Week #8 was pretty calm for Strange Plays. As always, you can use the “Help > Strange Plays” menu item to view all of them for the year. Last year, there was an average of just under one Safety per week. This week there were four Safeties, and they all happened under different circumstances…

We can dance if we want to, we can leave your friends behind
‘Cause your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance
Well they’re no friends of mine

I’m not sure if I ever understood the lyrics to the wildly popular 1980’s “Safety Dance” song by Men Without Hats, but anyway…

The Ravens scored a rather normal safety when Jamarcus Russell was tackled in the end zone by Jameel McClain.

The Dolphins scored an almost normal safety, but a fumble was thrown into the mix. Trent Edwards lost a fumble, and then Duke Preston recovered it, which was a good thing. But he was promptly tackled in the end zone by Charlie Anderson, which was a bad thing.

The Chargers scored a safety when Drew Brees lost a fumble, but only after losing over 20 yards on the play to wind up in the end zone. The ball ultimately was fumbled out of the back of the end zone.

Finally, the Giants scored a safety without really doing anything because the long snapper on a punt attempt did a poor job and snapped it way over the punters head and out the back of the end zone.

Just when you think it can’t get any more unusual, the NFL comes up with a fun-filled game like the Bears 48 to 41 point victory over the Vikings on Sunday.  This one game alone had more strange plays than some entire weeks!  So we’ll take you through the 3 most unusual touchdowns of this game…

In the first quarter, the Bears scored after a Blocked Punt. This type of TD has happened several times already this year, so you should have this rule set up properly for your league now. If not, make sure you have the “Blocked Punt TD” rule created in your league. Note that this type of TD is also included as part of the “Number of Defensive and Special Teams TDs” rule, so you don’t need to add a separate rule for Blocked Punt TDs if you already have the all encompassing rule.

In the second quarter, the Bears scored after they punted the ball away and a player on the Vikings accidentally made contact with the ball near the goal line while trying to block another player.  The is generally referred to as a “muffed punt”.  In any case, the ball was “live” after the Vikings inadvertently touched it.  Then Zackary Bowman of the Bears recovered the ball in the end zone for a touchdown.  This type of TD is scored as a “Defensive Fumble Recovery TD“. Be aware that there isn’t a separate rule available for a “Special Teams Fumble Recovery TD” since the NFL doesn’t differentiate fumble recovery TDs that way. Therefore, if your league really wants this TD to be scored differently than any other Defensive Fumble Recovery TD, your best option would be to use the “Setup > Adjust Scores And Standings > Player Score Adjuster” screen to add the fantasy points to the Bears Special Teams position as needed.  We’ll talk more in a future post about the various reasons that separating Team Defense and Special Teams is generally not recommended, and this is one of those reasons… The NFL doesn’t track TD stats separately, so the notion of a “Special Teams” position is really a fantasy football concept rather than an NFL concept.

In the third quarter, the Bears scored after TE Desmond Clark caught a pass from Kyle Orton. He ran it all the way down the field for a score, but came up just short and fumbled it at the 1 yard line. Then WR Rashied Davis of the Bears alertly fell on the ball in the end zone for a 0 yard “Offensive Fumble Recovery TD“. This is the first time a touchdown this type has occurred thus far in 2008, so if you want Davis to receive points for this TD, you’ll need to make sure the rule for “Number of Offensive Fumble Recovery TDs” or the rule called “Length of Offensive Fumble Recovery TD” is added to your league’s rules as needed for each position.  Since there was never a change of possession, this type of TD is not considered to be a TD by the defense.  Instead, it is an offensive touchdown, but not a standard passing or rushing TD.

There was one successful two-point conversion this weekend, when Derek Anderson threw a pass to Braylon Edwards after their last touchdown in the fourth quarter. For the record, this “event” is recorded as a successful passing 2-point conversion, and nothing else as far as the stats concerned. The Quarterback does not get credited with an extra completion or any passing yardage, and the receiver does not receive credit for a reception or for the 2 yards of receiving on the play. The same holds true for a successful rushing 2-point conversion. The player that runs it in does not receive 2 extra rushing yards in their stats for the game.

The bottom line is that a conversion is either successful or it fails. Even if the defense intercepts a 2-point passing attempt, they cannot advance it and return it the other way for their own points. The play is declared dead as soon as the rush or pass attempt is stopped.

To accommodate this from a fantasy perspective, we have rules for your Team Defense or Special Teams position, including “Successful 2-Point Conversions” and “Failed 2-Point Conversions“.  For individual player positions, such QB’s and RB’s and WR’s, we have rules for each type of conversion play, including “Passing 2 Pointers” and “Rushing 2 Pointers” and “Receiving 2 Pointers” in case you want to assign different point values to each type.

You can review the complete set of rules available for your league to use on this page.

This week had plenty of crazy plays, especially with some last minute heroics by a few teams.   Nothing particularly new happened this week that hasn’t already happened at some point earlier in the year, but it’s worth reinforcing a few situations one more time.  The Vikings scored a Safety but you should definitely have that covered in your rules now since it has happened several times in earlier weeks.

There were several Blocked Field Goals this week, and one resulted in a Blocked FG TD when Ray McDonald of the 49ers blocked it and then Donald Strickland of the 49ers recovered it and returned it for the TD.  Note that, as happened last week, one player can get credit for the block and a different player can get credit for the Blocked FG TD.  You can also penalize the kicker with the “Field Goals Had Blocked” rule if you want to award negative points for having a kick blocked in a situation like this.  Be aware that a blocked field goal is also considered to be a missed field goal, so you may already be penalizing the kicker enough if you give negative points for misses anyway.

Then there were not one but two Blocked Punt TDs this week.  One was in Overtime and resulted in the game winning touchdown when Sean Morey of the Cardinals blocked the punt and Monty Biesel picked it up and fell into the end zone.

So I think we’ve covered most every type of “Strange Play” here in the first 6 weeks of the NFL season, and we’ll continue to list them all in the “Help > Strange Plays” menu item in your league each week.  Starting next week, we’ll focus on other scoring rules and situations that you should be aware of, as well as unique scoring situations and new rules that we’ve recently made available.

This week was pretty calm from an unusual play perspective, at least until the Monday night game provided some chaos and highlights! As always, you can check the “Help > Strange Plays” menu item in your league for the complete run down each week.

On Monday night, Reggie Bush dazzled us with not one but two Punt Return TDs. That doesn’t happen very often, but it should have been scored properly for any league that had the rule set up, either for “Number of Punt Return TDs or for “Length of Punt Return TD”.

The really odd play of the night came when Martin Gramatica of the Saints had a 46 yard Field Attempt Blocked by the Vikings. But it didn’t end there. After Kevin Williams blocked it, the ball fell right into the hands of Antoine Winfield, and he proceeded to return it all the way to the end zone for a 59 yard Blocked Field Goal TD. This is the first time all season that a blocked field goal was returned for a TD, so make sure you have that rule set up for your league as needed. Note that there were a couple of Blocked Punt TDs in week #2, but there is a separate rule for Blocked Field Goal TDs.

Note that if you set up your Team Defense scoring to include the Number of Defensive TDs rule, it only includes Interception and Fumble Return TDs by default. So you’ll want to add the Blocked Field Goal TD rule (and Blocked Punt TD rule as well) if you want this TD to be included in your team defense scoring You can also add the Number of Defensive and Special Teams TD rule instead, which includes all of these types: Interception and Fumble Returns TDs, Blocked Punt and Field Goal TDs, and Punt and Kickoff Return TDs.