We have good news and bad news for Robert Cummings of Los Angeles, who had this week's highest-scoring Fantasy Index Blackout entry without even cheating! (Click through to see his winning lineup.) Mr. Cummings has won our admiration -- and a $25 Fantasy Index gift certificate. Congratulations! But there's bad news, too.
Due to a massive blunder on our end, we are invalidating all of this week's Fantasy Index Blackout scores for the season-long competition. Week 3 scores will be removed from the cumulative points total for all contestants. And that is a major rip-off for Mr. Cummings.
We are invalidating the Week 3 scores because an internal error caused our game kickoff times reset improperly. As a result, Fantasy Index Blackout entrants were allowed to select 49ers and Rams players after the Thursday night game kicked off.
When we became aware of the error on Friday -- it was already too late at that point -- our programmer tried to fix the problem, but he accidentally shut down the L.A. Chargers instead of the L.A. Rams. Double-doh.
Many participants -- including Fantasy Index's Justin Eleff -- took advantage of that loophole to start Todd Gurley, Sammy Watikins and Greg Zuerlein. And although it's tempting to brand those people as cheaters -- Fantasy Index (Bruce Taylor) wishes his sense of decency had permitted him to take Gurley's 32.9 points instead of Jay Ajayi's 2.5 points -- our company slogan is, in fact, "Cheaters Always Prosper."
An argument can be made that if the system allows your competitors to start Todd Gurley the Saturday night after his Thursday game, then you are obligated to start Gurley in order to compete. And most of this week's top-scoring teams took that approach, retroactively choosing Rams and Niners. The No. 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, entries did this, as did many others in the top 20.
So let's all applaud our friend Robert Cummings, who will sleep tonight with a clean conscience, a sense of moral superiority, and a Fantasy Index gift certificate in his virtual back pocket, Here's Robert's winning lineup:
| Fantasy Index Blackout | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| High score, Week 4, 2017 | |||
| THE GREATEST - Robert Cummings | |||
| Pos | Name | Team | Score |
| QB | Tom Brady | NE | 41.50 |
| QB | Drew Brees | NO | 23.00 |
| RB | Kareem Hunt | KC | 24.30 |
| RB | Carlos Hyde | SF | 21.40 |
| WR | Julio Jones | ATL | 9.10 |
| WR | A.J. Green | CIN | 17.10 |
| WR | Jordy Nelson | GB | 17.20 |
| TE | Zach Ertz | PHI | 11.50 |
| TE | Jordan Reed | WAS | 0.00 |
| PK | Wil Lutz | NO | 10.00 |
| PK | Matt Bryant | ATL | 12.00 |
| ST | Denver | DEN | 4.00 |
| ST | Houston | HOU | 13.00 |
| Total | 204.10 | ||