The Sandusky Tribune

The Ruben Flavens fantasy football franchise passed away peacefully at 11:31 o'clock Saturday night, surrounded by wedding obligations. It was nine seasons old. The cause was a conversation with the commissioner, following a long battle with effort.

Rob Ercanbrack — the franchise's founder, operator, and sole employee — survives, and wishes it known that he is not going anywhere. He is going somewhere.

Born in September of 2017 at the league's founding, the Flavens dedicated themselves from the first draft to a singular vision and never once wavered from it: zero championships, zero finals appearances, a purity of purpose unmatched in league history. Other franchises flirted with glory. Some lost finals. The Flavens never subjected themselves to that kind of heartbreak, finishing instead at a comfortable distance from it, year upon year, with the discipline of a monk.

The Flavens gave generously throughout their life. They gave wins — twenty-three of them to opponents statistically entitled to a loss, the most charitable such record ever measured. They gave players — S-tier talent, donated to the less fortunate, on at least one occasion for a can of beans. They gave the league a floor to stand on, a Pool Bowl berth that could be penciled in by August, and a sense of security that mourners have formally described as "somewhat of a safety net." The Flavens asked little in return, and the record confirms they received it.

Rob was a man of appetites and contradictions. He was jacked in a manner that raised questions and answered none. He ran a solar company and was ranked eighth of eight in the commissioner's power rankings, a market inefficiency economists are still studying. He defended the downtrodden and insulted your wife in the same sentence. He requested, in writing, in October of 2021, to be crashed head-on into a mother fooking train, because a running back was injured. The league declined. He is instead being sent to a wedding.

He faced adversity with grace. Called upon to eat really stinky fish in 2023, he powered through; no further details were recorded, and none were needed. Called upon a second time, in 2025, to perform three karaoke songs selected by his enemies, he chose instead to retire — a decision the Tribune's legal desk notes does not discharge the debt, which survives him, and will be collected at a microphone, before a crowd of eight, in his honor.

He knew triumph. In 2019 the Flavens defeated Carl Clark by 0.26 points, the closest victory ever recorded and the franchise's most dominant performance on file. In 2022 he started Joe Mixon's fifty-five-point eruption, the most statistically impossible week the league has ever produced — proof that the Flavens' finest hour was, mathematically speaking, a thing that could not happen. He celebrated one career win over the commissioner on Instagram, against ten losses. He posted anyway. That was Rob.

He was preceded in death by his dignity (October 7, 2021) and by the league's expectations for the franchise (2017). He is survived by his fiancée, who bakes; by seven league members, who do not; by a roster containing, per league filings, no keepers of any kind; and by his successor, whom Rob personally endorsed on his way out the door, and who inherits the franchise's proud spirit of independence, its zero banners, and its trade island, fully uninhabited.

Per the founding documents, he departs bearing one official designation — "Collusion Expert," awarded sarcastically — and one epigraph, preserved in the Rules section without context or explanation, which the family has requested serve as his epitaph: "Jesus Christ Rob..."

Services will be held at a karaoke establishment, date to be announced, three songs, league's choice. All are invited to sing along. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you RSVP at the wedding website. He would love to have the boys there if you can.

He remains 50/50 on Green Bay.