to the roster. As far a gameplanning goes, I gave him the same as what the playoff teams mostly use, trimming the play selection, which will change in 4.6. There was no collusion, no trades between our two teams, and no guarantee of future trades. If anyone else in the league would like advice on roster and play selection, you can always PM me, am always willing to share what I know and have experienced.

Well said Grand.

My two cents, for what it's worth, as someone who was here at the start of Moguls, and has run my own league for a short time. I've made a few joking comments, but this situation has escalated to a point it didn't need to.

Billy's been in the league since it started, except for one or two seasons when he left the Red Dragons, and came back with the Phoenix, after getting some advice in the Legends league.

Some of his silliness acted as entertainment, some left us shaking our heads, but other than hurting his own team, I would say he's never had a negative affect on the league. In fact, when he was gone those couple of seasons, I think most of us missed him. It certainly wasn't the same league without him.

As far as the current situation. Let's try to keep our heads, and look at the motives. Feelings never override facts.

Gdad has stepped forward with advice to me a few times in the five plus years I've been playing. Never to the degree of taking over my team, but his past tells me that he really wants to help people learn the game.

Through my five years, I've also seen that his sense of what's "honorable" can sometimes lead to him making accusations of people taking advantage of others which simply weren't there.

As I said, If someone offers me a starter for a late rd 7, I'm not thinking "Gee, what will the other owners think of me?". As long as I didn't convince a newbie to give me the starter for my rd 7 pick, and only agreed to the offer they made, that's not "taking advantage of" by any definition.

I can't fault someone for trying to help someone else enjoy the game more. I can't fault someone for taking the advice of someone who knows a **** ton about the game. I don't really think either of them had any intention of taking away from the integrity of the league.

The real question, in my head, is how serious an infraction is it to sign into another person's account, while you have a team in that person's league(s)?

This should be the only question we have to answer. It shouldn't be about if we like Billy's antics. It shouldn't be about any history anybody has with Gdad.

Also, no accusations here... but because it's happened to me in the past, we better be sure we're not just trying to "submarine" other teams, penalizing them in order improve our own chances.

So again... what is the answer to this one question, isolated, without the other "red herrings"?
"How damaging to the league is it to have someone (other than an admin) signed into two teams in the same league... and should the intentions that led to it be considered?".

I'm editing with one more thought...
My own recommendation would be a warning to all league owners, and a probationary period for Billy and Gdad's teams, in which transactions would be watched closer, but no expulsions, as I personally don't believe there was any intent to tarnish the league.

lol i dont think you will lose to my team mlowe.