Petitioner Franco departed his former employer two years ago but remains in the company fantasy football league. He has won the league championship in both seasons since his departure. Franco now suspects his former coworkers are colluding to force him out of the league. Last season, while Franco held first place, the second-place team acquired Ja’Marr Chase, Kyren Williams, and Jayden Daniels from the last-place team in exchange for three players claimed off waivers. Franco protested and the trade was vetoed. This season, a similar pattern emerged: the same manager attempted to acquire Derrick Henry for Rashad White and Juwann Jennings, which was also vetoed. Most recently, a league member who rostered two kickers dropped Jalen Hurts to add a running back. When Franco questioned whether this was accidental, he was called “a liar and a snake” by multiple members. Franco seeks a declaratory ruling that his suspicions of collusion are well-founded.
We hold that they are. While we cannot definitively prove coordinated conspiracy based on the evidence before us, the pattern of conduct Franco describes—repeated lopsided trade attempts between the same parties, combined with disproportionately hostile reactions to legitimate inquiries—creates sufficient circumstantial evidence that something suspicious is afoot. Franco’s instincts are correct. We smell a rat.
I
Let us begin with the undisputed facts. Franco left his company two years ago but remains in the work league. He has won the league championship both years since his departure—a remarkable achievement that speaks to either exceptional roster management or spectacular luck, likely both. He is the only non-employee in the league. And as Franco observes with admirable candor, his former coworkers are “keeping me in the league until I lose.”
The competitive context matters. Franco is not merely participating—he is dominating. Two consecutive championships over people who see each other in the office every day while Franco operates as an external irritant must generate considerable resentment. This is the fantasy football equivalent of your ex showing up to every party and being more successful and happier than when they were with you. The temptation to coordinate his removal—or at least his competitive hobbling—is significant.
Against this backdrop, Franco identifies three suspicious episodes. First, last season’s trade: three waiver pickups for Ja’Marr Chase, Kyren Williams, and Jayden Daniels, from the last-place team to the second-place team while Franco held first. Second, this season’s attempted trade: Rashad White and Juwann Jennings for Derrick Henry, involving the same manager. Third, the Jalen Hurts incident: a team with two kickers dropped the starting quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles instead of dropping a kicker, and when Franco questioned whether this was an accident, he was called “a liar and a snake” and told to “get off my shit.”
Considered individually, each episode might be explained by incompetence, poor judgment, or bad luck. Considered together, they form a pattern that justifies Franco’s suspicions.
II
We have held repeatedly that collusion exists where managers coordinate their conduct to benefit one party at another’s expense through means outside normal competitive frameworks. See Ethan v. The League, 24-0802-1 (2024); Mac v. The League, 25-1407-1 (2025). The challenge in cases like Franco’s is that direct evidence of coordination—the separate group chat in Mac, the explicit beer offer in Commissioner v. Danny, 21-1234-1 (2021)—is rarely available. We must instead rely on circumstantial evidence and patterns of conduct.
The trade attempts provide the strongest evidence of suspicious coordination. Last season’s trade was egregious: three waiver pickups for Ja’Marr Chase, Kyren Williams, and Jayden Daniels. Let us be clear about what that represents. Chase finished as a top-five fantasy receiver. Williams established himself as a workhorse running back. Daniels emerged as one of the league’s best rookie quarterbacks. In exchange, the last-place team received three players so marginal they had been available on waivers—players whose names Franco does not even mention because they were apparently forgettable even in the context of this obviously lopsided deal.
This season’s attempted trade was similarly questionable: Rashad White and Juwann Jennings for Derrick Henry. While not as egregious as the prior year’s highway robbery, the trade would have sent a premium workhorse running back to Franco’s rival in exchange for a declining committee back and a wide receiver who has never been more than a sporadic fantasy contributor. Both trades involved the same manager as acquirer. Both occurred while Franco occupied first place. Both were so lopsided that the Commissioner vetoed them.
We have emphasized that not every lopsided trade constitutes collusion. In James v. League, 24-0846-2 (2024), we held that “managers may make trades that appear objectively lopsided where both parties believe the exchange serves their competitive interests.” Incompetence, desperation, and divergent player evaluation all produce trades that look terrible in hindsight. As we observed in Dakota v. League, 25-0717-3 (2025), “predicting player performance is extraordinarily difficult even for experts who do this professionally.”
But there are limits. When the same manager repeatedly attempts to acquire premium assets from struggling teams in exchange for waiver-wire flotsam, a pattern emerges. When those attempts repeatedly occur while the league’s most successful member—a former employee operating as an external irritant—holds first place, the pattern becomes more suspicious. When the Commissioner repeatedly vetoes the trades as too lopsided to stand, the pattern approaches coordination.
