Welcome aboard!
I can top your story, although it wasn’t me who did it. I was playing against my former boss in a league, and he had 3 players out for the game. I beat him, but it was by a margin he might have covered if he’d just put in decent active players.
I texted him after the game and asked him about it. He said he was in Paris last week with his girlfriend!
The moral of the story is this: Never take trips to Europe during football season!
Your logic and strategy is sound, @edmcgon, Europe is officially off-limits during football season. I didn’t get impacted by this personally, but I heard a lot of west coast players griping about Kamara being a last minute scratch for the London game this year. Unless west coasters were waking up at 6am to check their lineup, they all took a goose egg from Kamara that week. Although I’ll take zero points over the minus 7 points the Chargers DST got me in Week 3, but I digress.
You actually bring up a good point should the NFL ever decide to expand into Europe. The logistics of planning your fantasy football team could become a nightmare. Don’t even get me started if Asia is next!
Ahem! 
AHEM! 
This German begs to differ. 
There is a benefit to being in Europe during the games…I couldn’t obsessively check on my team’s status while the games were going on, because I was sleeping for most of them. And the beer is much better and much more abundant (at least in Belgium it was).
Never take trips to France during football season? 
FTFY.
Though I have to admit, you’re missing really good food and some beautiful spots if you follow that advice.
That’s what spring is for!