III
The Jalen Hurts incident, while less clear-cut, reinforces Franco’s suspicions through the disproportionate hostility of the response. A team with two kickers dropped Jalen Hurts—a top-tier fantasy quarterback—to add a running back. Franco, reasonably assuming this was an accidental drop caused by trying to bench Hurts and hitting the wrong button, inquired in the group chat whether the league should undo the transaction.
The response was immediate and hostile. Multiple league members called Franco “a liar and a snake.” The team that dropped Hurts, after the Commissioner agreed to restore the player, told Franco to “get off my shit.” This reaction is wildly disproportionate to Franco’s inquiry, which appears to have been made in good faith and which identified an obvious roster management error.
Consider the competitive dynamics. If Franco’s inquiry had been purely self-interested—if he had significant FAAB remaining and wanted to claim Hurts himself—the hostile reaction might be understandable as league members calling out transparent manipulation. But Franco has Drake Maye. He did not need Jalen Hurts. His inquiry appears to have been exactly what he claimed: a good-faith observation that someone with two kickers probably did not mean to drop a starting quarterback.
The hostile reaction thus appears motivated not by the substance of Franco’s inquiry but by Franco himself. The league members seem primed to interpret any communication from Franco as manipulation or gamesmanship, even when Franco is correct that an obvious error occurred. This hair-trigger hostility suggests underlying resentment—precisely the kind of collective animus that might motivate coordinated efforts to force Franco out or at least make his continued participation unpleasant.
We have observed in other contexts that disproportionate reactions often reveal guilty consciences. In Mac v. The League, the managers who coordinated to bench their entire rosters “created a paper trail in a separate group chat,” demonstrating “consciousness of guilt” about conduct “they knew other league members would object to.” Here, the league members’ immediate resort to calling Franco “a liar and a snake” for raising a legitimate roster management question suggests they are predisposed to view him as an adversary rather than a league mate.
IV
We cannot, on the evidence before us, definitively hold that Franco’s former coworkers have engaged in actionable collusion. We have no group chat logs, no admission of coordination, no direct evidence of conspiracy. What we have is circumstantial: a pattern of suspicious trades, hostile reactions disproportionate to the conduct that triggered them, and a competitive context—former employee dominating current employees—that creates obvious motive for coordination.
But circumstantial evidence, when sufficiently compelling, justifies conclusions about human behavior. Reasonable people may draw inferences from patterns of conduct. And the pattern here—two years of championship dominance by the league’s only non-employee, followed by repeated lopsided trade attempts and hair-trigger hostility when Franco raises legitimate concerns—justifies Franco’s suspicions that something is afoot.
As we emphasized during oral argument: Franco’s instincts are correct. There is something going on in this league. We smell a rat. The league members’ conduct suggests coordination, or at minimum a collective resentment of Franco that manifests in suspicious patterns of roster management and disproportionate hostility. Whether this rises to actionable collusion—trades that must be voided, sanctions that must be imposed—depends on evidence not before us. But Franco is not crazy. His suspicions are well-founded.
V
Having validated Franco’s suspicions, we turn to what he should do about them. The answer is simple: Franco, you cannot leave. You must stay in this league as long as humanly possible. You must become the white whale that consumes their Octobers and Novembers, the external irritant they cannot dislodge, the former coworker who haunts their lunch conversations and Slack channels.
Franco’s situation, while uncomfortable, is objectively hilarious. A former employee who cannot stop winning. Current employees who want him gone but cannot bring themselves to kick him out because he keeps winning legitimately. Increasingly desperate and transparent attempts to manipulate rosters to stop him. It is beautiful. It is art. It is exactly what fantasy football should be.
Franco should keep winning. That is the ultimate response to suspected collusion: beat them anyway. If his former coworkers are coordinating to stop him, the answer is not to quit or complain—it is to demonstrate that even coordinated opposition cannot overcome superior roster management. Win the league again. Make them rename the trophy after you. Become legend.
* * *
We acknowledge the Commissioner’s apparently appropriate responses to the suspicious conduct. He vetoed both egregiously lopsided trades. He agreed to restore Jalen Hurts after the obvious accidental drop. He appears to be administering the league competently despite whatever coordination may exist among other members. The Commissioner should continue to veto obviously collusive trades and ensure Franco is not subjected to removal based on pretextual justifications that mask resentment of his success.
Franco came to this Court not seeking remedies but seeking validation. He wanted to know if he was crazy to suspect his former coworkers are coordinating against him. We hold that he is not crazy. His suspicions are well-founded. Something is going on in this league. Whether it rises to actionable collusion, we cannot say definitively. But the pattern of conduct justifies continued vigilance and, most importantly, relentless competitive excellence.
Your instincts are correct. We smell a rat. Keep winning anyway.
Suspicions validated. Franco shall remain in the league.